You know you've been in Africa a while when you dream of cows and cry out to them in your sleep...

The above statement is actually true...verified by Alie. I would yell out "Cow!!" in my sleep. Ok, first, i must give a disclaimer about this blog...it is going to all over the place cuz its been an eventful few days and i have ALOT to say and you know me, i can't stand to leave anything out! So, bear with me and try to follow along!

I last left off on our last day in Illula...we had a great night of playing mexican train dominoes and eating chocolate and gummy worms:) On saturday, after a great breakfast of pancakes, we piled into a van and headed off to eldoret, before going on to kipkaren. In eldoret, we stopped at the kenyan version of a target to pick up a few things...more minutes for my kenyan cell phone, lots of chocolate and another journal since the one i brought is just about full...ya know, just the essentials. Back in kipkaren, alie and i settled into our new home in the "dormitory"...a small room with not one, not two but six beds! well, 3 bunkbeds. and a shelf and a light...a very simple, humble room but plenty to meet our needs. concrete floor, beds and a roof. were talkin kenyan 4star here. we have come to love it and have made it home with pictures up and the encouraging/funny cards dad sent with me...thanks for those dad...they really make my day! Due to the fact that we are staying in the dormitory, we have the delightful privledge of getting to use to squatty-potties and the "splash on, splash off" shower (a bucket of warm water and a cup gets the job done!) I have to say, there is an art to learning how to use the squatties...to be able to tense up your body so you can balance, while relaxing all the right muscles so you can...well, ill stop there and let your mind finish the rest but, needless to say, its been a challenge of which we have faced together. Sunday afternoon, we had some downtime to relax in our rooms which was nice, however, its in the quiet, restful moments that i have felt satan trying ceaselessly to tear me down and tell me i shouldn't be here etc...so i layed in bed for awhile and battled that...i prayed for a bit, that God would encourage me and make me brave and remind me that i am here for a great purpose and to surrender it all to Him...then, i reached into my backpack and pulled out the envelope full of all the letters and cards sent with me from everyone at home. I spent the next 45 minutes reading through each one of them, meditating on the wonderful encouragement and prayers and love...I felt so filled up and encouraged and loved and empowered. I quickly realized that that was one very fast answer to my prayer...yay God:) I know that God put it in all your hearts, exactly what He knew I would need to hear over here. I am so thankful for that and have been so blessed and encouraged by your words. Asante sana! (thank you SO much!)

Before dinner, Alie and i decided it was time to wash some clothes...long story short, we ended up turning all our undies blue cuz we apparently used WAY too much laundry soap...so domesticated we are. they are now hanging all over our room on the bunkbeds, trying to dry. Ugali, Ugali, Ugali...it's coming out my ears! I decided im gunna put a bunch in a ziplock back and bring it home so you can try it! That's been one of the biggest challenges, the food. I get through it tho and usually one of my lovely brothers or sisters will finish it for me. bless their hearts. I got out my stack of photos i had brought from home to show my kids...they were glued to them for the rest of the night, so fascinated by the ocean and the snow and "the man who would have to pay 8 cows, 6 goats and 10 chickens to have my hand in marriage"...yepp, thats you Davis. See, they dont have "boyfriends or girlfriends" in Kenya...so for it to make sense to them, I just tell them that you want to marry me and they all shout out how many cows you will have to pay...its lookin like ur gunna need to start a farm haha. They also say that mom is beautiful and looks way too young to be my mom...that em must be my twin, and dad...well, i cant say what they said about you cuz they exclaimed something in swahili??? Anyway, the cant get enough of the pictures, its great. Saturday night was movie night...all 96 kids in one hut with a tiny 12 inch tv....awesome! we watched Apocolypto in swahili...a bit too gory for me but it was a funny experience to try and follow along. On a side note, the stars here and incredible...as good or better than at Woodleaf! you can see the milkyway! im obsessed.

Sunday...my first experience with church in Kenya...wow. I wish i just had it all on film so i could show it to you and not struggle to try and describe it for you in words, cuz there are no words sufficient. The kids sang and danced like only crazy little African kids can do...then they started pulling us Americans (us and the christian assembly team that is here) up to the front to join in with their dancing and singing...Im white and cannot even begin to move like them...so Alie and i, along with the whole team, got up there and just looked absolutely pitiful shaking around like idiots. They had us doing their craziest moves...at one point they had us down on our knees and were like lunging towards the ground and then back up again in this crazy swaying motion...and it didnt stop there, oh no...then we got back up on our feet again and they started to do this exotic full body shimmy!!! Ok, I dont know a whole lot about church ettiquite (yes, its likely spelled wrong) but i am for sure that shimmying in church should never be allowed...EVER. especially not in Africa, in a skirt, in front of a crowd of foreign kenyans. Boy was i glad when that was over!! I was mortified. Alie and i got a good laugh, discussing what it would be like if such a scene occured in an american church haha. Church was short on sunday (about 3 hours) cuz there was a burial service for a local man. After lunch we walked about a mile to go attend the burial service. I was curious to see it cuz Dad had told me that this was one of the most interesting, powerful things he witnessed while he was here in kipkaren. it was quite a cultural experience...women grieve quite differently here...they wail, loudly, and kinda sway around and usually fall to the ground and assume a catatonic, paralyzed state where they stay for a good while and no one seems to mind. At one point, a huge long time formed in which everyone present was to pass by and view the body in the casket...it was a very somber experience and i felt out of place but we were very welcomed and were told that our presence there ment alot to the family. Later that afternoon, a massive thunderstorm rolled in and Alie and I made it to the children's home, just before the clouds let loose their fury! it rained down hard for about an hour. so awesome. It was beautiful...for two reasons...1, because coming from socal, seeing rain is like seeing an eclipse...few and far between and usually only lasts a few minutes. and 2, because Kenya is experiencing a huge drought right now and so the crops are failing and they are predicting huge amounts of starvation in the coming months due to that. Devotions every night has been nuts...the kids sing and dance some more...ive been videoing little bits of it so you can see cuz like i said, words cannot describe it. its amazing. they are gifted. Back in the room, after making our nightly stop at the squatty (takes team work in the dark with a flast light) we layed in bed and let sarcasm and synicism take the edge off of a long day. We laughed really hard about alot of stuff...we thought seriously about moving the bunkbeds to arrange them into one huge kind size bunkbed, but we quickly realized they are bolted together. darn. We layed in bed for awhile chatting about life...the last thing i heard alie say before i fell asleep was, "Burn in hell misquito nets!!" bahahahaha!

Monday was a long day at the clinic...we are in the middle of inventory/organization 2009...its a HUGE job but its coming along great!! We counted pills all day...hours and hours worth! every color and size and shape...at the end of the day, we totaled up the whole spreadsheet to find we had counted a total of 60,120 pills! To make things interesting, id change it up and count by 2s or 3s or 5s or 25s or see how fast i could go...thers not a whole lot you can do to add excitement to pill counting. We were rewarded at the end of the day with another fabulous thunder storm...love it!! Then, to make the day even better, we were invited by the CA team to have dinner with them at the training center...um, YES please!! i mean, passing up the ugali was tough but man, the chibatti (best homemade tortilla youve ever had!) and guac and mango we had was incredible!! between the two of us, i think alie and i ate like 10 of them! so great! we got to debrief with them about the day and then enjoyed a time of worship with the guitar and some great songs. so uplifting and encouraging to worship God in the midst of a place where He is oh so present. One of the most powerful worship times ive ever experienced. I had no idea how hungry i was to just sit in the presence of God and praise Him for how amaing He is. Wow. Then it was off to our nightly squat before heading into bed. we layed in bed, discussing the books we are reading (captivating and wild at heart)...we decided that men are like dogs...you just gota feed them, pet them, walk them and give them an occasional treat and theyre happy...right?!

Today, tuesday, was another long but wonderfully fulfilling day at the clinic. In the morning we tied up the loose ends of the inventory and organizing etc...then, mama baby clinic began and we saw a series of patients...pregnant moms and babies. We met with one patient, a young girl who is due the 25th! so exciting...we are SO hoping to be able to be there for her delivery!! We got to feel the baby move and got to hear its heart beat with the fetal doppler. amazing. Then, the most noteworthy case of the day...a young boy who had a horrible rotten molar that had to be extracted...ya, yanked out!! its a long story...it was hard to watch. the dentist (who is also the optometrist!!) injected the kid with some serious lidocaine, like 4 vials worth and, unlike in america where we get one painful injection, the doc poked around in his mouth like 12 different spots! ooowwwhhhhhh!! the doc was really going to town with the lidocaine, numbing the heck outa the poor kid...well, we soon found out why he was numbing the heck outa the kid...first he used a scalpul to pry the gums away from the necrotic tooth while blood pooled in his mouth. All of this was taking place in a ricketty old chair, as the doc stood over him, using only the light from the window to see. The doc then grabbed a huge pair of scary tooth-taker-outer pliars and grabbed onto the tooth, as he grabbed the kids head, holding it tight as he braced his body against the wall...now he began to yank, i mean really YANK with enough force to pull a freight train! his arm muscles were shaking as he continued to pull with all his might!! i was just cringing...after what seemed like 15 minutes of gnarly pulling, we heard a loud crack/pop as the tooth finally gave in and came out. it was HUGE!! and gross!! icky! by the end of it, my palms were sweaty, i was biting a hole in my lip and im sure my face had gone pale. i can do a lot of gore and blood but when it comes to teeth, im weak! so the doc jabbed one more needle full of lidocaine into the fresh crater where the tooth had been and then stuffed it full of gauze and sent them away with some ibuprofen for later...i can garuntee thats not gunna be enough! poor kid. he's gunna have to liquify his ugali for the next week.

Tonight is American night so we are at Michelle's house, eating an american dinner (lasagna, garlic bread and even chocolate chip cookies!!)...and getting to use the internet to blog! yay:) 2 nights in a row of missing out on ugali...bummer. This has been one crazy, out of control, LONG blog, but if you made it this far, you have a good image of what life is like right now in Kipkaren, Kenya. A crazy adventure!! Thank you all so much for your continued love and prayers, as they are needed and so felt. All my love to each one of you!! Tl next time...

Love,
Somerlyn