Out Of Africa

Africa was truly amazing but I am so glad to be home. It was one of the hardest, yet rewarding things I have ever done. It was so fun to spend time with Brayden. Being the middle child, he kind of gets lost in the mix sometimes. He took great care of me while we were gone and I adore him! I missed my other three boys tremendously.

The traveling was brutal! Delta canceled our flight from Salt Lake to Boston and so twenty of us were scrambling to find a way to get to Amsterdam to catch our connecting flight to Nairobi. Brayden and I ended up going to Portland and then had a ten hour flight to Amsterdam. It all ended up working out okay, but I was seriously contemplating what in the world I had done signing us up to go so far away, for so long with so many people we didn't even know. WHAT WAS I THINKING?

After two days and four flights, we were grateful to be able to stay in a hotel in Mombasa for a night. We woke up to the beautiful Indian ocean and a camel walking along the beach. We went into town with everyone to get supplies. I have been to third world countries before, but I was still in shock by all of the garbage just thrown everywhere and the goats and cows wandering down the middle of the busy streets.

We went to church in Mombasa. It was wonderful to be with such great people and share the same beliefs clear on the other side of the world! Then we loaded up and drove to where we would be staying for the next week, a little village called, Mynzeni. It took over an hour to drive there because the dirt roads are so horrible.
We stopped at the Mwache River along the way and took pictures. An old woman was washing clothes in the muddy water. A goat herder was guiding his goats to get a drink near her and down stream some boys were washing and a woman was filling her water bucket so she could take it home to her family. All this in the same dirty river. Dysentery is obviously a huge problem there.

As we drove along the road to the village we started to pass little mud huts with roofs covered with palm fronds. Children would run out and yell, "Jambo!" and smile and wave to us as we passed by. Once we reached the Koins center where we were staying, a ton of children ran to our vans and met us singing and welcoming us there.

Brayden worked hard building desks except on the days when they ran out of wood or the electricity went out so they couldn't use the power tools.

The Kenyan people had tried to make our accommodations so nice for us.
We slept in dorm rooms filled with bunk beds covered by mosquito nets. To shower, we went inside an open air wood frame draped with black plastic and used a measuring cup to scoop hot water that the cooks had boiled for us out of a big bucket. We had four Kenyan ladies who slept on mattresses in a small kitchen who cooked for us continually. We ate like kings compared to the villagers around us. They mostly eat corn cooked one way or another. It took some getting used to eating Ugali (corn flour with water)and peilou (rice with cinnamon and nutmeg), but the scones and chappati (like tortillas) with Nutella were our favorite! A cute girl named Kendy from our group stayed in Kenya to teach English to the school children until December. She is truly an amazing young woman because she isn't getting paid to be there. She emailed me this recipe for chappati and I can't wait to make it for my family. It is a real African recipe - no measurements, no temperatures, just wing it. Hakuna Matata (they really do say that a lot over there) - NO WORRIES!

Chappati

Take some wheat flour and add a little hot oil and just enough water to make a dough. Mix until with your hands until it is smooth. Then make little balls and roll them out thin to make tortillas. Cook on a hot, ungreased griddle until both sides are lightly cooked.

We just ate these plain some mornings or put the good European Nutella on top.