My corporate philosophy in America was “Always follow a schmuck.” I figured if I followed a loser, I could be mediocre and still look good by comparison. I didn’t do that in my last job, and it was embarrassing. My boss was a genius tech who by some amazing accident was also cool, and I was a dwarf by comparison.

The same thing has happened to me here. The director of finance is a force of nature, and he went back to the states for his daughter’s wedding. Besides being an ace programmer and having twenty years of IT experience, he’s finds problems no one else notices and fixes them. Definitely not the guy you want to follow.

Fortunately, his second in command does everything, so I am suppose to be the figurehead for four months so people will appreciate him LOTS more when he returns. I didn’t think I would do anything but attend a few meetings.

Then our bank got bought out.

We went to Nairobi to meet the new bank. We had called several times to make an appointment with our representative, and he was never available. They finally told us to just come in and he would see us.

When we pulled into the parking lot, guards with mirrors on large poles looked under our car to make sure we didn’t have a bomb underneath. We went into the bank and were informed that our representative had been out of town for ten days, and wouldn’t be back for another week. It’s part of the Kenyan culture; it’s best not to be direct. They directed us to a waiting room and told us someone would be by in a moment to help us.

After five minutes, I asked my friend how long he thought we would wait. He said five minutes. I told him “A Coke says 45 minutes.”

45 minutes later, there was still no one to see us. I went into the lobby and said, “We were one of the largest depositors in the other bank; might someone want to see us?” Moments later, we had lots of company. The new checkbook was still not ready, and everything that was promised to be grandfathered from the previous bank wasn’t, so we have some work to do.

We still don’t have a car here, and what happened to a friend of mine here illustrates the issues of buying a car. Cars are so expensive here, the “roads” are so hard on them, and so few Kenyans can afford them, that it is fairly common for people to buy 15 year old cars for fairly substantial amounts.

My friend bought a car from a dealer, and was in town when a police officer told her that the registration was incorrect and that he would need to impound the car. She called the dealer and he showed up with the papers, but they were the wrong ones.

The officer still wanted to impound the car, so she said to the officer, “Tell the dealer to give me his keys to his car.” The officer said, “Give her your keys.”

She left with the dealer’s car, and it took the dealer three weeks to resolve the issue. They finally got their car back yesterday, but it illustrates the creative mind it takes to play the game here.

We got the twins on December 23. Before that, we had to meet with a social worker. She is responsible for hundreds of adoptions, and she had missed several appointments with us. We finally realized that she didn’t own a car, and she couldn’t find transportation. We had guessed a lot of reasons for the missed meetings, but we didn’t think that the head social worker for Kenya wouldn’t have a car.

We’ve found out that the twins were abandoned by their mother, and that the tradition of their tribe is to leave the children out for the wild animals to devour them. We thank God that their grandfather took them to the orphanage; when it is time to tell them the hard truth, we will be able to say that it was a family member that saved them.

The night before we got them was so full of anxiety:  Were we doing the right thing? Would it hurt JT and Matthew? Could we really do diapers and late nights at this age?

Once we got to the home and held them, all those fears went away. Until the first night and the first diaper. When you haven’t been woken up by an infant in years, it is disorienting and jarring. The first few days were nerve racking. It took me several diapers to get back in the swing of things, and I violated the golden rule of diapers:  assume every gun is loaded.

But after two days, they started to settle into a routine. We ended up keeping the name Ben instead of Casey; he is a big old bear of a kid, and Ben just suited him much better. There were 65 infants at their orphanage; once they figured out that they wouldn’t have to wait in line to be fed, they seem to be settling down.

Several old friends wondered if my new son would be ignored because I had a daughter. Frankly, I had the same thoughts at first. But Ben is the sweetest guy in the world; he’s someone you can’t help but want to hold and be with. Katie is a little flower, and of course there is no prejudice when I say that she is the most beautiful girl in the world. She also makes a noise similar to Chewbacca, and that is when she is happy.

JT and Matthew are doing great with them, and the twins love their older brothers. Christmas was a sweet time. I don’t think I could get away with giving a can of Dr. Pepper to JT as anything but a gag gift in the states, but it was a thrill for him here.

Nan’s sister sent Matthew one of those electric balls that you can touch and little lightening bolts meet your finger. He has wanted one of those for years, and he was thrilled as he could be.

He was moving it the next day, and he dropped it and it broke. You always hate it for your kids when they break something they cherished, but it was hard on us also. You just can’t hop in your car and buy a new one. It was just a hard lesson for him, and Kenya is full of hard lessons. We needed beds for the twins, and you just don’t buy a bed. It’s a process, and not always an easy or convenient one. They have to be made, and that usually means more time than you want.

All that being said, it would be hard to imagine a nicer holiday. The other night, Katie got up and started crying, and after I changed her diaper and fed her, I sat on the coach and let her fall asleep on me.

It just felt so right.

Steve