I had a few pictures in my phone I thought I would share.

Car in the ditch

Bystanders said driver was drunk

The day we left for California for Christmas, we heard a lot of comotion right behind our wall.  Somehow the driver managed to get the car in the ditch directly perpendicular to the flow of traffic.  I talked to some calmer people outside the “mob” who said the car was from a nearby “garage” where they fix vehicles, and the mechanic was doing a test drive… drunk.  I doubt there is any insurance to cover that one.

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During our time here our water has been turned off Tues thru Thurs. It has never been a big problem because we have storage tanks. However, there are times when it gets frustrating. Well, for the first time in a year and a half our water wasn’t turned off! Oh the blessings of flowing water! Especially because our pump to our front tank is broken so we have to bucket water into our back pump which can then pump water up to the tank in the house. It has been nice this week to not have to do it. However, it always gives you perspective. Many people have to walk miles to get their water, I just have to walk to the front of my house (and only once a week).

My brother-in-law is here visiting with us.  We are having a great time and I think since he is spending so much time here he is really getting a feel for what our lives are like.  You really cannot plan a month and a half or more, so he is getting a feel for the daily grind as well as all the sites to see.

More and more time is passing, so there are now some people who are actually “from” Nairobi.  However, at least 90% of the people you ask, “Where are you from?”  They will answer somewhere outside Nairobi.  Nairobi is not their home, they just work here.  Outside Nairobi is almost completely agrarian, so there is a lot of attachment to land, and land inside the territory of one’s tribe.

Last Saturday we had a wonderful trip down to Wamunyu, the “up country” home of a coworker, neighbor, and great friend of mine, Charles Nzioki Mungaithi.  We actually drove through a good portion of Ukambani (inside the Kamba place).  We had a great time roasting some steak under a tree.  Charles purchased it, and Cammy marinated it, and I helped cook it.  Charles loves steak, and he is also alergic to mushrooms, we may be related   We watched his mother make sour milk and remove the butterfat from the milk she milked that morning.  We got a tour of the shamba (farm).  The boys got really dirty playing in the granaries.  We had a wonderful time.

We then drove up to Elizabeth’s parent’s place.  Elizabeth is Charles wife, Cammy’s good friend, and our neighbor.  They have a large egg business and we got a tour of the place there and had some chai and fried eggs.

On the way back to Nairobi we were listening music on our GPS, a Garmin Nuvi 855 (Thank you very much Pastor B!)  The song, “Kingdom of Comfort” by Delirious played.  Here are the lyrics:

Save me save me
From the kingdom of comfort where I am king
From my unhealthy lust of material things

I built myself a happy home
In my palace on my own
My castle falling in the sand
Pull me out, please grab my hand
I just forgot where I came from

Save me save me
From the kingdom of comfort where I am king
From my unhealthy lust of material things

I rob myself of innocence
With the poison of indifference
I buy my stuff at any cost
A couple of clicks and I pay the price
Coz what I gain is someone else’s loss

Save me save me
From the kingdom of comfort where I am king
From my unhealthy lust of material things

Save me save me
From the kingdom of comfort where I am king
To this kingdom of heaven where you are king

It reminded me of a previous post.

This is the first time since Petr was born, almost 7 years ago, that I have been alone at home for such a long time.  I have been trying to fill the time getting things fixed around the house and with the car and those types of things.  I have been playing with some of the younger boys I see at Kenyatta Market.  Yesterday to fill the time, I went on a motocycle ride to a place just outside Nairobi.  It is so nice to be outside the haraka haraka (hurry hurry) of Nairobi sometimes.  I mapped it.

I have a little comment about the title of this post for those of you who know the boys.  On the flight from London to Los Angeles, our boys saw the movie Home Alone for the first time.   Petr was so concerned about how the boy got left by his whole family and what a horrible thing it was.  He was frightened by many of the antics of the bad guys.  Andrej, on the other hand, was really enjoying it.  It was the perfect story for him.  Here you have a small boy beating up two adults all by himself.   We had to quiet down all the cheering so the other passengers could sleep.

I got around to adding my tracks from Uganda to Openstreetmap.  The diary entry is up on their site.

One of the things I have learned about living in another culture is how much of my own culture I have.  I have noticed with a lot of the North American missionaries that we work with is that they have a hard time at Christmas in Nairobi.  Singing carols in a t-shirt and sandals is not their idea of Christmas.  Growing up in San Diego has meant that I have never really had a “white Christmas.” There was one time when I was really little in North Dakota, a place I do not recommend visiting in December (there may be some other months I would not recommend visiting, but I do not want to upset the ND Chamber of Commerce).   However, there are a lot of other things surrounding Christmas that are a part of my culture, and I really enjoyed being in California for it this year.  I also enjoyed many of the things not associated with Christmas;  In-n-Out burger, good Mexican food, Disneyland (Thank you Dad and Mom), nice roads, law abiding drivers, stores that have more than you could ever need, restaurants that actually serve what is on the menu… but I digress.  I was really cold though.  Yes, even in San Diego, I was cold.  I think my body has adjusted to the climate in Nairobi.

I had a wonderful time.  I am happy that Cammy and the boys are still able to enjoy being with family there.

I have returned to Africa.  I spent a couple of days in Nairobi trying to adjust to the time difference (11 hours from California).  Then I flew over to Entebbe, Uganda and am riding in a car to Jinja today.  I am here for a couple of reasons, but mainly to help out missionaries serving in Central Africa with their computers.  I spent last night with the same family I stayed with last year, serving with AIM AIR here in Entebbe.  It feels like my Uganda home.  They are great.

I will try to post more about my visit to California later when I feel more rested (heh).

We are home for the holidays!  After our recent miscarriage and trip to the hospital, Cammy’s and my parents got together and decided to fly us back to California for Christmas.  I will be here until December 31, but Cammy and the boys are staying through most of January.

I wanted to be careful not to post anything here so I could surprise a few people.  I had a great time at SCEA (my old job) on Tuesday.  Some of them were pretty surprised to see me.  I got to eat a carne asada burrito off the lunch truck and enjoy a few (4 maybe) Dr. Peppers with the guys.

We had the pleasure of sharing with our church, Calvary Chapel of El Cajon, on Wednesday night. It was a day that I had looked forward to for a long time.  From the beginning of God calling us to work in Africa, I knew that a big part of our ministry was going to remain here.  God could have called anyone, from anywhere, to do what we are doing.  But He chose us, and I know there is purpose in that.  So it was a real pleasure and joy to go back to our church family and share what God has been doing, and that He has allowed us to be a part of what He is doing.

As some of you have noted from pictures and now seeing me in person, I have lost some weight living in Kenya.  Some of it is the diet, you eat less when it is not as appealing.  Some of it is the reoccuring stomach bugs that I seem to pick up often.  I have already had 2 double doubles at In-N-Out and 2 carne asada burritos.  It should work out well that I came to California in good shape, and I’ll go back to Kenya looking “healthy” as they say.

I got stuck near Kibera the other day.

November seems to be a wedding month in Nairobi.  I am not sure why.  It is spring, but that means it rains a bit.

Saturday we went to the wedding of Eventino, the worship leader my mother wrote about.  The wedding was in the church in Kawangware, and the chickens were there as well, the rooster even made a ruckus every time the “pre-wedding singers” had any sort of lull.

We were told the wedding was at 11AM and I was a bit upset we were about 15 minutes late.  It was fine, but it was a good thing we did not arrive much later because then seating would have been an issue.  They always want to give good seating to the wazungu (white people).  We found the back seats of the “guests of honor” section.  Then we waited, for about 2 hours.  Petr and I found some entertainment in watching two circles of sunlight pass over his body from two nail holes in the mabati (corrugated iron sheets) roof.  They move a long way in 2 hours, 30 degrees.

When the wedding party did arrive, it got quite interesting.  When it was time for the bride to come in, the ladies in the wedding party came in very slow, maybe that was normal, but what followed clearly was not on the program.  There seemed to be some hold up at the door, and then the Emcee asked a bunch of the pastors to go out the door to help.  I had a bit of trouble following what was going on, since it was all in Swahili.

We later found out that the parents of the bride refused to allow her to enter the church until they received more money.  This was something of a breach of etiquette because the man had already agreed on a price with the parents months before.  Apparently they had second thoughts.

After the wedding, Pastor Benson relayed to us what had happened, and how he went out there to resolve the issue.  He was lamenting the cultural hurdles so many people have to go through to stay within God’s will in Nairobi.  Many people, especially in the slums, never get married because they cannot afford to pay the parents.  Because there are not too many arranged marriages in the city, the parents of the girl really have the guy in a jam.  He loves her, he would be willing to sacrifice the world for her, and the parents know it.  In the end, they usually just live together.

It got me to thinking about it.  I had had a conversation earlier that day with Ken, my kinyozi (barber), who was telling me of a South Sudanese man he had just had in his chair.  He is 56, and he just bought his sixth wife, for 100 cows.  That is a huge price, in Nairobi equivalent to almost $14,000 (where a daily wage is $5.33).  I wonder how he felt toward his wife, and if she upset him, does he think, “You know, I paid 100 cows for you…”

I began to think of what a mess the whole bride price was.  But then I realized, Christ paid the highest price for His bride.  And, we the church, ought to realize the great price that was paid for us in love, and respond in love back to Him.

What God created, man’s selfishness has corrupted.

Inflation has finally caught up to the burrito index.  We were at Java House this weekend and I noticed they had new menus.  So I immediately checked the price on the carne burrito plate, up by 20 shillings.  I am actually quite surprised it remained at its old price so long.  Officially they had to change the formula to make inflation not look so bad, but in the past two years it has averaged around 30%.  With the new formula it is only 6%.  Go figure, or maybe I should say, “Karibu Kenya” (welcome to Kenya).   Actual figures can be counter productive when you are preparing a run for the presidency in 2012, so who cares about accurately measuring inflation.

I will stick with the burrito index.  Of course that does not help to factor in US Dollar inflation, but I will let you worry about that.