Saying goodbyes, Part 2

I'm going to go ahead and apologize now for how scatterbrained this post will probably be.

I was doing okay. I've been saying goodbyes for the last week. So as we sat perched atop White Hill to watch the sun rise this morning - departure day - I figured I would be okay.

Ha.

We were sitting down to eat lunch today with Nick & Lynne when we heard the plane overhead. The plane that was coming to come pick us up and bring us down to Nairobi for the school holiday....the plane that I would be leaving Korr on. What to do? Solution: grab food and go. So we grab bowls, some rice, and some stew that's literally still cooking on the stove, and climb into the back of the Land Cruiser. About 10 more people jump in the back with us. I was perched on the tailgate, holding on to the side with my elbow, balancing my bowl in hand and tried to eat as we drove over the bumpy desert road to the airstrip...gives new meaning to the phrase "fast food."

We arrive at the airstrip to find that we are the only passengers on this 6-seater plane. The pilot weighs our bags and manages to fit it all as everyone who has come out to the airstrip crowds around to watch. Random Rendille kids show up. Still more people arrive, wanting to say their goodbyes to the four white women - one of whom is leaving for good.

I cannot even begin to describe how hard saying all of those goodbyes was. Students are hugging me and Rendille mamas are kissing my cheeks and showering Rendille blessings over me and I'm fine...or at least I tell myself that. Nick & Lynne embrace me in a long hug, say some things to me that I cannot remember, and suddenly it hits me that I may never see these two amazing, amazing people again and that means I may never see ANY of these people again and suddenly I'm trying to hold back my tears so that no one will see my emotions. We climb into the airplane, the pilot buckles us in and adjusts our seats according to weight so that the plane can take off. It feels like everything is in a haze. A few of our students have their faces pressed up against the glass, watching our every move and waving goodbye over and over again. I can't do this. I pull out my camera to take some last minute photos of them - it's as much of a distraction as I can come up with. Then the pilot shuts the door, starts up the engine like we're driving a car or something, and then we're taxiing down the airstrip, and everyone is waving and blowing kisses and I'm waving back and then suddenly

We're gone.

And I'm bawling.

I don't know why, but I didn't expect that. I didn't expect that I would cry for the first 20 minutes of our flight. I didn't expect that my heart would be so heavy - so heavy at the thought of never seeing any of these people again. So heavy at the reality of so many students who still don't know Jesus. And so heavy at knowing that for whatever reason, God is calling me home...and that even now, I do not understand why He has done this.

For about a week now I've been saying goodbyes. I had to say goodbye to 3/4 of my students on my birthday. I've been saying goodbyes to everyone in town for the last few days. I guess I thought that today would be no different - it hasn't felt real yet, because even though I was saying goodbye, I was still in Korr.

It's real now.

And now I'm in Nairobi and it all feels like a dream. It feels like a 7 month long dream that I was living in this desert corner of the world...because being in Nairobi surrounded by other short-termers feels so normal.

But Korr was my normal. Walking 6 miles a day through the desert heat just to get to school and back, eating mutton for every meal, wearing the same 3 ankle-length skirts every day, responding to "Madam" like it was my real name was my normal.

And in three weeks' time, I will leave Africa - maybe, for good this time - and I will find myself back in Texas. Adjusting to a new normal again.

But my heart will be forever changed. It's been imprinted by my time here. My students, my Rendille family, the missionaries I've served alongside - they've all left an imprint on my heart. An imprint that has forever changed how I view the Lord and how He is moving through the nations. An imprint that has left me feeling so burdened to pray for the Rendille. Because despite their pride and their stubbornness, He WILL reign in their hearts. He will humble them, because He loves them so much that He humbled himself to die for them. He continues to humble me by removing my own pride and stubbornness.

Trust in him at ALL times, O people;

pour out your hearts to him,

for God is our REFUGE.

[Psalm 62:8]

Reign down on us.

I remember having a conversation with Kakume, our principal, last September about what happens in Korr after the rainy season.

"Korr is so much green!" he told me. "Everything, it all turns green. Korr becomes very beautiful after the rains."

To be honest, I didn't believe him. After all, this was what I saw every day:

Barren, rocky desert. Everything was dead or dying. We were in the middle of one of the worst droughts northern Kenya has seen in the past 20 years...and it wasn't just the plants that were dying. Hundreds of people showed up on Nick & Lynne's doorstep every morning, begging for a few shillings to buy tea leaves for chai...anything to fill an empty stomach. Many herds dwindled down from dozens of animals to a mere handful. The previous "long" rainy season had produced a mere 30 minute shower. Waking up to this sight every morning for the first 7 weeks we were in Korr did not exactly get me too excited about the upcoming "short" rainy season. "How green can it possibly get with just a few showers?" I thought. "What good will that honestly do?"

Boy, was I wrong.

About a week after it rained here, green stuff started to sprout up everywhere.

I mean, everywhere.

Where growth had been seemingly nonexistent before, sprouts were springing up. Life was beginning where it had once seemed impossible to exist. Plants and bushes that had once looked dead now had green leaves sprouting out all over the place. Even the thorn bushes turned a beautiful shade of green!

This picture was taken a week after it rained. It's the SAME shot as the one above it!

It is absolutely astounding what happens out here in the desert with 5 hours' worth of rain showers.

The Rendille are a proud people. They walk with their heads held high. They know what they believe. And they are always right - whether it be about religion or the color of the sky or cell phones - they are always, always right.

So when Nick & Lynne showed up 30 years ago and began to introduce the Gospel to a people who had previously never heard of Jesus Christ, you can guess what happened. They resisted. Their pride would simply not allow them to believe in such a thing. Elders and warriors would not even listen to the evangelists speak. It's been this way for 30 years.

Until now. There is a revival going on here in Korr. For the last few months, church has been full to the point of overflowing every Sunday. Evangelists are going out to the goobs and the elders are listening. Warriors are coming to know Christ...something that Nick, Lynne, and the few believers here have been praying for for THIRTY YEARS. People are standing on their doorstep and begging for literacy classes to come to their goobs. "Please!" they beg. "We want to learn! We have somebody here who says he will be our teacher...teach him and he will teach us!"

Life is being born - in a place where it once seemed impossible. This barren, rocky desert is seeing growth like it's never, ever seen before. Seeds that have lain dormant for years are now sprouting up for all to see. Seeds in a ground that seemed utterly impossible to foster growth are suddenly blossoming into beautiful green flowers and plants.

He is raining down here on these people in the desert. The Gospel is beginning to take root. Where there was once pride, there is humility. Where there was once utter barrenness, there is vibrant life peeking through. Where there was once hopelessness, there is Hope. Hope in a God who saves. Hope in a God who provides. Hope in a God who loves them so much he would humble himself to death on a cross.

Praise the Lord that He will reign here. Pray for hearts to continue to be changed. Pray for those seeds that have been planted. Pray for growth.

Pray for the Rendille.

My life has now come full circle.

Favorite student quote from student teaching last spring:

[Talking about me teaching in Africa for the next year]

Student 1: "Naw, but for real, Miss, you gon' come back changed."

Student 2: "No, she's gonna come back BLACK!"

Yesterday:

Student: [after looking at my ridiculous chaco tan and seeing the skin color my feet were before coming to Korr] "MADAM! Your skin is turning black like ours!"

Yessssssssss.

Living in Korr is...

Needing to speak 3 languages on any given day to be able to communicate. (Rendille, English, AND Swahili)

Walking past herds of camels in the morning as they wait for water at the well.

Being woken up every morning at 5:00 AM by the mosque's call to prayer.

Meeting Rendille warriors in town who are dressed up in the most manliest clothes they own - pink kangas with fake flowers on their headpieces. (Don't worry...they carry mirrors with them so they can preen themselves before they come into town!)

Having to throw rocks at the goats who've broken through your fence to graze in your yard. (Not to hurt them, but to scare them out!)

Being called "Mzungu!" (white person) in town by everybody because they don't know your name.

Being called "Siberyan" (my given Rendille name) by all of the Rendille I know because "Jamie" is too hard to pronounce.

Drinking chai prepared with camel's milk during tea time at school.

Experiencing flip-flopped seasons. It's snowing in Texas? It's 100 degrees outside here.

Donkeys and goats wandering through the school yard (or trying to come into your classroom!) don't distract your students, but a car driving by has them out of their seats and peering through the window to see who's driving. (We don't have too many cars driving through Korr!)

Buying sugar in town and having to fish out the GIANT sugar ants before you can use it.

Living in a culture where wealth is not judged by how much money you have but rather by how many animals are in your herd.

Fist-bumping every child I see as I walk to and from school to say hello (because they think it's HILARIOUS, and shaking hands spreads some pretty nasty germs around here...which I may or may not have learned the hard way.)

Learning to cook sheep meat in ways I never thought were possible.

Where eating fruit or fresh vegetables is like Christmas! (The freshest vegetable we can buy in town is tomato paste, and the nearest place to buy fresh produce is a three hour drive away.)

Having students who beg you to give them more homework or quizzes because they're so excited and eager to learn.

Responding to "Madam" like it's my real first name.

Teaching mathematics and geography in somebody's old living room that's been turned into a classroom.

Being covered in chalk dust from leaning against the chalkboard too much as I teach in class - no Smart Boards here!

Teaching at a school where students are so thankful for an education that they come to school at 5 AM to study before school starts at 7:30...and study until the lights are turned out each night at 10:00 PM.

Sweating every day from 10 AM to 7 PM because it's so gosh darn HOT outside.

Having to wear ankle length skirts every day because, while toplessness is culturally acceptable among the traditional Rendille, showing your knees is most definitely not.

Having the most ridiculous Chaco tan line ever. You have one from your summer as a camp counselor? I promise it's not as bad as mine.

Knowing what fields in town will have sheep for sale in the afternoons, and how much to pay for a "good" sheep. (About $13.)

Where hunting spiders and lizards are normal wall decorations.

Waking up to the most breathtaking sunrise I've ever seen...since yesterday, that is.

Walking outside in the evening and seeing every single twinkling star in the night sky. No light pollution here...we're so far from the power grid it's comical.

Learning true selflessness from older, more experienced missionaries, who have given literally everything they have to the Rendille people.

Seeing God move through a people group that has been stubbornly resistant to the Gospel for SO long, and now suddenly is literally begging to hear more about Jesus is...and knowing that their change of heart is only from Him and in His timing alone.

Being reminded every time the wind blows and cools us down that God loves us, jealously yet sacrificially, and will provide for our every need.

Living in Korr is waking up every morning to the desert splendor of God's beautiful creation, and witnessing God moving and changing an entire generation of Rendille to live for Him instead of clinging to proud religious traditions. Where you rejoice when it rains because it brings life and abundance to the Rendille after years of harsh droughts. Where slowly, after reading through Genesis and Exodus, the Bible comes to life in the people around you and just makes so much more sense. It's being challenged and humbled by the faith of Rendille believers, who can tell you the exact verse they read in the Rendille Bible that led them to a saving knowledge of who Christ is and what He did for them on the cross. It's truly appreciating that I can read any book of the Bible I want in my own language...something millions of people across the world - including the Rendille - cannot do because the Bible has not been fully translated for them.

Living in Korr has its fair share of challenges. But those challenges fade away in knowing I have the humbling privilege of being a tool for Jesus to use however He sees fit to further His kingdom here in north Kenya. No matter the cost.

In his name the nations will put their hope.

[Matthew 12:21]

The things we take for granted

After living here in Korr for almost 5 months, there are some things that I will never take for granted again.

Like electricity, for example.

In Korr we're so far off the power grid it's ridiculous. Praise the Lord for solar panels - we are so fortunate to have electricity in Korr because of them.

However, the batteries that our solar panels charge up need lots of distilled water. LOTS. But what do 4 twenty-something girls know about solar panels and batteries and keeping them healthy and fully functioning? Next to nothing. I mean, we didn't even know we should be checking these things! Thank goodness Intebessyie thought to come over and check them for us. ALL of our batteries were stone dry. Which, apparently means they could quit working at any time.

Yikes. These batteries are EXPENSIVE. That, and you have to buy them down country and bring them up yourselves. The next time we head down south? April. So tonight, Alicia and I with the help of Bagajo (our night guard) topped off our batteries.

Thank you Jesus for providing us with electricity, and this stunning view out our front door every evening:

Thank you, Lion King, for explaining the circle of life.

Last Saturday we bought a sheep for Ksh1000 - about $13.

Today, we had mutton stir fry for lunch.

How did we get from the first picture to the second?

Well.

We bought Sheepy from our friend/old night guard Obeyle's herd of adi (Rendille for a herd of sheep and goats). Obeyle slaughtered Sheepy (we named him for the 15 minutes we owned him before he became our lunch) in our backyard with a panga - or handheld machete. I'll spare you the details, but it was morbidly fascinating to see how it's done. He handed us a bucket (literally) full of raw sheep meat (including the liver!) about an hour later, and after carefully washing each piece, we now we have a deep freezer full of various parts of Sheepy.

Just another day in the deserts of Africa.

January 13th

Yeah...these have been my two best friends the past few days.

I'm a sick girl right now.

The irony is not lost on me that I lived in Korr for 3 months without getting sick, managed to not get sick going home for four weeks (talk about a climate change!), and then BAM! 3 days after getting here I'm in bed all day.

I didn't even go to school today! THAT makes me sad. This term I'm getting to teach math (which I LOVE!), AND geography. I hate missing school!

Typically, on Wednesday afternoons we have mentoring time with our students. Each teacher has 3-4 students in their small group that they meet with weekly to pray with and for. The goal was to not only get to know our students better, but to be able to guide them in their walk with the Lord and create opportunities for conversations one-on-one.

But, since I was sick, I couldn't handle the 2 km walk up to school. BUT...

My girls came to the house to surprise me! They wanted to see how their "Madam" was doing. So, I gave them cold water (which two of them so sweetly asked for "warmer" water. Refrigerated water is too cold for them!) and we sat in the living room and laughed at the antics of the two ridiculous cats that live with us. The picture is of Lucy sitting in our rocking chair - they were FASCINATED by how it moved.

"Madam," they asked. "Will it break?"

"No!" I reassured them. "In fact, you can put your feet up on THIS part of it too!"

That was almost too much for them to handle. They ALL wanted pictures of themselves sitting in the rocking chair.

After praying for them, they asked if they could pray for me. Um, yes! This is a BIG deal...we've been meeting once a week since September and every time I ask them if they would like to pray, they always ask me to do it. So the fact that they wanted to pray today...

The Lord is SO good.

Oh yes. I live here.

New term, new house.

Grant & Loki, a missionary family that live here in Korr, are on furlough for the next year down in South Africa. Grant & Loki - we miss you tons!

However...

that means that the four of us got to move in to this nice, BIG, house!

Here is the bedroom Ruth and I share. It's Caity and Abby's room - Caity and Abby are 3, so that explains the bright pretty yellow with flowers painted everywhere! Alicia and Claire are sharing the master bedroom.

One of the best parts about this house...

...is the running water.

Oh, yes. You read that right. Here in Korr, where we are so far from the power grid that the only electricity comes from solar panels, we have running water. Grant & Loki's house has this elaborate set up of tanks and pumps and pipes that allows us to have sinks.

What else does that mean?

Well...

It means we have SHOWERS. Yes, that IS plural - not one, but TWO showers. This is the outdoor shower...we have another one inside too!

The Lord is so so good :)

"Mzungu! Mzungu!" or "A day in the life of Jamie"

5:40 AM - Alarm goes off.

6:00 AM - Time to get out of bed. Every day is a race to see who will reach the light switch first...lately Alicia has been winning quite a bit.

6:00-6:30 AM - Get dressed, eat breakfast, plug in computer. There's a high chance I'll put on the same clothes I wore yesterday no matter how nasty they are...nearly everyone around here wears the same thing a few days in a row. Not because they're lazy, but because for many of them they don't own much else...

In Korr it's culturally unacceptable for women to show their knees...really to show any leg above your calf is seen as inappropriate. So, we wear long skirts. I have three I rotate through depending on their cleanliness.

Breakfast each morning usually consists of a cup of coffee (very needed) and a slice of homemade bread with peanut butter on it (Lynne makes the BEST bread...I'm learning to make it too!). Find keys to Lynne's office among the many keys hanging on the hooks in the kitchen. Unlock office and plug in computer to power strip so it will be charged when I get home in the afternoon. (Power is a bit of an issue here - we run mainly off solar power. We don't have any plugs in the wall in our house. Lynne runs her computer off of a generator, so we plug in each morning to get all juiced up for the evening.)

6:30 AM - Laura (another missionary who lives in Korr) meets us as the front gate of the house and we depart for school. This is my favorite part of the day - the sun has just come up over the horizon and the air is still cool for our 2 km walk to school. The center of town is still quiet - no one is shouting at us...yet.

6:50 AM - Arrive at school just in time for teacher devotions. Each morning a teacher shares a Bible verse and we pray together as a staff before we meet with the students at...

7:10 AM - Meet with the students before classes. This time looks different every day - sometimes it's class assembly, sometimes it's class devotions, sometimes it's a class meeting.

7:30 AM - Classes begin. Since we only have Form 1 this year at TSS (equivalent of 9th grade) and 8 teachers, we all only have 1-2 periods a day. (This all changes in January when we add Form 2 - hooray!) Most of the morning is spent reading, preparing lessons, etc.

12:00ish PM - After teaching my one or two classes a day I begin the 20 minute walk home.

Here's where it can get interesting.

There's a pack of Rendille children (yes, a pack) that practically assaults me on the way home every day. "Mzungu! Mzungu!" they shout. I'm using all the Rendille I know (which still isn't much) to try to teach them my name so they can shout that at me instead. Them shouting "mzungu" at me is roughly the equivalent of someone shouting "white person!" at you over and over as you walk down the street back home. It's cute for about the first day and a half.

The pack catches up to me and holds out their hands for me to shake. Sometimes they demand I give them "sweets"...I never have any. (I wouldn't give them on demand anyway!) The kids are precious in a slightly obnoxious way. Yet all of them are too cute for words - a few don't have pants on and all of them are snot-nosed. "How are you? How are you?" they say in unison...one of two English phrases they know. "Fine," I reply...the only response they understand. "Nebeybariteen?" I venture (it means "good morning?"...actually the literal translation is "do you have peace this morning?" The Rendille are very big on wanting to know whether or not you have peace.). They all giggle at my Rendille pronounciation and respond "nebey!" ("I am fine!"..."I have peace!") They'll tail me for a hundred meters more giggling (cute) and offering their hands and demanding I shake them (not so cute once you get sick from it). After some time they'll stop following me and shout "Bye bye!" - the only other English phrase they know.

The rest of my greetings on the way home will hopefully be less demanding. Rendille greet every single person they pass...every single one. I've gotten quite good at greeting in Rendille but after that I still get lost...

12:15ish-5:00 PM. Afternoons look different every day. Staff meetings, language lessons, mentoring time with our students...they fill up rather quickly. By 5:00 every day I'm exhausted and ready to shower.

5:15 PM - It's bath time. Since we have no running water (really not as bad as it sounds) we bathe in a (rather large) bucket. Use the one of buckets by our drums of water to pour water into the bigger bucket to bathe in. Heat up a kettle on the stove if you're feeling like a hot bath. Pour kettle in big bucket of water and step in. Use pitcher to dump water over your head and lather up. Repeat until clean.

Make sure to watch out for the spiders :)

6:30 PM - Sunset. Life here revolves around the sun - when it's dark things come to a standstill. No street lights here in Korr!

6:45 PM - Dinner time. We eat our big meal at lunch time so that Lynne is not sitting over a hot stove in the afternoon. (Contrary to America, our hottest hour here is somewhere between 2-4 PM...and believe me, it's hot!)

7:45 PM - Time to get ready for bed. Wash face in basin in the room (that we refill from a bucket of water we keep in the corner), brush teeth (we spit outside...cute, huh?), change in to pajamas. (This is the only time it's okay for us to wear shorts!) Get on the computer, pray the internet is working, email friends and family.

9:30 PM - Bedtime! The desert sun zaps your energy faster than you think. Tuck your mosquito net underneath your mattress to keep the all the bugs off your face while sleeping. Make sure your windows are open to catch the night breezes (Korr's very own version of air conditioning...the wind almost never stops blowing here). It will be time to wake up again before you know it...

Kenyan-isms

I love Kenyan English.

Today, after school Alicia and I were talking about American rap with some of our students. (If you're wondering why we were talking about rap, I am too...) Somehow we arrived at 50 Cent.

Let me stop for a second and clarify something: my students may be black, but they are the farthest thing from hood you've ever met. They haven't a clue what "hood" even means. They've heard of Soulja Boy, Brandy(...), 2pac, and 50 Cent, but they have no idea about the culture that comes with rap music.

Nevertheless, I uttered the phrase (in my best hood impression) "Fiddy! He's been shot fo' times!" (You can go ahead and judge me. I won't be offended.)

To which Ismail enthusiastically responded, "YES, Madam! He HAS been shot four times!"

Okay, it's not as funny when it's typed out in a blog post, but I'm STILL laughing. He was so proper in the way he said it!

I'm still getting used to Kenyan English. Example: Alicia is pointing out to Jonathan where he is in a picture she took:

Jonathan: "Yes, Madam! I am seeing!"

Not "I see"..."I am seeing." Love it.

The only problem with understanding Kenyan English is how quietly they speak it. Kenyans are SO soft-spoken, and then half of the time they try to convey what they want to say without using words and instead using facial expressions and hand gestures. Most of the times my students try to talk to me I have to respond with a "HUH?" "WHAT?" "Could you repeat that, please?"

But it's getting better. Slowly. (VERY slowly!) But slowly is better than not at all!

(On a complete side note, can you guess which famous action hero all of my students have heard of? That's right...Chuck Norris. Walker, Texas Ranger plays every Saturday afternoon here in Kenya!)

It's official...

I've gone national.

I *may* or may not have incredulously uttered the words, "Where did all these WHITE PEOPLE come from?" today.

I'm turning into a Rendille.

Today is a national holiday in Kenya - it's Moi Day. Moi was the second president of Kenya - he was actually a HUGE supporter of AIM missionaries, but that's a topic for a whole other post. Point is, each fall Tirrim Primary and Secondary schools hold a Culture Day on Moi Day. It's an opportunity for the kids to show off their Rendille culture to the community! (Which is all Rendille too, but that's beside the point...)

Over a THOUSAND people were there. Traditional Rendille who walked up to 20 kilometers to come watch their son or daughter perform. We saw traditional prayers, a wedding ceremony acted out by the Class 1 kids, several different tribal dances, and even a rap performed in Swahili!

Our kids at the Secondary School performed three Samburu dances - 3/4 of our class is Samburu and not Rendille. (The Samburu are cattle herders while the Rendille are camel herders, and because of this they get along as their animals graze at different levels - grass for cattle vs. eye-level for camels.)

I think I'm beginning to understand why my mom took so many pictures at all of my dance competitions and volleyball games growing up. Alicia and I were straight up OBNOXIOUS trying to get pictures of our students...we defined the term "Mamarazzi" that Kendall so lovingly coined. I've never been so proud of a group of people in my entire life. They were the highlight of the day!

Seriously. They are WARRIORS! I forget that sometime. In school, all I seem them as are students - teenagers who have fought through every hardship imaginable just to have a chance at a real secondary education. They inspire me in more ways than I could ever, ever express. But all the while I still forget sometimes that we are in Africa, that they are African, that they belong to a tribe, and that these tribes have their own distinctive, unique cultures.

Until today!

Needless to say, Alicia and I LOOOOOOVED Culture DAY :) I think we took, what...1000 pictures between the two of us? No big.

But back to the beginning of my post - there were twelve Dutch people at Culture Day today. TWELVE. All looked very out of place in their trousers -women don't wear trousers in Korr- and REI shirts. (They were guests of honor as they are building a Primary School in Ngurunit, a neighboring town.)

They tripled the wazungu population today in Korr.

It was as soon as I finished saying it that I realized I've grown more comfortable here than I thought. We are (slowly) learning the language; we have met and made friends with some of the women at church - both traditional and English-speaking. People are slowly less and less acting shocked to see a mzungu wandering through town at midday as we make our way home from school. I looked at the date today and realized we've been here over FIVE WEEKS! Time really has flown by.

Despite the cultural barriers and lack of comforts from home I took for granted, this place is really starting to feel like a home away from home.

Kenyan School of Thought

Picture a pick up truck. There's nothing special about it...a regular-sized pickup with a regular-sized bed.

Got that picture in your head?

How many people you figure you can fit comfortably in the bed of this imaginary pickup?

If you're like me, you said something around 8. Maybe 9 or 10, if they're good friends and don't mind snuggling and your destination is a short distance away.

Now if you're Kenyan, you'd say 20 without any hesitation in your voice.

I'm serious. Today at our staff meeting we were talking about a retreat the students are hoping to go on next weekend. (In Kenya, "retreat" means "get out of Korr, eat something, and then drive back.")

Only problem is, we're in the desert. Middle-of-nowhere, there-are-no-paved-roads-for-MILES, desert. So when we leave Korr, we have to go far. Ngurunit is a town about 45 kilometers away from Korr, and where the students want to go for this retreat.

Keep in mind we don't have school buses here - the Rendille don't even know what that is. Rendille walk. They walk EVERYWHERE. Alicia and I have already been made fun of by our students for this.

"Madam, you cannot run 5 kilometers?" (We had been talking about charity 5ks back in the States) They all snicker amongst themselves.

God bless Jonathan: "It's okay Madam. If you can run 5 kilometers, you can surely walk 10!" Even Kakume, our principal, had this nonchalant response when he heard there is a missionary family in Ngurunit that wants us to come visit except we have no means of transportation: "Just walk there!" (Oh, yeah....a 45 kilometer stroll through the harsh desert where lions have been known to roam. NBD.)

The Rendille are straight up crazy sometimes. Case in point: we have no cell phone towers in Korr...but if you're desperate to talk on the phone, fear not! There's a mountain near Korr that if you climb to the very top of it - over the boulder-sized lava rocks and past all the puff adders, scorpions, and cobras - you can get a cell phone signal. People walk to it "all the time," we've been told. "It's not far, Madam!" our students say.

This mountain is 17 kilometers away from Korr.

Would you walk 17 kilometers and taunt death (or severe injury) just to talk on the phone? Would you walk for an hour and forty minutes under the beating, harsh desert sun just to use your cell?

Heck. No.

Some of the Rendille do it regularly!

But I digress.

20 people in the back of a pickup. No problem! It was comical to think about for me....the differences in Kenyan and American rationalities. All I could think about: How unsafe is this? How could we even FIT 20 people in one pickup bed? It's not a paved road we'll be driving on...it's a bumpy desert road. What if people fall out? Ngurunit is at least an hour's drive away! What if something happens in between Korr and Ngurunit? Will the truck be able to handle the weight of 20 people who will surely be standing in the bed and not sitting?

Every Kenyan teacher: "Yeah. 20 is not a problem. There are 43 of us...so we only need two cars!" End. Of. Story.

TWO CARS FOR FORTY THREE PEOPLE.

One thing's for sure: I'm calling shotgun.

How Bore-ing

A lot of people have asked me about the drinking water situation here. No, we don’t have running water. I take a bucket bath every night and Alicia and I each have basins in our room that we use to wash our faces and brush our teeth. I promise it sounds worse than it is, but oh how I do miss running water sometimes!

We get our drinking water and everything-else water from boreholes. A borehole is a well that’s been drilled down way way deep into one of the dried riverbeds around here. The water comes from so far down that it’s perfectly safe to drink, but it has…a taste. It tastes like a mixture between salt and metal…mmm. Thank goodness for Crystal Light!

Life here revolves around the sun – it’s up by 6:30 AM and it sets by 7:00 PM. “Sleeping in” is 7:00 AM – by that point the sun is so bright you’re not going to get any more sleep anyway. It is DARK at night here – so dark that you can see all the stars in the sky. We can see the Milky Way! I don’t miss the city lights when I can see a sky like this one every single night. By “missionary midnight” every night (9:00 PM) we’re well on our ways to going to sleep.

But back to the title of the blog entry – we have these *lovely* bugs here that are carpenter bees…or the African version of a carpenter bee. They bore holes in wood. Guess what? All of the supporting beams in our little house are wood. These bees seem to think that our support beams are their home. Alicia and I strongly disagree.

It would be fine if these bugs weren’t so stinking loud. Every morning at 6:00 they come in our open windows and start buzzing around, trying to find a hole that we haven’t duct-taped over in our feeble effort to tell them they aren’t welcome. A single bee buzzing in my room will wake me from the deepest slumber – it’s like an African alarm clock but it leaves a mess behind. I’ve managed to kill quite a few of them (so THAT’S why I packed those other shoes!) but they STILL KEEP COMING BACK. You’d think they would get the message when all of their buddies quit buzzing around…nope. There are a few persistent ones that will be dead soon…that is a promise.

If you get a chance this week, say hello to flushing toilets, chocolate chips, fresh fruits & vegetables, pants & shorts, reliable power sources, and high speed internet for me J

Reflections

The internet here is a little bit finicky. Meaning, if you don’t hear from me for a while, assume that no news is good news.

Warning: This post is allllll over the place. A few reflections on my first week in Korr:

In the past week I’ve managed to rip BOTH dresses I brought and one of my three skirts. Meaning, my students are going to see a whole lot of this stylish black and white skirt I bought from Ross that looks like it jumped straight out of the early 1980’s.

The only shoes I’ve really worn are my Chaco’s - the desert is ruthless and rough and will rip most shoes to shreds rather quickly. The other ones work well for killing bugs in our room, though.

We have a lizard that lives in our cho (toilet…latrine…whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t flush because it’s a hole in the ground. BUT we do have a toilet seat!). I’ve named her Bertha Junior – mainly because thinking that the giant lizard peering up at me from inside the cho or from behind the stack of toilet paper is a female somehow makes it less terrifying. I stopped trying to name the cockroaches and spiders a long time ago…too many to count. By “terrifying,” I mean I have this huge fear that one of the aforementioned creatures will crawl on me why I am trying to use the restroom. Most of the time this results in me using Nick & Lynne’s cho instead of taking the chance of a cockroach or spider crawling up my leg.

Some more shuffling of subjects occurred and now I’m teaching Geography instead of Chemistry…don’t worry though. I’m still teaching Kenyan History. I tried to explain the irony of an American teaching Kenyan History to my class the other day (because I find it HILARIOUS – they know more about it than I do) and they just stared at me blankly. Apparently American irony does not translate well into Kenyan irony.

Tirrim Secondary School – AIC’s first secondary school in the north. BIG deal – there aren’t that many secondary schools for kids to go to up here – especially Christian ones. Tirrim just opened in January, and we only have Form 1 (9th-ish grade) this year; we are hoping to add Form 2 this January. We have 32 students in Form 1 – 29 guys and 3 girls. They range in age from 14-27. They are the EXACT opposite of American students. Attentive…polite…studious…and they have SUCH a desire to learn. But the combination of soft Kenyan accents and too many eager students trying to answer my questions at once results in me saying a lot of “HUH?” “I’m sorry…WHAT did you say?” and “Whoa. Uh…could you say that again slower?”

Like for example – today we were talking about what the students eat for breakfast in the morning. “Kahawa!” they proudly told me.
“I’m sorry…kaha-what?”
“Coffee, Madam!”
A few exchanges later I figured out that kahawa is coffee in Swahili.
“Oh! Yes, Kenyan coffee is good. I drink Kenyan coffee back in the States!”
“Yes, Madam. Here we drink coffee from (soft mumbling)-opia.”
“Um…what?”
“Utopia!” (or so I heard)
(Me, trying to think fast and make sense of what I think I just heard) “You drink…Utopian coffee?”
“NO, Madam. ETHIOPIA! We have coffee from Ethiopia.”
(Cue me trying SO hard not to laugh and feeling like a complete fool) “OH. Ethiopia. Well, that makes sense.”
“YES, Madam. They are so near!” (The Ethiopian border is just a few hour’s north of Korr.)

I also catch myself using intelligent phrases like “between a rock and a hard place” and “a rule of thumb to go by,” as well as using the word “y’all” about every three sentences. None of my students understand what I’m saying, but they’re way too polite to tell me that.

There’s SO much more…I’ll be posting again soon. But for now, know this: the Lord is moving mightily here in this small desert town, and I am so humbled to be here to play a part in it.