Dad's visit

I'm catching up--I want to share a little more about my dad's visit at Christmastime. It was nice to share my life here with him, have him meet my friends and co-workers, see my home and have him around for the holiday. 

Isn't this beautiful? This was on our drive back from Naroosura, where we spent Christmas. We weren't anywhere in particular, this was just on the side of the road during our drive back to my house in Narok. Wildebeests, zebra, and if you squint you might be able to see the ostrich behind the wildebeests. Just down the road were giraffe. 

Here are Tima & my dad--We spent Christmas with Tima's family (her dad is my boss). We all wanted to hold her but she didn't let many--holding her was quite an accomplishment for my dad!

My dad is wearing his Christmas present--this type of shirt is typical of what a Kenyan guy might wear--I think you would call it Swahili style.

So, my dad being a man who likes to keep busy, decided to do a building project during the two free days of his visit. He got to know Kenyan culture in a personal way--He learned about the untreated timber (how it warps and you can't cut it straight), manual labor and lack of power tools =) He was a little frustrated with his manual saw after working for just 2 days... Kenyans work in these conditions day in and day out.

My back porch was basically a bunch of concrete with a place to hang my drying laundry. The sun is really intense, so things dried quickly but faded pretty badly, too. During the day I'm at work or the sun is so intense I don't feel like sitting in it, and at night there are mosquitos, so I didn't spend much time on my back porch enjoying outside...until...

Now I have a screened in porch! It's like an extra room on my house to host guests or just have a place to sit outside during the day or in the evening--sun and mosquito free. I can even hang my clothes out and they don't get so faded and if it rains while I'm at work I don't have to run home to take the clothes off the line! I hosted the other single missionaries for dinner on the back porch a few weeks ago to test it out. We had a delightful evening. Thanks Dad.

I mentioned manual labor--my apartment complex is continuing to grow--new apartments are going up everyday. Workers sit outside pounding rocks all day in the intense sun basically making rocks smaller (notice the piles behind me). Tough work. (this is a posed picture--I'm holding an imaginary hammer--in case you were wondering). My dad wanted to take this picture--just another example of the type of manual labor Kenyan guys do all the time. You might see things in Kenya and wonder why they aren't developed more, but it's not because of lack of hard work.