I’m a bit behind so I’ll cover two days in this blog, yesterday (Sunday) and today.
I went to the same church as last week, Mumlaka Hill Chapel. The worship team and preacher were different from last week but the people didn’t seem to mind at all. One of the worship songs, supposedly Nigerian in origin and only partly in pseudo-English, seemed basically a chorus with limited words but a lot of body movement/dancing. Apparently the word had been put out that everyone should have dressed in red and black because it was Valentine’s Day and only about 25% (including this white boy) were out of uniform. There were also teen couples that performed a choreographed dance to canned music, apparently romantic but not Christian in nature that the people liked. Not sure I agree that it’s part of a church service but it appeared to be their idea of community.
Before Serge and Olivia went off to a rest-of-the-day celebration with other Malagasy (Madagascar) people living in Nairobi, they blessed me by going with me to a Sunday afternoon African open air market where I made some special purchases and drove me all the way across town to the BTL center. They are so good to me. When I thanked Serge, he said “Thank you for letting us serve you”. How’s that for servanthood!
Using my MagicJack, I called Julie for Valentine’s Day, catching her just as she was getting up for Sunday preparations. Of course, I’d remembered to leave a card for her. We had a nice conversation and I learned about the 3” of snow, the first of the winter at home. Eat your heart out, Vermont!
The rest of the day I got lazy. I grabbed myself two simple meals, watched several really, really old John Wayne movies Serge had laying around and fell asleep in bed reading at some point.
This morning started normally. I’m really enjoying working with the people here, especially the IT Team. Omonge and I met to review what had been done since he’d been consumed with other tasks like wiring and the phone system. I was pleased when he was pleased at the progress and we had a very personal chat about how he felt my integration with his department had gone. Returning to my desk, I learned that the entire team wanted to take me out to lunch before I left for home Friday and it seemed that today was the best option.
There is hotel restaurant next door that I hadn’t known about and we had a very nice meal. It was during the meeting that we joked about how I’d been unable for several weeks in January to find out when I was needed in Nairobi and for how long. In mid January I’d suggested two weeks and they countered with three, learning now that they really hoped for four weeks. I said that, had they said four weeks, I would certainly have been here for four weeks.
I was surprised when Judith, the operations manager who had actually sent the invitation, asked if I could extend my trip by two more weeks. There are a number of upgrade tasks yet to tackle in the department and there are broader projects Omonge and I are exploring to improve the services the network can provide the center.
Wow! I’ve already sent an email off to my manager and her manager about this. Julie is in favor, after calling her with the news. I’ve just received tentative approval for the extension and will probably know for sure tomorrow.
So, once again, stay tuned…
On the way back, I just had to take this picture of the road that goes past the BTL center, in the middle of Nairobi. You have to have an off-road car to take this on!
Oh, and one of the guys has offered to take me and Akinlana, a VMS person from the US who works here now, to the national park tomorrow morning at 6 am to see all sorts of African animals like lions. Hear that, Ella? Depending on how active the park is, this may be a half day trip or it may be much longer. Another way the people here are providing for my every need and even more (desires). He's got one of the vehicles that could take this road on, ride in the park and fend off lions and baboons jumping on the car. Good thing...
I went to the same church as last week, Mumlaka Hill Chapel. The worship team and preacher were different from last week but the people didn’t seem to mind at all. One of the worship songs, supposedly Nigerian in origin and only partly in pseudo-English, seemed basically a chorus with limited words but a lot of body movement/dancing. Apparently the word had been put out that everyone should have dressed in red and black because it was Valentine’s Day and only about 25% (including this white boy) were out of uniform. There were also teen couples that performed a choreographed dance to canned music, apparently romantic but not Christian in nature that the people liked. Not sure I agree that it’s part of a church service but it appeared to be their idea of community.
Before Serge and Olivia went off to a rest-of-the-day celebration with other Malagasy (Madagascar) people living in Nairobi, they blessed me by going with me to a Sunday afternoon African open air market where I made some special purchases and drove me all the way across town to the BTL center. They are so good to me. When I thanked Serge, he said “Thank you for letting us serve you”. How’s that for servanthood!
Using my MagicJack, I called Julie for Valentine’s Day, catching her just as she was getting up for Sunday preparations. Of course, I’d remembered to leave a card for her. We had a nice conversation and I learned about the 3” of snow, the first of the winter at home. Eat your heart out, Vermont!
The rest of the day I got lazy. I grabbed myself two simple meals, watched several really, really old John Wayne movies Serge had laying around and fell asleep in bed reading at some point.
This morning started normally. I’m really enjoying working with the people here, especially the IT Team. Omonge and I met to review what had been done since he’d been consumed with other tasks like wiring and the phone system. I was pleased when he was pleased at the progress and we had a very personal chat about how he felt my integration with his department had gone. Returning to my desk, I learned that the entire team wanted to take me out to lunch before I left for home Friday and it seemed that today was the best option.
I was surprised when Judith, the operations manager who had actually sent the invitation, asked if I could extend my trip by two more weeks. There are a number of upgrade tasks yet to tackle in the department and there are broader projects Omonge and I are exploring to improve the services the network can provide the center.
Wow! I’ve already sent an email off to my manager and her manager about this. Julie is in favor, after calling her with the news. I’ve just received tentative approval for the extension and will probably know for sure tomorrow.
So, once again, stay tuned…
Oh, and one of the guys has offered to take me and Akinlana, a VMS person from the US who works here now, to the national park tomorrow morning at 6 am to see all sorts of African animals like lions. Hear that, Ella? Depending on how active the park is, this may be a half day trip or it may be much longer. Another way the people here are providing for my every need and even more (desires). He's got one of the vehicles that could take this road on, ride in the park and fend off lions and baboons jumping on the car. Good thing...
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