Onyango News

One of the coolest things about spending this much time in Kenya, living in a house with a Kenyan, working every day with a bunch of Kenyans - in general being part of an ethnic demographic that makes up less than 1% of the population - has been the opportunity to build very close relationships with the Kenyans I spend a lot of time with. One of those friends is Cornel Onyango, the CFA Director who currently lives in Kisumu and manages all of our work in the Western part of Kenya. Cornel is married to a beautiful wife named Irene, and they had their third child this past summer. On May 17th I received this in an email from Cornel:

"For today I have very good news. At 10:30 pm, that is Sunday night, we got a baby girl. She is called Sherry Linda (Mama Nick). Nick, we did not want to tell you this - I even asked you for the spelling of your mum's name in a very clever way. I hope i got it right or did i forget it? If he was a boy he was to be Nick. All is still a plus for me, i love your mum."

Wow! Cornel's two-year old son is named Justin (after Justin Miller), and I am so honored to think that Cornel would want to name one of his children after me. It has been so fun for both my mom and I to know that there is a little baby girl here in Kenya whose name will always recall a memory of our family, even if I've been gone from this country for years. The baby is about 3 1/2 months old now, and she seems to be doing great (although Jane says that she's the biggest baby she has ever seen)! Here's a picture of Sherry Linda Onyango:

Also, when Justin and I went to Kisumu last week, we had a big dinner for all of the staff at Cornel's house, where he surprised us with a big, cold pitcher of SWEET TEA!