More Photos...

Hey, here are some of the photos I promised yesterday. All of these were taken here on the grounds of the school.

Unfortunately it won't let me caption them so the first photo is of a white and yellow plumeria after the rain.

Second... a pink plumeria.

Third... a Hadada Ibis. They wander around campus and make very strange sounds. - Not very melodious either!

Fourth... Is a Thomson's Gazelle. They are very common here on campus. But spook if they notice you noticing them. :)

Fifth... bougainvillea. They are all over here and come in sell shades of red, pink and orange.

Sixth... A picture of us on the front lawn of the Versteeg's house under the banana tree.

Seventh... The bananas aren't quite ripe yet. The ones from the backyard are very good though!

Eighth... A Striped Swallow. Isn't he pretty? He and his mate were building a nest under the eves of the house.

Off to Explore...

Wow! That's all I have to say about today.

Mostly because of the trip home on our little adventure. I saw a lot of diversity today from the Maasai Market on the third floor outdoor balcony of a mall in Nairobi, to a very nice large American-style mall, to an outdoor market spanning a few kilometers mired in mud and trash with wandering goats, chickens, donkeys, dogs and even cows! (I'll try to get some photos of the place later.)

What really struck me today though was the driving! Oh the driving! Here in Kenya they have a form of transportation called a Matatu. They are privately owned mini buses crowded to the extreme and driven by crazy people! The Matatus do not follow any road rules and will drive wherever they please, playing chicken, pushing people into the ditches, they don't care.

On the way back to Maxwell we became stopped in traffic and started seeing vehicles turning around in front of us. When we got to the top of the hill we could see the accident below and the ensuing traffic jam. - And I do mean JAM! The accident was a 5 vehicle accident. Two cars, two mini buses and a large truck and they blocked most of the road.

There was no police on site and people would hop out to direct traffic and then when their vehicle got to the passing point they would hop in and leave everyone else to fend for themselves.

We crept along and soon the Matatus behind and in front of us started jumping out of line and into the other lane, eventually creating another two lanes around us.- One in the oncoming lane and one in the ditch on the other side of us! The problem was that the closer we got to the one-vehicle passing point they all had to merge again and no one wanted to allow another to get in front of them! It was a mess! Jeremy and I got some good photos. They are posted below.

We did finally get back though and we still have two hours before the van has to leave once again to go get Josh and Aprille. Hopefully the accident will be cleaned up!

I'm a Wet Filipina...

This morning before breakfast I decided to go for a walk around campus and managed to get Jeremy out of bed to go with me.

We didn't get far as it decided to rain. - Yes, it would seem we brought the rain with us as it has now rained most of the day. Hoping it's getting it out of its system. - Anyway, there are some beautiful flowers and wildlife on campus. We were followed by a good number of Thompson's Gazelles, who would get within a few feet of you, until you looked at them, at which point they would spook. We also saw ibis, a hawk, and a variety of beautiful songbirds.

We got back and ate breakfast and after I had grabbed a shower realized it was a good time for a quick nap. Three hours later I woke up! I guess I needed it. Jeremy came in and saw that I was napping and thought it looked like a good idea too. I had to wake him up so he wouldn't miss potluck!

Ah yes, potluck! The Versteeg house became Filipino central this afternoon and the three of us who were Americans were feeling a bit tall! Filipino food, and a mix of English, Tagalog, and Spanish were spoken as we laughed and joked. It was a bit like being back in the islands for me. Everything goes with rice! :)

After lunch, the guests headed out and those of us left decided to take a tour of campus. The property that Maxwell Academy is on also hosts the elementary school, the publishing house, the African Adventist University, and the East Central African Division (ECD). Yes, there's a lot of land since they are rather spread out. We walked out towards the gate and then up towards the ECD. Then it started raining! We were a good half hour from the house so we continued up toward the ECD headquarters and walked among the buildings under the covered walkway. I must say it is VERY cool, as the offices are built to resemble an African village. Each department having it's own little building. There are also buildings for reception, the auditorium, and the kitchen and dining hall. And then there is the "staff housing." Wow! They're big, gorgeous stone houses, with gardens and patios. There is also a similar looking building that contains flats (apartments) for the non-administration positions.

I couldn't help but wonder where the money for all of it came from. Perhaps they thought if the positions here in the ECD came with very nice accommodations they were more likely to be filled.

By the time we got done at the ECD rain hadn't let up so we decided to try to head back. We had two decent sized umbrellas for four people so we huddled and took a shortcut that took us through a rather wet field on a narrow path. - We were quite wet when we returned to the house.

I may need to pick up an item or two of warmer clothing if this cool raininess continues. I'm wearing my yoga pants and a long-sleeve shirt of Jeremy's at the moment. Glad I brought decent socks. I'm also now glad for the fleece blanket I made.

Hopefully the sun will come back out tomorrow. It sounds like it didn't rain at all out at Nakuru. Go figure. Oh, and the rain doesn't stop the birds. They sing in the rain! They even sing at night! Go to bed birds!

Oh, and another note... I found out that what I deemed the Alarm Bird this morning might have actually been a Tree Hyrax.

Sorry I haven't posted any photos yet. We have them, I just don't have them on my iPad. We're working on that.

I'm Going to Kill that Bird!

I'm going to kill that bird!

Okay, maybe I should back up a bit...

What I can see of Kenya is beautiful this morning. At least my view from the bedroom in the house of the Maxwell Academy principal is beautiful. It's wet this morning, just dripping a bit. The principal's house has louvered windows, these are common in tropical places. It's very green, and I can see 4 plumeria trees blooming from my window. White and pink. I'm going to make Jeremy come out and smell them with me later! There are also banana trees out there, which explains the lovely bunches of bananas I saw on the kitchen counter.

The sounds last night varied from the odd to the just plain unnerving! I survived, generally sleeping through them, until this morning when the Alarm Bird started in! I don't know his real name so that is what he is christened until I find out! He is loud, has all of one call, and is sitting in the large tree outside my window. - Guess we should've gotten those ear plugs before we left!

On the other side of the bird spectrum, there are some really cool birds. I guess that's why I read that Kenya is a bird watcher's paradise. I'll try to get some pictures of them later. There's a bird that is a little bigger than a sparrow but has a beautiful burnt orange long tail and a bit of a fuzzy-looking black head. - Don't laugh! I'm not a regular bird watcher! There are also these brown stork-esque birds lightly stepping through the grass outside, eating what I assume are bugs in the grass.

Well, it's getting lighter out now. I don't now what time it is, but it's probably somewhere around 8:00 or so. I'm getting hungry so I should get up. I hear Mom Versteeg out in the kitchen anyway. :) - "See" you later!

A little hiccup...

So we hit a little hiccup today when we arrived at the airport in Portland. The friends we were traveling with discovered that one of their passports was valid 5 days too few. The airport authority would not check them through to Nairobi and snce Jeremy and I had already checked ur bags there was no turning back for us. - We got on the plane without them!

We arrived in Amsterdam almost 10 hours later, tired, sore and ready to be off a crowded plane. Schipol, for that is the name of the international airport in Amsterdam, is large, and very different n a lot of ways from American airports. The signs are different, the recorded messages that are played over the intercom are in Dutch, and there were people speaking a multitude of languages everywhere!

We asked a lovely blue suited KLM agent what gate the KLM flight for Nairobi would be taking off from and she gave us directions, letting us know the gate was F3.

Here's another odd thing about Schipol, there is a casino, two hotels, a shopping mall, (including Victoria's Secret), a library, and an art museum, all in the airport! Hence, it would seem that many of the gates have their own security, as we found out when we reached gate F3. My CamelBak bottle, which had just been so nicely filled with bottled water by the stewardess on the last plane, had to be emptied before going through security spat the gate! That meant I had to find a "Toilet." Off I went, finally locating one and then being more confused when I got in there then I had been trying to find it. There was grass and glass and the toilet stalls had floor to ceiling doors on them. I couldn't figure out how the flush the toilet until I touched the in wall LED screen. Then when I came out, I couldn't figure out how to get the sink to turn on! An adventure to say the least!

Once we got aboard our KLM Jumbo Jet we settled down in a row near the back with just two seats in the row. We were very impressed with KLM! All the KLM staff were friendly, helpful, and took very good care of us. The seats had personal entertainment systems complete with movies, games, music, tv shows, you name it! They also fed us well! They gave us a snack of smoked almonds, then we had lunch, which included a vegetarian option, and the most amazing raspberry, merengue-yogurt dessert with a graham cracker-like crust. - It was really delicious! The they gave us ice cream later and still later they came through with supper, which consisted of personal artisan pizzas, fruit salad, a couscous salad, and yummy little wafer cookies which are evidentially a Christmas tradition in The Netherlands.

All, in all, we were very well fed!

We landed in Nairobi in a thunderstorm and then spent at least an hour trying to get our visas. Once we figured out what forms we needed to fill out, which line we needed to stand in, and finally got our visas we were afraid our baggage would be gone. It was not and we were able to pick it up without incident.

Now to find Aprille's parents which we hadn't seen in some time and didn't know if we were recognize them or not. As it turned out, they recognized us! :)

The trip to Maxwell was an adventure in the dark, with vehicles going the opposite direction we're used to, honking, flashing their lights, and generally, NOT staying on their side of the road.

So now I'm getting ready to sleep as much as possible before church tomorrow. Sleep well!

Less than a week away...

Less than a week from today we will fly off into the sunset...

Actually I don't know which way we'll be flying. It'll probably actually be east, not west, and we'll be flying off in the middle of the day, not the evening. Either way, it'll be an adventure!

We're going to Kenya! Real, live, Kenya! We will be leaving Portland on the 27th of December and will get back into Portland on the 11th of January.

We're flying directly from Portland to Amsterdam and then on to Nairobi. Each flight will be around 8-9 hours. Yikes! That's a long time on a plane! I'm bringing my own snacks!

We're hoping to post photos here every couple of days, so check back often, or subscribe to the blog, to catch a glimpse of what we see and encounter. When we get back I'm sure we'll be able to post a lot more! :)

If you have questions, or need to get a hold of us for any reason while we're gone, we'll be trying to check our email and Facebook every few days as well.

We hope you all are having a very merry Christmas and will have a good New Year's as well.

And now... I'm going to go pack some more! :)