This month’s “Faces of…” is a little different. The people I will truly remember the most were the ones I never captured in pictures.
Alice and her daughter Lucy.
Jane and her babies, Phoebe Ann and Michelle.
Beautiful Phyllis and her twins Jeremiah and Nehemiah.
Pastor Onesmus and his permanent, brilliant smile.
Doro and her whooping sounds during worship.
Mari at Milimani Backpacker, teasing us constantly, but having our back with everything we plan. This girl is just… legit.
But here are the ones I DID take photos of: the staff and friends of Pastor Nicholas at Deliverance Church.
Nyoya Market in Kitale town
I never quite caught on to who hung around the church yard or why. Some people were just always there, for no other reason than to be with their friends. The kids always stayed for a long time after school, begging the mzungu girls to get out the frisbee or watch a movie on our computers. John-Mark, the pastor’s son, and little Mary were my besties. I taught them to throw a frisbee, and they taught me to sing “So Deep Down in My Heart.” Mostly, we just laughed a lot.
The teachers at the school loved to hang around talking with us after classes. They asked me to teach them French, but we usually ended up talking about American culture and Barak Obama. The “Most Awkward Question of the Month” award goes to Mercy.
“Why do black Americans speak a different English than other Americans?”
…I really didn’t know how to answer that! I think I mumbled something about “Not all of them do,” and “America has a lot of different cultures.”
After the teachers went home, our “kitchen boys” took care of us for the rest of the night. They taught us to make chapatti, and we taught them to make guacamole. They told us what a blessing we were to their community, we told Joel how much we loved his Mufasa voice.
In general, Kenya feels like family. It’s a place of incredible hospitality, and immediate acceptance. It’s full of colors I didn’t know existed. There are stars above that I can’t see from the States. Honestly, this is what I’ll remember most about this land that loves Obama more than we do:
If you ever make it here… karibu sana, rafiki wangu!
-Katie
