Kenya from the air!

A couple of weeks ago, I got to embark on one of the coolest days of my time in Kenya.  Early in the morning, I drove in to the tiny Wilson airport south of Nairobi and hopped in a 6-seater Cessna 206 with a sweet Mission Aviation pilot named Reini.  This plane was smaller than my car, and I got to ride in the "copilot" seat up front while we flew over Nairobi, past Mt. Kenya, and up to the Samburu area to meet the Thompsons.  SO AWESOME! 

We picked up Donald and Brenda and flew out over the Rift Valley to Kisumu, where we got a fantastic fish/ugali lunch by the lake and hung out with the center workers and clients at Nanga Baptist Church.  It was so fun to introduce the Thompsons to Kisumu, and it was a huge encouragement for the CFA workers to have visitors all the way from America.  Most guests don't get out that far from Nairobi, so the visit was a rare treat for them! 

From there, we flew back across the Central Highlands to Nairobi.  The weather took a turn for the worse on this leg, though, and soon we found ourselves dodging (literally!) giant black clouds and rainstorms.  Listening to Donald and Reini make seat-of-their pants decisions on where to fly the plane and then holding on while we banked around towering clouds was surreal - a completely opposite experience from flying on a giant airliner!  It was incredibly exciting, though, and we ended up making a safe landing at Wilson airport. 

What an awesome day!  I've never had a huge desire to be a pilot, but this just might have flipped a switch haha...

Road Destruction

Kenyan roads are REALLY hard on cars.  Between gigantic potholes, corrugated dirt roads,  stop-and-go traffic in Nairobi, and questionable mechanics, this is a dangerous environment for a car.  I saw this firsthand last week...

On Wednesday, I was in the process of pulling out of one of the busiest shopping centers in Westlands when the Prado ground to an abrupt halt.  I tried to get it started in every gear I could, but there was no moving it.  The guards were yelling at me, cars behind me were honking and backing up, and there was absolutely nothing I could do!  Eventually I was able to finagle it out of the way and get towed to a garage, where I found out that the clutch and flywheel needed to be replaced.  Ouch.  I guess after 220,000km it was about time, but it was still an expensive and poorly-timed development. 

I collected the car on Saturday, but quickly realized that I couldn't drive over about 60 km/h without a strong vibration making its way from the engine up through my seat.  Remember those questionable mechanics?  That's why I've been out of a car again for the last two days while they try to figure out what they did wrong...

The REAL excitement took place between stays at the mechanic while I was driving back from Karen on Saturday.  Going about 60 km/h (thankfully, the vibrations kept me from driving too fast), I felt the back of the car rocking around and then heard a big THUD while the back-left side dropped a good foot lower than it should have been.  As the back end fishtailed wildly on the road, I looked out the window and saw my back-left tire and wheel passing me in the left lane, only to smash into a brick wall and fly up in the air...YIKES!  I was able to get the sliding car under control and finally came to a stop partially in the median and partially blocking a lane of traffic.

This is one of those situations when you just have to take a deep breath and say, "well, here we go God!"  I jumped out of the car and locked the doors as several Kenyans ran over to help (and to hopefully get a tip out of the deal).  Thankfully, an awesome Kenyan guy who works for a USAID affiliate pulled over and offered to coordinate the recovery efforts.  With his help, we sent one guy to buy lug nuts and another to collect the tire, while we got a couple more started jacking up the car and replacing the tire.  About 30 minutes and a few bucks later, I was back on the road!  I followed my new friend Mike to a service station to get the brake drum hammered back away from the wheel, and then everything was ready to go. 

One thing about living in Africa - you never know when a little extra excitement is coming your way! 

ps - while I joke about this kind of stuff, let's seriously thank God that there were no other cars right beside me, that my car stayed upright, and that none of these breakdowns happened in the middle of the Mara last week! 

Up Close and Personal with a GIRAFFE

Giraffe are weird animals.  Everything about them seems oddly proportioned - from the obviously long necks to the spindly legs to the giant eyes and tongues.  All of this appears even crazier when you're seeing them from a FOOT away and they are eating out of your hand!

This weekend, Jane and I got to have dinner with some of my good friends, the Thompsons, at an awesome hotel south of Nairobi called the Giraffe Manor.  This place feels like it's straight out of the British aristocracy, and it's most unique attractions are the giraffes that live on the property and join the guests whenever they feel like - even sticking their heads through the breakfast room windows in the mornings!  Before dinner, we hung out with an awesome giraffe named Helen, holding out food in our hands while the giraffe scooped it up with her long tongue.  It felt like feeding a horse, but then it raised its head wayyy up in the air and reminded us that no, this is NOT a horse!

What an awesome experience...only in Africa!  Thanks Donald and Brenda!

Mara Photos!

I've gotten all of my photos edited from our trip to Naboisho last week, so if you want to see more pictures like this one...

...head to this link:  Naboisho - Facebook  Enjoy!

Night Drives

Another awesome part about our trip to the Naboisho conservancy last week (see last post) was getting to go on NIGHT game drives through the bush.  This was one of the sweetest/freakiest/amazing-est things that I've done in a while.  We hooked up two big spotlights to the car, and someone would take each of them and sit on the windowsills or stand out of the sunroof, scanning side to side and looking for eyes.  Yep, the way you spot animals at night is by picking out the reflections from their eyes through the bush - that's where the FREAKY part came in.  We'd be driving along and then, way off in the distance, see two glowing greenish or reddish dots kinda like this...

Then, we would head off through the bush in that direction, and if we were lucky, our spotlight would show us that the crazy eyes belonged to something like this guy:

Talk about a humbling feeling.  Sitting in the stillness of the night, with absolute blackness pushing in from all sides except for in the two small circles lit up by the spotlights, and with a four hundred pound male lion looking directly at you.  You also know that there are at least ten or twelve other lions in the area, but you've only spotted four.  They could be creeping up right behind you...

AWESOME!  It was absolutely exhilarating. The whole experience was made even more magical by the fact that the skies were full of more stars than I could ever count, with the bright cloud of the milky way cutting a line across the blackness.  What a great way to spend an evening...

Angry Elephants

Jane, Joe, and I had a pretty darn SWEET adventure this weekend going to visit our friend Cath who works at the African Impact volunteer project in the Naboisho Conservancy adjoining the Masai Mara Reserve.  Since we were safari-ing in a private conservancy, in our private truck, the door was wide open for a little more freedom of exploration that you'd normally get on a Mara safari, and we did our best to take full advantage of that opportunity!  The weekend held several great stories and a LOT of great pictures, which I'm only just starting to wade through, but I'll start with an elephant encounter that we had on our first evening in the bush...

A great part of the conservancy is the lack of established roads and, therefore, the lack of need to stay ON the roads like you need to do in the reserve.  This meant a lot of off-road exploration, which gave me ample opportunity to put to use all that off-road driving skill acquired in high school.  On our first evening, we drove down to a riverbank and parked opposite a big group of about 12 elephants of all ages and sizes.  This "Big Mama," as we christened her, is the dominant female that leads the group, and she spent the next hour happily chowing down on this brush inside the riverbank.

Seeing that all of the animals were on the other side of the riverbank, we decided that this would be a good time for me to try out my "trumpeting" skills that I'd been working on for the last couple of weeks after hearing about an elephant research who can "talk" with the elephants.  This is another thing that you can't do in the Mara Reserve (also known as antagonizing the animals).  Anyway, after a few strong trumpets, we were surprised to see many of the elephants look at us and hastily retreat up the riverbank to group up on the opposite side.  Wow...didn't expect them to actually respond!

We waited a few more minutes, watching the elephants eat, and then observed that a baby and a couple of older animals were moving across the river about 30 yards away from us.  A fairly large female was leading the group, and she was looking at us very suspiciously:

Without taking her eyes off of us, she climbed to the top of the riverbank, spread her ears out wide, and started shaking her head around at us.  These are all signs of anger and aggression from elephants, and we decided to name this overly emotional girl "Rhonda."  Rhonda wasn't content just to flap her ears at us, though, and a minute later she started pawing the ground and taking quick steps towards and away from us, all while making ominous grumbling noises.  At this point, Cath ordered all of us inside the car (we'd been sitting on the windowsills and roof) and said something along the lines of, "Uh-oh...that's not good."  Rhonda seemed to remember my ill-advised trumpeting from before, and she also didn't seem to like the clicking of my camera, or our general presence anywhere near her.

Thankfully, Rhonda cooled off after a few minutes and moved away to antagonize some baboons, so our attention turned to another adult that we called "Roger."  Roger was probably actually a female, but it seemed like an appropriate name to us as we observed him pushing himself so far into a tangled fallen tree in pursuit of choice leaves that he got completely stuck.  Luckily for him, elephants are MASSIVELY strong, and he proceeded to simply smash the offending tree into the dirt and go on his merry way.  This led into a discussion of how elephants can flip over a truck using only their TRUNK and unpleasant images of what could happen if one charged full speed into ours...

Ready to move on to the next adventure, we put away our cameras and started to drive away from the riverbank.  We must have come a little too close to Roger's backside, though, because he swung around in front of us and let out a full-fledged, super-loud trumpet.  Yikes.  We were about to calmly back away when Joe yells, "Here comes Rhonda!" and we turned around to see our old friend Rhonda running FULL SPEED and trumpeting with her trunk in the air through the bushes about 30 yards away from us.  CRAP!  Thankfully, Rhonda diverted away from us to stand in front of a baby elephant, Roger calmed down and went back to eating, and we were eventually able to slowly make our way out of the midst of the herd, which had managed to completely surround us during the last hour.

Whew...I don't think I'll ever forget that moment when I was sitting in the driver's seat with an angry elephant trumpeting 20 feet in front of me and another one charging from the opposite side, yelling "Cath, what do we do??" and getting no good answers from the expert!  At least we had this to look at and calm us down during the whole process:

 

ps - you can also hear Jane's take on our trip TO the reserve here

MARAAA!!!

Tomorrow Jane and I are heading out over some very bumpy roads to the wonderland known as the Masai Mara!  We are going to spend the weekend at a volunteer project run by ACTS in the Naboisho conservancy, adjacent to the Mara Reserve (where all the tourists go).  Basically, that means we get the same animals and less rules for WAY cheaper...can't complain about that! 

Please pray for safety as we drive over some crazy roads and interact at close range with sweet (but apparently dangerous) animals.  Also, pray that I don't do anything stupid around said animals...the temptation is so strong.  Hopefully we'll come back with some more stories and pictures of guys like this one:

Kisumu like a local

I spent three days last week in Kisumu, a Kenyan city on the shore of Lake Victoria where CFA has several centers.  The purpose of the trip was for me to spend some time with each member of our Kisumu administrative team, but it turned into an adventure in living like a local for a few days. 

First of all, I decided to take the bus instead of driving myself halfway across the country.  A bus ticket is WAY cheaper than paying for gas, plus driving is stressful, especially on your own.  The bus ride was great - I had a front-row seat and I got to sit next to a music professor who helped compose the Kenyan National Anthem...exciting!  It took about twice the time that driving would have, but at least I could sit back, relax, and read a book instead of having to maintain a fanatical focus on avoiding potholes, animals, and 18-wheelers. 

Second, I decided to stay at Cornel's house in Kisumu instead of my usual guesthouse.  Many of you have met Cornel, one of the Kenyan CFA Directors, so you know what an awesome guy he is.  I didn't really know what to expect in terms of staying with his family, but it ended up being a ton of fun!  Cornel and his wife Irene have three kids: Brian is in middle school, Justin is almost three years old, and Sherry is about 7 months old.  All are amazing kids, but Justin especially is super fun right now.  He is just to the point where he recognizes me and remembers my name, so he likes to run around (often naked) screaming "NIIIICK" and then barreling into me full speed or trying to kick my very white feet.  I'm pretty sure that being around me makes Justin much more violent and loud than normal.  I don't try to have that effect on him, but it just seems to happen...

Cornel ADORES baby Sherry!

It was also humbling in some ways to stay with all of the Onyango's.  They were so thoughtful and accommodating - everything from heaping food on my plate whenever it got low to improvising a shower system so I wouldn't have to take a typical Kenyan "bucket bath."  It really was amazing how hard they tried to anticipate anything that I could ever want and make sure it was there.  I definitely didn't feel like I deserved that kind of treatment, but it was a huge encouragement nonetheless!

Even apart from the CFA work, I felt like it was a great trip just for the relationships that I was able to continue to build with Cornel's whole family.  They are an incredible group, and I'm so blessed to have them as friends! 

Luxury at the Tribe

On Saturday, Jane and I snuck into a super nice hotel in Westlands called Tribe and spent the day lounging by their fabulous pool - talk about a stark contrast with the rest of the week!  It was probably 85 degrees and sunny, so we got to soak up some sun in luxurious chairs and eat a fantastic lunch next to the pool.  There were very few people there, and ZERO screaming kids, so I was pretty darn happy. 

Doesn't that sound nice to all you people stuck in the Nashville snow?

Food Discoveries

Even though we've only been back in Kenya for a week or so, Jane is already taking maximum advantage of her personal kitchen and her grocery budget.  She gets all kinds of joy from planning out meals, going to the grocery store, preparing food, and watching me voraciously shovel it down...in the end, everyone is happy! 

We've come to several criteria that give bonus points to a great meal here in Kenya.  Apart from tasting great, it's extra-awesome if:

• the ingredients are CHEAP
• it uses all or mostly local Kenyan ingredients
• it's healthy
• it produces a small amount of dirty dishes (this one is a bit of a reach haha)

We've had a couple of dinners already that cover about all of those basis, with the added bonus of introducing me to foods and meals that I never thought I would be eating.  Check out these menus...

1.  Sauteed chicken with QUINOA mixed with onions and tomatoes.  Obviously, I had no idea what quinoa was a couple of weeks ago (or how to pronounce it, or how to spell it, which I still might not be doing properly).  Despite the fact that it looks like something along the lines of molding shrunken beans, it actually tastes good!  It's also a "superfood," in that it apparently turns you slowly but surely into Superman.  Or at least that's what I'm being told...

2.  Polenta with sauteed onions/butter beans/kale, topped with a poached egg and a little chipotle Tabasco sauce.  Now, this one I was REALLY skeptical of at first, but it actually tasted great when it was all put together.  Plus, kale is another "superfood," I was informed, and it's super cheap because it grows everywhere in Kenya.  This meal was also an interesting (and much more tasty) twist on the typical Kenyan meal of ugali and greens...so local! 

3.  WHOLE roasted chicken with roasted butternut squash and onions.  Yep, we can buy a whole chicken for four bucks, and Jane showed that thing who was boss last night.  It was delicious!  Definitely a far cry from the Hamburger Helper that I was making for myself last year...

Basically, Jane is a magician in the kitchen.  I am never quite sure what to expect when she describes these things to me, but they seem to always turn out great! 

God bless America!

So Jane and I had an AWESOME Christmas in the States - 3 weeks of football, snow, great food, and even better people.  We had debated on whether to return to the US for Christmas or to take a trip somewhere else in the world, and I think going home turned out to be the right decision.  It was such a blessing to have time with both of our families, and I returned to Kenya feeling loved, encouraged, and recharged for the next four months. 

One of the hardest things for me to wrap my mind around now is the fact that I have less than four months left here in Kenya!  That feels like such a finite amount of time after the last year and a half, and right now it seems like there are so many things that need to happen in that time frame.  Between CARE for AIDS projects and African adventures, I know the time is going to fly by and May 4, our return date to America, will be here in a flash.  Before I spend too much time looking forward, though, here are a few highlights from the past month:

1.  Pictured below is the limo that 20 other people and I took for my GRANDMA's 80th birthday - insane!  We went out to the Speedway Club for dinner, and while Jane and I were fighting off some serious jetlag, it was a really cool night.

2.  After hearing for years about Jane's family's Christmas traditions (every family does things in their own unique way I guess), I got to experience them firsthand during Christmas in Ohio.  I was introduced to things like traditional Swedish smorgasbords, gingerbread house building parties, matching family pajamas, and Mediterranean Christmas Eve dinner at the church!  We also went ice skating and snow tubing at the Cleveland Indians ballpark one day - it was sweet, as you can tell from some of the Slattons' faces...

3.  SKIING!  Jane and I got to join my family in Colorado for a week, and I was so happy I didn't have to break my 20-year streak of skiing every winter.  Despite some extra-cold days (20 below...yikes), we had a blast and Jane absolutely ROCKED the slopes!  We also got to eat some really cool meals, including one on top of the mountain after a gondola and snow-cat ride.  It seems like food is a trend here, hmm...

These are just a few of the many things that made for a wonderful holiday.  Thank you so much for all of your prayers, and Happy New Year!

CFA Staff Retreat 2010

Wow - what a crazy and awesome weekend with all of the CFA Kenya team in Naivasha!  Since I don't have a whole lot of time right now (it's 3pm and I'm leaving for America tonight...and I haven't started to pack), I'm just going to throw a few pictures up here and give you a short look into the more interesting parts of the weekend...

This is where we stayed - the Lake Naivasha Panorama Park.  It was actually a really cool place, with lots of little cabins built into the side of a big cliff looking over beautiful Lake Naivasha.  The big building in the picture is where we had all of our meetings.

The weekend included team-building time with activities led by Cornel and Duncan.  I realized why they did this as a job for several years - they are GREAT at it!  The games were so much fun, and everyone was laughing and running around together like little kids.  In this picture, we are stretching out our hips before the games begin...

 After dinner on Friday, the official staff retreat DANCE PARTY began.  Kevin had his stereo and laptop all hooked up, and we danced around in a group for about an hour, moving in a circle around the outside of the room in the typical Kenyan way.  Then, each of us were called up in the middle of the group to dance by ourselves or with one other person to Kevin's choice of songs - hilarious!  They all absolutely LOVED seeing me dance and talked about it for the rest of the weekend...

 This is round 1 of the breakfast buffet for Kevin.  The buffets for each meal were definitely one of the highlights of the weekend for most of the staff - they ate themselves sick!  The food was actually quite good, though, and I was pretty full myself...

 On Saturday, Duncan, Cornel, and I gave a presentation about the Vision, Core Values, and Goals of CARE for AIDS.  I was a little concerned that the staff would want to stay in "play" mode, but they were super engaged and seemed to take a lot from the morning.  We got a lot of great feedback, and I was really blessed to hear many of the center workers talk about how excited they are about their jobs. 

 The hotel had a pool.  It was shaped like Africa.  It was full of our staff members and me.  AWESOME

The whole group!  Each year we are getting bigger - last year we were 13, and this year we are 26! Praise God for all that he is doing with CARE for AIDS. 

Lake Nakuru National Park

Last Saturday, Jane and I spent the day exploring one of my favorite places in Kenya - Lake Nakuru National Park.  It was pretty close to a PERFECT day:  gorgeous blue skies, a totally full lake, lots of animals, great food, and an amazing girl to share it with!  All of those things made for a perfect day for photography too, and I reached a new level of pride in my picture-taking after this trip.  I'll put a few up on here, but check out the facebook link at the bottom if you want to see more.

Our day started early in the morning at the park gate, which happens to be home to some of the most mischievous Vervet monkeys and Olive baboons you'll meet anywhere.  While we got ready to go into the park, Jane and I were standing about five feet away from the car with the doors open.  Before we could even react, a vervet monkey ran up to the car, scampered along the hood, and dove through the driver's door.  He jumped into the backseat and immediately opened up my bag, grabbing a bag of chips and escaping out the door and up a tree.  I have no idea how he knew EXACTLY where to go for the chips, INSIDE a duffel bag...it was so amazing that I wasn't even mad!  I did get a chance to snap this quick photo:

Our first stop after entering the park was the lakeshore.  LNNP is a fairly small park (especially compared to the Mara), and it centers around the beautiful Lake Nakuru - an alkaline lake that is a perfect habitat for the small fish and little creatures that tons of different birds love to eat.  It's most famous for pelicans and flamingos, and the flocks flying and floating around just as the sun rose over the hills and the mist settled on the water were gorgeous.

A few minutes after leaving the lakeside, we came upon a freshly killed buffalo and a pride of lions having their breakfast.  Part of the benefit to driving yourself on a safari is that you can stop when you want, where you want, and you don't have to feel pressured to make everyone happy if some people in the group want to spend all day looking for a lame pigeon or something.  We ended up hanging out at this spot for at least an hour, and had our own packed breakfast along with the lions!  It was fascinating to watch the drama play out - whenever the lions would tire of eating and back off to rest, a pack of 10 or so hyenas and two jackal pairs would creep in to eat their share.  Immediately, a few of the lions would come charging back to protect "their" kill, scattering the hyenas and jackals in fits of shrieks and confused running around...amazing!  At one point, six or seven lionesses and two cubs were all eating at the same time, with the gorgeous backdrop of the forests around the lake.

After checking out some amazing viewpoints, watching giraffes and elands, and hanging out at the stunning Makalia Waterfalls, we settled in for a leisurely lunch and rest at the Lake Nakuru Lodge.  We reflected on how blessed we are to have a place like this just an hour and a half away from "home"...sometimes living in Kenya can be challenging, but these are the perks!  From lunch we drove back to the southern end of the lake to check out the fascinating pink flamingos - they are odd birds, and their reflections in the stillness of the lake made them look even more interesting.

At this point, we knew we needed to find one of the most famous residents of LNNP - the White Rhino.  A very endangered species, they flourish in this park and are one of the reasons that more and more people are making Lake Nakuru part of their African safari experience.  After a bit of looking and fleeting glimpses of far-off rhinos, we spotted an adult and juvenile about 100 yards away from a road, slowly grazing through the grass.  We picked a spot on the road and turned off the car, then watched and waited for about 30 minutes while the rhinos walked directly towards us, stopping to look intently at the car from about 20 feet away before passing right in front of us across the road.  It was absolutely breathtaking - these animals are HUGE and totally pre-historic looking, and it seemed like we had a dinosaur staring us in the eyes as we held our breath.

All in all, it was an unbelievable day and a fantastic way to start wrapping up our time in Kenya before Christmas.  Despite the parts of this country that can be frustrating at times, it has so much to offer in terms of unique creation, and I feel privileged to have experienced so much of it!  Here are a few more fun pictures to leave you with, and feel free to check out more at this link if you're interested...http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2239019&id=4708957&l=4811ff7d4a

Jane's monkey friend

To show how CLOSE this rhino is to the car

Makalia falls

Flamingo pose!

FEAST

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving.  That doesn't mean anything to all of the Kenyans around here, but it means a LOT to me - food, football, good people, relaxing, and the great place we like to call AMERICA!  To celebrate, Jane and I spent a few hours in the afternoon cooking rolls, mashed potatoes, and chocolate-chip pie (slight stretching of the truth with the phrase "and I" there).  Then we went into town our good friends Kim, Jon, and Amanda's house.  They are all Americans, so they know what's up with Thanksgiving.  All kinds of food was just finishing up cooking, including a full-sized turkey that was fresh out of the oven when we arrived.  After a little heavy thinking, Kim and Amanda decided that I was the closest guy to an adult around there (since I'm engaged), and that I should be the one to carve the turkey...boom!  Talk about an honor - Kim specifically said, "It just seems right in my mind for you to be the one with the knife doing this."  That's what I'm talking about...

The turkey was carved, all the casseroles were cooked, the table was set, and America-themed music was playing in the background, so 11 of of us sat down to an amazing, real, Thanksgiving dinner!  It was a great time not only to eat, but to explain Thanksgiving to South African/Zimbabwean/Kiwi friends and to fellowship together with an awesome group of people.  After finishing off a whole lot of food, we all settled onto couches and laughed at Sean and Tes's baby...who knew they could be so entertaining?  What an evening!  Here are some pictures give you a better idea...

Ridiculous Wedding Stories

Jane has already provided a complete rundown of the activities at Steve's wedding a couple of weeks ago (www.canyakenya.blogspot.com), but I wanted to point out a few of the funnier parts of the weekend. 

First of all, you can see below a copy of the wedding program.  I don't think Jane wants sparkles on ours, but it was very well done!  On the inside (second picture), you'll find a close-up of some of the wedding participants...see if you can find what's funny...

The inside of the program also included a schedule.  With times.  Ha...

Next, we have a picture of Jane inside the bride's family's house.  This was 45 minutes away from the wedding venue, and we drove there in an entourage of about 15 cars to sweet-talk the bride's family into letting her go get married.  As soon as we arrived, Jane was whisked into a black hole of the unknown inside the house...who knows what happens in those places with dozens of girls.  Looks like she came out smiling though!

Moving along in the day, after completing the ceremony we embarked on an ambitious program of photo-taking, both at the church and in a scenic spot on the edge of Lake Victoria.  Here are a couple of shots in which you can play a version of Where's Waldo known as, "Find the white people!"  You could also come up with your own interesting captions for the second one.

You might notice two white guys.  In fact, I was not alone "on the line" for this wedding, as an Australian guy who helps at Steve's church joined the group.  For some reason that makes me feel less special...

As you might have heard from previous posts, the wedding food left us with a not-so-pleasant case of food poisoning.  That makes the smiles on our faces as we eat quite ironic.  At this point, we were super happy about our rice, chapati, chicken, and beef, but later we would come to feel differently.
 

The text conversation below is between Duncan and I the next morning.  To help you decode what is happening, there are some definitions following (I'm green, Duncan is gray, for the iPhone un-initiated).

hakuna matata = no worries (really!)

bwana asifiwe = praise God

safari njema = travel safely

leo = today

pole = sorry

poa = cool

doing it both ends = you can figure that one out

YIKES!

To finish up, I'll leave you with some serious pictures of Jane and I, and the happy couple.  All joking aside, it was a great honor to be a part of Steve's wedding, and we are thrilled for what God is going to do in their future.  What an experience!