Residency

Guess who is now an OFFICIAL resident of Kenya?

That's right! This girl! :D

Neema

On Thursday, Maxwell Adventist Academy lost one of our senior girls. Neema had sickle cell anemia, and had been in the hospital since the beginning of the week with an infection. At staff worship, the staff were told that she was doing better, and was expected to be back at home, or on campus, around Saturday. Macy, Tanzi, and I were all sitting in the library office when Mrs V came in, not 30 minutes after worship, saying that Neema was gone. Immediately my heart felt sick. Even though Neema had been one of my senior chemistry lab students, it wasn't until that Thursday that I finally put the correct face with her name. My chemistry lab meets only once a week (if that) and since they don't give me as much trouble as the other classes, I've still been working on getting everyones names and faces straightened out. Even though my memories of Neema were few, the reality of her death stunned me.

When the three of us emerged from the library office, the campus was eerily quiet. As the students filed into the chapel, not one of them said a word. After giving the news to the whole student body, the rest of the school day was canceled. Students found comfort in different ways, and I, along with a group of students and staff, stayed in the chapel and sang hymns. 

Jacqui captured how we were all feeling:

October 18

Now all I see is your face and your smile

A quiet reminder that we’re here just a while

And life is a fragile, dangerous thing

When you think of the pain and injustice it brings

When death shows us his disfigured face

It causes us sorrow, we start losing our faith

But really it’s placing us a little bit closer

To joining our creator, our heavenly father

Death, where is your power? 

You prowl around

seeking to devour

But we have a power much greater than yours,

we have a king who loves and restores

And on that day when he finally returns,

we will watch as your reign

crumbles and burns

For we are not subjects of your wrathful hand,

with GOD on our side we have courage

to stand

To the grave,

I’m not scared, you can roar all you like

And when it’s my turn, I won’t even fight

When you come to me, when you take my last breath

I will see the face of the one who conquered death

BEST. DAY. EVER.

It seems like Wednesday is becoming an unofficial blogging day, and I don't mind one bit! That's mostly because Wednesdays are always super exciting and have a bunch of great down time packed in for good measure.

Today didn't start out looking all that promising. In addition to my regularly scheduled recorder class at the elementary and biology class with the freshmen, Mr R asked me to teach senior physics as well. Because of PSATs, Mr R was busy all morning proctoring, so yesterday I started looking over his textbook and started preparing to talk about force diagrams and friction for 40 minutes. Despite all of my dreading, when I started talking to the four seniors who are in the physics class, everything flowed beautifully! The students seemed to enjoy what we were talking about, and were very involved throughout the class. I came out of that room completely pumped and excited about teaching! I'm pretty sure that worked in my favor, because my very next class was recorders at the elementary. My main problem down there is classroom management. That and learning all the kids names. Thanks to the dobaz (book of all the pictures and names of students and faculty) I now have a way to study their names. I only had about three more names down than I did on Monday, but even those few names made a huge difference! I came out of recorder class practically floating (and that's saying something!). 

The afternoon didn't begin looking all that promising either. The other SMs spend yesterday afternoon exploring, but even after hearing about their adventures, Jacqui and I decided to play it safe and simply make a stop at the Gallaria Nakumatt. What we both had very much on our minds as we entered the mall was the cereal we had found last week. I had little hope of finding it again for the same price, but even so I was disappointed after we both spent several minutes scouring the cereal isle and had nothing to show for it. While I was still dragging my eyes over the shelves of cereals one last time, Jacqui called to me from the bargain table at the end of the isle, "It's here!" Not only had she found the cereal, but she had found a whopping eight boxes worth of it! It less than 10 seconds, each of us had four boxes each in our baskets. Success! 

SO excited! Eight perfect boxes of chocolatey hazelnutty goodness!

By the time we were done at Nakumatt, and Jacqui had eaten her frozen yogurt (I finally resisted this week), it was only 2:30. Neither of us wanted to make an appearance on campus that early in the afternoon, and with our spirits now very high thanks to eight boxes of chocolate hazelnutty goodness stashed safely in the school van, we decided to do some exploring of our own.

I started driving towards Karen with only a vague idea of which road the rest of the SMs had taken the day before. Once we veered off our beaten path, we started to see lots of signs for all sorts of amazing places. We found a spa with Jacqui's name on it, a place that recycles old flip-flops into crazy sculptures, and the Kazuri bead factory where we took a tour with a group of mzungu. Definitely one crazy awesome day!

We found Jacqui's studio! 

My obsession. This little bracelet cost as much as FOUR boxes of cereal! Disappointment.

Best. Day. Ever.

(all photos from Jacqui's Instagram)

Rumors

Rumors have been flying around campus faster than the flying termites which are now emerging (thanks rainy season). Rumors about work permits that are paid for and may or may not be here for long weekend, rumors about the arrival of a girls dean before Christmas, and rumors about job descriptions for next semester. All these rumors hopefully have some truth behind them.

Rain

Well, after three straight days of rainy afternoons and evenings, I think it's safe to say that rainy season here in Kenya has officially begun.