Mzungu Weekend

We had a delightful weekend with two social do's in a row.  Saturday afternoon we were in line at Nakumat and smiled at a mother and son in the checkout next to us (mzungus).  Nakumat is kind of mzungu central, but they are not always friendly.  We always give a Canadian smile, but are often met with barely a glance or even an outright "I'm too cool for you" snub.  Our smile Saturday, though, was met with an invitation for dinner and games night.  Against our introverted nature, a smile is as far as we usually go, we accepted the invitation and arranged to meet later at Naku to be guided in.

Erik & Joel

At the appointed time and place, we were met by two boys who hopped off their piki piki and began chatting up a storm.  I asked the older one, Eric, what it was like being a young guy in Kenya.  I was quickly corrected, "I'm not actually that young.  I will be 14 in June."  The young one, Joel, asked me if I had money and it's o.k. if I don't because he can pay for me.  We hopped on a couple of piki pikis and headed off.  They were as comfortable as can be, smiling and chatting the whole time.

Leading the way to Miraba

We hopped off the bikes a couple of blocks before we reached the house to walk with the boys' friend, Meghan, who was also coming for dinner.  Meghan is just a regular American 24 year old girl; kinda soft, glasses... who is a member of the Peace Corp.  She is living with a Kenyan family in the middle of nowhere, teaching at a rural school.  She is a 700 shilling taxi ride from town -- the Peace Corp doesn't allow the youth to ride pikis.  When we asked her why, she said because they used to have a mortality rate!  O.K., so it was probably only one, but the western safety mentality couldn't take it.  Her stories blew us away... you would never guess by looking at her that she would have the adventurous spirit that she did.  Throughout the evening she and Brent, the 16 year old son, exchanged war stories of nightmare flights to China and other world adventures.

Joel takes care of the calves -- Daisy is 2 weeks old

Dennis and Michele have lived in Kenya for three years with Michele's four boys (her 19 year old daughter went home to the states) Joel (10), Erick (13), Brent (16), Jeremy (18).  They are missionaries who work with a rural school and also teach dairy farming to local mammas.  Their cows produce 17 litres of milk a day.  Michele whipped up some butter right before dinner.  I asked the question a little reluctantly, but I really wanted to know... "What exactly is a missionary."  They told me that basically it can be any type of humanitarian project, often involves building a school or a church, with some element of teaching about God.  Some missions have a stronger proselytizing factor than theirs.  In fact, they are getting quite a bit of flack from their organization for not thumping the bible hard enough.  We ate, played Turkey Foot (a dominoes game), drank tea with fresh milk, laughed, and exchanged stories.  They were possibly the nicest, friendliest people we have ever met.  Glad we accepted the invitation.

This afternoon we went to CHES for a potluck.  The usual mzungu suspects were there -- Rod & Pat, Alinda, Marie, Norm & Cheryl, Sandra, and the young couple from the states, Miles and Katie.  Miles and Katie delighted us with some toe-tappy songs.  Ah, another lovely social afternoon.