My Christmas Eve and Day in Africa

Christmas Eve

I spent most of Christmas Eve with Challenge Farm staff and kids. About half of the kids went home to visit family. The other half stayed at the farm because they either do not have any family in the area or it is not in their best interest to let them visit home on overnight visits. Since this is a very hard time for half of the kids, Challenge Farm tries to take them on outings. On Christmas Eve we went to the Kitale Nature Conservancy. I had never been to this place. It is a farm that takes care of animals that were born with defects. During the walking tour I saw a goat with five legs, a cat with three eyes, many animals missing or having more than regular number of organs, one cow with two stomachs, and quite a few animals with three legs. The visit was very interesting and the kids had a great time. The farm has only been open one year, but I was happy to find that my little town of Kitale was doing such a great thing for these animals. Around 8 o’clock I went over to some friends' house where we stayed up till midnight playing 10 rounds of Uno.

Christmas Day

This same group of about 14 short term Anglo missionaries met around 10:00 Christmas morning. There were four cooks who had slaved in the kitchen and produced a spectacular and unusual combination of breakfast foods: scrambled eggs, bacon, German pancakes with Maple syrup, mocha cappuccinos, and crepes with powdered sugar, chocolate sauce, cinnamon, and ice cream. I can honestly say that I have never had ice cream for breakfast, but it surely was good! Afterwards, we opened the gifts we had received from home and then most everyone played the white elephant exchange game. This is always enjoyable as it brings so many laughs. You can imagine just how funny it can be when everyone’s gift came from the market in this small African town.

Most everyone went their separate ways during the afternoon, visiting orphanages of Kenya friends. We reconvened that evening for another excellent meal. All in all, it was quite different from my Christmas in Dallas, but it was a very great Christmas in Africa.

Christmas Wishes!

I have just returned from a safari holiday in Tanzania, which I will blog about later but I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas before I missed the 25th. While on safari I was in search of some Christmas spirit. Here are a couple evidences that Christmas is celebrated in Tanzania.

For those fellow Grey’s Anatomy fans

I decided three weeks ago to go ahead and buy a season pass to itunes for season 4 of Grey’s Anatomy. I began downloading the first episode with such excitement. It took three hours, but I was ready to go home and watch and knew that it was well worth the wait. Turns out, I had only downloaded the new music video by Matt Kearney to kick off the season. You could imagine the disappointment I was feeling. The next time I went to the Internet café, I began downloading the real first episode. It took me somewhere close to 20 hours to download ONE episode! So, every time I went to the café, I would first open itunes, wait to see that the downloading began, then I would start to email. Just one hour before my departure to Nairobi, the downloading finished.

I was ready for the holiday and couldn’t think of a better way to begin. I rushed home, copied it to my ipod, and waited for the hour drive to the airport to watch it. Kitale is about one hour from Eldorat International airport. After getting into a seven passenger matatu sort of van, I began sinking into my seat and the Grey’s Anatomy world. Not much swayed my attention from the show. Only once did I pause because I could have sworn I was smelling BBQ, so I had to glance out the window; there was no Sonny Bryans or Stubs anywhere to be seen. The credits began to role and I stared out my window to soak up my new surroundings. I smiled at how great technology is that it enables me to watch a new season of my favorite show while in the middle of East Africa.

God is watching over us

About one and a half weeks ago the Challenge Farm water system broke. I would enjoy giving specifics, but I still do not understand it myself. I did not realize for three days that the water system was down and that this was a very big problem. I have since recognized a major cultural difference between Americans and Africans; we Americans show emotion quite openly through facial expressions and body language if not having already spoken in words. Africans, on the other hand, always seem to be "fine." I have yet to see anyone of my co-workers have a bad day. So in the middle of the water crisis, I never noticed that there was anything to worry about. I knew that I couldn’t get water from a few sinks, but I just figured they were fixing some things. It never dawned on me that we had a limited supply of water because no one spoke of it and everyone was walking around as though life was normal. It came as quite a shock at staff meeting when the director spoke up and said something close to “concerning the water issue, I would take any suggestions as to what we could do to get water. We are running out and this is a major issue.” Keep in mind this was all spoken in a calm voice, but I knew at that moment that this was a large issue since it was being brought up at staff meeting.

I went home that evening wondering if there was any way I could help. I figured it was worth a try telling my handy mzungu neighbor Allen to see if he had any suggestions. He gladly came out the following three days and worked with our head maintenance man. The main problem is quite a major issue and costly, so they were conjuring up an alternate solution to get immediate water since it could take a while for the other. I went out on Saturday to hang out and relax plus Allen sent me with a few more items that might help the temporary solution. An hour after I had arrived, one of my happiest moments took place. I was standing around the old well with three other adults and five kids. I had been watching them for a while hoping to see some good action. Phillip, the maintenance head, flipped a switch for a pump to begin and we all stared at the water. It was actually draining! He did a quick dance while praising the Lord and then began lowering this pump into the well. He flipped the switch again and the water began pumping from the well! He did another dance and we began pumping water into buckets. I have not seen something so exciting in quite some time. I was smiling from ear to ear while thinking of how great God is for watching over his children. I’m so happy I went out to Challenge Farm on Saturday.