No Pithy Title Immediately Comes To Mind

     So, not a whole lot is new since the last time I blogged, thus my lack of an exciting title. Between hacking down the forest of weeds that awaited me after my trip home and waiting for the next planting season, time spent in my garden has hit a bit of a lull. I look forward to re-planting some things and trying out other new crops in the next few months. Until then I’m waiting on my dozens (literally) of pumpkins to be ready to eat… at which point I might turn orange from an over load of beta-carotene. On a completely random side note, I had a friend in Jr. high who decided she was going to try and turn her skin orange by eating nothing but cheetoes. Needless to say, it didn’t work. 

 

Moving on…

       I'm still working arduously on my resource center. The World Map wall is almost done....

     
        I'm actually really happy with the way that it's turning out. I tried to paint my bedroom walls with a mural once when I was a teenager. I made it about a foot before I realized I would be 30 by the time I was done and my picture sucked anyway. Needless to say, this project has turned out a lot better.
       The next step is getting the carpenter to come and build me tables and chairs. Hopefully that will be done by the next time I blog and I can share some more exciting progress photos with you!

       My house mother (the Mama where I live) had her mother pass away while I was in America, so last week I went with her to her parent's house about an hour away from ours. I met her father, who barely spoke any English. My mama left us alone in the living room for about a half hour while she prepared tea, which meant he and I had to try and communicate completely in Swahili. Now, my Swahili isn't half bad but trying to fill a half hour with a guy who speaks NO English and who peppers his Swahili with the tribal language(which I know very, very little of) and is talking with a mouth only a half way filled with teeth... Well, let's just say it was a bit interesting. All in all I had a good day though. I met some of the kids, my mama's grand-babies and her niece and nephew.

Me with my mama's family

Mama's Father and Uncle in front of the house she grew up in, where her father still lives.

              Spring time in my African front yard has all the makings of a cute baby animal documentary. First there’s Violet, my baby jersey cow. Admittedly she was born a few months ago, but she’s still a baby by cow standards and a cute one at that. Pretty much all of the animals here are scared of humans, which makes sense considering they are usually getting smacked with sticks, chased by children or, if you’re a dog or cat, hit by rocks or cars. However, I have been petting Violet since she was a few days old, so she’s my pal and lets me approach and pet her whenever I want.

        There’s a new goat on the farm too, one I’ve come to call “ninja goat” after watching him do a side-flip-ninja-spin off a pile of concrete bricks that would have impressed Jackie Chan. He then scaled the bricks and looked down at his mom. I swear I could see the mom roll her eyes and ninja goat stick out his tongue. Ninja goat is proving to be a wily little fella, making petting him difficult. We’re working on it though and I see him and I being good friends soon.

         I spotted an un-named puppy and its mom wandering through the yard the other day. It was a depressing sight for a few reasons. One of them being that I’m pretty sure I saw the same family right before I left for the States and there were four puppies, not one, leading me to believe that three have already passed on to that great big dog park in the sky. If that weren’t bad enough, the remaining puppy is looking pretty thin as is her mom. I watched them look for scraps of food around the yard for a while and thought about feeding them but ultimately decided not to. They’re not our dogs and the last thing I want is to essentially steal them by enticing them to come around looking for food. Dogs here don’t have owners and homes so much as they have people who throw them scraps and places where they’re not beaten as badly.

           Finally in baby news, I adopted a pair of orphaned kittens. The house cat here (I named him Tiger before I figured out he was actually a she) had kittens at the end of June and refused to feed or take care of them, only reestablishing my opinion that I hate that cat. My house mama and baba told me that they would die if Tiger didn’t start feeding them. So, after listening to the poor things cry for almost 2 days and watching Tiger lounge around and completely ignore them, I decided to see if I could keep them alive. I named the female calico Lexi after one of my favorite characters on Grey’s Anatomy that they killed off in the season finale (sorry if you’re behind on episodes and I just ruined the ending for you). 

Lexi at 6 days

        Unfortunately, Lexi died a couple days after this picture was taken. It was particularly depressing because she had seemed like she was doing so well the day before. It should come as no surprise that I sat on the floor and cried for a solid ten minutes before digging a grave in the backyard and burying her, when I of course, broke into tears again. I keep telling myself that I need to stop adopting these sad little tragedies waiting to happen (recall Imara, my puppy that died) but c'mon, look at that face! How could I possibly resist at least trying to save her!?!

         The male, an orange tabby, I named Jordan, as in Air Jordan because he survived falling onto the concrete floor after making a suicide leap from my shoulder within the first five minutes of me deciding I was going to take care of them. Yes, I’m the mother that drops the newborn on the floor. Luckily two day old kittens are surprisingly bouncy; the little guy kinda squirmed on the floor for a minute in silence before going back to meowing in exactly the same fashion as his pre-fall squaks. I guess only time will tell if Air Jordan has sustained permanent brain damage.

Jordan at almost 2 weeks

     I am happy to report that, as of this morning when I left my house to come to town, Jordan is growing and doing well (I think). He finally opened his eyes yesterday and I gotta say, they're a little creepy. They change pigment as they get older but right now there squinty little black marbles... basically he's a lot cuter when he's sleeping, not squealing at me or staring into my soul with those creepy little eyeballs of his.

Lexi and Jordan at 6 days old

          I bought an infant bottle for them at the store and I'm still using it to feed Jordan 4 - 5 times a day. I heat up the bottle and have a water bottle I fill with warm water (and cover with an athletic sock) to keep him from getting cold. Since Lexi died I felt like Jordan would be lonely so I put Simba, a little stuffed lion in his basket with him. He curls up between the water bottle and Simba every night :-) 

       

Finally, I’m still making jewelry and I’ve started to teach my friend Celestine (baby Linds’ mom and Peter’s daughter) how to do some of the beading. I sent home a package of pieces to Mom earlier this month and I’m working hard to get a separate blog up and running for the jewelry so people can custom order things. I've included a few new pictures if things I've made and are in the package that is (knock on wood) in transit to Mom.

    Stay tuned for more information on the jewelry project and my women's group. I'm hoping to have the blog up and going by next month, but if anyone is super interested in buying before then, e-mail (LinsdayInKenya@gmail.com) or Facebook message me and we can probably arrange something.
          Until next time, siku njema! (good day)