Well, I arrived back safely in Korr this afternoon...though it was quite an interesting journey! Korr does not have a paved airstrip - all we have is a cleared runway-shaped area for pilots to land. With all of the rain that northern Kenya has been having, our pilot flew over the airstrip five times before deciding it wasn't safe to land because it was too muddy and our plane was too heavy. We were flying in a 16-seat aircraft - the largest I've seen fly this far north in all my time in Kenya! He then flew on to Marsabit - a big town in north Kenya that's about a 20 minute flight from Korr - and dropped off the remaining passengers before flyingback to Korr a second time, flying over the airstrip two more times to check it out, and THEN finally landing the plane. Whew! We were greeted at the airstrip by half of Korr...well, maybe not half, but there were a ton of people there. Alicia started to give me 31 hugs - one from each student! After about the ninth we just agreed that I had been well enough hugged to suffice for them...31 hugs is a LOT of hugs.
I've mentioned this before, but starting this term Alicia and I are being joined by two more short termers. Their names are Claire and Ruth - Claire is from California and will be teaching at the secondary school with us, and Ruth is from North Ireland and is teaching at the upper primary school. I actually met up with Ruth in Nairobi and we flew up to Korr together today...thus the picture above. We took it about 3 minutes before we boarded the plane for a rather bumpy ride! This afternoon we were walking back to the house and Intebessie, one of the guys on the project here, got the chance to give Ruth her Rendille name - Robeya. It means "green." The Rendille say that Ruth coming has brought the "green" with her that's come from all the rain. It's a perfect fit, seeing as Ruth is Irish!
This afternoon we walked up to the secondary school and I got to see all of my students again! Alicia told me they've been asking about me since they all arrived last weekend to begin school this last Tuesday - the entire class even begged her today to give them "permission" to leave school to come to the airstrip to greet me today! They're too sweet...they're definitely spoiling me. Whenever I do begin teaching in the States I will never have students as polite and kindhearted as my students here are! We've also had a pretty steady stream of visitors this afternoon - apparently it's quite big news that "Siberyan" (my Rendille name..."Jamie" is too hard for many of them to say) has arrived back in Korr. I guess I'm pretty easy to miss though when I'm one of six white faces in all of Korr!
It's really good to be back, although it certainly is hot here...I'm a little jealous of the cold in Texas right now. We're getting all moved in and settled to Grant & Loki's house, and WOW is it a step up in life in Korr. We have running water now! Which means...(dum dum dum) we have functioning showers. Don't get me wrong, the bucket baths weren't bad, but they can't compare to a nice warm shower.
All for now - we might watch a movie tonight before turning in to bed. That's right - a movie. Because we have a television now :)
What movie????
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