Thanksgiving Week 11-27-09

We are truly thankful for all the blessings we have! I know angels have been round about us as we’ve driven. We’ve been blessed with safety and with the chance to work with amazing people. The new Branch President is diligent. He studies the leadership manuals and wants to do a great job. I know he will be fantastic and will continue to help the branch grow. I would like to be out and doing more, but we continue to work to get settled in. We shop a lot.

We have workers in the house continuing to fix things. We got a new faucet and it doesn’t leak quite as much. We may have the washer and dryer hooked up by now. We went to the Kisumu telephone company and for a considerable investment they will bring us a land line and internet service. Mid week a man came to check out the line to and into our house and figure out what else we needed for service. As we were leaving town on Wednesday, they called to say we could come in and pay and they would connect.

The Missionaries showed us Violet’s internet café. She is a church member. Her café is a small, open sided unit in a row of small shops in a shopping district. We can drive in on the dirt and park in front of her place. (we block the entire path) and it pleases her very much as it adds status to her.

We continue to shop—it’s a delight to find yeast, we found Snickers Bars! We heard there was oatmeal… but had to search 2 stores to find it. Granola was about $9 for a pound… so we figured we could make our own. We need to shop for scissors, tape, cookie baking sheets, stirring spoons. It’s amazing what you need to set up a household.

Wednesday we set out early for a trip to Nairobi. We pulled off the road to take this picture. You can see the edge of the window in the picture. The baboon is CLOSE.
When we left Nairobi 11 days ago and drove those 8 hours to Kisumu, I thought I’d never want to make that trip again. I’d just stay in Kisumu until I expired. But the trip to Eldoret was a good breaking in period and both Tom and I are much more accustomed to what it’s like to drive here. I’ve learned that if you have to run off the road into the shoulder, even if there’s a drop off, it’s not so bad. The truck makes it. We make it. If we hit a pot hole or a speed bump… we bounce, but we survive. I have no idea how long the vehicles hold up, but they are very particular about regular maintenance. I suppose this is why. You see, if you have a choice between hitting another car or the shoulder or the pot hole, it’s not such a hard choice. And I discovered that “Stress Away” the Young Living essential oil blend is really marvelous at calming the angst that crept over my body at the thought of driving. And Tom really is a good driver.
This is a typical roadside market on our way to Nairobi.

This van is a matatu and can hold a zillion people and tons of stuff on top.

So Wednesday morning we set off for Nairobi for a Couples gathering and instruction. It took us 6.5 hours. We passed great scenery again. Saw baboons and zebras, village markets, and the unbelievable Nairobi traffic. Fortunately it was less intimidating than the first time. Frustrating, yes. Slow, yes. But we’d learned the rules of the road: Go with the flow—regardless of lines on the road or traffic signals. Pick your way—whose ever bumper pokes out the furthest has the right of way. Big always wins over small. And since nobody really wants to die, those passing on blind curves are very experienced at dodging back into line. We did take several “diversions” dirt roads that sort of paralleled the road while they were working on the road. Do you know they had speed bumps on the dirt road??? I guess the ruts, the sharp rocks, gullies, and ridges weren’t enough to slow us down.

You may not notice in the photo below, but both trucks are coming our direction. With at least one more car behind the truck on the left passing as well. This is "Chicken" Kenya style.

We are staying in Nairobi with another missionary couple—the Randalls. They are so gracious. They do job placement and training for at least two missions and so travel a lot. They left for Uganda on Friday. However, before they left, they helped us find a printer, scanner, copy machine.

Thursday we went to the Office to check on some materials, then went to the “bird Nakamatt” (It has huge pelican like birds nesting in the trees there) and got a bed spread, towels, and a pillow. Then, in the afternoon, we went to President and Sister Taylor’s house for Thanksgiving. Each couple brought something and we, indeed had a feast. Then we had a spiritual feast as we talked about the article by Elder Clark that spoke about coming out of Babylon. That some of us lived in Zion, but had a summer house in Babylon – pride, selfishness, or other worldly things that we chose to cling to or occasionally to escape to. The talk suggested Zion was the pure in heart, those that loved others and had no poor among them.

We discussed the obvious poverty here in Africa and the Lord’s plan for Zion that would help people help themselves and gain self reliance vs. giving them fish. The Lord’s plan was the welfare system of giving tithes and fast offerings and having the bishop or branch president, under inspiration, help those truly in need. They said many people ask missionary couples for help with truly pitiful stories, and some of them are even true. The counsel is to pay a generous fast offering, and allow the branch president to fulfill his calling to help those in need. Several people have asked us for jobs—house cleaning etc. And we did have a member come and wash and wax the floors and clean the carpets and upholstery. He did a good job. It made the dining room floor quite slippery though. Things get a film of dark dust quite quickly here. I don’t know if I will have a cleaning lady, although several have asked. And we will have a car washer probably once a week or so—for about $3. It gets so dusty. And here in Nairobi, large birds left their deposits. Gee—they are pretty to look at, but have drawbacks. Here are birds in the trees at the "Bird Nakamat" store.

Today we spent half the day in the mission office. We met with the records people and got print outs of records, rolls, membership, etc. We also met with the facilities maintenance and found that we will get chairs, chalkboards, a CD player, desks, tables, a podium and other things really essential for a branch—even 250 chairs! That way we don’t have to move them from classrooms to chapel each week. We ordered some keyboards so I can start teaching a beginning piano class and we even got a small keyboard for the chapel. Hurray! And since we had only 22 hymn books and over 100 people, we got more of those and more of a variety of other manuals. And the conference Ensigns came and there were enough to take to the ward members. Plus Book of Mormons… I now understand why we have pick-up trucks!

In the afternoon we went to the Sirat Center in an upscale part of town. They had lovely shops and we were told that was where the Europeans and Indians shopped. We had lunch there and actually felt like we might be back in the United States! It was a bit shocking to see so many white people. They had an African Craft fair and we wandered and were persuaded to purchase a few things. Tomorrow we head back to Kisumu.