Christmas In January?

How could I have forgotten to tell you about the wonderful job by Rachel and the kids and parents at Max's former daycare The Clifton School in Atlanta. Before Christmas the class got together at Rachel’s request to donate toys to the YGC orphanage here in Kisumu. They sent several large boxes of toys! Unfortunately the boxes didn’t arrive until mid January but they DID arrive! And the kids were very happy! Toys are amazingly expensive here and of really poor quality too.

Also our friend Tracy, who lives in Brooklyn, did a neighborhood toy collection and shipped us 7 huge boxes of toys for the orphanage. Hoping they would arrive before Christmas too they arrived just after we gave out the first batch of toys. We thought we’d spread it out a little so we’ll wait a couple months to deliver those toys.




Currently at the orphanage they are completing a new primary school, thanks to donations by Solice International. Now we just have to fill it with needed equipment (chalk boards, erasers, chalk, pencils, paper, etc.). They are going to build their own desks; we just need funds for materials. Rachel and I are talking about getting the whole Clifton School involved; fund raising, pen pals, etc! That would be exciting!

Is It Hot In Here Or Just Me?

Ok, I hope we are all on the same page now about this global warming thing. There may be debate still about what's causing it but it surely is happening. Time to buy waterfront property in Atlanta? Hmmmm.

Kenya has two rainy seasons. The second one ends usually around end of October....it's still raining...everyday...down pours in the afternoon. Because of the El Nino they say it will rain all the way to the next rainy season in April. It's been keeping the temp down, which is probably the only good thing. The photo on the left is not pasture land, you are looking out over Lake Victoria. As far as the eye can see the lake is covered with Water Hyacinth. Some knuckle head from Europe, about 50 years ago, decided Water Hyacinth would be a nice thing to introduce in the lake. Now it's a total menace and during rainy seasons it becomes this monster blowing around the lake; killing fish and clogging the municipal water (our water is off for days at a time) supplies. And this rainy season is THE worst.

The rain has been destroying infrastructure, roads are crumbling, people being flooding out of their homes, harvests are delayed or destroyed. Diseases are on the rise. Malaria is on the rise and there is a new out break of something called Rift Valley Fever which is no fun. It turns out to be a big deal, CDC and DOD are sending teams here to monitor it's progress.

Ya Gotta Keep Ya Sense Of Humah

<"I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place."
-Steven Wright

So the day before Kayla was to travel to the UK for a week long conference we drove over to the dry cleaners to pick up her winter business wardrobe. And as Mr Rogers used to say " can you say 'it's been burnt to the ground' boys and girls?" Yes, a total loss. Six outfits gone. We are to fill out some forms, they say to get insurance money. MAYBE we'll see the money by the time we are to leave Kenya (5 years).

"Oh 99 bottles of beer on the wall..."

After a VERY long time in transit my beer kit has finally arrived. Don't let the name fool ya www.lesure-time.com is NOT the place to order beer making supplies, there are plenty others to choose from. They didn't have their act together at all. Now I just need to learn how to actually make beer...

There are only a couple of brands of beer available here. The main local brew being Tusker. It's sort of a cross between Budweiser and a gym sock. After a year of this I couldn't take it any longer. Neither could some other folks here, there is now a big movement towards home brew. At least 3 other expats are brewing. I forgot what good beer tasted like until I go over to one of their houses.


I'll keep you informed, we've decided to have a beer festival.

Phone Photos

I get a lot of help at the grocery these days...

We all got immunized at the embassy in Nairobi recently. It took Esther two weeks before she would consider taking this bandage off.

Help with the dishes

Spellcheck please!

Sexy Sandy

Our dog Sandy is in heat. Yup, ready to go! I suppose we’ll get her ‘fixed’ someday but we thought ‘ah, why not let her have one go at it before we do the fixin’. And the kids might enjoy the puppies, etc. so the guy who has been training her, Yobesh, knows just about everybody in our neighborhood and knew of a dog we could breed her with. He and I went over to their compound around noon the other day. Sandy chased and played with this poor fellow for two hours before she would let him try anything and by that time he was too worn out! He could barely stand up.

After a few hours break we took her to another house. They have two large German Shepherds. Sandy seemed to enjoy herself here so I left her overnight. After picking her up the next evening she mostly slept for the next two days. Guess she had fun.

One other observation, though: The owner of the house we took Sandy to happens to be an Asian (Indian)-- not unusual here, on the contrary there are lots of Asians in Kenya. The British brought them during the colonial period to do technical-type jobs, accounting, engineering, etc. and when the Brits left they left them in charge of many of the businesses here. Over time, as things developed, the Asian population became very successful but also created a closed society where all the money mostly circulated amongst other Asians, sort of a cartel, somewhat like a mafia. And we’ve heard stories about how they generally treat black Kenyans very badly. Now of course I don’t think all Asians are racists but I have heard these stories. So when we arrived at this guy’s house he offered both Yobesh (a black Kenyan) and myself some coffee. We both accepted but when it came time to go into his house to have coffee, the owner said something to Yobesh in Swahili which I didn’t understand and only the owner and I went into the house. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. I couldn’t believe it really.

And again next day when I picked up Sandy, their gardener at that house spoke to me in private to ask if I could find him another job, sighting he has to work 11 hours a day 7 days a week and for very little money. Unfortunately these scenarios are very common here. I spoke to Yobesh that next day about it, he confirmed the racist attitudes among many of the Asians, black Kenyas put up with it because the Asians are the ones with the jobs and they have a lot of the money and there are no government mechanisms to curb this behavior (what little available government help there is can be crushed with enough bribes).

Anyway now we wait for puppies...maybe.