Engaged!

That's right! My (not so) baby brother is engaged! I'm so incredibly excited for these two!

Aren't they just adorable?

Happy Birthday Tanzi!

Today is the birthday of one of my best friends in the entire world.

She's gorgeous, even with paper mache on her face!

She definitely gets a lot of stuff on her face!

She's pretty bomb at climbing up trees

She has the gift of encouraging people through even the scariest of places

She can rock crazy outfits and not care what other people think :)
(sorry Tanzi, this picture went up partially because of your green watch. And mostly your smile!)

This girl listens to other people, and I mean really listens and cares about what other people have to say.

Happy Birthday Tanzi. May your birthday be overflowing with Zesta and adventure! I love you SO much!

Re-Entry

No matter what anyone tries to tell you, coming back from living anywhere for an extended period of time is a BIG DEAL. I never realized just how big of a deal it was until this week. Until I am experiencing it myself.

Believe it or not, I don't really think where you spent a year away is the deciding factor for how the return goes. Regardless of where I went, I still spent ten whole months living somewhere completely separated from everything I knew. I was living day to day in some place other than America, and I still have a year of my life that only a handfull of people experienced with me. I may not be breaking down in Walmart over the materialism in America, but I still have to fight preconceived ideas about Africa every time I open my mouth. I have to reintroduce my Kenya to every new person I talk to, and once in awhile, it would be really nice if I could make jokes and comments without worrying about whether or not people understand.

It was actually just yesterday when the thought hit me that I'm here to stay. This might seem like a silly realization, but it hit me really hard that I am going to be living here in America for the foreseeable future. I'm not going back. When people were leaving Maxwell, it seemed like everyone was just leaving for an extended vacation. I know I want to go back, and I know I would love to teach again, so I guess in the back of my mind I let my subconscious go so wild with the idea of returning that flying back became something more like an annual leave than a relocation. But no. I actually have to adjust back to living in the United States. And adjusting is hard.

Safe

Looks what Starbucks is carrying now!

We'll I'm safely back in the States. I have so many thoughts on both leaving and reverse culture shock swimming around in my head, but I'm going to let them solidify before I write them down.

While you wait for me to get my thoughts together, heres a few blogs on leaving written by some of my best friends in the entire world.

Jacqui here and here
Tanzi here and here
Katie here

A Birthday Surprise for Keith

This post is a few weeks belated:

Macy had a crazy idea before christmas to fill up Katie's room with balloons for her birthday, but it never happened. So a few weeks ago, Macy decided to fill up Keith's room with all the balloons instead. His room was definitely smaller, and by the time we got our act together it was actually his birthday, double bonus!

We were all enlisted to help...

Carrying everything over

While we were filling up his room, Keith decided that he really needed his water bottle. When we heard him coming, the four of us ran, but we were so surprised and disoriented that we ended up making more noise and couldn't really hide our presence (especially when I practically ran right into him!). While it wasn't exactly the surprise we had planned for, Keith walking in on us actually made the experience ten times more memorable!

Happy Birthday Keith!

Packing Up

These past few days, I've been throwing my threadbare underwear in the garbage more often than the laundry basket, I've made more piles than a packrat, and I'm pretty sure I weigh my suitcases at least once every half hour. As I've slowly been peeling my notes and letters off of my walls, it is becoming clearer and clearer that I'm leaving. Having the whole SM house for just Tanzi and me has helped the realizations come a bit faster too. Katie left on Wednesday and surprised her parents with an early arrival. She was ready to go, but her departure has made the house seem so large and so empty.

It's strange to be thinking about next week (or even the next couple of days!) Right now, even though I am in Kenya and over 8,000 miles away, there is baby spinach in a refrigerator in Tennessee waiting to be eaten by me! That's right, ME! It all seems so incredibly far away, but yet so very close.

After Elementary Grad

An early airport run for Katie

Tanzi's post about people leaving here

Finished! (Almost)

Well, that's it. Today, I gave my last exam, hugged two of my freshmen goodbye, and started to look at the pile of tests that have been accumulating around me. I'm done teaching! It's a bittersweet feeling. I've been ambivalent about leaving, but recently, I'm just ready to be away from this place. The only things currently standing between me and that airplane ride are four days and a pile of papers to grade (1 test, and 2 finals). Let the grading begin!

Round Two

Well, that's it. They're gone. Macy and Melissa's time in Kenya is officially over, and they're currently in the air headed for the United States. It has been such a surreal afternoon and evening. We had final group photos, tears, and crazy bus rides. The drop-off process was so abrupt, and afterwards everyone was saying how it doesn't really feel like they're gone. It's like they'll be back in a week and a half and everything will return to normal. But it will really be us leaving instead.
The strangest part about the whole thing has been coming back to the half empty room that is now exclusively my own. I'm honestly not a huge fan. . .

Our last group picture at the airport

I already miss this girl like crazy!

A Farm at the Foot of the Ngong Hills...

As you may or may not know, this blog was originally named after a fictional book title in my mom's favorite british sitcom As Time Goes By. In the show, Leonel writes a rather dull book about his life as a coffee grower in Kenya. This is very similar to another non-fictional book entitled Out of Africa. (If you've seen the movie staring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, you know the story) Richard, the boy's dean, sat the SMs down at the beginning of the year and subjected our jet-lagged brains to the movie, and while I remember liking it, I'll definitely have to see it again when I'm fully conscious.

The Karen Blixen in the book is the same Karen for which the town down the road is named. Since we've been living so close for so long, Jacqui and I decided to use our last Wednesday town trip together to explore the Keren Blixen Museum.

Finally getting to visit this museum was definitely the highlight of our last town trip. Edgar, our tour guide, told us everything there was to possibly know both about both Karen's history and the house. We got to use our residency passes one last time (we only spent a mere 100KSH!), learned a lot about the history of the area, and got to play tourists in what has become our own backyard. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside, but Jacqui and I still got a few good ones out on the grounds.

The Karen Blixen House

Jacqui looking all cute!

Coffee plants and treating coffee beans 

I don't know about you, but I think my view of the Ngong Hills is so much better!

Real Missionaries

The SMs spent so much time and energy at the beginning of the year discussing whether or not we were "real" missionaries. Can you still be considered a missionary if you have hot showers at the push of a button, free meals in a cafeteria, monthly money to spend, and weather that is reminiscent of paradise? I've always thought this was a dumb question, but it's started to creep up again with the arrival and departure of Janice and Cody.

They came from Tanzania where the didn't have electricity, spoke swahili with the locals, and got dirty on a regular basis. I'll admit, it was super impressive to hear Janice speaking swahili in the market while she was here. It made some of us feel like maybe they had gotten the real taste of Africa, and maybe we had somehow missed out. But what is the "real" Africa anyway? How can you summarize an entire continent?

My Africa might not be Janice's Africa, but my mission was not Janice's mission. I was sent to serve the students at Maxwell. I didn't learn a language, but I learned so much about communication. I might not have built any churches, but I still built relationships. I didn't preach on sabbath morning, but I lived and taught one crazy group of high school freshmen for a full school year. My year might not have been what people think of when they hear the word missionary, but that's okay. I wouldn't ask for any other experience because I still know that the environment does not determine the missionary; God does. And He's the one who sent me.

The First Batch

It seems so strange to be saying this, but last night, the first batch of returning missionaries left Maxwell for the airport. Janice and Cody, two SMs from Tanzania, had been staying at maxwell for almost a week due to visa issues, and last night they began their long journey back home to the States. Their leaving seems to have made our own departure even more of a reality than it already was. The trading of items between SMs and in the market has begun in earnest now, and people have started filling suitcases. The next group leaves in a week, and it's strange to think about our SM group fragmenting.

Safe travels!

A Little Bit of Magic

Teaching can be absolutely draining, but there are moments that can also be absolutely magical. I never thought I would ever say this, but one of those magical moments happened for me today in recorder class.

I had been working with the advanced group on a three part piece for what feels like eternity, but it probably has just been the better part of this semester. We are playing the song for vespers this friday night and we had never made it from beginning to end in one piece. Today was our last official class period before the performance so I was nervous, and definitely aware it was more than crunch time.

The first two times we tried to play it all the way through, the same thing always happened; the second part got a beat behind, the third part a beat ahead, and the whole thing crashed spectacularly at the end of the second line. After a little more rehearsal, figuring out where the problem spots where, and mapping out places to regroup, we finally made it all the way through without stopping.

My students were elated! After playing through the entire song twice, Nick made a comment about how everyone who knocks recorders is wrong, and how great the class had just sounded. By the end of class, I drastically decreased the amount of clapping I had to do and radient pride could be found on every one of their faces. Finally, all of their hard work had paid off and they tasted the sweetness of their success. I've never seen eight students more proud of something they had accomplished.

Mothers Day

The more time passes, the more I'm not a fan of the distance between Nairobi and Chattanooga. Today, the distance is especially problematic because today is Mothers day and I am over 8,000 miles away from home. 

I am so incredibly thankful I have this wonderful woman in my life. She's both my voice of reason and one who pushes me out of my comfort zone. Constant companionship, unwavering support, and unconditional love. I am so blessed! I can't wait to see you in 28 DAYS! 

I love you.

Happy Mothers Day!

Baby Bunnies

A couple of weeks ago, the Corkums added two new little members to their family; Rucky and Stormy. They are the two cutest little baby bunnies you will ever see! Now, several weeks later, the bunnies are not quite as little, but they're still adorable! Here's a video of them when they were still small. 

Happy Sabbath!

Rucky Labbit                                      and Stormy

Water Fight!

While the Juniors and Seniors were out at Junior/Senior banquet, the freshmen and sophomores had their own class parties. The freshmen decided to start things off with the sophomores in a water fight. I was not too excited about the idea because it had been drizzling all day, and I was pretty sure the temperature was hovering right around freezing (in reality, I think it was a just a chilly 62 degrees... I'm definitely going to freeze next year!). The weather ended up cooperating nicely with no rain and warmer temperatures durring the water fight, and everyone (still minus the freezing me) was able to participate in the fun. 

They had to make sure everyone was included in the fun!

Saron thought she was just posing for a picture!

Defending the "dry zone"