Journal entries from Kenya...
7/31/25
Today we woke a little later and went to a breakfast of sausage, pancake with honey, and fruit. They set up our tables in a different part of the beautiful grounds and we enjoyed eating and chatting about what is behind and what lies ahead. We talked about how, after Matt and I had gone to bed, the Pettigrew boys had fed a bush baby, with the help of one of Benjamin's sons, who is trying to get them more used to people. We did some shopping at the tables Benjamin's wives had set up and then laoded up for Shili Shili. In my car was Matt, Leo, Malcolm, Kate, and Connor. We stopped off at the shop where we bought shukas a few days ago and many bought more shukas. Lance also had to buy supplies for camp, which took awhile, as things do. We waited in the vehicles and a man came up and talked to Leo and Matt, asking for money. He kept touching Leo's face too, which was awkward. Paul came and shooed him away. Joseph, our driver, told me he really liked my watch and said, "Maybe you surprise me?" I didn't give it to him because it's not very nice but I do use it constantly. Lance and Tiffany say it's not considered rude in their culture to take advantage of perceived opportunities from a connection with someone who is better off than you. We saw zebras on the roadside, which is always a reality check to me of "You are actually in Kenya! Where there are safari animals on the side of the road!" So crazy. Finally we pulled into the school and were greeting so warmly by the Fergusons, who were super excited to show us our temporary home. We set up our rooms, which are Kelly and Tiffany with the little girls, the rest of us females, Malcolm and Lance with their sons, and the rest of the males. There is a big bathroom with 8 stalls- some with a short spigot for bucket baths, one squatty potty, one regular toilet, two showers, and some changing stalls. The plumbing was all new from the money we sent them. There is also a "choo" (they say chō) outside, which we are supposed to use during the day so as not to overwork the indoor plumbing. The school setting is beautiful. Dry and red dusty, but you can see for miles and see Mt Kilimanjaro today. There are beautiful little birds and it was a blue sky gorgeous day...the sun here at the equator making it pretty hot compared to the cooler days we have had. We met the staff, Matt and I took a walk, we ate lunch, we prepared for camp, then the whole team took a long walk. We saw children carrying water, pretty birds, and a gorgeous sunset. We took pictures together by a cool tree. Then we had dinner, a quick meeting, and got ready for bed. I was happy to unexpectedly have wifi here. We hadn't had it in Kili Springs and so I hadn't talked to the kids (or warned them I might not be able to contact them) for 3 days. I was fighting the tears getting their messages.
8/1/25
Today we woke at 6am after a very restless first night here. Between people coughing, snoring, and tossing and turning, it was so loud. And it was so dark that I spent a good 30 minutes in the middle of the night just trying to decide if getting up to go to the bathroom would wake everyone with my phone flashlight. Then I decided I absolutely must go or I'd never be able to sleep, but I still had to sit on my bed a few minutes psyching myself up for it. It was almost a relief when the Ferguson girls' alarms went off just to be done with the night! We had a devotion and breakfast and prepared for the grade 3 kids who were coming for a one day camp. They arrived early and gathered in a classroom, where we had a brief assembly with introductions of the teachers and welcome messages from Headmaster James and Lance. We had 8 kids in our group with Connor and Naserian Ferguson as my co-leaders and a teacher from the school named Faith as the translator. The kids didn't seem to understand much English but were pretty easy to corral and very cute. Some were really shy, but warmed up more by the end of the day. The girls especially would get very embarrassed and turn away and cover their faces. We are told that being meek/shy is a valued quality for Maasai females. We started by making and launching paper rockets, then did the parachute, which they loved, and the Bible Study, which was hard because we wrtoe it for middle school, and with the language barrier, it was tough to tell what they grasped. We had a great time playing soccer and they really opened up more and showed their personalities then. That was probably my favorite part of the day. They loved hand clapping games that I think the twins showed them after lunch and after doing "Avocado" a bazillion times with them, I was exhausted! We ended with the cultural exchange slot, where we shared things about ourselves and that was sweet, as each child got to tell their favorite food, what animals they have at home, etc. We walked to the gate to tell them goodbye and then had a meeting and took a long walk with Tipaai, who was having his 30th birthday today. We hoped to see some kind of wildlife and kept asking any people we saw if they had seen any elephants or giraffes and they'd say "just a little farther", but Tipaii said "We are nomads so we don't really know what they mean by 'a little'. Eventually it was becoming too close to dark and we had to return. I enjoyed talking with Tiffany about life in Rwanda and later talking with Tipaai about where he'd like to travel and his wedding a month ago. He was excited to show photos and shocked we don't do dowries, which are such a big part of their culture. He said, "So an African man can marry an American woman for very cheap?!?" when we told him the bride's family even pays for the wedding. We ended with a delicious curry meal and the kids and Lance did a pot-banging parade and song/conga line with a birthday cake for Tipaai, who was very moved and gave a speech, saying how happy he was. I took a freezing spigot "shower" and went to bed.
8/2/25
I slept so much better, thankfully. Woke @ 6 for breakfast, then a trek out to Chyulu Hills and Kopje Rocks for rock scrambling. We were packed into 2 vehicles- ours had our team, minus Pettigrew females, plus Ezra Ferguson. The young boys were in the back and kept up a pleasant stream of conversation the entire day. Three of us had to be standing up at all times, which grew tiring by 4 pm. We had a lovely time climbing up to the top of the rocks and eating a picnic pb&j lunch after the 2 1/2 hour drive to get there (pretty sure Paul said it was 30-45 minutes and we did stop to see animals a few times- giraffes, zebra, hartebeest, gazelle, gerenuks, bustards, but still...I think Kenyan time is different than our time!). Kelly came around and took our order for kind of jelly, peanut butter, and bread, and the Fergusons made our sandwiches. We also got to try more new Kenyan snacks. Up on the rocks we could see for miles and miles and there was not a person in sight- only some animals in the distance. There was a lot of piles of baboon poop and puddles of strong smelling baboon pee on the top. Tipaai asked me to take a picture of him and Matt, one close and one far. He loved the result when I showed him on my phone and gave me his number so I could send it to him. After lunch, we climbed down and walked a little ways to do more climbing on other rocks. The kids were loving it. We had to stay in groups for safety from the lions that could be around. I was nervous when we peed behind a bush because it was so quiet and beside lots of big boulders where something could hide. I had fun hanging out with Shelby and Liz, chatting, being silly, and enjoying our experience together. Shelby found the skull of a cow and couldn't stop laughing when she picked it up. We paused just to enjoy listening to the wind in the tall grass. After we left the rocks, we went on a lion search. There had been talk of lion tracking, but we knew by that point that it wasn't going to work out. We did find lion tracks on our route, which Paul identified, but never saw lions. We saw other animals- baboons running on a ridge, oryx (Noah said "Eat my horns!" should be our team slogan because these animals kneel down and aim their long sharp horns to impale pouncing lions, which we found so cool.), and a group of 3 hyenas. We got to watch a baby hyena go into its den, which many thought was the highlight of the day. We stopped for a snack near the hyena den and immediately several of us go ticks crawling on our pants. Then the boys found a huge scorpion. I was thinking, "Hyenas, ticks, and scorpions?! This place is paradise!" But it was so cool to be able to roam the savanna in our vehicle, not sticking to any road and just looking for cool wildlife. We were all pretty worn out by the end of the day and a little nervous about getting ready for camp Monday. The one day camp had been really good for helping us see what we'd do different from our plan. One big thing was to adapt the Bible Study lessons and we knew that would take time, but we only had one more day and it was going to be a full one with church taking most of it. I did my calisthenics and chatted with Liz, Shelby, and Kelly about the day and other things. We had dinner, Bible Study, and went back to the dorm for bed. It's very dark there with just a couple single lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling to light the whole place, and the sun goes down about 6:30 year round, so it makes evenings a little challenging (especially since I didn't bring a headlamp!). I find it takes me twice as long to do the easy logistical things of getting out clothes, taking a shower, brushing teeth. I often can't find things or forget to bring my clean water to rinse my toothpaste or bring the wrong bag of toiletries to the bathroom. But it's kinda fun at night when many of us are in the big bathroom together using wifi, brushing teeth, showering, and talking. It's very communal. This night in the girls' room, Liz mentioned wanting to put her legs up against the wall to let the fluid drain from her feet. We were all still swollen from our travels and the long day in the car. She and Shelby do this a lot at home. So we figured out how to find a spot on the wall, put down laundry to lay on the cement floor, and put our legs up. Eventually most of the ladies joined and we got very silly and had many laughs, which the guys probably didn't appreciate, as we were so loud and you hear everything anyway. It was a fun night. Other things about camp- outside the dorm, you can walk a a little and get a building that has a big kitchen and beside that, a classroom with desks arranged in a big U where we do all our meals and Bible Study. Beyond that are more classrooms where we do camp. Around the yard are trees where beautiful green, parrot-looking lovebirds roost, and other little black and white birds that like to sing. Some birds roost in our building and you can hear them at night. I think they are pigeons. Sometimes they sound like they are bowling. In the big bathroom there are two doors that have open gates at the top and the wind (it's always windy) blows throw there all day. We hear all sorts of noises- dogs outside the dorm, bats and mice inside- and people always talk about mysterious lights at night, which Malcolm eventually determined were some kind of spotlights from the farms adjacent to the school I think. There are huts by the watermelon patches there where people guard the fruit from elephants at night. One more thing this night- Kate found an embedded tick on the back of her knee and Malcolm, then Matt, had to try to get it out. The head came off and they couldn't get the rest. We all gathered in the hall to see. It was big and hard shelled.
8-3-25
Today we got to sleep a little later and have breakfast at 8. I took a cold shower before and we all enjoyed getting ready for church in our new Maasai wrap skirts, jewelry, etc. We had some time before we had to leave for church and Matt and I talked to the new cook Dan, especially about how he got his branded circles on his face (a Maasai tradition) at age 4 and ran away in between cheeks. He said he was not having his kids receive the brands and it's not as common anymore, though a good many of the camp kids had them. We rode in the same cars as yesterday and went to Imbirikani, to Tipaai's church. It was so nice to hear from their pastor lots of thankfulness that we came not just ot see the animals, but to see them and even flew 19 hours to get there. He emphasized that- black or white- we are all family in Christ and if we don't see them again, we will see them in heaven. Seeing Paul's joy and tears during the service as we worshiped together was so precious. At first they said the sound system wouldn't work and we'd just use our voices and hands to worship, which would be good enough, but sometime after a couple of songs, the sound system came back and there was a Caribbean sounding tune and lots of beats coming from the keyboard as they played the next worship song. People came down the aisles to dance up front and Paul came over to dance with us. Malcolm preached a short sermon, then Pastor Gideon gave some commentary, then there were choir performances, Lance preached, more comments, more music and at the end, our group was called up to be introduced by name to the congregation. Then someone- Paul or maybe Tipaai's brother Jonathon, said, "Now, you dance!". We didn't have a dance but we did sing "Nothing But the Blood of Jesus" (which, by the way, had been sung nonstop for the last few days, particularly by the little girls) and tried to make it as peppy as we could! I saw a clock on the wall with no hands, which is funny because "Kenya time" isn't on time as we think of it. We socialized a little after church, then walked to Tipaai's family home for tea. We met his mom and older brother Jonathon. Their home was beautiful, with a courtyard and several huts. They had tea and mandazi set up for us in one hut with a beautiful view and we sat and talked to Tipaai and Jonathon about Jonathon's role as the community leader, how they met their wives, how age sets (with labels) work for Maasai men, how dowries work, etc. It was so cool. He asked if we would come for dinner another day and said we could have goat (though at first he said Americans don't like meat but we corrected that notion!). We met Tipaai's wife and she was very quiet but said she is teacher and she misses her family, as she isn not from nearby. Tipaai's mom came out and gave Kate a beautiful necklace and hug. By the time we made it back for lunch it was 3:30. We ate and then spent the rest of the afternoon adjusting our camp plan. We had some good laughs planning a chant for our Bible verse. We worked till dinner, ate, and got ready for bed.
