Nakumatt Smart Shopper

On sunday, I finally traded my tattered temporary Nakumatt smart shopper card for a shiny, new, blue, permanent card! It was a beautiful day. I know, I already have a nice stamp in my passport saying that I'm an official Kenyan resident, but somehow, this little piece of plastic means a whole lot more!

The Holidays

Well, despite the fact that the weather hasn't changed since we arrived in Kenya, it is actually beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Well, "a lot" might be a bit of an exaggeration, but we have kicked off the holiday season in our own way!

On thanksgiving day, the cafe served up a wonderful meal, complete with stuffing and pumpkin pie! (the pumpkin pie was my favorite. And since it wasn't popular with the kids, there were LEFTOVERS! :D Day. Made. two days in a row!)

They decorated the cafe and everything! (Photo lifted from Katie's blog)

Thanksgiving dinner. (This picture is Katie's too...)

After finishing our thanksgiving feast, we went back to teaching classes and grading (since thanksgiving is an American holiday, we still had classes all week). All afternoon, facebook was teeming with thankful posts, and preparations for black Friday. Tanzi had the great idea of going black Friday shopping, despite our location, so after we got out of school, Macy, Melissa, Tanzi, and I walked the five  kilometers into Rongai and back to buy supplies for dinner. We might not be able to get as many crazy sales here in Kenya, but being able to walk to Tuskys for fresh fruits and veggies more than makes up for it! I'd say our black Friday was the best, because not only did we avoid the lines and traffic, but we got great grilled tomato sandwiches out of it too!

Avocados, tomatoes, and bread! Yum!

Now that it's after thanksgiving, I've started going through my itunes, spiffing up my holiday playlists. While it still seems strange to think that Christmas is just around the corner, holiday movie nights, Christmas music in the house, and the beginnings of Christmas decorations are slowly, but surely, bringing the Christmas season to our Kenyan home. 

Our SM mantle and Christmas tree

Language Barriers

The longer I'm at Maxwell, the more and more I notice my english skills deteriorating. It's part sad, part hilarious, and part down right depressing. Communication is kind of important in life, and since I have no other language to fall back on, being able to speak english effectively is kind of important!

My biggest problem has been verb tenses. Who knew that conjugating verbs could ever be this difficult! Some all too common examples:

"There is two packages floating out in Africa somewhere with my name on it!" - Katie 

"I do like another doughnut...." - Tanzi 

Not only are verbs a challenge, but words are made plural here without much of a second thought. In the cafe, you pick up your fruits juice after you grab your silverwares, and people will leave campus to get their hairs cut instead of their hair cut.

The top two phrases that I've picked up are "even me" which is used the say way "me too" is used, and then "Me, I...". Both of these are already bad english, but I have taken it an extra step and smashed them together into the oh-so-incredibly useful "Even me, I . . ." I'm ashamed to admit how often my sentences have started off this way.

Part of me is almost excited to come back to the States having picked up various sayings from my year abroad, however, an even bigger part of me knows that if I come back to the States talking about fruits juices and hairs cuts, people might give me strange looks.

Side note: Writing this blog post was incredibly difficult. Much more than it should have been! I'll try to work on my english skills and get back to you guys later....

Hells Gate Campout

This past weekend, I went on a fabulous camping trip. The entire school split up by classes, and on Friday we all piled into Tonkas and headed out for a weekend in nature. The juniors and seniors drove off to the Mara, while I joined the freshmen and sophomore classes going to Hells Gate national park. 

Since Hell's Gate is only a mere two hours from campus, we were able to take several side trips on our way over. After a brief pause overlooking the rift valley to take pictures, our first stop was for a hike in a forest up near the high road to Nakuru. Throughout the guided nature walk, I was struck with how incredibly different, yet similar, the forest was to everything I'm familiar with. There were times when I felt like I was back in the smokey mountains looking at wildflowers, but then I would find myself stepping around elephant excrement instead of deer droppings. From the waterfalls of North America, to tea fields in Asia, I definitely felt like I had seen a little part of several continents. 

The funniest thing happened while we were down at the waterfall. Tanzi and Jacqui had decided to go walking in the water, and when I looked over, their faces were priceless! Jacqui had fallen in, Tanzi had laughed, and the rest could be plainly seen plastered all over their faces. It was great! 

The rest of the weekend was full of volcanoes, game drives, hammocking, a little bit of rain, rock climbing fishers tower (the inspiration for pride rock), and hiking the gorge (The gorge hike was by far my favorite part of the whole trip!).

It was the first camping trip for a lot of these kids, and some of them took the showering situation kinda hard. One sophomore even said, "But Miss, I've never gone a day in my life without at least two showers!" They were so desperate, that some even took water bottles and went out into the trees to shower! Hilarious! It was definitely a bonding experience for everyone. 

the great rift valley

I love these girls... They're kinda crazy!

So perfect!

Some of these kids had never seen a waterfall before

Tea fields 

Hells Gate National Park

This is how most of the game drive went

Rock hyrax. Isn't he the cutest?!

Time

So, I'm pretty sure someone has been sneaking extensions into my hair at night. Only halfway joking. Since when has my ponytail consistently been hitting the back of my neck? I know it's been more than a few weeks since I've been able to even pretended to wear my bangs straight down, but this is ridiculous.

Time has a funny way of passing here in Kenya. I'm still getting over the shock of October arriving, and we're already halfway through November! Part of the problem is that I'm not experiencing the change of seasons like I do in the States. It's hard to imagine Christmas is just around the corner when the weather is just as perfect today as it was three weeks ago. Regardless of the weather, the reality of time passing is becoming more and more real everyday, and to be honest, it's really upsetting.

I want time to stop. To stand still, even if just for a moment. Last night, I got one of those moments. Tanzi and I had been talking about doing something exciting all day, and so after dinner, a fort was born. It was in the middle of the living room, and a sight to behold. Anyone else listening would have found the fort builders lamenting that they were not engineering majors hilarious, but I'm pretty sure any college education just makes fort building that much more epic!

Time is a funny thing. It passes quickly, and sometimes even slowly, but regardless of what it seems like time is doing, I want to fill it to the brim.

Photo shamelessly lifted from Tanzi's instagram 

Early Morning Beauty

Today, Tanzi, Melissa, and I woke up before 5:30am in order to watch the sunrise. Both Tanzi and Melissa saw a phenomenal sunrise yesterday morning while they were running, and we were hoping to catch a repeat performance. Unfortunately, the cloud cover was very thick, and we weren't able to see the sunrise we had hoped for. The incredible thing was, that even though the sunrise was veiled, the morning was still dripping with beauty. The plants in front of me, the foggy view below, the company of good friends, and even the multitude of birds were all working together to form a morning that was completely worth setting my alarm for.

An early morning at the ECD

Home sweet home

Birthday Blessings

Words cannot even begin to express how absolutely incredible my birthday was. The volume of love and happiness that was all stuffed into one day completely blew me away! (warning, this will be a long one!)

It's taken me awhile to be able to write about Tuesday. I had to let all the goodness settle, allow time to give it perspective, and take a few days to be certain that it was all real. 

Everything about Tuesday was wonderful. The morning started out normal enough, but by staff worship, the birthday festivities quickly began to pick up. A Skype date and birthday wish scavenger hunt kept me busy in the library all morning, and kept my mind successfully off the sex-ed health class that I would shortly have to teach. Surprisingly enough, teaching the oh-so-mature freshmen about the reproductive system ended up being one of the highlights of my day. I started out class by telling them that this was one of my favorite days, and one of my least favorite. My favorite because of my birthday, and my least favorite because of the section we were covering. Without another word, all the freshmen broke out into one of the most enthusiastic versions of the Happy Birthday Song I've ever heard! Before we started, I prayed for their maturity levels, and thanked God for giving me such a wonderful class that I love so much. They were understandably rowdy and ill-behaved throughout my PowerPoint, but the questions and the energy that came out of that class made the high level of awkwardness completely worth it! I love those 23 kids SO incredibly much. I love praying for them, I love helping them (most days), and I love their smiles, even when they're trying to use them to manipulate me. 

During lunch, I noticed something strange start happening. EVERYONE seemed to know that it was my birthday! Turns out, Tanzi had told the senior class that morning to wish me a happy birthday, and they took their assignment very seriously! Every time I turned around for the whole day, there was at least two students there to yell out "Happy birthday miss Emily!" regardless of whether they were my students or not. At lunch, I was sung to for the third time, but with no less enthusiasm than the first. 

I spent all afternoon in the library supervising study hall with Jacqui like any other Tuesday afternoon, but everything was different. Even though study hall was busting at the seams with noisy kids, I had so much fun just hanging out with everyone. For one day, I didn't feel like a super mean study hall enforcer. Saron and I took pictures, I successfully hushed people, and I even got papers graded and put into the grade book. 

Saron's a little crazy, but I love her

Polly brought me some pretty fabulous cupcakes after study hall, which I shared with the SMs who were left on campus. I was going to head over to the cafe to see what was for dinner, but the Raymond's not so subtly stopped me and told me to just skip the cafe and come over in about 20 minutes. Derek pointed out that we really didn't need to be speaking in code anymore, but I still appreciated the attempt at a surprise. :)

My scrumptious birthday cupcakes!

At the Raymond's, all of the SMs (that's right! ALL of us!) were able to eat together, at least for a few minutes. Yani had made possibly the best tortilla chili soup ever, guacamole, and a vegan chocolate cake that could knock your socks off! Definitely the best meal I've eaten in a while.

I left the Raymond's, full and wonderfully satisfied. I left because I was supposed to work in the library tutoring, but when I arrived, Jacqui took one look at me in my slightly soggy state (it had been raining) and ordered me to go home. I protested, but she even went so far as to push me out of the library, and lock the door behind me. She even asked the girls if they wanted me there, and the resounding NO came at me mixed with huge smiles and giggles. I finally surrendered and started heading for home. I hadn't gotten very far, before one of my students came running after me. I was sure it was about the biology homework that I had assigned, but instead, she pressed 200 KSH into my hand and told me that it was a present for my birthday. I tried to give it back, but she ran away and locked me out of the library (again!). I was flabbergasted. She is so incredibly sweet, and I love her so much. 

The love and support coming to me from every direction was, and still is, completely overwhelming! I half expected the clock to strike midnight, the spell to be broken, and my students to remember just how mean and strict they really think I am.  

Jacqui captured some pretty attractive pictures of me....

Kenyan sunsets take my breath away daily

People

People are what make life great. And these people make life the greatest.

Last night was wonderful. All the SMs (minus Taylor who had to stay in the girls dorm) took over the library for boys club banquet prep. Jacqui has been hard at work for weeks now on the banquet sign, and so we all brought our computers and started painting. We got a lot done, but the painting was only part of what made last night so memorable. The SMs from Southern stayed up to Skype the student missions expo. Seeing familiar faces, both from previous SMs and classmates, made me smile. In between painting and jamming out to music, I got to Skype my parents as well as Julia (who's in POLAND!). 

The SMs here at Maxwell are the best in the world! I can't think of anyone else on earth I'd rather prep with for a silly boys club banquet (sports themed of course...). These guys can make absolutely anything ten times more exciting!

We make the most epic faces. All the time!

He does too...