Sorry, I would love to add pictures and make this a little more exciting to look at, but Internet has been incredibly difficult to come by and uploading anything other than this is next to impossible.
Kenya
Language: Kiswahili and Maasai
Maasai: (Supa – Hello, Oshay Oling – Thank You Very Much, Essi – Amen)
Kiswahili: (Jambo – Hello, Asante Sana – Thank You Very Much, Bwenasafiwa – Praise the Lord)
Currency 1 USD=87 Kenyan Schillings
Time Zone: 8 hours ahead of EST
Days it rained =2
Places we've been: Nairobi, Narok, Oloolaimutia (our village), Maasai Mara Game Reserve
Transportation:
Matatu (Mini-Bus where all luggage rides on top): 2
Bus: 3
Drove a Piki Piki (motorcycle): 2
Our legs: ALL THE TIME. We walked EVERYWHERE.
Normal Food We Ate: Tea/Coffee (Up to 4 different times during the day) Mandazi (fried dough for breakfast) Irish Potatoes, Rice, Black Beans, Cabbage, Spinach, Bananas, Green Grams (Peas), Chapatti, Beef, Pineapple, Oranges, Eggs-fried and boiled, chips (French fries)
Number of days the power was off: All the time. We didn’t have electricity this month.
Hours on a bus/van: 14
Price of Gas: $5.01 a gallon
1. Looking out over the Great Rift Valley and then driving through it on the way to our ministry site.
2. Also seeing dozens of wildebeests, impalas, zebras, a monkey, and a few giraffes all on the way just to get to ministry. All of these “wild” animals were intertwined with farmers who were herding their sheep, goats, or cows. Surreal.
3. We lived in the national park literally a half-mile from the entrance to the game park where tourists go on safaris. There is no fence to keep the “wild” animals inside. Occasionally an elephant or lion will venture into the Manyatas (Maasai village or house made out of cow poop and mud. They usually last 9-10 years) where they are usually killed by a Maasai.
4. We found out our pastor and his brother, Maasai themselves, have killed a cheetah with spears after it killed their cows. They’ve also killed a leopard, impalas, water buffalos, wildebeests, elephant and injured a lion. Not a bad resume.
5. The Mara night sky is unlike anything I’ve EVER seen. Dark with sooo many stars!
6. The only electricity in the entire village came from gas generators, an occasional solar panel or a wind turbine.
7. Needless to say we didn’t have electricity and couldn’t charge any electronics, so we were in bed soon after 9:30pm most nights.
8. A group of us ran at 6:15 all month except 4 or 5 mornings because the sunrises were ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. (I always ran with my camera.)
9. On two separate mornings a herd of wildebeests and impalas ran across the road in front of me while I was running. I kept hoping for zebras, but it didn’t happen.
10. Worshipping with Maasai who are dressed in their traditional clothing and ridiculously gauged ears.
11. Realizing the song “Do Your Ears Hang Low” without a doubt had to have originated in the Mara with the Maasai people. They are the only people I know who can legitimately tie their ears in a knot.
12. Getting to play football (soccer) with dozens of kids EVERYDAY. They would come find me even if I was across the village at a different house just to get the ball from me so they could play.
13. Depending on the day our football field would be scattered with shepherd staffs, Maasai blankets, animal poop, animals, thorn bushes, rocks, small children, and flies.
14. Knowing what time is based on the animals that are grazing in our front lawn. Morning: donkeys, Mid-morning: cows, afternoon: goats, mid-afternoon: sheep. Then in the evening they would all pass back through on their way home.
15. Due to all the animals we have never been aggravated by flies as much as this month. They were everywhere.
16. On Market Day, Tuesdays, when Maasai would bring animals to buy and sell we could each literally have 20 flies on/around us at one time. They were everywhere.
17. Maasai would walk from up to 12km and 5 or 6 hours away herding their animals to buy or sell on market days. Some even came from Tanzania, 9kms away.
18. We drank the best Chi tea numerous, up to 4, times a day.
19. Watching Kaitlyn see her new niece, Paisley, for the first time on Facebook when our pastor’s brother let her borrow his computer with an Internet stick.
20. The most INCREDIBLE sunsets!!! I’ve never seen such color in the sky.
21. Teaching science, social studies, and math to 5th grade students. I also helped teach the baby class (3-5 year olds).
22. Visiting 3 Manyatas to share the gospel with the Maasai people. My favorite was getting to share with 15 elders under a tree that was also being used by baby lambs and goats for shade.
23. Nights spent worshipping or just simply laying under the African night sky.
24. Watching as Amanda celebrated her victory of retrieving her Crocs sandal out of the 40ft deep latrine with a carabineer, dental floss, and a headlamp after being told by our Maasai pastor it was impossible. (She doesn’t like to tell this part of the story, but she then bit the dental floss trying to get out the knot without thinking about where it had just been.)
25. It’s common for Maasai boys at age 7 or 8 to herd up to 100 cattle several miles into the bush each day to graze.
26. In our village you can’t kill stray dogs or allow any dead animals to lie around because hyenas and lions will venture into the village to eat them. You have to burn anything that dies.
27. Going on a safari with Maasai guides and because of our connections only having to pay $26 (Normally $130-$150) that covered the fuel.
28. God blessing us with an extremely successful safari. We saw wildebeests, zebras, gazelles, impalas, antelopes, 15 female lions, 5 cubs, a male lion with a HUGE mane, 2 cheetahs eating a gazelle, a dozen giraffes, 75-100 elephants, 20 hippos, 2 LARGE herds of buffalo and the oldest black rhino in the park that our guide only sees once a month. Our pastor said he hadn’t seen a game drive like this in 15 years.
29. Going with Pastor Steven 3 different times to the one little restaurant in town powered by a generator with the ability to watch English Football. Most games didn’t start until 10 or 11pm at night, but totally worth it. Steven is also a Manchester United fan and we watched when they played Everton and Real Madrid. We also watched the African Cup of Nations Championship between Nigeria and Burkina Faso. I almost forgot I was in the Maasai at these games and then I would see a Maasai man walk by with his robe, shepherds staff, club and machete.
30. Helping at the dispensary or health clinic by weighing dozens and dozens of babies. I would guess 70% cried as soon as they realized a “Muzungu” (Westerner) was holding them.
31. Fixing my watchband that continued to break with super glue and then essentially duct taping the band around my wrist so it wouldn’t fall off only to find that I had my watch on upside down. FAIL.
32. Four or five days later the band broke again and our Maasai contact took it and told me he would fix it. He gave it back the next day and he had sewn all the broken pieces together with parts of a leather band. Words cannot describe the job he did on my watch.
33. Watching in the baby class as the kids were lectured that they couldn’t diarrhea in their pants. Students were then instructed to go outside to collect dirt and rocks to bring back in to soak/cleanup mess lying in the floor. Who needs a disinfectant?
34. Riding on the back of a piki piki (dirt bike) for over an hour and a half on some of the roughest terrain in the African bush to get to our pastors home village. Beautiful, but I have a new understanding of saddle seat. OUCH!!
35.Driving a Maasai through the African bush on the back of a dirt bike I was driving.
36. Continuing to be blown away by the hospitality of people around the world even after 9 months. We were constantly served chi, food, given bead necklaces, etc.
37. Learning how to make Mandazi with Kaitlyn.
38. Being able to call home on a cell phone for dirt-cheap. An hour for about $4 USD.
39. Playing Goliath while leading children’s Sunday school with a kid sitting on my shoulders. Our fall after being hit by the stone wasn’t so graceful.
40. Throwing the soccer ball around the kitchen with Chip and Kaitlyn for a couple hours.
41. Watching a political rally for the upcoming elections up the hill and finding out the candidate was passing out money to those in the crowd to help secure votes. Clever.
42. Playing “Never Have I Ever” many nights after dinner because there wasn’t much else we could do without electricity.
43. Riding with Steven on his motorbike to see his cows 25km away. He pays a Maasai boy 5,000 schilling ($57) a month to care for his animals (to protect them from the lions). Everyday this boy herds them up to 9 miles out in the bush to graze and then brings them back in the evening. Unbelievable.
44. From his farm we could look down into the game park and see zebras and wildebeest. Again there was nothing separating us from the lions except for a few kilometers of African bush.
45. Entertaining ourselves by throwing berries into termite holes and winning an orange Fanta out of it from Steven.
46. Watching Pastor Steven wrestle Chip to the ground and laughing because Chip landed in what we thought was animal waste, but instead was a huge pile of beans that Kaitlyn had just thrown out from lunch.
47. Alison washing clothes in the middle of a cowherd. Chip having a cow drink his laundry water while he was trying to wash his clothes.
48. Being overwhelmed at the market as Maasai women tried to sell us bracelets and necklaces.
49. Being so determined to get a Maasai bracelet that it took 2 Maasai women 5 minutes to finally get my bracelet over my hand and on my wrist. Odds are I will still be wearing this bracelet at my funeral unless I cut it off.
50. Sharpening 30 pencils with a straight razor blade. Watching 6 year old kids sharpen their own pencil with a straight razor blade. (I have a whole new appreciation for the pencil sharpener I had on the wall in my classroom in America.)
51. After Ga’Nene caught Malaria, getting our fingers pricked to test ourselves and having our results all, thankfully, come back negative.
52. Sprinting through the village to catch our last sunset in the Mara just in time.
53. Catching the Matatu (mini-bus) at 3:15am to get back to Nairobi.
54. Running around Nairobi in the mornings with the workout crew. (Simkes, Lizi, Chip, Shelley, Beka, and Steph.)
55. Riding a tuk-tuk to an Ostrich farm and seeing zebras grazing in a field on the way. On the way back we got out and chased the zebras.
56. RIDING AN OSTRICH.
57. Eating at Carnivore! Easily best meal of the race. Meat was served on a sword and we ate lamb, chicken, crocodile, ostrich, beef, ox balls, pork, etc.
58. Shaving my head on my last day in Nairobi for St. Baldricks which supports childhood cancer research.
