Saturday, October 6, 2012

Chalk it up to Life in Kenya!

Hello All,
We have had another busy week and things don't seem to be slowing the pace, just accelerating!  The kids are out of school for a few days for Mid Term break.  They go back on Wed. and then have 6 weeks till the end of the term.  That is amazing. 

We went to a Tea Farm in Limuru with the ladies last Sunday.  It was a fun ladies outing.  Fiona, the lady that owns it, gave a great talk about tea and how her grandfather came to Kenya in 1903 and started growing in in about 1906.  It was a beautiful place.  The gardens were spectacular and the lunch was amazing.  Here are some pictures (Mom if you come, we will go here!):

Tea Fields
 
Tea Plants
 
Different types of tea
 
They say this vine wraps around the tree in a different direction in the southern hemisphere as in the northern hemisphere!
 
The big tree is an avocado tree.  They were dropping on our heads!
 
The grounds of the tea farm.
 
 
I mentioned last week that we had the opening of the Mother Child Health building.  Here are some pictures of the inside:
 
 

The chairs all set up and people waiting!
 
Shy girl.
 
 
Jim has been working with the contractor all this week in getting the site prepared for the Peds wing.  They have been pulling down the Quonset Hut, an on call building and fencing and trees.  It is a mess right now!  They have damaged some of the panels on the Quonset Hut as they were bringing it down (you can see from the pictures):
 
The QH whole
 
Inside the QH during destruction
 
 
 
Clearing the site for the new QH location
 
Moving the fence line in the new QH location
 
 
They are also pulling down some of the on call rooms to make room for the new building.  Here is a picture:
 
 
 
 
Last Tues was a day that will forever be known as a bad day!  We had to go to Nairobi to get our alien IDs renewed.  What a process!  My friend Tracy and I decided we just needed one month and we could have the whole process of paper work for immigration running more efficiently!  We waited 2 hours and then got a friend of Tracy's who works there involved and things started moving.  We were finally done in about 2 1/2 hours.  Another bad thing happened this day:  Jim's brand new smart phone that he purchased in the states was shut off by the government of Kenya!  They started a crack down on fake phones here and just picked a date (Oct 1) and turned off all the phones that did not have valid IMEI numbers.  That is the identification number of your phone.  So, all the people who had purchased phones that were fake (most did not know this), have to go out and buy another phone.  They are punishing the people and not the companies that are selling these items!  Don't get me started!  Jim's was not even fake but was a beta test phone and therefore the IMEI was not on the approved list!  Bottom line is that he just purchased a new one in the states and is having a friend bring it out in a few weeks.  What a bummer! 
The other thing that went wrong this day was that we had a meeting set up with Tracy and Craig's builder that didn't happen.  This was the main reason for going to town with them this day and when we called him, he said he was on the other side of town!  So, we just ate lunch (Indian food - Yum) and got our shopping done and came home.  We didn't get back till just before dark (about 6:00) and I was smart enough to have Rose make us some supper!  She had a wonderful stew waiting and fresh bread.  She is so nice to have around.  Chalk things up to living in Kenya!
 
Here are a few more pictures that I took around here this week:
 
My View from the house
 
Trevor with our obnoxious cat!
 
Longonot in the distance
 
The worship team that I work with (my power point in the background!)
 
A pretty butterfly
 
 
Hope you have a good week.  We are busy this week with preps for the peds wing and for the coming EMI team.  There are 15 architects and engineers coming to do more planning and designing.  It will be great, but it is keeping us busy!
 
 
In His Hands,
Jullie T.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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