What we've learned since Friday

We just returned yesterday from a brief visit to Kenya. The first part was a mini-holiday at the Rondo Retreat, a beautiful garden with cottages in the middle of the Kakamega Rain Forest. The second part was spent at Tenwek Hospital having check ups. Here are some things we learned during that trip.

-Driving in Kenya is very dangerous due to rough roads, speedy drivers who have no awareness outside of their own vehicle, narrow roads, pedestrians and animals on shoulders, or a combination of all the above.

-In spite of very bumpy roads with lots of speed bumps, a hungry three year old boy's state of exhaustion may make him fall asleep in his car seat while holding his lunch in his hands. When said lunch is covertly removed, he may awaken.

-Lush green tea farms in the highlands of Kenya are beautiful to see, but not so pleasant to smell, especially when one is the owner of a bionic nose due to pregnancy.

-The famous resident Blue Turaco bird is an expert at hiding whenever we are at Rondo.

-Our healthy singular baby is an expert at hiding gender when an ultrasound machine is present.

-Trying to make a corrupt person see the light of day is an exercise in futility.

-Being patient when a situation is beyond my control, even if I think I could control it better than the person in control, is still beyond my grasp.

-It takes more than one parent to handle two children receiving vaccinations when one of the children is held in the grips of terror, and is terrorizing her sibling, all waiting patients, and all seven shocked observing nurses.

-Children should not be strapped immobile into car seats for hours following a vaccination in the thigh. The result of this action is that they will cry or at least limp when movement is required for a period of more than 24 hours - even in their sleep, and will be unable to go to school.

-Email and laundry multiply exponentially when we are away from home.

-Rich red Kenyan soil does not easily wash out of said laundry.

-The seemingly small amount of items in a shopping cart in Kenya do not necessarily fit into the refrigerator/freezer/cabinet in Tanzania.

Thank you to Rondo for the relaxation, Tenwek for the good health care, Nakumatt for the shopping, and God for all the above plus safety on the roads.

On the Road...Again

We just returned from a weekend visit with friends who live about two and a half hours away. Dusty drove, so I got to write down a few more observations of roadside life.

-a welder wearing knock-off designer sunglasses for critical eye protection
-flocks of school kids in uniforms walking home for lunch
-a motorbike taxi driver wearing a boater's life vest to meet the new standard for wearing fluorescent/reflective driver identification vests
-a boy on a bike carrying a bike on his bike
-smoking fires set by farmers to prepare the soil for the next crop
-mosques
-massive piles of rolling cabbages as we drove through one village
-pairs of men holding each others' hands, a common practice
-lathered bathers in small brown streams
-children and women doing laundry among purple water hyacinths covering the surface of the water
-mango trees absolutely dripping with green mangoes
-spiky sisal plants planted as natural fencing and boundaries
-mountains of rice drying in their husks which look like construction piles of sand
-As we drove past the Serengeti, we saw wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, and baboons.

And our favorite - Spiderman! Or, at least a young boy in Spidey pajamas. We occasionally see adults and children wearing pajamas that come from the Western world and are mistaken for regular clothing.

I wish I had photos to go along with all the sightings, but at 100km/hr the camera just can't get it all well. You'll just have to come out and see for yourself!