Christmas wasn't necessarily "holly jolly" but rather more hurry, scurry, no family time, no glitter and gifts. Knowing we should focus on the true meaning of Christmas but missing the traditions and beauties of snow and family time and everything that normally goes with the holiday season gave us the "blues" a little. There was church in the morning so that meant trying to be out the door soon after 8AM. We grabbed some lunch at Java House on the way home.
Earlier in the week we did take time to do some
Christmas cookies.Kenyan eating habits: When you are fed. Eat. eat. EAT. The one place we went to visit, the served us dry bread, rice, and chai. Dean Miller who was along served us the first round and he gave me an appropriate small amount of rice. The host came back in the room and fussed at how little we ate. I allowed myself seconds of rice and the host proceeded to heap on thirds. We were eating plenty in my opinion but he seemed almost offended, wondering if we ate before coming so we wouldn't have to eat his food. "you should want to be fat!!" we are told. Being fat, I guess, is suppose to be a sign of prosperity.And I am amazed over and over how these skinny people tuck away huge amounts of food. Often after Bible Study the hostess will serve a hot drink and something to eat and usually a normal serving is maybe 2-3 cups..be it rice, or whatever. I had some native sisters cut up chicken for me the native way. It was returned cubed with gristle and bone included. I used it and tried to make it the native way when we had a family from church over. The next time we had church people over I cut the chicken up myself but did my best to skip the gristle and bone. Now there is one fellow from church who seems to be a petty picky eater. He wondered why we took the bone out? What do we do with it? The bone is the best part. He declared. The next time he ate here, Jacob grilled chicken. Chicken is supposed to be special to the natives but I don't think he even tasted it. I was a bit annoyed at him but then realized I am no better. I've been guilty of not eating their chicken either. Tho the flavor was good it just looked too tough to even try biting into. So I guess we need to just be gracious with each other.
Sometimes we are given things after church. I'm not sure if these are always gifts or if they are to be part of the offering. We've been given bananas, live chicken, jackfruit. etc. The jackfruit...are huge. smell terrible.( At first I thought it was someone's awful smelling feet). have white "glue" in them which is EXTREMELY hard to clean off of things. And I jokingly told my husband he is never allowed to bring one in the house again. The fruit itself isn't that bad tasting and we probably didn't know how to do it up. The gate-men are often the happy recipients of these gifts.
Hannah is presently more interested in learning Dutch than Luo. Most of her friends here talk Dutch with their families. My Luo learning hasn't really been happening except what I hear frequently. One dear old woman from church who can basically speak no English was so happy when I finally got a reply to her correct. She delightedly patted my cheek.
Pregnancy isn't something really to be discussed it seems. Tho some seem more open about it than others. At Bible study this week, Jacob requested prayer for me as time for baby's arrival nears. I don't think that was really proper. Later one of the women asked me why I don't stay home and only come to church on Sundays. I didn't tell her that Sundays which consist of all the children along, backless benches, and being gone approx. 5 1/2 hours are more tiring than Bible studies which consist of often just taking one or 2 children along, maybe being gone 4 1/2 hrs, and having slightly more comfortable seats (if in someone's home). The next day I was doing some visitation with Jacob and someone once more admonished me to stay home. I figure I'll stay home more when baby does arrive and I may as well get out while I can.
I took these pictures yesterday while out n about. Jacob needed to verify something at a school for one of the church members. These children were delighted when Joey rolled the window down and waved to them. Later, waiting somewhere again, Joey took this position and told me, "Mommy this is comf-able!"
Today the children had a rather unusual school day. Just for something different, the are having school from like 2:30- 8:30 with supper at someone's house. (Usually they come home for lunch.Maybe I can persuade Jake to take the rest of us out for supper. It feels too hot to even be in the kitchen today) This morning I went for hopefully the last check-up before baby comes. Yes, I've done some extra cleaning, have some meals in the freezer, baby stuff washed, and feeling QUITE ready for the big event. The next picture is of my doctor. It's not unusual for her to sing or hum while she works at her desk.
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| All the preschoolers except Mahlon, lounging outside our gate. The following is copied from an email from one of the others in the compound : So we scheduled to meet with the bride and groom of tomorrows legalization at Ahero tomorrow, Tobias Odongo and his non-member bride, Emma. We wanted to go over some procedural things for the service and also just some last minute marital things. Got a call around 11:00 this morning that Emma gave birth to a son this morning at 9:00 but we can still go ahead with meeting them to see what the plans for the wedding are going to end up being. So I go out, pick both Tobias' and several others and we head for the market to find Emma's mother. From there we went to the hospital to see what the bride thinks of the wedding. She wants to go ahead and so the brothers worked with the hospital to have Emma discharged tomorrow for the wedding. We plan to go to the hospital to pick the bride and go directly from there to the church for the wedding followed by a Bible study/reception at Tobias Odongo's home. Imagine! Eric got a good laugh out of today's new mother being tomorrows bride. Let's hope she does not faint.........So..... that's what they did. New baby right up there with the bridal couple and to make matters worse the baby isn't even the groom's. Something about the groom is older and finally his parents found this girl and just moved her right in. He was very against it and after awhile she left only to return again a week or so later. As I understand it, when the ministry met to try to help solve the problem, the groom suddenly decided, whatever, he wants to marry her after all. Tho not married before, she now has three children but that doesn't seem to be a big deal. In fact some men prefer that their woman has a child before marrying them so they know she is capable of such. Can you imagine? |
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