"Goodbye leaky Mud Hut, Hello Luxury Guest Hut!"

Yes, the above is true...today, we said our goodbyes to our humble little mud hut with its leaky roof and many bugs...we packed our bags and dragged them across the compound to a luxury guest hut that looks like a 5 star hotel room inside! its amazing!! we are obsessed! we slowly have worked our way up...after 5 living locations in kenya, we arrive in paradise, right along the river. So, no need for further pity for us in our accomodations...running water, shower, toilet, big giant bed, windows...its glorious!!

So, back to Saturday, after my last blog in eldoret...t'was in interesting day...first, we had a near death experience while driving...oh kenyan driving haha...but really, we should be dead. it was a miracle, an act of God...it's safe to say that God perfomed a move, much like the one Edward did to save Bella's life in Twilight...i cant go into a ton of detail right now but just know that we are safe and alive and still very terrified of kenyan driving!! So keep praying for us cuz we need it! eldoret was great...we got awesome chocolate milkshakes...comparable to in n out! did some grocery shopping, bout waaaayyy to much chocolate...i think you can live off of the stuff! they even have twix and snickers here!! my sanity after a long day! we dropped a wad of cash (like 4 bucks with the exchange rate) at a little bakery with yummy pastries...take the word "yummy" lightly...they dont do much sugar here in kenya so its all pretty bland but none the less, ill take a bland cinnamon roll over ugali any day! On our way home, it started to pour, typical of every afternoon and usually my favorite part of the day. One of our night-watchman Benjamin appeared out of nowhere and hopped in the car with us and then a little while later down the road, there was a random man standing on the side of the road waving his arms...so we pulled over, exchanged a few words with him and he hopped in the car too....turns out he is the camp speaker for the youth camp in kipkaren and was to be on in 30 mins...WHAT?! i dunno...that kinda stuff happens all the time in kenya, i am realizing. so 4 butts crammed in the back of the pajero (indiana jones style african safari jeep)...3 butts is rare and with 4, the lack of a seatbelt isnt too bad since ur all crammed together. The fun really started when we hit the 4 km dirt (now thick wet slippery deadly mud) road...again, i have about 6 pages written about this experience in my journal and wish i could spill it all on here but there isnt the time or space or bandwidth for that matter so ill save the details for when i get home but, we slipped and slidded our way down the road, zero traction, im hanging on for dear life, terrified, for the second time that day and all the sudden, we pick up some speed and spin out of control into a 360 (i thot the car was gunna flip!) and end up with our butt in the mud...no, not our flesh butts, but the butt of the pajero...somewhere around the 40 degree part of the spin, i let out a few "Oh Sh*t!!"'s, later regretting that, as the camp speaker was sitting right next to me, oops, my bad! couldn't help it. so somehow, William, (who would make an excellent Nascar driver!) threw the clutch around and managed to get us out of the ditch and back, slipping our way down the road...that man is a champion behind the wheel, let me tell you. i really wanted to kiss the muddy ground when we finally arrived at the village tho. Thanks to the skilled driving, we made it back just in time for dinner at the childrens home...(insert sarcasm here)...ugali and cabbage with cow parts mixed into it...i say cow parts cuz they use the WHOLE cow...the kids fight over the big bones so they can suck the bone marrow out of them...i get nauseated as i watch them stick there tongues in there and slurp it out...a delicacy?? that cant possibly taste good. come on now. but no, they didnt stop there...huge, dragonfly lookin bugs that they called termites (??) were flying around the gazebo...they were huge, had some serious girth to them...and the kids started grabbing them outa the air and eating them!! alive! looked delicious so i grabbed one too and chowed on down...WHAT?! absolutely not! ugh, so disgusting. im not judging, but really...i think they were just showing off cuz i had my camera out and was taking pics of the maddness. Back in our hut that night, debriefing our CRAZY day, we decided to push our beds together to make one huge king sized bed...looked like a fort with the mosquito nets over it. so we snuggled, ate some chocolate and went to sleep...

Sunday...im going day by day cuz thats how my journal is written and if i dont, i know i will forget something and i wouldnt want to deprive you all of any of the crazy details...so, sunday morning before church, alie and i sat out at our favorite location in kipkaren, this little gazebo right on the river, semi-secluded and absolutely gorgeous, and watched as 40 kids from the youth camp got baptized right there in the "willie wonka river" (it looks like a river of milk chocolate)...it was an awesome thing to witness. a huge crowd of people gathered around the riverside, as kid after kid, jumped in the water, proclaimed their faith in Jesus (some for the very first time) and got dunked in the water and brought back up again, a new person. i had chills watching it...i feel like that's alot what it looked like when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river. WOW. so, since the youth camp is going on, the community had 300 extra people in it and therefore we could not all fit in the church building...so, quick solution to the problem (thats the kenyan way), everyone just picked up their chairs and carried them down to the riverside and just set up camp there and had an amazing, 3 hour long church service under the trees...singing, dancing, peaching, dancing, singing, preaching, singing, dancing...you get the picture. it was awesome. can you imagine if that happened in so cal...too may people to fit in the auditorium so everyone just picks up their chairs and parks it outside?! oh, africa. Shoved down some more corn for lunch...it's coming out my ears...and, not to give you too much detail, but we all know how our stomachs deal with corn...ya, they kinda just dont. so its made for some interesting trips to the squattie. not fun. Enjoyed an amazing afternoon nap in our hut, lulled to sleep by the sound of a roaring thunderstorm outside...so peaceful...well, until our grass roof gave way and began to lead all over our beds...bummer. oh, africa. Got to open another card from Dad on sunday...i look forward to it every time! this one said "It's what we do in the here and now, that makes the difference in the then and there"...so encouraging and inspiring and just the perfect reminder to me right now, in this crazy place that God has me. Thanks Dad!! your the best! (ps...heard you rocked ur sermon on sunday...not surprising in the least...bummed i missed it! lookin forward to the podcast!) Sunday night...the all night youth camp revival worship hoopla...prasie the lord, "bwana asifiwe!" do ur thang really, but we had to shove in the ear plugs and concoct a little sleepytime recipe (tylenol pm, benadryl, melatonin...the works) in order to get some sleep. mud walls dont really keep out the sound, ya know?! they were still goin at it when my ear plugs fell out at 6am. they sure know how to praise the lord!!

Monday, oh monday. but in a good way! we got to go along with 2 of the social workers from "Tumaini Na Afia" (Hope and Health...a group here at ELI that works with AIDS patients in the area)...we went on several home visits with them which included abouta 7 mile round trip trek through mud, corn fields, pirhana infested rivers, cow pies, etc...it was hot and exhausting!! but so amazing and very worth it. we visited three different patients at their homes...their tiny little mud huts. we sat with them and listened to them tell us their stories, their struggles, their hopes for the future...we prayed with them and then moved on to the next. it was a powerful experience. All of the patience we saw were HIV positive and were being treated with ARV's which make living with the disease very possible. AIDS is now considered a chronic illness instead of a terminal disease, which is a huge improvement and brings SO much hope to these people and this nation! yay God. The last man we visited was the most memorable...we spent about an hour with him in his unique little hut...all the walls, from floor to ceiling, are covered with magazine cut outs...very cool. so we sat with him and listened to his amazing story (refer to alies blog for details cuz im running out of time here) and were so encouraged and inspired by this man who has so much hope and is working to bring that hope to others with the disease. A truely amazing person.

Ok, this is a random tid bit but i have to put it in here cuz its just crazy...so ive been chowing down on chocolate in bed every night b4 i go to sleep cuz im usually hungry from avoiding corn and ugali all day. so, like my mother says, chocolate makes you dream...well the woman is right!! i have been having the craziest dreams! so the most noteworthy of them all so far...mom and i were in bermuda (who knows why...)and we were trying to get home but all the airplanes were broken...so all the sudden, appears Jake from the bachelorette, ya the pilot, the very nice looking gentleman who we all adored on the show...well, in my dream, he fell in love with me (calm down davis, it was just a dream) on the tarmac and came to our rescue with his southwest airplane and flew us back to california...i know, nuts right?!?! so, needless to say, i have kept up my chocolate feast before bed, out of sheet curiousity of what my mind will come up with next...

Tuesday...back in the clinic...mama baby clinic...gave a ton of shots...i hate poking those poor babies with these huge needles and making them scream but im getting some great practice! The kenyans had a big goodbye service for the CA team which was really great...its amazing how the kenyans welcome and say goodbye to visitors...they are so genuine and sincere and loving and appreciative. americans could learn a thing or two from them about that. its wonderful. We all went over to the childrens home and played some soccer and frisbee with them...dang, those kids are amazing athletes! they can play a mean soccer game too! and they run around bare foot on their "field" (a huge dirt/rock flat area) and it doesnt even phase them!! man, my white feet would bleed if i did that! they are so tough! we got to eat dinner with the team, as it was their last night here...fried chicken, fried potatoes, fried kale (basically grass). so i felt like a fat lard after that meal, but again, ill take fried anything over ugali and cabbage!

Today, wednesday...back in the clinic, in the treatment room today, seeing all sorts of patients. it was a pretty busy day, with tons of malaria, typhoid, upper respiratory infections and even 2 emergency cases...one woman who came in with a full body rash and swelling like iv never seen before...like the guy in hitch except over her whole body! her eyes were even swollen shut...it was so intense. the poor lady...so since her face was swollen, we were seriously concerned that her throat would swell shut so we sent her off to the ER. the other emergency case was a woman that came in with extreme abdominal pain...after running some tests, we found that she was pregnant. so obviously pain is never a good sign...maybe ectopic pragnancy?? but she was showing the classic signs of appenidcitis in the right lower quadrant so we sent her off to the ER as well. Her husband was amazing and was taking such good care of her...he told us she was precious to him and that he would do anything to make sure she got the care she needed. it was sweet to watch. good man. we had some interesting visitors at the clinic today in our down time as well...one man, who has come several times, arrives everytime wearing the same t-shirt which just says, in huge bold letters, "F**K"...hmmmm...dont think he knows what it means. so we decided that we wana buy him a new shirt and just trade him and bring his f-word shirt back to america as a souvenir. haha...oh, africa. the other visitor was a local drunk who wandered up for a chat...you could smell the alcohol a mile away. he was drunker than a skunk! michelle told us that his swahili name translates to "Animal" in english...quite fitting for this classy human being. i think he spoke some decent english but he was slurring the heck out of it, i cudnt distinguish between the english and swahili...it didnt sound like either. we chatted with him for awhile and got a picture with him. he told alie and i that he was our father and that he would be back to visit us soon. then off he went, stumbling down the hill into the corn field. bless his heart:)

We just had American night at Michelle and William's house by the clinic...we had an awesome mexican dinner...burittos with home made tortillas and guacamole and pico de gallo and fresh grated cheese...oh it was glorious!! my tummy is soooo happy!! :) so now, we are off to hike back, under the stunning kenyan night sky of a billion stars, back to our luxury hut on the river. The time is starting to really fly by...we only have 11 days left here before we leave (with 1 more american night to go and a birtday dinner outting this coming weekend, that means we only have to eat ugali 8 more times!!!) I am really trying to soak up every last bit of the amazing place, these amazing people and or amazing God who has grabbed ahold of my heart in so many ways this month. I am still being challenged and stretched every single day but i am learning so so much and am seeing our God in such a different way. i cant wait to share this experience with all of you once i get home, in more than just scattered words on a blog. i know it will be hard to say goodbye to this place but i am so excited to come home and see you all!!! i miss you all so so so much! thank you for your continued prayers and great comments on my blog! its fun to know that you are reading them and enjoying them and are thinking of my, half way across the world! See you all soooooooon!!!

Love,
Somey

ps. HAPPY BIRTHDAY EM!! IT'S UR B-DAY IN KENYA IN 4 HOURS!! LOVE YOU SIS!!