We had a lovely restful peaceful vacation in Mombassa last week. The absolute great thing about Africa is that it never seems to stop throwing curveballs at you. Near the place where we stayed was a small reptile zoo, so we stopped in.
The first surprise was that we were the only people there. The guy at the front told me the price he wanted me to pay, which was much more than I had expected, and more than the posted...
You can tell when the end of the term is because the children start playing Christmas music rather early getting ready for the end of term Christmas concert. The older kids do a wonderful job, but the concert of the younger kids band is a marvel to behold. Many of them have had instruments for just a few months, and the sounds they make are fascinating.
I’ve learned that you should NEVER make eye contact with another adult during one of...
After the fiasco with the babies escaping through the back door and playing in the rain and the largest puddles they could find, we identified the culprit (the dog) who pushed the doors open for them. We changed the ways the door closed so it couldn’t happen again.
So Nancy took the babies for a walk, and the egg man came and dropped off some eggs in our `safe’ room. They were on the shelf, and Nancy didn’t notice them when...
A great former missionary, the invincible Doug Dempsey, once told me `It’s not if, it’s when.’ The great scourge of all African missionaries, it strikes without warning. Whether it is the water, food that has gone south, or something in the air, it struck without warning, but much subsequent fanfare.
We had SIXTY-ONE kids in the infirmary with food poisoning on Friday. When you have a campus of five hundred kids, that means there was a LOT of sudden running. It...
Sunday morning, I went next door to borrow something. Nancy went into the bedroom to put on her shoes. The babies were playing in the living room.
We came back, and the babies were gone. They are usually in the living room, where a barrier and closed door keeps them confined. But they had gotten out. We searched through the house, and couldn’t find them anywhere.
Finally, we went out the back door. There, in the pouring rain, sat our two babies,...
We haven’t done to many outings with the babies yet. When you take two naps a day, and most things are an hour away, it tends to cramp your style. But we are now in the land of one nap a day, so the six of us went to the Giraffe Center in Nairobi.
Things are more relaxed in Africa. There was hardly anything separating the giraffes from us. The giraffes would eat out of your hand. They would even eat...
I’m 47, and I’m not sure I’ve every had a real thought about jellybeans. In the states, I might eat some when they are around, but I don’t remember ever buying them and I don’t particularly enjoy them.
Nancy brought some back from the states, and Sunday night we opened the bag. It was one of those with many different kinds of flavors, and we spent over an hour, going around in a circle, choosing and eating them one by one.
Each...
Grace told our Swahili teacher that he should bring Nancy a present for how well she is doing in language studies. It seemed natural to ask her `Don’t you think he should bring ME a present also?’
At this point, something happened that was difficult to interpret culturally. Fortunately, I have been in Africa for a while and have developed an expertise to interpret what occurred next.
Grace started laughing as hard as I have ever seen anyone laugh. She went to...
