Matthew turned 8 on Monday! The first member of the Peifer family to celebrate a birthday in Africa! We would like to thank the dozens of friends, some of which we have never met, who sent cards and stickers to him. Nan and I will never forget it, and Matthew reveled in it. Five nationalities were represented at his party, and whites were definitely outnumbered, and that is such a wonderful feeling to see your sons have friends that are outside their usual realm. He got an authentic African drum, a huge carving of a lion, baseball cards, and a watch.

A watch is such a freeing thing to an eight-year-old. Freedom: he can go off and just look at his wrist when it is time to go home. He can also spontaneously inform: “Dad, did you know it is 2:37?” I get told the time many, many times a day now.

I am having an interesting combination of tasks to perform here. My primary task is to help implement new accounting software in the business office. This is challenging because:

• Frequent power outages, including a planned one every morning M-F until 12 because of the drought.

• Because we have no Internet access and phoning is so expensive, we have no technical support we can easily access.

• My limitations. At Oracle, I helped hired contractors who did the work. That has somehow qualified me to be a point person on this implementation. It is akin to being asked to repair televisions because you have watched one. But I am having a ball, really learning Blackbaud, and I am sure I will be much more sympathetic to all consultants when I return to the States. Incidentally, our old software is not Y2k compatible, so there is some time pressure. But is is fun!

My second task is to teach driving. This is interesting because:

1. I cannot drive in Kenya for three months.
2. They drive on the left, which I have never intentionally done.
3. I am teaching from a textbook from the University of Nebraska that is so bad that we have Academy Award Nominations for most stupid thing in each chapter. A recent gem: `When leaving the car, lock all doors but the door you will exit the car from. Lock that door AFTER you exit the car.’ I am not making this up. But I am loving my class, and the variety of students in it is just amazing. I am also learning the interesting teen slang: A prize to the first person that can tell me what “Arrive me mums” means.

My third task is running the computer lab for the 1st through 6th grade. It is all Macs, and my history with Macs is interesting. In the 80’s, I sold computer hardware. My company sold both IBM and Macs, but I had never sold a Mac. They announced a big sales contest, with extra commissions and big prizes for every Mac we sold. That month I sold more Macs than anyone in the company did, and sold so many I got to be on a conference call with Steve Jobs who managed to mispronounce my name in such a way my mother would have not recognized it. Then the contest ended, and I never sold another Mac. This has qualified me to run a computer lab.

JT has become a consumer of flying termites, and he informs me that:

1. You should always remove the wings before dining.
2. Roasted is better than raw.

We have trusted the accuracy of this report without independent verification.

I haven’t mentioned another important part of our job. When I was at Oracle, I hired dozens of people and had some brutal negotiations involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. It did not prepare me for CHOW BOX. After school, we unlock the chow box and each guy can pick out a treat that he brought for the semester. I remember someone who was getting 150 dollars an hour who screamed how unjust I was because he was not being paid 200 dollars an hour, but it did not compare to a 10 year old pleading `I have had a sweet and some nuts, but I’ve had no chips!!! I need crunch!!” When I said I thought that was enough and that dinner was in 2 hours, he cried “Just TWO chips! Please! I NEED CRUNCH”

Finally, STAFF HUNT. I confess that I had some trepidation when I got the notice that there would be a staff hunt. Would that be another African ritual with horrible implications? Actually, you just hide and the younger kids try to hide you. But the staff takes it seriously. The head of the math department here also runs our network, has masters in math from Penn State, and enjoys the fun of discrete mathematics. He is one of the brightest people I have ever known; he comes up to me and says “Your wood pile is two small!!” He was going to move the entire woodpile; put an area he could crouch in, and then put the entire woodpile back. My plan to hide behind a tree began seeming week.

I found a great place, and announced to all 200 kids: `You will not find me!!!’ That was the first mistake. The second was my plan: I had dug under the doghouse, and would be like the guy on Hogan’s Hero.

Right before I got there, one of the dogs peed all over my place, which might have been a blessing because I was later told that was a place where snakes like to be. Anyway, I got caught, and the taunts of the young ones saying `You said no one would find you and we did’ still ring in my ears.

YOP

Steve