Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming and things here do not look or feel like Christmas.  The local Nakumatts put up decorations back in September.  It doesn't make me feel like Christmas to see Santa in a palm tree.

 A shot of our Thanksgiving dinner complete with turkey, potatoes, fruit and pumpkin pie with real whipped cream.  YUM YUM !  Yes, I ate too much!

 Another picture of our dinner.  Why did the Sisters go first?  We are real gentlemen or...they set it up and then started to serve themselves?  Below are the gifts for the exchange.  The price limit was 500 shillings and were to be stuff we would want to take home to remember our mission by.  I lost out on the knife with handcarved scabbard and handle.  I got a nice picture frame and Sister Jorgensen got a hand woven mat and a handmade Christmas Angel.

We went to Nairobi for our Thanksgiving Senior Couples Conference.  We had a very nice dinner followed by a Christmas Gift exchange.  The next day we had our conference which was very inspirational and made me want to go and do better.  We were planning on going out to eat Friday evening but after we left the Church office compound we were stuck in a massive traffic jam.  We were an hour and a half going two blocks.  The electricity was off and no traffic lights were working.  I doubt that mattered much since they tend to be ignored anyway.  Finally an officer arrived at the intersection and go things moving again.  We were following the Beechers in their truck and the Babcocks in there truck.  We had three trucks there because the Babcocks and I needed new tires and we left the trucks there on Thursday so James could get new tires for them.  I knew that I needed two but when they pulled them off I needed three.  Tires are a casualty of the many holed roads.  When we got back to the "Nest" (the apartment complex where the senior missionaries who are stationed in Nairobi live) the lights were still out and it was well after dark.  They had a generator going so we had lights in a couple of the apartments.  Sister Tuttle ordered pizzas and the other sisters brought stuff from their places and we had an impromptu  pizza-pot luck dinner.  We all kicked in a few shilling for the pizza and it was really nice.  The Byrds were going home to America the next Monday so it was also a going away party for them.

I decided that we would drive through Kapsebet going to Nairobi even though it is forty kilometers longer so we could miss the construction and terrible diversion.  I took us seven hours of driving.  We took three Elders with us who were being transferred.  Out side of Nakuru I stopped and we put all of the luggage in garbage bags because it looked like rain.  We didn't make ten kilometers before we were in a downpour.  It rained from there on to Nairobi before it let off.  The road from Kapsebet to the Uganda highway is all broken up with pot holes and repaired sections like the one to Busia.  The Uganda highway has deep ruts in the asphalt from all of the trucks headed to Uganda.  Our truck weaved back and forth like it had four flat tires.  Passing the trucks was an experience.  We had to climb out of the rut we were in drop into another rut and weave around and then climb back into the rut on our side.  That lasted about twenty kilometers, just short of the twenty five kilometers of the diversion going to Kerichio.

A group of the Sisters.  Note the head wrap that was put on by the  Kenyan Sister who was helping with the cooking.  "White women do not know how to put on a wrap"

Doing the "Turkey Dance"  Sister Beecher may not cook but she knows how to do a party.

 Sister Jorgensen leading the singing

 A cute little turkey on the appetizer tray.

On the drive back I decided to go through the diversion and construction since the road going was so bad,  BIG MISTAKE!.  The road is awful and the diversion is breaking up from all of the truck traffic.  It rained from Nairobi to the diversion and things were really muddy and slick.  We passed three semi trucks that were spinng their wheels and not able to climb the hills, one coming toward us and two going the other way.  Getting by the one coming toward us wasn't too bad. Picking our way around the ones going the same direction we were turned out to be a little more of a challenge.  We had to drive around and between them without driving off the roadway into the mud on the sides of the road.  We passed one oil tanker down off the road.  I don't know how they will get it back up onto the road again.

 Watching these guys constructing this building provides me with some entertainment.  I counted forty guys working on it one day.  They are putting up the third of four floors.

 We took a group of our prospective missionaries to the airport to get yellow fever shots.  There were all kinds of different school kids there touring the airport.  Must have been some kind of holiday or something.  Each school has their own uniforms of various colors.  I took this picture of one group.

"You can just drive down this road to my place. "  I looked at it and refused.  We walked in

 A bunch of bananas given to us by one of our members.  They are from his shamba.  One of the boys hefted them up on his shoulder and carried them about a quarter mile to our truck since I refused to drive down his road.  I carried them into the house.  They were heavy.  What do you do with that many bananas?  We gave away a lot before they got over ripe

 Kisumu  Branch choir practice.

 A shot of the Kisumu to Busia highway.  This section is really bad and there is no pavement left.  The camera does not show how deep the holes are.  Small cars have a real problem getting through.  These matatus are picking their way through.  When our truck dropped into the hole the front of the truck hit the ground on the far side.

 I tried to get a picture of the truck tires coming out of one of the holes.  It didn't quite work out.  That is a semi headed east.

 Teaching Relief Society sisters in Busia.  We went up there for a day on a Saturday.  Sister Jorgensen was teaching the sisters.

 I was overseeing a door repair.  We repaired one broken door, made another one shut properly, fixed several plumbing problems, hooked up the roof top water tank and checked out the wiring in the chapel.  A white shirt is not the proper attire for rolling around on the floor under sinks and crawling around on a dirty concrete roof hooking up pipes.

 The "Short and Long" of missionary work.  Elders Mbazima and Keno just before transfer day.  They knew where they were going when this was taken.  Mbazima to Mombasa and Keno to the office to be an assistant to the President.  A couple of our good Elders. 

Another shot of the workers putting up the third floor of the building.  The yellow thing is the hoist that uses a gasoline motor to bring up buckets of concrete which is then dumped out onto the floor where it is scooped into wheelbarrows and hauled to where it is dumped into the forms.  Labor is cheap.  Elder Babcock who is an engineer watched and said that it isn't strong enough.  If we have an earthquake the walls will just kick out.  He also said that this building we are in will collapse into a pile of rubble like all of those buildings did in Haiti.

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 One of the better butcher shops.  It has a glass in front of it with the prices posted on the sheet.  The meat is hanging unrefrigerated on the hooks.  The butcher just hacks off what you want..  Flies? what about the flies?  The one next to it was a wooden building with no glass.  It was really primitive.

 Setting up her vegetable market.  She was cutting and packaging Kale in small plastic bags for market.  No, this is not Jubilee Market where there are hundreds of different stalls selling all kinds of stuff.

 Teaching in a cottage meeting. 

An ice cream and cake party for a missionary's birthday.  Elder Keno's, I think.

 Dinner at Bethshaba's.  White rice, brown rice with potatoes, boiled cabbage , chicken in a broth, mixed vegetables, beans, chapata, and fresh pineapple.  the green in front is a drink made from avocados and mango juice.

 Looking out over the valley from the road to Nyabondo.  The camera does not show how steep the drop off is along the side of the road

 Primary children at Nyabondo.  We tried to teach them "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam"  They didn't seem to get it.  I learned that they do not understand English, only Lou.  They did learn what "sweets" means.

 Primary at Busia.

Sister Jorgensen and her Jack-O-Lantern.  People asked "Who is that supposed to be?"  "Are you Devil Worshipers?"  I thought that since this was once a British colony that they would know about Halloween.  They don't.

Sister Jorgensen teaching bead making to a young lady at Nyabondo.  The next time we were up there she gave Sister Jorgensen a necklace that she had  made

October already

It is the middle of October and fall has started.... somewhere!  Our temperatures are about the same as always and nothing seems to have changed any.  We have had some real "frog strangling, rock rolling, gully washing" downpours in the last few months.  Normally the rain storm blows in sometime in the late afternoon with lightning and thunder and sometimes a real downpour that lasts for an hour or so.  One lasted for most of the night and brought about some real flooding.  That can be a sort of disaster when you live in a mud walled house.  The walls tend to dissolve and fall apart.

I have been fascinated by the construction project going on in our culdesac.  I talked to one of the workers and he told me that it will be four floors.  They poured a concrete floor and put up stone block and concrete block walls for the first floor.  They put up concrete forms for a bunch of columns that the stone and concrete blocks are put up between.  They have at least used a lot of rebar.  I wondered how they were going to pour the concrete into the forms for the columns.   In Idaho they would bring in a concrete pumping truck and use ready mix delivered in trucks.  Here they had dump truck loads of gravel and sand delivered and a lot of sacks of cement.  They had a engine powered cement mixer brought in  which arrived in the bed of a little Peugot truck.  A bunch of the guys got around the thing and set it down and moved it in behind the corrugated fence.  All of the concrete is mixed by shoveling  in sand and gravel and cement with what appear to be large dish pans.  At first they were dumping the concrete into buckets which were carried over to the trenches for the footings and dumped in.  Finally they started using wheelbarrows.  When it came time to fill the forms for the columns they set a ladder up and a man climbed up the ladder.  Two men would alternate handing up a pan full of concrete from the wheelbarrow which he would dump into the forms.  After several pansfull had been dumped they used a gas vibrator to shake it all down and then repeated the process until it was full.  When one column would get filled they would move the ladder to the next one and would alternate the guy on the ladder.  I wish I had a good camera that could take a picture of the process.

Now they are pouring the second floor.  They erected a form with a bunch of panels for the floor and a lot of poles to hold it all up filled the entire thing with rebar and wire mesh and got ready to pour the floor.  I wondered how they would get the concrete up there.  The erected a metal frame with a trolley track on the top much like the trolley track in old bars to put hay in the loft.  They then installed an electric motor powered hoist.  Concrete is poured into a big steel bucket, hoisted up, the motor and bucket roll down the trolley track and the bucket is dumped into wheelbarrows which are then wheeled across boards and dumped into the form.  The entire process is labor and time intensive.  Labor here is cheap.  I suppose that they will just use a taller frame and move the entire hoist up to the next floor when they start there.


We have had several of our branch member sick with malaria.  We really worried about Bathsheba since she is expecting but she managed to recover and seems to be doing well.  President Okila's son was sick on Sunday with what appears to be a case of measles.  Michelle was also sick and when we called her mother to see if she has measles she hadn't broken out yet but had all of the symptoms as well as her friend Whitney.  We will probably have half of the branch out with measles by this coming Sunday.

 The white sails in the background are for fishing boats headed out to fish for Nile perch.  Gilbert Pond should come and catch these perch.  They can reach over a hundred pounds.

 

 The big bull hippo with a baby in front of him.

 The guys in the background were fishing and had several fish of different kinds which they showed to us.

 Pictures of hippos.   Our guide said that if the female has a male calf she will hide it from the male or he will kill it.  If another male comes along and tries to move in there will be a serious fight.

 Elder Clark and Sister Jorgensen looking out over the lake.  You can see one of the boats in the background.  Some of these boats look a lot less than sea worthy.  Watching the captain and his one man crew bail water out before we left did not fill me with confidence.

 

 Here is a picture of Sister Jorgensen and one of the orphans.  These are "throw away babies".  Some of them have handicaps and some are HIV and some were just not wanted or the mother could not support them.

 Our display in the park.  The Elders and Sisters got quite a lot of interest from it and a couple people even came to church to check us out.  Below we are eating ice cream and cake to celebrate Elder Clark's birthday.

We went with the Elders and Sisters to Hippo point for a District activity.  We tried to get there early enough to see the hippos on the shore but didn't make it.  We took a boat out to see them and get some pictures.  I took quite a few of the hippos and some fishermen and their catch and of some weaver birds that were making nests in the trees.  Our camera disappeared before we got them on the computer.  I asked for some from the Sisters and so will post some of the hippos.

Elder Clark went home, Sister Phiri went to Eldoret and we have a new sister and a new Elder coming in tomorrow October 13.  I lost the pictures that I took of them when our camera was "lost".  I will try to get some from the other missionaries.

We had our branch conference last Saturday and Sunday with President and Sister Broadbent the mission president and his wife.  We also had an institute training class and Prince Omondi who is the head of the seminary and institute programs for our mission was here.  It was a very uplifting and motivating conference.  I resolved to do better.

Our water went off on Saturday morning.  By Sunday night the reserve tank was almost empty and I shut off the pump.  It is now Wednesday and it hasn't been turned back on yet.  Sister Jorgensen called and was told that a water main had broken and when they dug it up they had broken another one.  It is supposed to be back on today.  I will believe that when I see water running out of the taps.  We are down to using our bottled water and hoping that it comes back on before we have to haul water.  My garden is dying in the heat.

 These men were sitting here all day long for days making smaller blocks out of these bigger blocks.  We have quite a pile of rubble out there now.  I don't know where they are using these blocks in the building

 One of our 6:30 am GRAAAAK birds  They tend to wake us up if the alarm doesn't go off on time

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 Geese parading past us at Brother Mogere's house

President and Sister Okila in front of their house up by Luanda

 OOPS!  I think I missed the road.  Now what do we do?  Turned off of one narrow cow trail and didn't quite make it onto the next one.

 Isn't that tire supposed to be on the ground?

Little boy with a very big knife and his little sister.  I don't know what he was doing with the machete.

 A big pig

 A little pig.  Notice that they are both tied at the foot.

 Elders Dobard and Keno at the equator

Elder and sister Jorgensen at the equator.

After the Picture of the stuck truck was taken we managed to get it pushed around to where we got it out.  At the next place we parked on the road and walked in.  While we were there it rained and we walked back out in the sticky red Kenyan mud.  The next place after that we drove down another cow trail and "parked here".  That was another narrow road where I missed the ditch by inches.  Getting the truck turned around in these narrow spots is really a challenge.  Most of these narrow trails are bordered on both sides by brush some of which has thorns as I found out when I got out.  I got the truck turned around finally and then had to straighten out the mirrors which had hit the brush and been pushed in.  Speaking of mirrors, I was driving through the crowd at the market and clipped a man with the passenger side mirror.  They walk in the road and won't move for a vehicle even if you honk the horn and you have to squeeze by which is made a lot worse when another vehicle comes from the other direction.

We were waiting for the bus to bring in Elder Dobard and watched people getting out of a Tuk Tuk.  A Tuk Tuk is a little three wheeled taxi and it says on the side "Capacity three".  The people started to get out and kept coming like one of those clown cars in the circus.  We counted ten people some of which were children but two were well fed women.  I don't know how they all got in or how the poor thing moved with them all in it.

September 6

This has been a busy month since the last post.  We have been to Nyabondo and Busia working with the people there.  Two more of our Elders were transferred out and we have gotten two Sister missionaries in.  Maybe that will help us get more women converts.

We had a woman in our branch pass away.  It was over three weeks before they got things arranged for her burial.  Her daughter is not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints and went for a more traditional African funeral.  They wait until all of the kin from out of town can be there.  From the time of death until the burial they have a mourning service every evening where friends and family can come comfort the family.  Of course the family is expected to feed them.  On the day of the burial they have long elaborate services followed by a big dinner which the family is expected to provide.  It creates a really big hardship for the family and they expect the Church that they belong to to help pick up the cost.  The daughter didn't want her mother to be buried in her temple robes and insisted on a white sparkly dress with what appears to be a bridal veil complete with white flowers.  We had a short service for her on Friday night here at the church house.  On Saturday they took her up country for burial.  The daughter had her parson speak and he went on for over an hour talking about her being dead now and it being too late for her to be saved.  I don't think he comforted her family much.

Sister Jorgensen and I participated in the All Africa Helping Hands Day where our church sponsors a community service day for all of the members in the African continent.  We had a good turnout and cleaned up the park.

We were invited to a senior couples conference to be held at the Lake Nakuru Lodge in the game park.
We paid for our rooms and meals in advance so we could guarantee the reservations.  We were looking forward to being with other senior couples to "compare notes" and talk about common problems we all face here in Kenya and Tanzania and to be inspired by the messages of our leaders and each other.  We would also have time to be tourists for a few hours each day.  We were supposed to leave early Saturday morning for the four hour drive so we could meet at the gate at ten a.m.  At three in the morning on Saturday I heard Sister Jorgensen crying in the bathroom.  She had gotten up to go to the bathroom and was in such pain that she could not walk.  I helped her get back to bed.  I called Elder Nevin at seven and told him we had a real problem and might not make the conference.  I told him that she might have broken one of the pins loose in her back.  We went to the emergency room in a local hospital with her saying that she didn't want to be operated on here in Kenya.  Several thousand shillings and a couple of XRAYS Later we had determined that the pins were still in place and the problem was a serious muscle spasm.  Extra strength Tylenol helped relieve her pain and she insisted on going to the conference.  We drove to the conference over some pretty rough roads and she made it without too much discomfort.  One of the senior missionaries is a doctor and he read over her report and gave her some muscle relaxing medication.

The road between here and Nakuru is under construction in several places.  They are widening it which it really needs.  It appears that they have brought in a contractor from out of country and they have a bunch of fairly new equipment.  They have put diversions in place in several places with some of them right alongside of the new roadbed that they are working on.  The big trucks have rutted it to the point that the bottom of our truck hit the ridge in the center.  I hope it has shields under the oil pan.  I should look.  We also had a twenty five kilometer diversion on another really rough road.  It looks like the road bed has been graveled with rock about the size of a tennis ball.  There are the requisite speed bumps every once in awhile too.  I don't know why since it is almost impossible to go very fast.  Twenty to thirty kilometers per hour is about it or you will shake the vehicle to pieces.  We passed three trucks that were broken down when we were going and two matatus that were broken on the way back.  You get to see some really beautiful country while driving on the diversion if you dare take your mind off from the road.  On the paved part coming down a hill on this side of Kerichio I didn't see the series of speed bumps quickly enough and hit them going about 80 kilometers per hour.  They were the smaller ones but there were four in a row.  That will sure get your attention.  The truck came off the last one rocking back and forth.

We had a really nice time at the conference and came away inspired to work harder.  The lodge was really nice except for the bed which was quite hard.  It was nice to have decent food without any Ugali in sight.  I even tried the roasted leg of lamb.  It was a buffet so we could eat all we wanted.  The only thing missing was mashed potatoes and roast beef.  Some of the dishes smacked of Indian influence and had curry and other spices in them.  I suppose that is to cater to the large number of Indian guests that they had.  Breakfast was more traditional British with sausages, fried potatoes, beans, eggs and fruits.

We rode along with another couple to see the sights and the animals.  Most of the animals were too far away for our camera to get good pictures of them.  The lions were an exception.  They obviously are used to being a tourist attraction and just hung out there within a few feet of the trucks.  I could have almost hit a couple with a broomstick.  I certainly wasn't going to open the door.  The day before several couples were watching them when the lions decided it was dinner time and attacked a cape buffalo.  They were able to video tape the stalk and the chase and the female lions bringing down and killing the buffalo.  The two males had gotten up and walked out to where the buffalo were watching them while the females worked around and came up from behind and then chased the buffalo down.  We tried to get close to some giraffes but the road didn't go close enough.  There is a strict rule  "stay on the road".  It started to rain and we decided to get back while we still could get through the mud bog at the end of the road where it merged with the main road.  In a Kenyan downpour the roads turn into a muddy trail in a hurry.   Monday morning early Elder and Sister Nevin took another couple and drove to the water falls which were running full from all of the rain.  On the way they got stuck in the mud and Elder Nevin got out and pushed.  They passed a safari truck that was really stuck.  It was down to the axles on one side.  It was going to take some work to get that one out.  They left that up to the company that runs those safari trucks and kept going.  If they had tried to pull it out they would have been stuck just as deep.

We were able to see quite a variety of antelope, some up quite close.  I would have liked to get a lot closer to the rhino to get better pictures but I would have had to get out of the truck and walk towards them and I wasn't about to do that.  We had a baboon climb into the bed of our truck but it didn't find anything there and climbed back out before we tried to drive off.  I didn't want to bring one home with me anyway.  Lake Nakuru is famous four flamingos.  We couldn't get close to them but did get close to pelicans.  I have seen a lot of pelicans and didn't particularly want to see any more.

September update, a few pictures

 children playing on a downed tree.  They love to pose for pictures and always want to see.  Typical mud huts in background.

 All Africa helping hands day in Kisumu.  Wearing the yellow shirts.  Joseph, and I don't know the names of the others.

 Shot of the group getting ready to go to work.  A lot more than this showed up.  About 72

 Joseph, Sister and Elder Jorgensen.  Don't we look stylish?

 Working hard

 Girls like to work too.  Wonder where the boys are right now!

 Even the more "senior" sister in the work force.

Yes, I can push a wheelbarrow.   President Okila's son

Stacking rock for the construction project for a new building in our circle.  All of these rocks were hauled in ten wheel trucks and tossed off the trucks by hand.  They used a tape measure and carefully stacked the rock in piles.  Later they brought in several more loads of grey rock and tossed this pile over onto the other one and piled grey rock here instead which they also stacked very carefully with a tape measure.  Now they are out there with hammers and chisels  making sure the rocks are square.  They mixed and poured concrete with a motor powered cement mixer and hauled it in buckets and wheelbarrows to pour it in the trenches that they had dug with picks and shovels.  Labor is cheap

 The globe that marks the Equator on the road to Busia.  We finally stopped and took a picture on the equator.

 Elder Olsen on his transfer day.  We will miss him.

 Elder Jackson on his transfer day.  Another of our "Boys" going away. 
The upper picture is of a group of children from Nyabondo.  We tried to teach them the song "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam"  They just didn't seem to get it.  Later we learned that they don't speak English, just Lou, President Obama's family language.

Sister Jorgensen and a Maasai posing for pictures.  Note the sign.  This patio is just off the outside dining area where we ate lunch on Sunday.

 Lake Nakuru game park.  There are baboons and monkeys everywhere.  We were warned to keep the windows up or they will jump in the vehicle looking for food.  We were going to a Senior Couples Conference here.

 Those aren't Angus cows we are looking at!  A herd of cape buffalo

 Just come on over here, I dare you.  This old boy was giving us the once over.  No, I didn't try to get closer

Some of his friends grazing away.

 Baboons in trees.  These weren't very friendly and climbed up when I stopped to take their picture.  Another troop didn't want to get out of the road and we had to drive around them.

 Singers welcoming us to supper at the Lake Nakuru Lodge.

 View from our Patio on Sunday morning.

 Baboon going down our walk.

 Lake Nakuru Lodge from the backside.

 Is that a water buffalo or something?  He was taking it easy just over the fence from the dining room of the lodge.

 Monkey eating berries.  He just wouldn't turn and look at us.

 Rhinos and zebras.  We couldn't get closer to them.  A lot of the animals were just too far away to get pictures with our camera.

 Just go fast and you can make it through!  We did too.  Mud flying.  Monday morning another couple got stuck a little farther down the road.  Everyone get out and push!

 Can't shoot me.  Nanner nanner.

 A lady posing for the camera.  Just don't open the door.  I could almost reach her with a broomstick.

 OK just get out of the car and come a little closer!  I won't bite you very hard, I promise.

 A big rhino.  He got tired of us and trotted away.  His horn is really long.

Right next to the road.  Wasn't scared of us or anything.  Went right back to grazing after I snapped this picture.

Another antelope of some kind.  There were a bunch of them grazing alongside the road

 Turn your head this way monkey.  It never did but just walked off

 Part of our group at supper on Saturday night.  Elder and Sister Hall.  Yes, he is tall.

 President Broadbent next to Sister Jorgensen with more of our group.

A picture of the acres of tea plantations on the hills going to Kerichio.  There are thousands of acres of tea on the hills around here.  We passed a group of white cabins with red tiled roofs that are used to house the tea plantation workers.  They brought mechanical pickers in over by Eldoret and about had riots when they put people out of a job picking tea leaves.  They went back to hand picking.