News Highlights

April 19th, 2009 – An article about aging, winkles and age-spots shows a picture of an older Kenyan woman holding up 2 double edge razor blades. No explanation about the blades, I only assume that they are used to cut off the age spots.

Picture accompanying article about Kenya cricket shows a 2003 photo the captain while taking about the 2011 world matches. I guess they camera broke a while back and they have no current picture of him.

The Somalia pirates make the news everyday. Interesting that the US only got involved in this battle after one of their ships got taken. It has been going on for months. Bold moves are needed to combat this. These pirates are making millions using small speed boats.

Seventy-five percent of those polled do not think the coalition government will make it until the next election in 2012.

Bone (boo-knee) the 4 and a half year old of the housekeeper can name Obama when he sees a picture of him in the paper. He also calls him a Mzungu.

Obama may be here in Kenya twice in the next few months. There are two conferences coming up that he will get formal invites to from president Kibaki. Neither sounded like real possibilities to me, but I’m sure the Kenyans are thinking he will come and all their problems will go away and they will become a world power.

Thirty-five year old Kenya man killed by neighbors after making comments about doing away with his 73 year old sugar mama.

Kenya and Uganda are still fighting over the fishing island of Mgingo. I understand this is a very small island, but both countries want it, probably just because the other does. They have been battling and harassing each other over it for months. They are now going to spend $1.2 million on doing a survey. Both sides agree to pay half, but Kenya as put aside the full amount in case Uganda does not come up with their share by the deadline. Knowing that, why would Uganda add anything? I think I’ll offer to do it for a 3rdof that and by myself a nice GPS unit and go surf to the island and Google Earth. Should take me about a day counting the time to have an eight hour lunch.

And the top headline of the day “Church Loses Battle for Sarah Obama’s Soul.” The Second Day Adventist church come within moments of baptizing and converting Barack’s grandmother. She was even dress and ready to attend the service. But her family stepped in to stop it, saying that she was Muslim and that she did fully understand what they SDA was intending to do.

On to other items.

Joyce is really enjoying Bone here, she still needs her kid fixes and he’s the only one around. He’s going to be missing her big time when we leave. She has been working on colors with him. Like most small kids here, it’s more of running through the list of colors you know until you hit the correct one when you are shown a color. Joyce finally decided to concentrate on just one color, yellow. After a couple of days I think he finally may have that color down.

Joyce announced to me this morning that she was going to take a job at a primary school so she can work with kids. I thought that was quite a revelation, but did not surprise me after seeing enjoying her time with the kids here and at Christ’s Gift Academy. But she decided not to since it would interfere with her going back to work for Lee. It took a moment until I realized that she was telling me about a dream she was having. I think this one could be very prophetic.

There is a young lady and her child, maybe younger sister, out on the back patio right now. They were having a cup of tea just a moment ago. Joyce asked Dick who they were and he didn’t know. Maybe related to Peterlyse, the Sunday yard man he thought. People just show up here and of course think they are entitled to whatever is sitting out to drink or eat. Dick says we’ll make sure to lock everything up when we leave. That would drive me crazy. I don’t mind visitors but I’d like to know who they are.

Joyce got excited this morning on collecting the eggs from Dick’s chicks. She and Bone went out to gather them up. Even better was the fact that they laid them for her on the spot. Three of them came out as she was picking up the ones that were already laid. So fresh they were still moist on the outside. An interesting note here is that eggs are not refrigerated here. They sit out for days without any adverse affects. So does the milk for that matter. But the milk is high temperature treated to make it stable at “room temperature”.

It seems 70 percent of Kenya is not getting the rain that is needed. Kisumu area is not one of those. In fact, people have mentioned how much and hard the rains have been here in the last week. Areas nearby are even having problems with flooding which has washed away many homes and caused several deaths. When it rains it pours.

Went out to Hippo Point this week. It’s a place where hippos regular come ashore at night to graze and know for having great sunsets. The hippos didn’t come and the clouds floated in and just covered the sun. Fortunately we only got a few drops of rain while we waited. Saw a great tree for climbing while we were there. A short trunk, many branches, most coming straight out and then gradually sloping up. Went to investigate and discovered this tree had thorn like spikes all over it. They were sharp and hard enough to go through most soles. I stayed on the ground.

We have made a few trips here on bota botas (bike taxis – you sit on the cushion over the back fender). Mostly Dick chauffeurs us around. So we know the ropes and the cost. Usually we just tell them the location and get on, no price negotiation before hand. Coming from Tusky’s market to Dick and Sandy’s is a 25/= ride. We went to fetch a ride yesterday and the driver told us his price as we started to board – 50/= each. We laughed and said that was a Mzungu price. They insisted and we walked away, the other end of the lot had more available. For fun we asked them the price – got 30 from one and 40 from another. The 30/= guy tried to quickly tell the other that 30 should be fine. We said 20 was the correct price and walked away again. The next two we simply told the location we wanted, hopped on and paid our normal 25/= when we got off. No complaints from the drivers and they seemed pleased with the extra 5 above the common price.

Five days and counting,
Paul