Random things...

This is the longest I've gone since moving here without blogging. I've been crazy busy. And, I never know if anyone reads this, and so I lost some of my umph to write. :)

But never fear, I'm back.

We are moved into our new house, er, apartment. It's large- 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a big kitchen, dining and living room... 2 porches. In Kenya they call the first floor the ground floor, and then the next floor up, what we would call the 2nd floor, they call the 1st floor. So we are on the Kenyan 1st floor, the American 2nd floor. Nice enough that I know we can make it out in a fire, and yet high enough I don't feel like anyone can just jump through our windows or onto our porches.

There is a lovely pool here with a great garden. I miss our Askari (I think the translation is guards/workmen) that did the grounds at Blackrose, they were all sooo nice. The Askari here are really friendly with Jonah, and the main gate Askari, Winston, is super friendly, but the others are slightly odd. I wonder what goes on in the minds of the Kenyans who work for all these expats. What do they think of us? Are we really weird? Snobby? Spoiled? Rich? Mysterious?

I have a great Kenyan woman named Doris that is coming twice a week to help me. Today we cleaned the house- okay she cleaned the house- did all the weeks cooking of meals, and now she is watching Cute Child while I have some God time, and write. I learned a lot from my time at the Vessenes, I was treated really well by them and know how I want to make sure Doris gets treated.

We weren't able to find used appliances by Saturday, and so we ended up buying them all new. ack. Almost $1300 for a washing machine, stove (cooker), and refridgerator. All of these items are about 1/3 less in size compared to the American ones we have at home. The one thing that we did find at the Roslyn school sale out by the UN, is a car. A Nissan X-Trail, 2001, with 65,000km on it. Only driven in Kenya for 2 weeks, it's imported from Japan. A Korean family bought it here, they were with YWAM, and something happened (very mysterious, but not a positive thing I fear) so they are going home immediately. They've lived here for 7 years. Anyways, they are selling us the X-Trail for a bit less then what they paid, and including all the legal docs, insurance for a year, a new sound system, a new roof rack, and a new alarm system with it. We've majorly scored. Add into that we feel that we can trust this couple and therefore the car isn't a dud. Also if we leave in 2 years and don't put too many miles on it, we will be able to sell it for what we are buying it for since we got such a great deal. I think sometime next week we'll officially have it in our hands. :) To have our own wheels! This brings such joy to my heart! No more bumming rides off of everyone! Or paying 50 bucks a week in taxis!

I'm feeling very homesick this week. I don't know if it's the season, or what. We have this amazing apartment here, and it's so empty that our voices echo in it. Some of my furniture is even loaned out to family members (Hot Husband's idea, I don't like doing that, because I feel bad asking it back, and i don't want things broken)- furniture I saved all my pennies for when we were just getting married. Why does this bother me so much? I don't even know. I just want my things, my stuff, my my my. Oh man, I sound like Cute Child. (new word: Mine, or My- it drives me crazy). Sigh. Another round of purging, breaking, burning, and dying, Lord? Very well then.

Hot Husband has been working since 3am yesterday, and he's not home yet now. That means he is on hour 38 of work. He was upset I cancelled dinner with our friends tonight. I just knew he wouldn't be quite coherant, and he was still frustrated that I cancelled. He doesn't seem to realize that a person isn't quite cognitively 'there' after being awake that many hours. I try to explain to him the health benefits of sleep, and he's yet to agree. He's one stubborn horse.

I've been doing a lot of thinking too lately about my life, my story. I'm about to turn 30 in a bit over a month, and I'm reading a book by Donald Miller (you might recognize him from Blue Like Jazz) called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, What I learned by editing my life... I'll do a whole entry on Thursday (when Doris is here next) but here is a clip (I love my Kindle's note taking ability) that struck me:

"I was watching the news the other night, and they were still covering that story in Mumbai about the terrorists who went on a shooting rampage. The man on the news said that before the terrorists killed the Jews in the Jewish centre, they tortured them. I had to turn off the television, because I could see the turture in my head the way they were describing it. I kept imagining these people, just living their daily lives, and then having them suddenly ended in unjust tragedy. When we watch the news, we grieve all of this, but when we go to the movies, we want more of it. Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather than a master storyteller. "