It's been a while...

Yes, I know, it’ been a while. I have been thinking that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, like my mama told me, I shouldn’t say anyting. But, really, that is not what this blog was suppose to be about. This was originally fashioned to keep a dairy for our kids so they will have some sense of what was going on through these years in Africa. I have sort of lost site of that. I really should be writing about the good AND the bad (and the ugly?). so I have been trying to spare my readers my moaning and groaning about lifeand forgetting that this is something I need to document. So, sorry folks but I am back on the blog to bitch.

There is a lot to catch you up on so I’ll do my best to bring you up to speed.

The real kicker for me has been a one two punch of physical ailments for the past year. Literally a year ago some strange illness began which is only now beginning to subside. After numberous tests, which included flying back to the US for test they have determined that I contracted some sort of mystery virus that effected my liver and presented with irritable bowel symptoms. A little Metamucil and a lot of rest seems to be able to control it, but not eliminate it….yet.

At the same time, during our home leave last year I had a Lipoma removed from my arm which left that hand partially paralyzed for four months! The worst was just not knowing if/when I would ever get my right hand back. Of course I did but that’s not the point, the point is that I have really really not felt well at all for quite some time. And as I have had very little go wrong with my body up til now for my whole life I have not been an easy person to be around.

How much of these physical problems have been influencing my ambivalence about remaining in Kenya I don’t know. Probably at least some influence. but I am ready to leave. My wife is not, but that is another story. Actually the truth is TODAY I am ready to leave, tomorrow I might feel differently, I vacillate constantly; drives me nuts. I am exhausted by what I used to think was quaint and don’t have patience anymore for being misunderstood. I believe in justice and fare play and the corruption as a way of life here is what is probably really giving me my irritable bowel symptoms. Tired of being seen as the only hope for people who have no chance in hell for a better life except through my intervention. It’s all just too much for me. And I have almost become virtually too terrified to step out my compound for fear that some medical emergency will occur and one of my family or me will have to be sent to the local hospital where chimpanzees would probably do a better job of taking care of me than the local doctors.

The expat community in Kisumu is very small and close knit. So when someone leaves, as is inevitable, it makes a big impact. I have done far worse at this then anticipated. I really get depressed when someone leaves. By the end of this year nobody will be left of the original group that was here when we arrived three years ago. The kid population is steadily dropping too. Right now Max has only one American friend here. We would love to have more Kenyan friends but because of economic differences it’s not so easy.

So let’s say we did leave. But wait. This is not really the best time to be restarting a life in the west, right? I hear everyday, almost, how one of my friends has been laid off or just how difficult things are right now. So it’s better for us to wait it out here for the next two years, if we can handle it…..

I am bored of the Masaai Mara (I can’t believe I’m saying this but it’s true) and camping and driving on shit roads.I have taken all the photos I want to take here, I’ve been ‘taken‘ by all the Kenyan’s I care to as well.

I have always been a person who felt I required a change of venue every few years anyway. These feeling are nothing new actually so some of this is just my cycle.

Let’s hope I wake up in a better mood tomorrow………