Hello again.

We have now been here for over 2 weeks and we are no longer the greenest missionaries here. 5 new missionaries came this week! Two of them we met at Orientation School in NY so it was like meeting family to see them. We are actually telling them where some things are!

It was a wonderfully full week. But I did begin to feel some of the stress of transition. I still love it here, but with the advent of cooking 3 meals a day and doing laundry and shopping in very different ways, I found myself totally exhausted. I think the altitude adds in to that. I’ve heard that it takes between 6 months and 1 year to fully get used to the altitude. It used to be nothing to put lunch on the table-put out store bought bread, pre-sliced lunchmeat, cheese, condiments, chips and maybe some fruit that you rinsed off quickly. It’s different when you have to be sure you’ve baked enough bread, lunchmeat costs about 4 times what it does at home, so you don’t buy it. Cheese is about the same; condiments are double or more in cost. The local chips are about the same as chips in the states when not on sale, and fruit has to be soaked for 15 minutes in a disinfecting solution. And that’s lunch-the easy meal! I’m slowly getting used to things, but it can really absorb you to just plan and prepare meals, not to mention laundry which has to be hung out to dry and then brought in, general house cleaning, walking down the hill shop and then bringing it all UP, learning the ropes at the library I’m to be in charge of, and still being a non-cranky wife and mother!

Actually, I would be embarrassed for Grace to read the above. Grace is the amazing woman we have hired to help me with all of the above. She is a strong Christian who is the embodiment of her name. She is helping out 2 days a week now and will move up to 3 days when school starts and I am at the library full time. She is member of the Kikuyu tribe (Kijabe is in Kikuyu land) and lives a 45-minute walk from RVA. Her day begins at daybreak when she walks 30 min to the river to get water for her family for the day, then 30 minutes back with the water on her back. She prepares food for her family for the day, then walks the 45 minutes to our home so that she arrives at 9:00. All day she helps me with whatever-baking bread, laundry, cleaning, and Swahili! At 4:30 she walks the 45 minutes home and continues to serve her family of husband and 3 sons. Her husband is unemployed. She is tireless and uncomplaining, so grateful to be working and just a joy to have around. It’s been an adjustment for me to have someone working for me, but Grace has made it easier for me.

Grace has also given me my real cross-cultural moments. While eating lunch with us she marveled at the fact that our teeth were strong enough to eat raw carrots. She wondered why I didn’t have hired help in the states and I couldn’t stand to tell her that there it was considered a luxury. She was totally amazed by the concept of e-mail–that messages could travel from Africa to the States in just seconds (but then I’m still amazed by that!). For Grace’s part though, I gather that she has stories to tell when she gets back home!! She is gracious, but she gets tickled at us quite often. Matthew, especially, loves to make her laugh.

Grace also makes the most delicious ‘samosas’. These are a cross between a burrito and an eggroll. A tortilla is filled with a meat or veggie filling, folded up into a triangular bundle and lightly fried-yummy!

So, cooking is an adventure and having Grace help me is an adventure. Shopping is an adventure too. Margaret is the vegetable lady that I buy from twice a week. She brings all of her veggies in bags on her back and the total weight must be 75 kilos (yes, we are metric here! That’s about 150 lbs). I am not exaggerating-I wish I was. I hurt for her, but she is always smiling, always a joy to see. I’m sure God has a special reward prepared for her_ She brings potatoes, tomatoes, onions, carrots (the sweetest ever), bananas, pineapples, gr peppers, passion fruit (wonderful), zucchini, and sometimes other things. I have to help her load up after I buy from her. Even her first and main bag alone must weigh 50 lbs. I’m almost embarrassed to help her because it’s hard even to help load her up.

We get freshly pasteurized milk twice a week too. We take our milk pail to the dairy in the morning and pick it up in the afternoon. We can get any type of milk-half skim, half whole, all whole, all skim, a third whole_ The interesting part is the flavor. This week’s was wonderful. Last week the cows got into onions or something-we added chocolate to it!

RVA also has a store that stocks the basics. It’s open twice a week and, yes, it’s down the hill. All purchases are brought UP the hill. Then on Tuesday we were taken into Nairobi for a big shopping trip. Nairobi deserves a letter in itself, but I’ll go in one more time before I write. My first impression was not great, although the shopping was good. Lots of things are flip-flopped as far as price is concerned. Pecans cost about $9 per pound, but pea pods are about $.20 per pound!

One final shopping anecdote: We got an email notice of a pastor who was selling chickens (the expensive meat in Kenya, about 3 times the price as US-beef is about the same price). We decided to order 2. On butchering day he arrived with 2 freshly butchered and plucked chickens. They were so fresh that they were still warm! I cooked them up and they were good.

Enough ramblings for now. Next time I will tell you about our hike to the waterfall. I was expecting hike as in nice, flat, wide nature trail. Not so! Let’s just say Grace laughed at me every time I had to move the day after.

We love and appreciate you all so much. Thank you for the many ways you support us. Please pray for grace for me as I learn to stretch myself out of my comfortable western way of life, physically, emotionally and spiritually. And continue to pray for the boys who will be arriving in about 3 weeks.

We love all types of mail!