weekend in Kapsowar...

Welcome back! Sorry that it’s been a while since my last post, I know my mom has been wondering what is going on ☺ In reality, the posts will now be probably 2 or 3 days apart now since we’re experiencing much of the same (although exciting new things do happen daily!).

First of all, congratulations need to go out to the SCCS girls and boys volleyball teams! I heard through the grapevine that BOTH teams won the 1st place banner at the Woodstock Christian Schools tournament! Nice work! I must admit, I wasn’t surprised to hear this, although I’m sad that I can’t be around to hear more about it. It sounds like the Thames Valley regional finals happen this week. Please keep me posted on how you do!

As far as what’s been happening here, we’ve had a pretty exciting couple of days. I worked on the construction site all day Friday, mostly with Elisha again (here's a picture of him on top of the exterior wall). Our task was to work on the electric wire conduit tubes. When they put up buildings here in Kapsowar, they always put up the walls, fill them, and THEN go back and chisel out a channel for the electrical wires to go through! What we’ve been doing is putting these conduits in during the building phase. They haven’t done it this way before, but it will end up being MUCH easier for them. I’ve been going through a bit of a moral dilemma when working on this job site, however. It’s pretty tough for some of the men in the area to get work, so when I’m at the job site volunteering to slug dirt and wheel-barrow things around, I’m actually taking up work that some locals could get paid to do. So I talked about this with Elisha and also with the supervisors, and I think I’m going to do about 2 or 3 days a week in more of a supervisory role for the more delicate tasks (which means I won’t be as jacked as I thought I would be when I get back). Looks like I’m going to have to get my exercise in different ways! It’s too bad Greg or Rich (two of my cousins who work in construction) didn’t come with, as they’d be able to add so much of their expertise! (Imagine, the men here look at ME like I know what I’m doing!!)

On Friday night we had a dinner get-together with the 4 of us along with Drs. Christina and Drew, a nurse from the hospital (Mikel), and “Mama Brian”. Since Friday was the day after American Thanksgiving, we could officially start celebrating the Christmas season! We played Christmas carols and then watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, although we only got through half of it before the power went out!

As for Mama Brian's name, what’s hilarious here is that when a woman has a baby, she gets a new name. The name is “Mama” + whatever her first-born’s name is – hence, “Mama Brian." As you can tell, having babies is a VERY important part of the culture here, especially if it’s a boy.

Yesterday (Saturday) was definitely a day to remember! We attended an official Kenyan wedding ceremony in the morning and, although I do not have the time or the finger strength to fully explain this to you in a blog, I will share some highlights:

- It was supposed to start at 10am, so we arrived at 11:00 thinking that would be plenty early enough. Not even close – I have a picture of an EMPTY hall except for us Wazungu at 11:15. Everybody arrived en masse at about 11:30!! This is an example of “Kenyan time” at its finest…
- The wedding party had about 40 people in it, including children with matching outfits (I will include a picture of this parade). They didn’t reserve seats for them so they had to move a number of people back or to the standing room only section before the ceremony could start (this all had to happen when the bride and groom were already at the front). We were such guests of honour that they didn’t let us move back, instead they moved the PARENTS of the bride and groom BEHIND us!
- At the end, they took pictures and family pictures at the front of the church before leaving, and they got the 5 of us Wazungu to actually go up and be a PART of the family pictures. It was unreal – I was able to capture a video of this with our little camera before the battery died.
- Overall it was such a vibrant, joyous event that we were almost overwhelmed!

Instead of going to the wedding reception in the afternoon, Allie, Jackie and I went for a 3-hour hike down the valley to the river at the bottom and back. We got some beautiful pictures of the countryside as well as of a bunch of little kids who knew three English phrases: “How are you? Gimme sweets! Take a picture” Then they would chant: “Wazungu, wazungu, wooh, wooh, wooh!” and follow us down the road. It was a ton of fun!

So, that’s a pretty thorough update on what we’ve been up to. Today (Sunday) we’re going to have lunch at Mama Brian’s and then take about an hour hike to an orphanage in the area. There are about 35 kids there of all ages and most of them are going to leave in the next few days to stay with other relatives they have in the area for the holiday season. I’ll write about that experience in the next blog. Thanks again for following along, we’ve heard from a number of you (including my parents on the phone last night) and it’s a comfort to know of all the prayer support we have back home. We’re praying for family and friends back home as well, as we know this is the start of a pretty busy season! Special prayers and thoughts go out to the teachers at SCCS (especially Heidi) who are going through report card time on top all of everything…

Blessings,
Kevin