monday. january 28 2oo8

first of all, whoa! how did january go by so quickly?!? i guess with kenya's political instability causing inconsistency in our school schedule i haven't noticed the time flying by. ok on to the pictures b/c i know that's the only reason yall really visit this site. every year at our school, we have a Culture Day. people dress up in their cultural attire. last year, i remember there being a ton of people dressed up. this year...not so much, but it's still great to see the ones who did. on mon and wed mornings, i do some remedial teaching in math for these two 6th graders. chris is sportin' his english, soccer fan gear, and jeff is representin the maasai tribe. last year, meitamei went all out. this year, he still brought it even though he wore jeans..hahaha! and of course you can count on these 9th grade girls to bring out their heritage L-R: marisa, muthoni, rachel, retoyia, chipo, momoyo ::: :::

wednesday. january 16 2oo8

things have been quite interesting since coming back from tanzania. the newest updates are moving into a new apartment and attempting to start up school for the 2nd semester. this past saturday, we moved all my stuff into the apartment. it went alot faster than i thought. on monday, we went to school to try to pick out some furniture that belongs to the school. there was no vehicle available to help bring it back. the best we could do is grab a couple folding chairs, some dishes, and this white wooden box. this white box would later develop into the aftan station. don't worry about it. i'm writing it for me to remember..hehe. the real fun of these past few days was yesterday (tuesday). it was definitely a strange day, but i can't say it really surprises me. tuesday was our first day back to school. it was also a halfday for everyone, including teachers. because of kenya's current situation of anticipated rallies planned by odinga supporters on wed, thurs, and fri, the school decided to cancel the rest of this week. so basically, we started off our 2nd semester on a halfday and then resume 6 days later. fun stuff huh? on top of that, we were asked to assign 3 days worth of homework to the students. it'll definitely be interesting when we go back on monday, especially for my geometry and algebra2 classes. oh yea, we have a few new students on the ms/hs side. in geometry, hannah and daniel are gone. a new girl named jade just joined us. i think i forgot to give her a textbook. ah crap! in 7th grade computer, christine and julia came back. in bible, we have 4 new students named max, horace, andrew, and leeroy. and finally in algebra2, josh and natalie came back. new semester always brings new and familiar faces. let's just say it was an interesting morning. after school got out around noon, i waited for about an hour for some guys to get the truck ready to move furniture for us. then we loaded it up with some stuff. from school, we first drove to my old place to pick up my old bed frame, a couple chairs, and a bike. then we headed to the new apartment. craig got a bed frame. i got my bed frame. we got a fridge set up. i found a folding table. and we got a couple more chairs. the couch and chair we picked out didn't fit through the doorway =P so our living room is still empty...except for the aftan station of course =] we also got to put up curtains for all the windows. it felt like a pretty productive day. oh i almost forgot to talk about one set of special curtains we have. we bought curtains for all the windows in the house except one. this idea came about outta nowhere. we have this huge kitchen window with no curtain. when we grabbed random stuff from school, i happened to pick up a bedsheet and a bag of shower rings. so we thought hey let's see whether this bedsheet can cover the entire window. after folding it in half, it was almost a perfect fit. the next question was...how are we gonna hang it up? craig decided to punch the shower rings right through the bedsheets. and what do you know? we used shower rings and a bedsheet to make curtains for the kitchen. i doubt anyone in the history of this universe has ever done that. in the states, we'd call that ghetto. over here, we call is missionary. ::: :::

saturday. january o5 2oo8

HAPPY 2008 EVERYONE!!! it's been quite the interesting year. somehow i managed to visit 3 african countries in the span of 1 year (kenya, ethiopia, tanzania). i'll reflect more on this past year in abit, but first i want to talk about this insane trip i just got back from. what makes it crazy? well for starters, i slept in 8 different beds in the past 12 days. who the heck does that?!?! here's a quick summary of what went on: dec23 - slept at my place (1) dec24 - spent christmas eve at the hagmans; slept at hagmans (2) dec25 - spent christmas day with the hagmans and the kearbys; slept at kayla & daylan's (3) dec26 - took a bus to dar es salaam (capital of tanzania); slept at guesthouse provided by enog (4) dec27 - took a ferry to stonetown in zanzibar; took a van to nungwi; slept at the nungwi guesthouse (5) dec28 - enjoyed the food, coke, and beach of nungwi dec29 - moved out to baraka bungalows; enjoyed the beach again; slept at baraka (6) dec30 - enjoyed food, coke, beach dec31 - enjoyed food, coke, beach, new year's party at cholo's jan01 - packed up, got a ride out to stonetown; walked around the city; slept at st. monica's hostel (7) jan02 - toured stonetown, used internet, bought ferry tickets back to dar, ate at stonetown cafe jan03 - withdrew money from atm, bought plane tickets from travel agency, boarded ferry to dar, ate at the tiniest subway in a mall, bought groceries for kenya, slept at safari inn (8) jan04 - packed up, took a cab out to the airport, cab got a flat tire right outside the airport, walked abit, ate lunch in the airport, boarded plane at 2:30pm, arrived in kenya around 4:00pm, got back to my place around 5:00pm, slept in my bed finally! you probably want to see pictures, huh? up until coming to africa, i had never heard of zanzibar. i'm guessing most americans haven't either. it's more of a european tourist site. there were people from all over the world there. if i ever met an american, he/she was either working for an ngo or missionary organization out in africa. ok i'll stop talking now and tease you with a few pictures. i'll post the rest on facebook. after looking over all the pictures i took, i realized that i either took them when the sun was going down or whenever it was cloudy. i guess i was out getting toasted while the sun was out blazing. i have to say that the heat and humidity was quite reminiscent of being back at home...except for the white sand and blue ocean. i'm sure some of you may be wondering what's going on in kenya at the moment. our original plan was to take a bus out to tanzania and take another bus back. however, bus services were shutdown after the election results. so we had to take a plane. as you've probably seen in the news, there have been riots in certain areas of kenya. the three main places i continually hear about are downtown (referred to as city centre), kibera (large slum), and kisumu (city northwest of nairobi). before coming back, shops were closing initially. then when shops opened, foods like bread, water, eggs, meat were sold out quickly. originally, there was supposed to be a "peace rally" held by odm (odinga supporters) in uhuru park which is in downtown on jan3. the rally was postponed to supposedly next tuesday (jan8). on the way back from the airport, the taxi took us through downtown, and i saw soldiers lined up all around the perimeter of uhuru park. right now, it's difficult to gauge the status of this country. i think the best way to describe is social unrest. many will tell you that it is a tribal war btwn two dominant tribes. but it is more of this country's people being fed up with a corrupt goverment. they want a bridging of the lower and upper class. currently, the african union has stepped in to help resolve this issue. i believe the u.s. assistant secretary and other various leaders from african countries have showed up to help out. i doubt these other leaders of the world will allow kenya to continue destroying itself. at the same time, i'm curious as to how they will bring kibaki and odinga to a compromise. it's crazy to think about odinga leading a million-man rally. i can't even imagine what that looks like. these people could care less about kenyan law enforcement b/c they believe them to be supporters of kibaki. as for me, i just want to use the internet, so i can post this update. i may be writing it on jan5, but i have no idea when i'll get to post it online. please pray for the people of kenya. pray for its leaders. pray for the hearts of men. ::: :::