We can't get to our house...there's a buffalo!

Sat., May 21st 2011

Today was no exception to the craziness that has become our lives. This weeks seemed like a torrent of activities and madness from Jonathan having an amoeba, to a crisis with our house help. This day it seemed like the crisis was at it's climax and by 6 PM I couldn't imagina making dinner. So the family was treated to dinner at Java House. We enjoyed a fantastic meal that I didn't have to make (or clean up!), grabbed a couple things from the market and headed home. The family was singing in the car when we turned the corner, down our narrow driveway to see eyes glaring back at us. Jonathan exclaimed, "STOP!" I had the same thought going through my mind when we both realized we were face-to-car hood with a buffalo. These guys are known to charge when they feel threatened and seeing as there was no place for the buffalo to go, we DEFINITELY didn't want to make it feel threatened. So we backed away and just waited. We realized after a few minutes that the buffalo wasn't going anywhere, and decided to call our guard Rumpe', a Maasai warrior. Speaking little English, he advised to proceed "pole' pole'" (slowly). So up we crept with our Toyota Carib, and our bright head lights glaring. The buffalo gave us a glare, stamped it's foot and wiggled his ears. A torrent of questions flew from my mouth to Jonathan. As if he was an expert on buffalo behavior, "Does the stamp mean he wants to charge? Is he threatened by the high beams?" Jonathan just looked at me and said, "How I am supposed to know that?" "His ears are wiggling....what does that mean?" Now being raised in Orange County, CA and an avid Disneyland Pass holder, the only time I had seen ears wiggle like that was when the Disneyland Jungle Cruise's Hippo would surface slightly. The tour guide would raise the fake shot gun in the air and shoot it in the air as if to scare off the mechanic hippos. I wonder if buffalo had that same warning sign. I began to chuckle at the ridiculousness of it all. I edged forward in the car moving slowly when the buffalo's head began to tilt downward. NOT GOOD!!!! I began to back up and the buffalo crossed to the other side of the car. Rumpe calls Jonathan's ohone and again urges us to just come, "Pole', pole'". We began to count the cost of moving forward. Jonathan examined what the damage could be. "If the buffalo hits the hood of the car, we can back up and be ok. But if he hits the window, it will no doubt shatter the glass and we could be in serious trouble." I began to chant, "Maasai know buffalo better than we do....Maasai know buffalo better than we do...." I inched forward, the buffalo again, lurched it's head forward. I chanted some more when the buffalo ran straight past the car and we were finally coming toward our front gate to safety. Feeling my heart race like never before and an exhilaration of accomplishment, we parked and sprang out of the car with a celebrating Rumpe' and Nicholas (our day guard who was visiting with Rumpe' at the time). I have never heard Rumpe' and Nicholas speak so fast and with such excitement as the entertainment they got that night. Watching the Wazungu (white) family run into the buffalo just made their night, it seemed.

And for tonight's dinner entertainment....giraffe!

We have been house sitting for a German family, the Kochs, now for 5 months. They have a beautiful home right on the game park with a stunning view of wildlife galore. Usually I am so busy and focused in on the house chores that need to get done and find myself just running around and forget about the blessing of where we live. Tonight was no exception but I just happened to glance out the window to see SIX giraffe feeding on our trees. I had just run upstairs to get a clean bib for the baby and there they were. In all their majestic (always the word that runs through my mind when I see giraffe) creatures. Who are we that we get to enjoy such beauty? So I rushed the kids from the table and reminded them to be extremely quiet, so as not to scare away the giraffe. Here are the pictures from tonight in all their glory. Thank you Jesus!

Christmas Oddities-Our First Christmas in Kenya

We moved to Kenya in Sept. of 2009. From the time the plane landed, life seemed overwhelming. Two short months after we arrived in Kenya we conceived our third child. During this time, we were also in language school and finding life extremely difficult to adjust to. With family a world away we desperately looked for the comforts that would normally come at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The perfect Christmas would involve the perfect tree. We searched high and low for any area that sold a real Christmas tree. The best we could do was a $75 fake tree, sold to us at Nakumatt, a grocery store chain. The tree was basically a large pole with green, plastic pine-like needles wrapped around. The tree came in three parts. Out of the pole, wire branches sadly sprung out in an attempt to hold ornaments made for such a tree. Cheap, plastic ones. Now, being a great fan of Christmas I pulled out the full bin we shipped out just for our Christmas ornaments and decorations. As we placed our beautiful ornaments on the tree it became clear that the tree was tilting and the weighty ornaments were a high demand on our sad, expensive tree. With some tweeking, "handy Jonathan" had that tree upright and we were able to place ALL of our ornaments on the branches.

One of our favorite places to go during our time at language school was Westgate Mall. This sophisticated, up-to-date, classy, expensive mall was reminiscent of South Coast Plaza in Orange County. We were thrilled to see beautifully decorated trees, Christmas music playing, even the commercialization of Christmas was exciting. I can feel at home here. We browsed our way through the mall, window shopping with a cup of coffee in hand when we spotted him. You know, him. He wasn’t quite making his "Naughty-or-Nice" list, nor did we hear the echoes of a familiar, “Ho, ho, ho”, there were no children, presents or elves in sight. He was merely standing in front of a Kodak photo store soliciting photos with himself. He of course was black, which is expected but the suit was anything but expected. It was ridiculous. His red suit dripped off of his thin body and on the top of his head, a red, velvet cowboy hat, proudly stood. His cotton, poorly constructed beard was falling off his face as he spoke to passer-byes. After seeing this, I couldn’t resist. By this time our children were SO ready to go home. But we were not exiting the Westgate Mall without a family picture with Santa. We wanted proof. In my mind, we would send these as Christmas cards to the family as proof that we, most certainly, were in Kenya for the holidays. Santa was thrilled to take a picture with us. Seeing as the Kodak Studio looked professional, we thought we’d have a nice little back drop and a nicely arranged family portrait. Instead, they grabbed the cashier, handed him a camera that looked like it was for sale. They took several pictures out in front of the Kodak store and Vwala! Our family Christmas picture.

Our guard, Paul, was a seemingly pleasant man whom we tried desperately to use our Kiswahili on. His voice was so deep and difficult to make out, after a few tries, we just gave up trying to understand any of the grunts and mumbles that would come out. Christmas Eve was coming and Jonathan had a grand feast in mind. We were determined to make such a deal over Christmas and invite anyone who’d share a meal with us. We enthusiastically invited our guard Paul after we learned his wife and children were going up country to be with extended family. Alone on Christmas Eve? PERFECT! That night we invited Paul in to dine with us at our table. The children were the major relief of the meal after the general greeting of, “How are you this night?” “How are your children?” “How is the family?” Yep, that took a total of 2 min. to clarify but yet we had about 30 plus minutes with grunting, mumbling Paul. What did I do with that time? Desperately to find SOMETHING to talk about, I grabbed the lap top and showed him pictures of our family at Disneyland. Ridiculous, I know. “Disssss-neeeee-land, ” I mouthed. He wanted to know where this land was. After about ten minutes of trying to explain that Disneyland was indeed not a “land” or country, he was clearly confused and I was exhausted from trying. I continued to scroll through the pictures and said, “Well, this is us there.” We were glad to see Paul finally make his way out with dessert and a fresh cup of tea in hand. Goodnight Paul.

It needs to be said that one of the greatest gifts we were given from home was Christmas cards. We had so many. We took great joy in reading cards from home, over and over. We felt loved and remembered. We completely covered a whole wall of cards from family, friends and church family-including people we've never met before. We were and are proud to have so many supportive people who love us.

At the tender age of two

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14
Christopher, one night as I was tucking you into bed a thought popped into my mind that I believe was from the Lord. After teaching you some Bible songs and loosely talking to you about who Jesus is I decided that I would share with you how Jesus died "for all the things that make God sad". I can't remember the exact details of what I said but I asked if you would like to have Jesus in your heart. I was floored by how thoughtful you seemed to be as you contemplated the decision. Then with your lips pressed together, eyes wide, with those long beautiful eyelashes blinking back at me you nodded your head, yes. On September 9, 2010, you asked Jesus into your heart with enthusiastic joy. Praise God! Here's a little video from that night.