Safari Njema

We just got home from dropping Chris off at the airport. He's on the first leg of his trip home. Sadness, for us at least...Safari Njema Chris.

2nd to Last

Today is Chris' second to last day here in Kenya. He wanted to spend both today and tomorrow at Oasis with all the kids before he left.
It was a typical day with school and soccer, but when it came to craft time, all the kids made going away cards for him. It was ridiculously cute what they all wrote to him, Im sure he will post about it soon.
One of my best friends from America, Jason, called while we were at Oasis and a couple of the kids talked to him on the phone. It was awesome.
So here you go J some faces to put with the voices you heard.
First was Teresa. Shes so tiny and doesn't speak much English so I just had her and her group of friends talk to him in Swahili. Her tiny voice is the cutest thing I've ever heard.


Next was Steward, he has great English and I knew that with his personality he would be hilarious to talk to.


And finally cute Moses who asked Jason, "What time is it?" and when Jason said 4Am he told him "Aye bwana, thats too late, you should sleep." ha!


We are having one final dinner for Chris tonight with the people who work here at the house and some of Chris' closest friends, like Geoffrey, Olivia, James, Freda, and Richard...

Last House Dinner

Last night was the last house dinner with the all the boys and Chris...
Good thing we had multiple cameras to capture all the action

The boys now have a well just outside their front door...


Inside the well


Lilac armwrestled and proved she was stronger than the boys


Evans danced and played hard to get with me...again


Paul & Justus made dinner


Braum took turns with Martin DJ'ing


Andrew and Paul worked on their posing, sychcronicity


and Steward was trying to teach me something, though Im still not quite sure what



Moses was caught a bit off gaurd


Oh Steward, he was obviously feeling better after his bout with Malaria


Martin loves the ladies


Last group photo with Chris

Yesterday afternoon was spent at Discover to Recover, well it started there and then we made our way to Patricia Sawa's home for lunch and a big party with the kids

"This party's good!"


Ian


What's a party without Benja's crack?


Andrew loves picking on this poor cow


Benja's photo shoot






Derrick


This kid's pretty damn cute


BFF Derrick and Benja


Stella trying to steal the "sweeties" meant for the kids, its ok I stole one too


Ian, I freaking love this little troublemaker

Lilac


Ian,


Just a kid having lunch with a cow, no big deal...


After Discover to Recover we went home for a bit to get ready for dinner with the house boys...

Freda's and the pool

I know i havent posted in a couple days, but after my 3 posts at once I figured that it was ok to take a break...We've been at Oasis everyday, which we've loved. One important thing I recalled from the last coupe days at Oasis was Joseph (one of the teachers) and I talking to one of the street boys, Kevin, who comes regularly about why he misses certain days. We got him to admit he still uses glue and hes struggling with giving it up, but he's going to try because he wants to go to school. Its a really hard habit to break, esp. if you live on the street...its around you 24 hours a day and it helps numb the hunger and cold, so we'll see what happens but we're working on helping him.

Yesterday was thursday so that meant it was pool day for the kids that live at Freda's...
Freda had bought them new outfits, so we put them in their fancy clothes to go to the Kitale Club to swim, but first we had a photo shoot...

In Kenya, when you look this good, they say "Iko smart"




Morgan jumped to Chris


I bit Elia


And Alice threw Liliputian Jaci


Really?




Moses


Morgan, who Andrew thinks looks like a Compton baby, so we taught him to yell "Westside!" Not to mention he has somewhat of a lisp so it sounds more like "wessssiiee."

Ca-Liss

Random thought but Chris leaves 2 days. We don't want him to go, the kids esp. To say they/we love him is an understatement.
Its sad and it sucks. Its going to be so quiet around here.
We went to Lighthouse church this morning for his last service there and they brought him up at the end to thank him and say goodbye and pray a blessing over him...and then I started crying. It made it all too real I guess. There will definitely be more on Tues when we take him to the airport.

Last night was a huge dinner for Chris with all the Oasis staff at Geoffrey and Olivia's. Its hard to believe/really sad that Chris is leaving in one week...Its come up so fast and we wanted him to get to see everyone before he left
so the next week will be packed with dinners and seeing people.
Allison and I met Olivia in town after Oasis to get all the ingredients for dinner and then headed to their house...
We started watching White Chicks, a ridiculous movie BTW, then Olivia and I got started on cooking while Allison babysat Charlotte...We started around 330 and finally ate around 915...It honestly didnt feel that long and I had a lot of fun in the kitchen with Olivia...
We made Chipati of coarse, Chicken Curry, Peanut Chicken, Pilau (a rice dish), mashed bananas, and homemade macaroni and cheese ( I was proud of that one, esp. since i didn't think it was going to turn out).

The outside kitchen


Where the masterpieces happened



This box only contained a portion of what we made for dinner...


It was a really fun night with everyone from Oasis but sad because it was a goodbye dinner for Chris...I guess you have to take the good with the bad.