Dinner: Before and After

I stopped at Mama Mboga on my way home (Mama Mboga is the lady at the corner who sells veggies- or any lady selling veggies on the side of the road- it literally means "Mama vegetables") to get some veggies for dinner. If you know me well, you'd know that that is some serious growth for me! I rarely eat my veggies!

But I stopped to get some tomatoes and sukuma wiki (greens) but they were out of sukuma (which never happens because sukuma is a STAPLE! All the mamas on their way home from work are going to be angry when they get there and there isn't any sukuma!) But as I was going, the mama said she would run home and get some from her garden for me! Awsome! FRESH sukuma- it literally doesn't get any fresher- straight from the ground to my hands!

So here it is. Before: (and this is only half- I already started cooking the other half before I took the picture. She gave me a TON!)

And After:


Yummy! Look Mom! I'm eating my vegetables!

My Legs Are Blue

Not exactly sure how I managed this, but I dyed the the backs of my legs blue today while doing my laundry.

I do my laundry by hand (as in buckets and hand scrubbing- the room looks like an ocean by the end of it all) and I was wearing my blue-ish kanga that I always wear when I do the wash. (A kanga is a wrap-around skirt. Many Kenyan women wear them while cleaning, doing laundry etc so you don't get your clothes dirty- you can wear them over your good clothes or just wear that to work in). I always wear this kanga- its never turned me blue before! But I have very blue, very distinctly dyed legs (complete with blue drip marks). Let's hope it comes out!

Possibly the Best Matatu Ever

I was going through town today and saw one of the best matatus ever. Matatus are kind of like mini-vans (that hold 14+ people) and operate kind of like a taxi/bus. They follow specific routs through the city and its how my friends and I get around town. All matatus are covered in stickers and phrases (many of which don't make a lot of sense but they are really funny). Some matatus have entire themes (one of the favorite themes is Bob Marley).

So I'm in town and this fuchsia matatu (this one is more like the size of a small Dial-A-Ride bus) comes screaming around the round-about right in front of us. The entire back window was a sticker that said "Drive Like You Stole It". Amazing. That sums up most matatu experiences- the driver is driving like he just jacked the car and the cops are in pursuit (pretty much every matatu ride is an adventure of some sort!) until someone else wants to get on the mat and you come screeching to a stop (these things can stop on a dime!)

In all honesty though, it takes some mad skills (and depth perception) to be a mat driver! Nerves of Steel wouldn't hurt either!

Kaimati and Eid

Today is Eid (the celebration of the end of Ramadan (the Muslim month of fasting)) and is also a public holiday here! So I tried to make Kaimati (a typical end of Ramadan doughnut kind of thing). I've never made them before but a friend told me how to make them on Saturday, so I thought I'd give it a try. Yummy! I didn't soak them in syrup, like most people do (I went with powdered sugar instead) but they were good!

RAIN

I was just sitting down to write a post about the drought. No rain. None. Nada. Zip. Hakuna. Its been hot, dry and no signs of rain. Even today, it was blazing hot and not a cloud in the sky (which really is good because we have church outside on Saturdays- if it rains we have a small problem). But we need rain. Desperately. The Evening News is all about the cattle that are dying. Herdsmen are bringing more and more cows into the city to graze. We haven't had consistent power in months.

I took a nap after church today and I woke up to the wind blowing (which often gives false hopes of a storm!). I was cooking my dinner when I started to hear this....

Amazing isn't it! Rain has never smelled better or sounded more beautiful. Its been raining for 30 minutes straight- amazing! (sorry there really isn't any picture with the video- its dark out, but its raining!

So keep praying for rain! We still need more!

Monkey Invasion

So apparently we had a monkey invasion a few nights ago. Neither of us heard anything (Julia thought she might have heard something in her bathroom but the windows in there are TINY- no monkey could get in through those!) but the guards told us in the morning that they saw a monkey get into our appartment through a window. Nice. At least the monkey didn't trash the place (which is what usually happens when they get in!) Its not that strange to have monkeys around but this was pretty bold- they are getting more and more desperate for food and water because of the drought.

So we are being much more careful about locking our windows when we aren't around (or sleeping). Its all part of the adventure!

Carrier Pigeon Faster Then Broadband....

This story made me laugh- between all of our power outages and internet issues when the power IS on, THIS seems like a viable option!

Image via Wikipedia

Apparently, a South African IT company decided it might be faster to send information to a city 60 miles away using a carrier pigeon (rather then their broadband connection). They attached a 4Gig flashdrive to the pigeon and sent it off. In the 2 hours it took the pigeon to fly to the other city and for the data to be uploaded, 4% of the data had been downloaded by the broadband connection.

Maybe I need to get a pigeon! For all the days when the power is off, or the lines have been vandalized (like the last few days), or when the internet just isn't working- for no apparent reason. Not sure how pigeons do with trans-atlantic flights though.

A Cold, Drizzly Day- PRAISE THE LORD!!!

It rained today. Not a TON but we'll take it!! We woke up to a it-just-rained smell in the air (infinitely better then burning garbage, let me tell ya!) Usually, rainy days are met with a lot of complaints in Kenya (its usually cold, it messes up people's hair, and it makes the roads a mess) but today, everyone was like "It's raining Woohoo!!"

So keep up the prayers for rain (although not on Saturday because we have church outside on Saturdays and no where to go if it rains. (Hey, God answers specific prayers too!))