lunch

everyone we visited seemed excited to make delicious lunch for us!  this was our first day visiting the shikuku family.  (martin and ruth shikuku are fostering close to 50 children.)  above anna and joseph are eating with michael, mark and mike in the shikuku's living room.  below ruth is serving githeri. 

rice and beans

here is a piece i wrote for my church's website, published yesterday:

http://stmatthewsriverdale.org/01/blog/

family

these are the people we stayed with for the bulk of our trip.

the day before we left there was a flurry of notes being written and exchanged.  every one of them thanked us for visiting and told us that we were now part of their family.  we left truly feeling as such.

sweeping

the entire yard was swept each morning.  here are joseph and joy working together.

compost

we were very careful when in kenya not to swoop in with projects and ideas, but the lack of a compost heap where we were staying was more than i could bear!  they had been burning all of their waste together and then dumping the remains on the garden.  i had a few conversations with people who lived there in which we talked about what kenyans normally do to handle compost.  it turns out that people often dig a big pit and then layer in food scraps, yard waste, and animal dung.  perfect!

we made plans to dig a pit one day and joseph joined in with other children and a few men in the hard labour.  i hope that in a few months' time there will be beautiful fertilizer for the garden.

funky chickens

the names of the shops in kenya are unparalleled.  this was one of my favourites.

home

this was our home the bulk of the time we were in kenya.  we slept in bunkbeds under mosquito nets, we left the windows and door open during the day and were often visited by dogs and chickens.  early in the morning i would lay in bed listening to the roosters crow and someone chopping wood to prepare for breakfast.  the sky was always blue and there were always smiling faces around.

i'd be lying if i said i didn't miss it.

(photo courtesy of anna)