“My African Dreamland”
Finally… AFRICA!!!
coming to Africa for so long, and now I am finally here! I love being here so
much! The landscape and the people are absolutely beautiful! The people are so
incredibly kind and welcoming. Many people in Kenya actually speak English,
which is something I did not expect. The way of life here is so relaxed. The
fruits are amazing! Did I mention they sell mangoes by the hundreds?! For those
of you who don’t know, I’m a pretty big mango fan. I think I could pretty much live
off them as long as there was a side of peanut butter. The flowers are in bloom here everywhere! Huge
gigantic flowers that are the brightest colors you have ever seen! The sky
seriously seems bigger here. It stretches out gloriously with beautiful fluffy
clouds during the day and sparkling diamonds at night.
our contact, learning the African culture, and getting our country changed!
My team was headed for Lira, Uganda. The departure date was
in a few days when it got switched. We were to be working in a village with
children soldiers and at an HIV and AIDS clinic. I was so very excited about
this. I have done a lot of awareness activities with my school for Uganda, and
I was fully ready to be more actively involved in changing the problems there.
God had different plans for me however. Instead of Uganda my team ended up in Eldoret,
Kenya! This is the exact place where we needed to be. I am actually starting to
love when things change at the last minute. It makes my life feel more like a
roller coaster ride full of adventure and excitement!
We are staying here with a wonderful Kenyan family who cook
our food and help us adapt to life here. I live in a mud house (in the middle
of the raining season) with no running water, very little electricity, squatty
potties, and bucket showers. In all honesty, as bad as that sounds, life is
absolutely amazing! This is probably one of my favorite places I have stayed
during the entire race! These living things mentioned above that I used to
think would be such hard living conditions are actually not bad at all. The mud
house is really just like any other concrete house. It actually has more
breathing air than a concrete house; almost natural air conditioning. We have a well that supplies our water and in
the mornings we just get up and fill bunches of buckets that we leave out
during day for cooking and washing ourselves. This is actually easier than
having to turn the faucet on and off;-) For electricity we have a light switch
and a charger for our electronics, which is all we need. The squatties were a
little challenging to get used to at first, and they still aren’t my favorite
thing. Hey, they are far better than most out houses I have used in the states.
Who knew those out houses were actually preparing you for Arica? And the bucket showers are actually wonderful!
You just warm up the water that you will need over the fire and then carry it
into a room with a drain. The food we eat here is amazing! Everything we have
eaten has been so good and we are so well taken care of.
We are starting a church here in the village we are staying
in. Almost every day we go out to the open air markets and bring a sound
system. We bring church to the people that least expect it. We sing songs and
preach and have prayer. I absolutely love playing and dancing and singing with
all the kids. They are so cute and so loving! We also will be fixing up
appliances and such around the house we are staying at as well as volunteering
at a medical clinic! We can only continue doing these things with your continued financial
support. We are Starting a church, fixing up a beautiful home and loving on the
people of Kenya. I still need $1,356 for a deadline in Febuary, with a total of
$2,856 by the end of this trip in July. Any further support you can give would
be ever so wonderful.
