Not everyone will start the day with an email like this, but we did on Monday:
Due to the increasingly aggressive nature of some of the baboons in the forest in our area, the Kenya Wildlife Service will be exterminating a limited number of baboons from the forest around RVA on Monday. We ask that all students and...
There have been lots of changes in our lives, but sometimes you sort of get used to them until they all jump out at you. Last year, when we were in the states, I would get really annoyed at advertisements on the radio. I found that if I did not understand what they were saying, it didn’t annoy me as much; that is why I started listening to Latino music.
I fell in love with a group called La...
Continue ReadingIt was almost like the story of the drunk who takes off his clothes and jumps on the cactus; when they ask him why, he says `It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ When Nancy and JT left to go to a missionary school for languages in France, we felt like we needed to make a statement.
I’m not sure why shaving our head was an important statement, and I don’t know why Katie didn’t want to...
Continue ReadingI don’t know how it happened to us.
Whenever that is the case, you can usually turn to the usual suspects: the twins. Ben is a very warm hearted kid, and there has been this cat hanging around our home for months. Her owners, our good friends Don and Thelma Steeves, had given her to another family when they retired several years ago.
Always having been a dog person, I’m not actually sure I understand cats....
Continue ReadingRugby is the big sport at RVA, and JT and I went to the Safari Sevens Tournament, which featured adult teams from all over the world. It was a huge crowd in a big stadium, and a ref made a call that was not pleasing to the crowd. They began singing a song that recalls the tune of My Darling Clementine:
Who’s your father?
Who’s your father?
Who’s your father, referee?
You don’t have one
You...
Continue ReadingLike returning to America, there is that definitive moment when you know you are back in Kenya. That was a lot of competition this time. A guy stopped me in Nairobi and asked me:
Guy: Do you want to buy this box of chicken heads?
Me: What do you do with a box of chicken heads?
Guy: I do not know but they are very good.
My sister and brother in law had taken JT and I out to dinner...
This trip started better than the last short trip to America, because I was already fat; no unkind bets about how much I would weigh when I returned. Some colleges were hosting a conference and paying for me to attend, and we thought it would be a great opportunity for JT to visit some colleges for a few days before my conference started.
We flew into Boston where my conference would start and were met by old friends from...
Continue ReadingWe wanted to give you an update on Michael’s situation. The trial continued yesterday. It went very well for him again. The chief of police who signed the arrest papers was called as a witness and was forced (by the judge threatening to arrest him for perjury if he lied) to confess that he had seen the affidavit from our school saying Michael was at work the night of the incident. He further confessed that he had not...
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