Shameful lack of Visual Evidence

Really, it's shameful how few pictures I've been taking lately.  Sorry about that.  I will, once again, try to do better.  Maybe if I just keep my camera in my bag with me, then I'll do better.  I'll try.  Really, I will.

Things are jetting along here at what seems to be warp speed ahead.  Today I had three meetings - good meetings, and necessary meetings, but all in a row... it was a bit intense!  One of my meetings was with one of the language teams that I work with.  We were looking back at the literacy activities that we did last year, and looking ahead to the literacy activities that we'll do this year (our fiscal year begins on October 1, so we do our planning meetings with all the language teams at this time of year).  It was good to sit and talk through where the project is going and what we're going to attempt to get done this coming year.  Tomorrow I sit with one of the other teams to do the same thing.

I'm also a bit encouraged because I think I'm getting better at this planning thing.  Well, I HOPE I'm getting better at this planning thing, as I've been doing it for a few years now.  It is also encouraging to see the progress that's been made by the teams, as we look back over the past year (and beyond!) and look ahead. 

This year is going to be an interesting year, though.  Politically, who knows what's going to happen and how it might affect our work in this place.  But we're praying for peace and that things can just move ahead...

Gifted

No, I'm not saying I'm gifted at my job (though I must admit, I'm getting pretty good at operating the long-armed, heavy duty stapler in all the books I've been making lately!), but I had gifts bestowed upon me today!  And both of those gifts were CHOCOLATE!  One gift came from a friend who used to live on our compound with his wife.  They were such dear friends, and I still miss them, actually.  She is my true age-mate - born the exact same day, month and year as I was!  In fact, we figured out (taking into account the time zone differences) that we were born about the same time on that very same same day!  How cool is that?  Anyway, she's at home with their baby son, and the husband came to do some work here.  And brought me a lovely little card and some chocolate!  Yum. 

I also invited someone over to share dinner with Sean, Richard and me tonight.  This guy, too, is a good friend, who has been around for the last few years - even longer than I've been here!  He runs a business here, and we've had a really nice partnership that seems to work out well for everyone involved for the past few years.  He and his wife come and go from here, as well, and we always have great conversation over some lovely meals with this couple.  Unfortunately, it was just the husband who's come this time, but we had a good time together around the table still.  He brought a nice South African wine... and... more chocolate :)  Yum.

I guess culinating has it's own rewards!

Just a quick little update...

There's not all that much going on, it seems, but then, there is a LOT going on.  I think life just seems to become a bit "normal"! 

Yet again, a lot of change going on around here.  There are several new people from different countries coming to join us in the work here.  Seems quite a lot of work of organizing an orientation for them has fallen to me!  Which is fine, and actually, I'm quite looking forward to a lot of it.  But it is a lot of work to figure out how do you tell people what they need to know to be happy and healthy in this place, without completely overwhelming them at first?  And how do you help people see the ways you've found to survive and thrive... while letting them figure out their own ways of doing things? And how do you think about all this when you've never laid eyes on the people who are coming? I've never really had a "formal" orientation to any place before, actually, so I can't even really rely on my own experience to know of how it's been done in the past. 

So I've been thinking about the practicalities of life here in the past few day and how to help others enjoy it.  In a lot of ways, I'm really excited to welcome new people and try to figure out ways to make them feel welcome and help them get the most out of their first few weeks and months in this land I call "home", and yet, I'm also a bit frightened because it's a whole new ball game!  I can also see that personally, it might be a bit of a challenge for me to balance all the other things that I need to do - my own work and pursuing various opportunities in terms of literacy and education work, but also making time to make sure all the new-comers have opportunities to get out and experience all the wonders of life in this place!

I also have to make sure that I don't "begrudge" the new-comers for having the chance to spend several months learning the language and getting to know how to live here before diving into their "real" jobs.  I would love to spend more time learning the local Arabic... but when I arrived, there was SO much to do to just survive and get this compound and office and program set up, that we really couldn't afford the time for dedicated language learning.  I learned as I went along!  But now that I'm casting about, thinking about opportunities and ways for the new folks to start learning language, I'm getting really motivated to get back into language learning mode myself. 

So I've really been practicing a lot with the little that I do know.  Anyone and everyone who can speak Arabic on this compound has been subject to my fumblings!  And they've all been really patient, so far, and I think even just in the past week of putting some concentrated effort into using my Arabic when I can, I've become at least a little less rusty :)

Yesterday and today, though, my Arabic really got a workout!  Along with my two neighbours, I've been without any househelp for several weeks now.  (I know, I almost cringe to write this because I know what you're thinking... but seriously, think about living permanently in a tent, in a very, very dusty place, with cockroaches, rats and bats as your closest neighbours.  It really is a full time job just to keep the floors swept and mopped and the dust at bay on the kitchen counters!  And when you have a full-time job on TOP of trying to keep a tent relatively clean...).  Anyway, my nieghbours and I have banded together and found a young woman who is willing to help us out in our houses.  While she's literate in Arabic and relatively educated, her English isn't very good.  My neighbour's Arabic is, well, quite a bit worse than mine (and honestly, mine is pretty terrible!), but it has meant that I've become the translator!

Thankfully, a lot of the Arabic I actually do know was learned when I was helping out here as the guesthouse manager - so my vocabulary includes a lot of "cleaning" words - washing dishes, washing clothes, sweeping, broom, soap, iron, making beds, toilet... The other issues of dialogue with a new house-helper also includes hours that she's meant to work and days of the week, as well as numbers for the all important payment amount!  All those things I actually know!  So it's certainly not elegant or eloquent, but I'm able to make myself understood, which completely astounds even me.

Today was her first day to help me in my house, so we worked together a bit, and I showed her where to take out the garbage, and where I keep all the cleaning supplies etc.  After we cleaned for a while, we sat down and I brought her some tea.  So we sat and conversed about our families and all that.  It took a LOT of concentration on my part, but I managed!  I actually sat and had tea and conversation with someone in Arabic!  So there might be hope for me yet :)  At the very least, it's encouraging to know that even though I haven't been putting any concentrated effort into language learning for the past ... well, I guess the past year, I can still hold my own (at least with a patient person!).  And I'm also very motivated to learn more and be able to talk about real things with someone!

I was feeling so proud of myself for being able to communicate today that I thought I was almost becoming a local woman.  I quickly figured out I have a LONG way to go, though, when I tried balancing a basin full of books on my head :)  Not quite there yet...

Yowzers

Days go by quickly! I've spent the last few days making books, though, which has been incredibly satisfying!  I've been working with one language team to make 4 little sentence books.  It took quite a bit of time to get the stories and pictures just right, and then the layout and format... and now I'm copying them all, and we're all stapling and folding 100 copies of each book.  Such fun!  And so satisfying at the end of the day to see a stack of books sitting there, just waiting for people to read them :)

And now I'm getting chewed on by mosquitoes (there's been a bit of rain lately!) so I'm going to hide under my net and perhaps watch yet another episode of Firefly.  Good thing there's only one season of that show, or I could become seriously addicted!  As it is, I'm about halfway through the season, and then I can start doing more reading again :D

Because there's no power...

... I don't have time to write anything tonight (I know, I hear your sighs of disappointment, dear followers).  But one of my cousins posted this on his facebook page today.  I chuckled.  And boy, do I ever want to invite these guys here - their little typo radars would go crazy here!  Especially if we put them in a restaurant and let them loose on the menus... ah, the typos...

Called to Culinate Part 3

I put those veggies that I bought on the weekend to good use tonight.  A new member of our organization came to visit today, to see our town for the first time ever, so I invited him over for dinner.  And since I was inviting him over for dinner, I thought I should go all out and invite someone else. I ended up inviting a guy that I met at the last workshop that I did back in that little town.  He's come to the big city to do some research, and had come to visit our compound and to borrow some novels from our big trunk of novels.  But I know that he's been eating rather local food for the past several months, so I thought he might appreciate a nice "Western" style meal, too.  Of course, as usual, Sean came along for dinner as well!

I ended up making something easy - a big pot of spaghetti from a mix that a visiting consultant left!  But it was chock-full of veggies.  Zucchini, eggplant, carrots, green peppers, onions and garlic (of course, what meal would be complete without a few cloves of garlic!) were all in the sauce - with a bit of ground meat from my favourite new grocery store.  It turned out quite nicely.  I also went all out and baked a simple chocolate cake (which I found out after had some lumps of baking soda still in it.  Ooops.  I may have been called to culinate, but that doesn't mean I know how to properly mix the ingredients for a cake!  In my defense, though, I was doing all this cooking in the semi-darkness, as there was no power!). 

Anyway, it was a very tasty meal, if I do say so myself, and I quite enjoyed the cooking and eating process.  The company was good.  The conversation was good.  So it was an all around good evening.  At the moment, though, I'm feeling a bit hungry - I find that if I'm working as too much of a "hostess", then I forget to eat too much myself!  Oh well.  The visitor who came brought me some bagels from Nairobi... so tomorrow morning, a toasted bagel! Mmmm... a little extra motivation to get out of bed tomorrow :)

Speaking of which, I should probably go to bed.  Thankfully, the city power came back on this evening!  I almost jumped up from the dinner table and did my "city electricity" dance... but then I realized that it probably would have looked rather silly and so I restrained myself!  But a little bit of exuberance did escape, so I still got a little embarrassed in front of my guests... but it was all in the name of welcoming the city power after such a long absence.

A few new things today!

One of the young women who work in the guesthouse here with us gave birth to a baby girl a few days ago!  And around here, it's imperative that you go and visit and bring your greetings to the new mother and the baby.  However, the past few days I was a little under the weather and worried that I was getting this crazy eye infection that's been going around... so I asked if we could hold off on visiting the new baby. I certainly didn't want to pass anything to the poor child!

But this morning dawned bright and clear - both the weather and my eyes!  So I went over to the office to find Clara, who is our guesthouse manager, to see if we could go together to visit Mary and the Baby today.  Since it wasn't an "office" day, I wandered over in my old sweatpant capris and a t-shirt and flip flops.  I could tell exactly what Clara was thinking when she saw me - so I quickly told her, "I will go change my clothes first... then we go!"  Couldn't disrespect a new mother and baby by not dressing to the nines! 

Anyway, we all jumped in the truck - there turned out to be 6 of us going - the other women from the guesthouse and Pam, another expat who works here.  I'm never sure of where we're going and how the roads are going to be when we get to where we're going (especially with all the rain!), so I wasn't too keen on driving the giant LandCruiser.  So we all piled into the Hilux and off we went.

Actually, Mary's husband's family's house is not too far away, and it turns out there was a pretty decent road up to - but very narrow, as USAID has built their fortress walls almost right up along the edge of where the little mud huts were built!  But we made it, and found Mary and her baby happy in their little mud house.  I didn't actually take any photos of their house - didn't want to cause a scene - but I did get some photos of the new baby.

I mean, really, how cute is this child?

But she is SO tiny!  Her mother isn't the biggest person in the world, and in fact, this baby was born quite early.  She was born at home, with no doctors present, and a few weeks earlier than expected, but she seems to be doing just fine.  She is so incredibly tiny, though.  Really, one of the smallest babies I think I have ever seen!  We had a nice little visit with Mary and the baby, who just slept the ENTIRE time.  She stretched once, but basically just snoozed.  Didn't open her eyes once!  Mary said the poor little thing is confused between her days and nights - she sleeps the ENTIRE day, and screams at night.  Anyway, at least she's healthy enough to be screaming :)  The baby hasn't been officially named yet - that will be done by some uncles along with some other ceremonial things in a few weeks.

I learned a new thing about new babies last week.  The young man who works on our compound in the maintenance department also lost a baby last week. His wife (the second of two wives!) gave birth to a child last week, as well.  However, this child only lived for 2 days.  Since the baby didn't live a full week, she doesn't even have a name.  I suppose it's just one way of coping with the high infant mortality rates here.  But I don't think it makes the grief any less for parents who lose a child.

Anyway, I'm praying that this little baby girl will grow strong and healthy.  Would you pray for Mary and this little baby, too?

After our visit with Mary, it was time to go pick up my friend Ruth, who's here working for another NGO from the UK.  She's great, and I've been spending a lot of time with her lately.  She doesn't really know her way around the city very well yet, so off we went - a tour and some shopping.  It was a rather sweaty affair.  I mean really sweaty.  But we managed to find most of the things that she needed in the market, and we stopped at a few other places along the way.

I was so pleased to find white board cleaner in an Eritrean stationary shop :)  Whoo hoo!  Now my new whiteboard in the conference room can be properly cleaned!  And such a deal - only cost $2 for make in the UK white board cleaning solution!  It was a good start to the shopping day, let me tell you.

On the way back, Ruth led me to the little mini-market where she usually buys her fruits and vegetables.  I've been converted to that market now!  It's tiny, but still has a good selection of fruits and veggies (I mean, as good as the selection ever is around here!).  And it wasn't muddy and crowded and odoriferous!  People were friendly (though a few of them tried to sell me things at an inflated rate - they thought I'd just come off the plane, apparently!).  So I was pleased, and I think I will, from now on, do all my veggie shopping there.  Quick and easy and a lot less hassle than the veggie market I normally go to!  After I washed my veggies in bleachy water, I put them on the drying rack and they just looked so pretty!

These veggies and fruits should last me most of the week.  The only thing that was missing was bananas, so I'll have to walk out to the corner shop where they sell bananas sometime this week.  I just couldn't resist those veggies, so I made a huge stir fry tonight for supper with zucchini, carrot, green pepper, onion, pineapple and sweet and sour sauce.  Since I went a bit overboard on the veggies, Sean brought over some rice and we shared!  I've also invited some folks over for dinner on Monday night, so I have to figure out what to make with some of these veggies for Monday night, too... Could this cooking thing be habit-forming?

Called to Culinate Part 2

I'm just putting my feet up after hosting yet another successful (at least, in my eyes!) dinner party.  I bought some ground beef from the new supermarket the other day.  It's such nice ground beef, and the experience of buying it is even better than at home!  They keep all sorts of meat behind glass in a refrigerated display case.  The first time I went there a few weeks ago, I started asking the woman behind the counter if I could have some meat, using English.  I assumed at such a posh supermarket, the staff would speak a bit of English.  But she immediately went to get someone else to serve me, as she obviously didn't feel comfortable with English.  So I switched into my local Arabic, and she was SO pleased!  So now we're friends :)

Anyway, once you ask for the meat you want, the woman takes it out of the container in the fridge, puts on plastic gloves and proceeds to weigh it out on a little computerized scale.  Once she's done weighing it, it gets wrapped up on a little tray, and the computer prints out a little bar code, telling the cashier how much you have to pay for your meat.  It's so... well... civilized!  I love it!  I've only bought ground beef there, since it's really the most versatile meat, and since I'm generally not cooking anything too fancy, it's good.  But they also have boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and some meat which I want to try this weekend - beef already marinated for shwarma!  The owners of the shop are Lebanese, so I'm sure it will be good.

I bought the meat a few days ago, and then put it in the freezer, and was going to cook it on Monday, when I've invited some folks over for dinner.  But we don't have any electricity.  We're just running on generator, which means all night, and for several hours during the day, my freezer isn't getting any frostier!  So I thought I should cook up the meat and eat it before it goes off.  And then I was skyping with a friend of mine today who works for a different NGO, and she invited me over for pancakes for supper... but I already had the meat out, so I invited her over here instead!  Being relatively new to town, though, she doesn't feel so comfortable driving at night on her own, so I invited one of her colleagues along as well, to make sure she didn't get lost on the way.  And of course, Sean was here (and kindly washed up all the dishes!), so it was quite the party. 

I ended up making a bit of a "hamburger stew", which we ate piled on top of mashed potatoes.  Not a bad feast, considering the few veggies that I actually have in the house - I had a tiny eggplant, some potatoes, onions, garlic and a tin of corn and a tin of tomato paste.  So, it turned into hamburger stew over mashed potatoes!  And it wasn't too bad, actually.  I was going to make it into shepherd's pie, but ended up running out of time to put it all together and into the oven.

Really, this whole cooking thing is starting to get addictive.  It's been a really nice relaxing thing to do at the end of the workday, and is giving me something to think about during the day - a little challenge to figure out what yummy treat I can come up with next, given the limited supply of things I've got here!  Tomorrow I'm taking a friend out shopping to show her the market, and I hope to find some corn flour so I can try a recipe I found for baked tortilla chips! 

But now, the generator is set to go off in a bit, and I still have a few chores to do before I sleep.

By the way, I watched the pilot to "Firefly" last night, and wow, I love it!  It's a sort of old Western which takes place in space.  The characters ride horses when they get to land, and wear cowboy hats with guns slung from their hips, and then they fly away in their spaceship and have an intergalactic battle.  All set to a twangy sort of country soundtrack.  While on their spaceship, the characters eat with chopsticks.  It's all a really interesting sort of cultural hodgepodge, with some clever lines written in.  I know, it's old.  But remember that I've been living in the middle of Africa for the last several years!  It takes me a bit to catch up...

Kinda Blah

I must admit, today, I feel kinda blah.  Last night I got some weird sort of infection in my eye. I guess to be precise, it's not my eyeball, but my eyelid, I think.  Right in the inside corner.  All red and puffy and swollen and a bit gooey... just in case you wanted the details.  So I had to wear my glasses today instead of my contacts.  For some odd reason, wearing my glasses all day makes me feel like I'm watching life happen around me through lenses, like I'm just a passive watcher of life, and not an actual participant in it.  Kind of like watching 3D tv all day.  So I always feel a bit out of it while I'm getting used to wearing my glasses all day!  But I also just feel kinda blah.  Not sick enough to be sick, but certainly not energetic enough to want to do anything!

So I came into my mosquito net tonight at 9:30pm, and I'm going to watch a movie that Sean passed along to me yesterday.  I'll tell you if I can recommend it or not tomorrow :)

I think that tomorrow I'm going to start moving around in this house.  Since Jackie is left, and we probably won't be living in this house when she returns, I'm going to shift into her room :).  It's on the opposite side of the house from the neighbours (thus cutting down on the neighbourly noises that I am subject to each night), it's bigger and has a really nice big ceiling fan.  Plus, it's always nice to have a change now and again :)  I might as well take advantage of the fact that I'm the only one in the house now!

So far, this living on my own hasn't been TOO bad.  The nieghbour who lives on the other side of our little duplex tent here is also away for a week.  So I'm the sole resident of this entire dwelling (5 bedrooms in all - though of course, two of those bedrooms belong to the other side of the duplex!).  It feels a bit odd to be alone with the wildlife.  And I have found myself talking rather a lot more outloud to the cats.  Poor Zane and Winka are going to think I've gone rather mad if my talking outloud to them increases too much more!  So it's a good thing Sean still comes by for tea now and again!

A change or two...

The constant change.  That's what's been on my mind lately.  And I must admit, it hasn't been a walk in the park to deal with.  But I'm learning a lot through it.  People are going.  People are coming.  And I just want everyone to be happy during all this transition.  Of course, that's not always possible... nor is it always best.  Change is good.  But it can be hard.  So.  Things are changing.  I could write a lot about it.  But I don't think I will tonight.  I think I'm just going to go and hide under my mosquito net in my very, very quiet house.

(But don't worry, I'm ok!  Re-reading this little ditty of a post makes my life sound a bit grim at the moment. It's not.  It's just a certain season in life.  And there are good things that come out of change, too.  But there are definitely going to be a few more growing pains in the weeks to come. And that's all I have to say about that tonight.  Thanks for listening.)

Called to Culinate?

I was conversing (on skype, of course) with someone today, and I was talking about how I like to make sure everyone around me is eating well, and has someone to eat with.  I don't like people having to eat alone... and yet, I realize that I can't feed EVERYONE all the time, because, well, there's often just not that much in the house to work with!  But it's been fun trying to find some new things to make to eat, given the limited options around here.  Tonight I went to see my friend, who was experimenting with making pizza.  It turned out not too badly, actually.  And we had a good time making it, too.

I AM getting some work done, too.  Not just thinking about food, cooking or eating all the time! 

But it's a bit late and I don't really have anything interesting to say at the moment.  Is life over here really getting that mundane?!

Number 900!

I was just informed by my blogspot dashboard that I've got 900 posts in this blog.  Wow.  Seems I have lots to say?!  However, tonight, not much to say, and only a few minutes in which to say it.  The city power has left us.  So we're running on the generator.  And because the batteries are so bad on our back-up system, my internet goes down when the generator goes off.  Which is set to happen in 17 minutes.  I'm thinking I'd better go get myself organized to go to bed.  Or at least to get under my mossy net with a book and my headlamp!

This whole "no power" thing is already getting old... I was so spoiled by having fairly consistent electricity for the past few months.  So it's been a little tough to adjust to being back with the generator!  At least it's not too hot these days.  However, last night, at about 1am, I woke up feeling rather sweaty and itchy.  I had been talking about chiggers with someone before I went to bed... so I think the chiggers invaded my dreams, and I woke up feeling like they were all over me! In reality, it was probably just all the sand in my bed, combined with a bit of sweat which woke me up!  (yes, I will admit there's rather a lot of sand in my bed at the moment.  The young woman who helps to clean our house has been away and we haven't found anyone else to help yet.  So there's rather a lot of sand dunes in my house at the moment - though today I got my exercize by sweeping and mopping the whole place! So hopefully there will be less sand in my bed tonight!

On that note.  Good night.  13 minutes until darkness falls...

The Studio

We had a visitor at the compound for a few days.  He was from Ghana.  He came to our place to make contact with one of the groups that has recently done some Bible translation here.  His goal - to find enough people who can read the recently published New Testament so that the whole thing can be recorded and then put on little MP3 players for the community.  How cool is that?  Quite honestly, I had no clue that people were coming here to do this sort of thing, but I was rather pleasantly surprised to chat with the guy about his work.  Plus, I had a little gadget envy - he had an iPhone and another shiny iPod, among other things.

But gadget envy aside (because, well, obviously, hello, what do gadgets mean in light of the eternal implications of getting the Word into the hands (and ears!) of people who have never heard it before!), it was really cool to meet this guy.  I'm still trying to figure out how it all works, but I think, basically, there is an organization that funds these sorts of recordings of translations.  That group gets in touch with organizations like the one I work with, to see where the need is, and then they go and contract people like this Ghanaian guy to come out, work with the community, find enough people to read all the parts (they need something like 25, including a bunch of women - and finding literate women in a lot of these language groups is actually a lot harder than one might think :(  ), and then finally do the recording of the Scriptures. 

Really, it's a pretty neat set-up.  And this Ghanaian guy was really cool.  I think I like Ghanaians.  Haven't met one yet that isn't stellar.  He's been to 18 different African countries, doing this exact same sort of thing.  He leaves his home for a few months at a time (usually it seems to take between 2 and 3 months to get a project completed), but seems to be incredibly motivated and positive about the realities of the challenges of what he's doing.  I was really impressed, though, as he came by himself on this initial trip in - his first time in our lovely country here, and came with his cargo pants full of gadgets and a single carry-on backpack.  He stayed for a week to see who he could find from this community and make plans to come back and set up his little mobile studio at the end of this month!

On the way to the airport yesterday, he mentioned that he had a friend of a friend who is based here with the UN, running a radio station which is sponsored by the UN.  It's actually quite a decent radio station!  They have a lot of call in shows, and it's always in a mix of the local Arabic and English, so it's really quite interesting to listen to, for the most part.  Anyway, since the UN compound is right next to the airport, we made a quick stop at the radio station to visit this friend of a friend of his, who actually, as it happens, is someone I know from our Sunday night Bible study :)

Anyway, we only had a few minutes to stop before the plane was due to take off, but we had a great little tour of the radio studios.  I even got to meet the DJ that I've heard on the radio - he was in the middle of the afternoon "drive home" talk show (makes me chuckle a bit, actually, because that program is modelled on a typical "afternoon drive home" show at home, where you get traffic reports and things like that.  But if you knew where I lived, you'd understand why it makes me chuckle!  (Remember, I live in a place where there are regulations about cattle on the roads written into the traffic laws).

But it was quite interesting to see where the radio station is, and to see how it all happens!  It is truly amazing what they can do with shipping containers in these parts!

I'm also looking forward to seeing how our Ghanaian friend comes back with his mobile studio and to see how he sets it all up.  Not that I know a thing about the topic, but it's always interesting to find out something new!

A wee bit of work

So I had a meeting this afternoon with someone from a different NGO.  They've got this huge project to do "capacity building" with local organizations.  A lot of money being spent, that's for sure.  They're developing libraries, and amazingly enough, they want to put some of the local language materials in those libraries!  Amazing stuff.  So I went to the offices this afternoon to discuss with them how we can start working some of these things out.  It struck me again just how different our organization works to some of these other big organizations.  And I have to admit, I'm really glad I work for the little organization that I do!  We do things small scale, "grassroots", and doing things with local folks.  I must say, I was a bit chuffed (that means "pleased") when I got an email after our meeting this afternoon.  She was writing it to introduce me to someone (from a HUGE funding organization) that she mentioned in our meeting because she wants me to go and meet him and tell him a bit about how we do things.  She wrote this:

"He would gain immeasurably from learning about how efficiently you work, how light your infrastructure is, and how wide your reach through your particular approaches. I wish I had more time to reform my program to resemble much of yours."

Nice, eh?  I was quite chuffed.  I must admit that sometimes when I talk to some of these big organizations (like UN agencies and other international organizations), I get a bit discouraged because they all seem to have endless funds for their education projects.  They hire so many employees, they build big buildings, they buy all these landcruisers and computers and equipment for their projects.  We do none of that sort of thing.  We rely mainly on volunteers from churches and other community organizations who are interested in developing their languages and who are interested in being trained in how to write their language, or how to teach people to read their language.  We do small scale workshops in church buildings or existing schools.  We take public transport to get to where we're going when we go to rural areas.  And it seems to work.  Of course, it's got its own challenges doing it this way.  But it's also got it's own rewards, and really leaves things in the hands of the communities and churches and teachers that we work with.

And it's pretty light on the paperwork.  I saw some of the process that organizations need to go through to get some grants through this particular agency today.  There were pages and pages and pages (something like 40 pages) of forms and budgets and reports that they had to fill out in order to get a grant of $4000!  For the projects we're involved in, we can do an awful lot with $4000, and basically, all we have to do is write a final report and produce receipts.  And because our teams (and people like me) are so hands-on involved in what's happening, we know exactly where the project money is being spent and how and by whom and what the final result or "outcome" is.  So we don't need to spend months and months filling out all the paperwork!  We just DO things!  It's really kind of nice, and satisfying to see how money is efficiently and wisely spent within our organization.

And it's really satisfying, too, to see how some of the work that we're doing can also be of benefit to organizations who do have more capacity to do things like set up libraries and then stock them with books!  It's all around a good partnership, I'd say!  And I'd love to see more of it in the coming months and years in this part of the world!

Almost a Domestic Goddess!

I feel like I've spent the better part of the weekend in the kitchen!  And I've actually enjoyed it!  Seriously, I'm not quite sure what's happening to me.

On Thursday night, I made something yummy for supper (though I can't quite recollect what that was at the moment...), but on Friday night, Sean took us all out for supper to say "thanks" for all the meals Jackie and I have shared with him.  No one should eat alone, so Sean and Richard generally eat with Jackie and me.  It's a good mix - good conversation, and generally good food ('cause I'm usually the one who makes it!).

On Saturday morning, we had a big brunch potluck with the expatriates who live on our compound.  It was a good time to just get together and chat and laugh and NOT talk about work!  But it also took quite some time in the kitchen to cook up enough Dutch pancakes for 11 people!  So I was in the kitchen working on that for quite some time.  Earlier in the week I had bought a lovely little pumpkin, as well.  So, for dinner, we had a feast of roasted root vegetables.  Mmmm... roasted pumpkin, potatoes, onions and garlic.  While I was roasting the veggies for dinner, I also cooked up the rest of the pumpkin.  But of course, that was all only after wrestling with the pumpkin for nearly an hour (yes 1 hour!).  Honestly, it was a serious workout getting this pumpkin apart and all the goo out of the middle.

Funniest part of that endeavour, though, was dear little Zane.  As soon as that pumpkin was cracked open, his little nose perked up.  He even went so far as to start digging through the garbage bin to pull out the raw inside gook that came out of the pumpkin!  And right down the hatch it went - not a speck left on the floor.  And he just stood there, looking expectantly at me for more.  I couldn't believe how much raw pumpkin that little creature devoured last night!

Then today, because our nieghbors had given us a gift of homemade salsa (it's the only kind you can get here - no Old El Paso to be found!), and I have some cheese still from Nairobi, and a nice ripe avocado in the fridge that needed eating... I ended up making flour tortillas, which subsequently got turned into cheese quesadillas with guacamole for lunch!  Mmmm... so, so good.  While that was all cooking, I prepared the pumpkin for soup, and some for freezing.

Then, this evening, after "church", I used the leftover tortillas and made "breakfast burritos" for dinner.  And after that, I made up a big old pot of pumpkin soup, which we can all eat for lunch tomorrow.

Of course, in between, I've been trying to keep up with all the dishes that all this cooking and eating has created.  There were moments today where I was thinking that it could actually be kinda fun to just cook all day!  Especially if you have people around who appreciate what you feed them once in a while!

And on another completely superficial note, all this cooking has been done with bouncy hair, full of volume, thanks to my new Pantene shampoo!  I just cracked open the new bottle of shampoo that I got in Nairobi, and I actually can see and feel the difference - just like the bottle says, it has given life and volume to my flat and listless hair!  (I'm hoping that perhaps someone from Pantene will see this and send me a crate...!)

Random Thoughts for the Day

I've been a bit hot and grumpy all afternoon.  And no wonder - I overheard my neighbour telling someone on Skype tonight that it's 30C with 80% humidity tonight (that was at about 9pm).  (And no, I don't purposefully listen in on my nieghbour's skype conversations, but when your bedroom is about 10 feet from their living room, and you all live in brick tents with only a bit of screen between you, it's a bit hard NOT to hear the nieghbours when they're hollering into their computers!).  This is why I have become a very fast typer, so I can chat in private without everyone on the compound hearing my conversations :)

I also realized at about 3pm that I really hadn't had enough to drink all day, because I suddenly realized that I never actually went to the loo since I woke up.  Not a good situation, and I think I'm paying for it tonight with a lovely little headache again :(  I think since then, I've probably had a good few litres of water to drink, though.  And tomorrow, I have to concentrate on starting to drink early enough in the morning!  It's been so cool lately (I mean, relatively speaking!) that I've really forgotten about carrying my water bottle with me.

For some reason, since Sean cleaned out my computer due to that lovely little virus, my Blogger screen comes up in Arabic.  It's only because I've been blogging for so long that I know exactly where the "sign in" button is.  Of course, it's on the opposite side of the screen than you might expect it, as Arabic is written, of course, from right to left.

I have a big red, nasty looking splotch on my elbow - right in the crease.  I'm wondering if I somehow squished a "Nairobi Eye" bug in my elbow yesterday.  It's rather itchy and quite red and nasty looking.  But I'm sure I'll be ok!  Nothing a little antibiotic ointment won't cure (I hope!).

Any other random thoughts that you need to know from the day?

And now, since the bugs are coming out, me and my water bottle are going to go and hide under my mossy net.  I'm actually feeling less grumpy than I was before, as I had a nice cool shower after supper.  I think I could have just stayed in the shower all night - the water was just about the perfect temperature! 

Out and About

... and don't forget to say that with a Canadian accent, eh?

Anyway, our Canadian numbers on the compound swelled to THREE of us yesterday!  A friend of a friend breezed through town on Monday evening.  So she came to stay with us here, and I spent most of the day on Tuesday with her, helping her to buy a plane ticket out of here, and making sure her paperwork for immigration was all in order.  Actually, it wasn't in order at all, but thankfully, our master of all things is here, and R was able to get it all figured out for her.  Of course, the figuring out for her required a trip to the airport immigration desk.  And unfortunately, because of the timing of her flight, the trip to the airport had to happen exactly at the same time that the body of a recently deceased VIP was being flown back to town. 

I've never seen so many people and so much security at that airport!  It was truly a sight to behold.  There were literally busloads of people coming to the airport to "welcome" this guy's body.  And pretty much everyone was dressed to the nines, too.  Because the airport was under serious security, R told me and Sean to stay in the landcruiser out in the parking lot while he took my friend, along with her passport and papers, into the scrum which was the airport terminal.  I had a great time sitting in the back of the landcruiser, watching the comings and goings (ok, mostly comings!) of the people and admiring all the beautiful dresses.  I'm itching to get a new dress, as my head turns when I see any sort of beautiful African print dress these days... anyways, Sean got pretty tired of hearing me exclaiming about all the beautiful dresses, so he tuned me out after a very short time.

So I just sat there, yacking to myself about all the people wandering by.  In fact, I started to feel a bit of affinity to the polar bears who used to live in the zoo in my hometown.  Those poor bears seemed to just sit all day in their cage and watch the people go by.  They were white creatures, in a world that didn't quite fit them.  But they probably had a great time chatting about what the people outside the cage were doing!

And speaking of cages, I was locked in my little landcruiser cage again today while R went into the traffic police office to pick up some folks' driver's licenses.  Funny thing was, where my little 'cage' was parked was overlooking the place where the traffic police give their driving tests!  The police had somehow hobbled together a bit of a shelter, made from some old tin, cardboard and what literally looked like an old metal cage.  And there they sat, under the shade of their "post", watching drivers park between big red cones.

Hmmm... I'm sure I've seen other interesting bits on all my drives out lately.  It's been good to be able to get off the compound and see some new places in the last few days.  I get a bit of cabin fever if I just sit at my desk all the time.  Today I also went out to the market and bought a lovely little pumpkin. I'm really excited to try a bit of a different vegetable.  I can almost taste the roasted pumpkin and pumpkin soup already.  Mmmm... I love the rainy season!

Photos...

I really must start taking pictures again!  Sorry for the lack of visual stimulation on this blog lately.  Seems I just forget to take photos!  Oddly enough, I think I took, like, 2 photos while I was in Kenya! 

Today there was a photo worthy occasion, but of course, I forgot to take photos.  The termites are starting to chew our house to bits!  So we ended up pulling out some furniture away from the walls, throwing away a few boxes of stuff that the termites had already eaten through, and killed the rest of the termites with some serious insecticide.  All in a Sunday afternoon's work :)

The ironic thing is, I made french toast for breakfast this morning, which R enjoyed covered in termite paste.  Yes, that's what I said.  Termite paste.  His mother-in-law made for him a whole can full of mashed termites.  Quite a lot like peanut butter, just made with termites, instead of peanuts! Mmmmm... Actually, I was about to try a bit when he told me that there was also mashed dried fish in the paste.  So mashed termites and dried fish on french toast just somehow didn't sound so appealing for breakfast this morning!