I LOVE Kenya!

I LOVE Kenya! Everything about this place has in some way drawn me in. I love the tress...they are so much cooler than the ones in Nebraska. I love the annoying sounds of all the different birds that wake me up each morning...I really do! I love how nobody here swats bugs away...I wish I didn't care. I love how there are so few cars around...they drive mostly bikes (bodas) and motorcycle things (piki's). I love that the children run around on hard, sharp rocks with no shoes on...I remember being a kid and running around on gravel barefoot. I DON'T love the food (yet) but I DO love how they eat and why they eat what they eat. I love the people, especially those that I have been able to have one-on-one conversations with...they are so welcoming and so excited that I will be here for a whole month. I love that a large grocery sack full of fresh fruit costs me hardly anything. I love the way that Kenyans shake hands alllll the time...over and over and over again...coming or going...over here of over there...they.shake.hands.  I love that there are herds of cattle just randomly roaming down the road...with no owner in sight. I LOVE Kenya! Is it obvious? And those are just a few of the many many reasons why.

another reason...tiny little coke stands with picket fences : )

the random cows

 

On Monday, Julie and I went to the market. It was so cool! It was just a very large tent with lots and lots of Kenyan women selling their fresh fruits and veggies, beans, fish (they may or may not be so fresh : ), etc.  We walked around and bought lots of delicious food for SO cheap. You will never guess how much money we paid for all of these fruits and veggies…

 

Yup, I knew you’d never guess.  Approximately (because it is hard to convert from shillings to dollars) FIVE U.S. dollars. Seriously. Who would ever think you could get a bunch of bananas, 4 avocados, 3 big cucumbers, a clump of cilantro, 3 green peppers, a whole pineapple, 2 mangoes, a papaya, a whole bag of passion fruit, and a clump of sukuma.  ALL for five dollars and I ain’t even kiddin ya! I know, I was just as surprised! It was so fun to just walk around and talk to the women selling their foods.  When it comes to food, things are so opposite here than they are in the states. That much fruit in the U.S. would have cost me a very pretty penny. And here in Kisumu, you can buy Frosties (which is basically our version of Frosted Flakes) for about 5 dollars. So, take your pick…a basket full of fruit and vegetables or one box of frosted flakes.

Love the rain...big time down pour

 

I have spent the past few days at ROCK just hanging out and getting to know the kids better. Talk about simplicity. These kids are the happiest when they are playing with nuts off of a tree or a wire toy that they push around! They don’t need electric Barbie cars or stretch arm strong (or whatever you call that guy) to keep them happy and occupied. Sometimes the kids in Kisumu will take a bike tire and push it around with a stick with the biggest smiles on their faces! They are so joyful, yet they have so much less than the majority of children that I know around home.  Also, when they get hurt (which I am still trying to figure out if they even CAN get hurt) they just get up and go about what they were doing. One of the kids was riding a bike at very high speeds and just absolutely biffed it. He basically went flying over the handle bars and skidded on his front side right onto the pavement. Of course I let out the biggest gasp, I jumped to my feet, and about had a heart attack. What does he do? He just looks up at me with these cute little eyes, gives me a grin, and gets back on his bike like nothing ever happened. And all the other adults just sit there as well because they learned that there is no reason to react. Which in turn may be the reason why these kids don’t erupt in tears in the first place. Again…very different here.

So happy to have built such a tall lego tower!

One more reason: because you can plant pineapples (which you can see in the ground) right next to corn! Ha, makes me laugh.

 

While being in Kenya has made me strangely envious of their way of life, it has also opened my eyes to how completely blessed I am. Every direction that I turn, I see something that makes me realize how much I have to be thankful for. I do not know how many times I have had a child come up to me and ask if I still have my parents. I don’t know how many times I have been asked that already but each time breaks my heart more and more. Honestly, when they ask me that, I want to lie to them. I want to tell them that I lost my parents long ago to disease, or that my mom left me when I was very little, or that my parents just didn’t have the means to keep me so they dropped me off at an orphanage. I want to say that to them because that is the stories that they have to tell. When they ask me this, I feel strangely guilty that I have 2 parents who will always love me and support me. I know that “guilt” may not be the right emotion to have, but that is really how I feel.  However, when I tell them that yes, I do still have my parents, they look at me with a big big smile and say to me “Ahh, I am so happy for you. You are so blessed.”  <--- that is mostly why I love Kenya.