30!

So, it turns out that I am 30!

Never one for birthday parties, but wanting to side-step what I presumed to be an inevitable post 20's depression, I planned a grand 30th Birthday Traveling Adventure well over a year ago. However, despite all of my out of character forward thinking and all those months of traveling anticipation, I found myself alone and in Nagishot on the 14th of September.

However, something pretty incredible happened. I had a pretty great birthday!

I spent the morning weeding my flourishing garden. I had cheese for lunch. I met my Didinga friend's brand new healthy baby girl, Katherine Nganga. I watched the first part of, Gone with the Wind, while eating dark chocolate. I opened 30 presents from the Hildebrandt family. Packages that included things like:

1 candle
2 loaves of bread
6 bouillon cubes
9 potatoes
14 pieces of toilet paper
19 Starburst candies
22 Bible verses
24 chocolate cupcakes
30 words of encouragement

30 Presents!!!

I went on a long, quite unexpectedly, muddy walk at dusk and then sat around the fire, talking (ok, mostly trying to decipher the Didinga, Arabic and Acholi being spoken) and eating chocolate cupcakes with the compound.

I didn't spend the 14th jumping out of a plane over a red sand dune in Namibia. I didn't celebrate with my closest friends or family. There weren't 30 candles to blow out or secret birthday wishes to ponder. There was no grand Zambian - Namibian adventure or wild night out on the town. Yet, it was special. It was sweet.

The Didinga people don't celebrate birthdays or keep track of their ages in years. And really, I suppose the idea of a birthday should not be to number an individual's days, but an opportunity to show our friends, our children, moms, dads, sisters and brothers just how much they are loved. How we see Jesus working in their lives.

And on my birthday, I truly felt loved. I did not feel alone, but in the company of Christ. I felt special and cared for. It was a day in which I was once again blessed with the sweet reality that I am held and protected by the Father of Lights. It was a good day to be 30 years YOUNG!!!

We can just call that mud,
though the cows all might call it something else...

Mudhuts, Crows and Monkeys = My Life

After living in a tent for about five months, our Didinga houses were FINALLY finished!!! It was so very nice to upgrade into the mud huts.
Now, how many people can honestly say that...

Mudding

Building Supplies

Home Sweet Home!
My hut is on the far left, Elly's is in the middle and Tianne's is on the far right.

African House - African Dress

Yep, I love this one!

In May, when I finally returned to Hills after my extended time out due to Sudan's April elections and my infected right foot (which healed up quite perfectly - still thanking God and Tenwek Hospital for that), I came home to an expanded household.

Tianne, an extreme animal lover, had rescued an abandoned baby crow, who she later named Bell Ladonna. Bell Ladonna enjoyed spending her Didinga days incessantly cawing and pooping on the dish rack. Sadly, this crow's life was cut short when a little boy, with a good shot, killed her with an arrow (and no, I had no part in this birdies premature demise).

The crow was not the only new addition to the compound. Jonathan and Lauren, our fellow Didinga missionaries, bought themselves a wild monkey, which they named Lomilong.

Rose, Atlas, Lomilong and Bell Ladonna - True Friends
I have to admit, that it was pretty entertaining to watch two dogs, one crow and a monkey
play, eat and sleep together.

There for awhile, we had two dogs - Rose and Atlas (Elly's dog Compass had already been killed in a fatal dog fight) - one crow and a monkey hanging around. However, that was short lived. Bell Ladonna was shot and my puppy, Atlas, was killed. These days, the household includes Rose, and what will be her 3rd litter of puppies, and Jonathan and Lauren's now orphaned monkey.

For me, a self-proclaimed non-animal lover, it all takes a bit of adjusting and a great deal of patience.

Cows and the Results of Rain Producing Clouds

Didinga Shepherd Boy

Handmade Cowbells

The rains came... blessing us with all of this.

Tianne, my 6 foot 2 housemate, and this season's TALL bounty.

"I LOVE rainy season!!!"

In Napep last year, I realized that I am a gardener. This year the planting has proved to be a bit more of a challenge, but still most defiantly worth the effort.

Lettuces, Dill, Parsley, Carrots, Basil... and me.

A bit of this years garden - my trellised peas.

Tianne with her apron on, ready to cook, sharing her garden's bounty.

Cooking with vegetables that you have planted, watered and weeded is just SO. MUCH. FUN!!!

Term 2

Some of P3
(about 10 students were out sick when this was taken,
it hit me hard the following day)

Janie - Natukoi

Popo's Good Start to Each School Day - Singing, Drills and Very Straight Lines

Term 2 ended on the first of August. To be honest, I was a bit sad to say goodbye to my students for the vacation month.

I started the term off with a pre-assessment, a what-do-we-already-know sort of test. It showed that only about four students could successfully write their complete capitol and lower case alphabet and of those four, only two students could recognize more than 10 letter sounds. On the math front, most were having trouble with simple addition, still adding with their fingers and toes!

However, in two short months, about forty days of school, some real progress was made.

Our end of the term assessment showed that all but two of my 25 or so students could, without mistake, write both their capitol and lower case alphabet, most were able to recognize all 26 letter sounds AND some had actually started to read simple English words - which is a MAJOR feat when one considers they are not only learning how to read for the first time, but also how to speak English and read English!!! Now, how 'bout that!

We were busy with math as well - single and double digit addition, even and odd numbers, skip counting, looking for and identifying patterns, fact families...

This next term, Term 3, I am hoping to:

• Start teaching PE as a means of encouraging students to work together for a common goal (not a strong Didinga trait), providing a physical outlet for girls and just because I think that it will be FUN.
• Set aside, and actually use, class time for prayer and worship.
• Look into starting an after school Bible Club - physical games, a Bible story and prayer.
  
• Begin observing and mentoring fellow teachers.
  

Teacher Training

At the request of Pastor William and Eunice, I started the process of training local Nagishot teachers.

While I was in school, training to be a teacher, I dreamed about someday teaching in a small bush Christian school, while also training national teachers. This year, God has been quite generous with me, opening doors and presenting opportunities to both teach in the classroom and train local teachers.

In June, after church one Sunday, I held my first Nagishot teacher training. In the beginning, I was a bit reluctant to hold the trainings on my Sabbath, as I was keen on reserving them for church, long walks with my Lord and working in my garden. However, Eunice believed that Sunday was the only appropriate choice, as the teachers would be busy in their gardens and/or classrooms the rest of the week.

To claim that the first training was a great success, would be a down right lie! Only three teachers showed up and one of them had well, how should I say this, sampled a bit too much of the local speciality and proceeded to sleep through the majority of the training.

The second training was no better. Only two teachers (though a different two from the previous three) showed up, both 45 minutes late. After hours of preparation and waiting, I ended up cancelling the lesson.

At this point, I felt it might be best to forgo the whole thing, but Pastor William and Eunice remained adamant that I train the local teachers. Rather than bi-monthly Sunday trainings, as was originally planned, Pastor William suggested that I use a week during the August school break for the trainings.

So, on the second Monday of the month, we held our third teacher training. Thirteen teachers showed up that Monday morning and almost all of them were on time!

I started this training in the same way that I had started that first Sunday training. I began by asking the gathered teachers what they hoped to get out of these teacher trainings, what they wanted to learn and the issues that they struggled with in their own classrooms?

At the initial training in June, I had been met with blank stares when I asked these same. However, this time I made up my mind and let the group gathered know, that if they could not answer any of these questions or if they were only in attendance because they felt a certain unsaid pressure from either Pastor William, Eunice or myself to do so, I assured them we should all go home, have a cup of chai and call it a day. And the truth is, I really meant it.

Why did I say these things?

Most people on the mission field can literally think of 131 examples of foreigners coming into an area, doing this or that project for the people, and finding that once they have left a community their great ideas, life changing practices and nifty development projects are pushed to the wayside for lack of National ownership.

I had just finished reading, When Helping Hurts, a great book for those of us working with the poor both overseas and locally. This year I have been struggling with my understanding of poverty and our Christian responsibility and response - What does it mean to be poor? Are the Didinga really poor? When is relief work appropriate? What about development? Though my understanding of these concepts is still incomplete, this book defiantly opened some different avenues of thought on the subject (future book report blog? - maybe.)

Anyways, the book also talks a great deal about Nationals participating - ie. planning - in their development. With this in mind, I knew that I could not lead this teacher training, if the 13 men gathered were unwilling to play a role in the event.

Thankfully, after I explained these concepts to the men gathered, giving specific examples from their own community, I began to see a change in the group's mood. The teachers proceeded to speak for at least 45 minutes about their personal struggles in the classroom, almost every man suggested a topic for the upcoming trainings and most of them spoke honestly about why they WANTED to have these teacher trainings. And it was then, and only then, that I knew we were ready to start.

This is what we studied:
Monday - Lesson Planning (Day, Week and Term Planning)
Tuesday - Assessments (When, Why, How of Testing)
Wednesday - Classroom Management (How to teach WITHOUT a big stick!)

By the end of the week, there were about 17 teachers in attendance. Everyone was awake, most were enthusiastic participants and I dare say, they might have even learned a helpful thing or two about teaching!

Bush Communication

Our Sudan Internet Cafe

Well, since January of 2010 our BGan satellite internet system has worked for a total of three whole weeks. That is not good odds for a system as expensive or as important as this one.

I am taking the pesky system to the AIM technology department this week. Praying the computer folks can restore our bush communication with the outside world.

Thanks again to all of you who did write, even when I did not.

We Didn't Steal the Thunder Stone... This Year

Lauren's Didinga Baby Shower

Before Lauren and Johnathan, our fellow Didinga missionaries, returned to the States to welcome their first child into the world, we wanted to celebrate with them the miracle that pregnancy is. Naturally, we decided to host the first Didinga baby shower in the history of the world!!! Sounds impressive, doesn't it.

Like most American women, I've been to a number of baby showers in my years. They are usually a nice enough way to pass a Sunday afternoon, but never anything to write home, or in this case blog, about. However, this particular shower was rad. I can humbly make this bold statement because I had little to no role in planning or executing this event.

I have never been a great party planner or a detail orientated sort of gal. Thankfully for me, and in this case, Lauren, my housemate Elly is both of these things. You would be hard pressed to find anyone as excited by matching napkins or sentimental Christmas cookies shaped like flying reindeer. It's great! So, the responsibility and therefore credit for this rockin' shower must be given entirely to Elly. My role, was much like my role in preparing for family holidays at my parents' house - ie. asking lots of, "What do you want me to do now?" questions and then running to and fro cleaning plant leaves or in this case, fastening twirly pink and blue ribbon around the porch and gathering every chair - stool - bench in 500 mile radiance.

The shower started with chai and mandazos (Africa's version of a donut). Then each of the ladies shared about their families and a piece of Didinga mothering advice for Lauren.

* "Be patient."
* "Baby number two should not come until the first is walking."
*"Babies cry a lot and need a great deal of attention. Be patient."
*"Don't get mad when your baby cries, just go like this (here they would model the world round model of bouncing the baby) and say 'Jaho hah.' - Quiet please.

We then played Pin the Baby on the Momma's Back - our version of Pin the Tale on the Donkey. This part of the afternoon was priceless. The ladies, never introduced to the game as a youngster or turned off to it at the age of 10, absolutely loved it. We all did.

The winning 'pin'

Hilarious!

Ok, so every last one of the party guests, all except Lauren that is, cheated while playing Pin the Baby. See how this unassuming old woman is using her left hand to gauge her positioning? All of the ladies were having such a good time that we decided to overlook this obvious disregard for the rules, but just this once.

Lauren also opened several handmade gifts from Didinga friends.

Beads, a gourd rattle and rain/sunshine gourd baby protector (on her back)

Lauren and Jonathan also played this air-gun-pop-the-balloon-and-determine-the-sex-of-your-unborn-child game, which is only slightly less accurate than a Western ultrasound in determining the sex of a baby. The general gist of the game was: blue balloon left unpopped = boy baby, pink balloon = girl baby and green = well, we weren't so sure about this one, but had the balloons.

Looks like we will be welcoming baby girl Ramirez into the world!

What fun sharing the coming Ramirez miracle with our Didinga neighbors and friends.
Praying for a comfortable delivery for Lauren and a healthy Ramirez wee one.

Lake Turkana

In July, we traveled to Lake Turkana with the Hildebrandt's (John is our pilot and his wife Ginny is perhaps the best bush cook on the face of the planet). We spent a fabulously relaxing weekend in Ely Falls, a little known Northern Kenya oasis.


As one would imagine, after two years living in Sudan I've maybe changed a little. For example, the concept of having a personal pilot is no longer strange, but a reality. Flying is commonplace and driving is now somehow an experience to be anticipated. So under these new circumstances, this July road-trip across North Kenya's extended desert was a journey not soon to be forgotten.

Halfway through the drive, women and children checked out the mammoth termite mounds, while the man checked on the tires.

We drove past several Turkana villages.



We saw LOADS of camels - was it 50?

Then all of sudden, the vast desert opened, revealing a beautiful and surprisingly tropical, Lake Turkana.





At the lake there were several cute little huts for rent, but we decided to stay in tents.



The swimming was amazing!!! We jumped the huge lake waves for hours and when we grew tired of that, we played around in the natural spring pool. FUN - FUN - FUN!!!

I found a crocodile tooth on the beach, evidence of the lake's high crocodile concentration.


We bought some Turkana baskets. I'm a sucker for two things here in Africa, ok three things - baskets, Real Wax African fabric and children.
And no, it is never EVER a good idea for me to go on a morning walk and swim without sunscreen.




The weekend was such a blessing - I had such a great time swimming with the girls and especially LOVED jumping the waves with Ginny. Good company, beautiful scenery and a real summer weekend get-a-away.
Thanking God for all of it!