Going on Vacation and Other Assorted News

We are preparing to leave Kenya for a forced vacation, courtesy of the Kenyan immigration office. Not that we aren't complaining, we are actually looking forward to a little rest and relaxation. However, we were supposed to leave Kenya on Friday, heading for Tanzania, but a funny thing happened as we were about ready to head out of town. We knew that after six months were done we would have to leave Kenya for about a week or two, but we didn't know that Kenya had just changed their immigration laws in January requiring us to leave East Africa for a week or two if we wanted to return to Kenya.

Matt had already spent a great deal of time planning a vacation in Tanzania spending some time at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro and visiting some of the national parks to see some more scenery and wild animals. It is surprising how much harder it is to plan a vacation here since no travel search engines include the continent of Africa and no local travel agents cater to planning trips outside of Kenya. Nevertheless, Matt persevered to create the ideal itinerary only to be detoured after a brief visit to the local immigration office the day before we were planning to leave for Tanzania.

The detour has left us in Eldoret a few days longer, but rest assured we will leave Kenya before our visa expires. We were actually able to throw together another vacation at a beach on the coast of Mozambique. Nevertheless, we will be back in Kenya in two weeks with a new visa. Perhaps all this is for the best. We will probably enjoy a more relaxing vacation on a warm sunny beach and we won't run the risk of being eaten by lions in the Serengeti (Matt actually watched a movie a few years back where tourists ran out of fuel in the Serengeti and they consequently became a tasty meal for some local lions).

Speaking of tasty meals, Matt and Cheryl enjoyed a delicious Valentine's Day dinner today at Mamma Mia's Restaurant in Eldoret. It wasn't what Matt had quite envisioned, spending the evening looking into Cheryl's eyes at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, but it was nevertheless a romantic evening in Eldoret.

Things are progressing well at the Open Arms Village this week. We will be bringing on a new set of house parents, Paul and Sarah Maswai tomorrow. As they move into Home #4, we will prepare to accept 20 more children over the next few months. We are already planning on accepting 4 or 5 new children at the village in the next week.

We are also doing well at the school. We are planning on hiring one more teacher in the next few weeks to help prepare for the influx of new children at the village. Of course the babies are doing well also. We have had a lot of fun with all three babies back in the house. You'll enjoy this video of Baby Esther using the Johnny Jump Up to do a little dance.

There will be a lack of hands to help with the babies when Matt and Cheryl depart for Mozambique on Tuesday. Rachel's mom Miriam will be leaving on the same day which only leaves Renee to assist Rachel with three babies while we are gone. Please keep Rachel and Renee in your prayers as they will be knee deep in dirty diapers, formula, and baby wipes while we are gone.

Babies, buildings, beautiful views, and bodily hair follicles

It seems that as the weeks progress, our perspectives, or at least what we think is important has been altered by Africa.

Take ear hair for instance. When I was a young boy I was always fascinated by the amount of ear hair that my 7th grade social studies teacher could collect in one ear, or the one single long strand of hair on my mother's chin that, no matter how long I would stare at her chin, my mother seemed oblivious to my fascination (actually she was purposefully ignoring me so she could avoid the fact that she was going through menopause).

However, no matter how long I may try to ignore the fact that I am getting older, the reality is that I am growing hair everywhere except the top of my head. About two months and a half months ago, my electric razor and my beard and mustache trimmer both gave up the ghost during the same week, probably due to the fact that they didn't convert very well to 240V electricity under the East African system. I tried to strain as much battery power out of each of these devices as I possibly could, but after a few weeks nothing happened. I finally resorted to shaving with foam and a hand razor which was fine for most of my face, but did nothing for my neatly trimmed beard.

I went around Eldoret shopping for electric razors and beard trimmers that would be suitable for my purposes, but all I found was a 1950s era razor that was good for giving the top of my head a buzz cut (one that I already had due to the natural erosion caused by aging and alopecia) but it did nothing for my goatee style beard or worse yet my nose hair and ear hair. After a period in time, I had more hair in my nose and my ears than I had on top of my head, and my goatee became noticeably straggly and bushy. The other American and UK staff here began teasing me recently about the amount of hair in my ears, and my dear sweet wife Cheryl even noticeably reduced the amount of times she would kiss me on any given day due to my straggly beard or possible the sight of ear hairs poking out of the side of my head (To the Kenyan staff and other people we have encountered in Kenyan culture, they seem amazed that we kiss our spouses in public. Any public display of affection between spouses here is shunned upon culturally, but when they look at us kissing, they think we are just crazy wazungus (white people), and they shake their heads). May I say on the record right now, that I am a crazy wazungu, crazy in love with my wife, and I would like to kiss her when I can, but when my bushy hair was getting in the way, it was time to get serious about this issue.

I called Rachel Gallagher, whom I knew was coming in a matter of weeks, and explained my predicament, she agreed to purchase a nice mustache and beard trimmer (with a nose and ear hair trimming attachment) at Costco, and she brought it with her. After she arrived this week, she eventually placed the trimmer in my hands, and after much more ribbing and teasing about the length of my nose and ear hair, I charged up the trimmer (with an adapter so that I wouldn't burn out the battery) and I proceeded to trim my goatee, my nose, my ears, and my entire face. I even went to the local barber in Eldoret, and got a haircut (if I haven't mentioned it already, I get the best haircut I have ever had in my life, and all for only about $4 US dollars).

Having said, all this, I might mention that not one Kenyan bothered to notice or tease me about my scruffy beard, my nose hair, or my ear hair. Perhaps it's because they are too polite to comment; perhpas it's because they just don't care. There are more important things to comment on or talk about on a blog than ear hair or scraggly beards.


Which brings me to the more important parts of this blog. This week has been less hectic in many ways with the arrival of Rachel Gallagher. She has been dearly missed with her organizational and leadership skills. Things have been progressing with the building of new orphanage homes, new visitor cottages, staff housing, and the school at the Open Arms Village in the past week. We are just weeks, if not days away from completing our next two orphanage homes, although one of them will be temporarily used as a central office for Open Arms. We are also making significant progress on our visitor cottages which should be ready in time for summer teams that are coming to the Open Arms Village in a few months.



The school is continuing to progress nicely now that all the facilities and teachers are in place. We still have to think about starting a library at the school, and eventually, as the village grows with new homes, we will need to hire more teachers, but things seem to be going well with the school as it adjusts and grows.

Mary, whom I blogged about last week, is doing well. She is playing with the children, smiling, laughing, and going to school in the nursery school. She is doing well, and she seems very energetic and well adjusted in spite of what she has gone through in her four young years.

Since Rachel has been back, our lives have also been full of babies. All three babies, Diana, Esther, and Belle are back in the house again, and we have had our hands full. It has been a fun experience, and with the arrival of Rachel's mom, Miriam, we have had even more hands to care for and feed babies.

We got to begin this week with another trip to Cario View to admire the view of the Rift Valley and relax. Diana got to play in her very first inflatable playhouse while we enjoyed the view. Today, we are relaxing again, but just enjoying the view of Eldoret from our house. The dogs are out front relaxing and actually asleep (they save their noisy howling for late at night when we are deep asleep). The neighbor is building a new fence (probably to keep our dogs from sneaking into his yard). Sounds of all different birds are echoing from the windows of our house. It is relaxing...think I'll go take a nap. Bye for now, until next week.

Matt and Cheryl Tallman