Settling in

The jet lag is pretty much over and we are finally starting to get in a little routine.  Ken is on call this weekend so he has been busy at the hospital most of the day (I am guessing that he will share a bit about his day when he gets home later this evening).  The girls and I have had a nice day.  We got up, fixed breakfast and washed clothes.  Remember the water in the pictures showing our immediate views?  That is the water that we use for washing our colored clothing.  Our white clothes, the few that we brought, have to be washed in collected rain water.  We may work on that tomorrow after church.  The lack of humidity does help with drying the clothes!  We laid them out on wires in the yard and many of them were dry in just three hours.

As I said before another little girl lives just next door and she and the girls have spent the entire day playing hopscotch, Uno, tag and Chinese jump rope.  She has been teaching us how to say things in Swahili.  The girls have had a blast with her.  She goes to school just past the hospital and knows her way around so she has been a huge help to me, too.

Several times a day the girls and I go out for little hikes around the village.  The girls love seeing all of the donkeys, cows, goats and chickens.  We have been told that giraffes and elephants used to come nearby but that they have been pushed further out as people have moved in nearer to Tenwek.

Cooking has been a bit of an adventure.  We went to the grocery store and fruit and vegetable market on the way here.  We were able to get any number of things that we wanted.  While our house has dishes and utensils, it is not really equipped with cooking supplies but we are making do with what we have.  Tonight we fixed chicken pesto pasta.  We were able to make it pretty close to what we make at home so the girls enjoyed it.

While we have plenty of clean water for drinking, getting to shower has been a challenge!  The hot water just does not seem to make it upstairs where the shower is located.  The girls did not even attempt showering until today.  I was thrilled to finally get to wash my hair this this evening...yep, a highlight of my day!

The weather here is very nice.  The days start off cool and get warmer until about 3ish when the rains start.  The rains cool everything back down again.  Our house gets quite cold in the evenings.  I generally put on a fleece over my pj's until I go to bed.  Right now we have a fire in the fireplace so we are toasty and warm. 

There are even Tarheels in Tenwek!

A stroll in the rain

Friends!

Chinese jump Rope

Chinese Jump Rope x 2