It's My Birthday So I'll Dance if I Want To

January 30th in Korr, Kenya.

I woke up around 6:00 AM, which is sleeping in for me. It's not easy to keep dosing when sunlight is streaming through the windows and the morning winds blow our mosquito nets halfway out the room. I lounged around for a while, trying to think how to sum up my year of 22. I came up with "moving forwards" and "learning to trust God" as the general themes of my personal life in 2009, and what a lot of life it was, packed into that year. I graduated from college, started supporting myself (more or less...), fell in and out of love, had fights and made up, sent two of my best friends off to be married, got my first real teaching job, reconnected with old friends, and then moved to Africa.


But it being the first day I am 23, I couldn't be more excited to get this year started! Alicia says it's a good year, and if the first day is anything like the rest of it, I'm inclined to believe her.

We always have remedial classes on Saturday mornings, so I headed over to help the kids work on their poetry symbolism projects. A few weeks ago, I had all the students break into groups to write a poem welcoming the Form 1 students and/or providing their thoughts and emotions about Tirrim Secondary School. The results were truly AMAZING! There was some stunning imagery, classic rhymes, even an acronym. Portions of these poems include:



You are welcomed our Form 1 students
You're blessed to be in T.S.S.
It's great to have you here
It's our part to welcome you, and it's your pleasure to feel at home [...]

and...

Education is like a fruit, Hanging and dangling on a tree; Tirrim
Situated in a desert, Along a traveler's path
I am a traveler, Walking through the desert
Hungry and thirsty, Longing for the fruit
The tree is tall, I need a ladder
The ladder is education, Teachers are my steps
Striving and trying to reach the fruit
For education in Tirrim is like a fruit [...]

and...

T - Thinking twice before doing anything
I - Illustrious professionals will be found here
R- Redeeming feature in our community
R - Refinery of brains and hearts
I - Incomparable to other schools
M - Melodious education is found in it [...]

and...

If God is there and people care,
It is really a school [...]

These are just samples, and see how fabulous they are! And not only for the use of some pretty good words for ESL students, but in the heart behind the words. School is an "oasis in the desert" for these kids; it quite nearly saves their lives, and that's not an attitude that is often found in American students. What and encouragement to know that there are kids out there who think of their teachers as steps on the ladder to the Tree of Education.




All of us roommates and the Swanepoels celebrated with a wonderful lunch prepared by Ruthie, topped of with a delicious spice cake with candles (which were consequently blown out by the desert winds, and not me.) Lunch was delicious in taste and company, and we sat around for a couple hours digesting before Abba Obele came around to help us slaughter my birthday sheep.

No, it's not Rendille tradition to kill a sheep on your birthday, but the day before we had mimed to him that we would like to purchase one because we had recently run out of Nairobi bought, pre-packaged, and over priced meat. Abba told us to get our things and come with him, so we grabbed our cameras (a very touristy thing to do) and took a short hike to his land. He and his son, actually one of my students, had already picked the beast out. I was more or less fine until I realized this sheep, that was currently living and breathing, allowing me to pet its little head, would be, in a matter of 20 minutes, quite dead. Like little suburban Westerners, we watched with pity and morbid interest as our students Joseph and Lebonyo held "Sheepy" down and cut his poor little neck.

"Mary had a little lamb... And then she ate it"

























(Above are photos of Abba Obele with his son and friend, Abba's wife/ our bucket of sheep meet/ and me mourning the death of our precious lamb.)


Then it was time to bake 70 chocolate cupcakes to bring to the students as treats during their monthly "Game Night." Game Night is a misnomer, though, as evidently Jamie and Alicia hav just been teaching the kids American dances like the "Cupid Shuffle" and a dance they learned at summer camp back in Texas. The kids LOVE dancing, so this definitely beats Monopoly lit by a dim florescent bulb. Everyone danced their hearts out, laughed, kicked up dust, and then even preformed a traditional Rendille dance in honor of my birthday! It was truly amazing to see my students bobbing their heads, clapping, and swaying in a far more amazing rhythm than even the Cupid Shuffle can produce.


The dance begins with 3 straight lines: 2 lines of boys, and 1 of the ladies, which I joined. The guys in the furthest right line start moving in an oval around the other two lines, while everyone claps and sings and bobs their heads and rolls their backs. This first line of guys does one lap of walking and bobbing, and then they start jumping. While they're jumping, the second line of guys turns to the girls, each guy grabs the hand of a girl, and the two face each other while holding hands and bobbing their heads at each other. The rhythm of the bobbing is coordinated in some way to the chanting, although I've yet to learn that bit. So then at this point the second line of guys does their loop around the crowd, while the first line of guys steps up for their turn to dance with the ladies. Finally the ladies get their turn to move around the room, all the while chanting and gracefully weaving their bodies in a movement completely foreign to me. The gentlemen will pat ladies on the head as they go by to either encourage them to keep going or compliment the girls on their dancing skills. I wont deny that I got a few pats. And the kids all had so much fun doing their own dancing; not that they don't like the Cupid Shuffle, but they find a greater joy singing and dancing in their mother's way.

The night ended with chocolate cupcakes all around, and some of our students walking us home, because evidently, "Madames, the lugga is VERY dangerous at night!" I happened to say to Abdulahi, when he mentioned I had nothing to fear because he was a warrior, "Well, where is your panga, Abdulahi?" His reply: "Madame, I don't need a panga" (and he holds up his bare hands.)

The best way to spend a birthday is with people who will slaughter a sheep for you, bake you a cake, dance you a dance, and protect you with their bare hands.

Death

I don't mean to be overly morbid or insensitive, but death is a reality I've come in far greater contact with while in Kenya. I've only ever had one close relative pass away, and I recognize that I am extremely blessed to know so little of this type of heartbreak.

But here in Africa, death is kind of all around you. There's been a donkey suffering from some sort of illness on the side of the road for a day and a half now. He alternates between lying on his side or on his back, as the Abba who owns him sits by and watches helplessly. I doubt if this 'ehel' will live through the night as he wilts in this heat and suffers through an unknown disease.

Even if the animals aren't getting sick, they're being slaughtered for food. I've already seen the skin and organs of a sheep sitting in a bucket next to one satisfied looking old man. I've also, for the first time in my life, seen my food alive before I've eaten it. I don't think it's melodramatic to say that for one split second, while staring at the mutton on my plate, I recognized the real connection between my existence and the existence, or non-existence, of other creatures here on earth.

One of our nightguards (a different guard from the one in our pictures) came around the other day and told us that his father was dying out in one of the surrounding towns. He's evidently an old man, Abaya Esymbaseley's father, that is, but a human life is never easy to lose. Because of the language barrier, there's no real way to ask about his father, or even how Abaya himself is feeling. There are just prayers for peace.

In a lot of ways, death seems more inevitable here than in the 'civilized world' (and I say that sarcastically because I do think that the Rendille have quite a few more things sorted out properly than we do.) Back home there's a hospital or ambulance just around the corner from your house, and even the most basic hospital equipment there is better by half than what is available in this desert. We have so many roadblocks set up for death and aging in America, that I think it's quite possible we think we've cheated it entirely. But get out into a place like Africa and you're confronted with... reality.

Lynne Swanepoel gave us an unbelievable statistic the other day; the average life span of a Rendille person is about 40-something, a number significantly lowered by the disproportionate number of infant deaths. Just a couple weeks ago, Alicia and I went over to Pastor Jamhuri's house for dinner. We met his very pregnant wife, had a wonderful visit with both of them, gave them our best wishes, and then two days later heard that her baby boy had died within minutes of birth. The pain is, I'm sure, just as accute as it would be back in the States, but is there an element of acceptance that is more easily obtainable in the Northern Kenya desert? I was shocked to hear that the baby hadn't survived, and felt slightly guilty for so flippantly wishing the mother blessings just days before. But how does the family cope? This is a tremendously dangerous place to live, so does an understanding of that translate into an easier transition from days characterized by numbing grief to days that are happy again?

I think you could live here a lifetime and still not know. And for me, an American who's only in town for one year, I doubt I'll ever be able to come to terms with 'The Problem of Pain' as it presents itself in Korr.

Family Photos

(Above, from left to right: Alicia, Me, Abaya, Ruth, and Jamie lined up on the steps of the water tower.)

I don't know who thought of it, but we all agreed that it would be a WONDERFUL idea to take a set of family photos with all us girls and Abaya (our night guard.) And so, just like we do at home on the California beaches, we all put on our white shirts and blue jeans, handed Abaya a white shirt as well, as found the most scenic views in our yard. Abaya seemed to know exactly what was happening, and graciously did every pose we asked of him, so he got a new v-neck out of the deal (and memories to last a lifetime)!

(Below is a piture of Abaya with his panga pretending to go after our cat. We didn't even have to tell him this is how we wanted him to pose. I guess he's heard us yell, "Inguss! Kute!"/ "Cat! Get out!" enough times to understand our feelings for this member of the family.)






I guess the question we girls should have been asking ourselves was not "Are we ready for Africa?" but "Is Africa ready for us?"

"When I was a kid, we used to walk to school uphill, both ways... In the snow"

Fabiano is his English name; I can't remember his Rendille name at the moment. He is from Marsabit which is a small city north west of Korr by about 55 km (120 km if you drive), and this is his story.

His family are beggars in Marsabit; they live on the streets or on abandoned store front porches and probably only eat about 4 times a week. There's clearly no money for anything beyond what is needed for immediate survival, so education is out of the question. But someone told Fabiano about Tirrim Secondary School in Korr, and that they were enrolling Form 1 students, and so he started WALKING.

We think he walked for about 3 days. And where he was traveling, not even the warriors go without a couple of spears by their side. It's rough terrain, as it crosses some ancient lava fields, and because it's so remote, wild animals roam uninhibited. It was all worth the cost to Fabiano, though, so he spent 2 nights lying on poky lava rocks and praying that he would be the one the hyenas missed.

He made it to Korr about 3 days before enrollment day, with the next step being to present his case to the Swanepoels... Along with about 60 other children who had no option other than Tirrim. Tirrim's appeal lies in its being one of the few private secondary schools in the area, its National Exam marks are much higher than average, its a Christian school, and has much lower fees than others. Not to mention that the teachers, yours truly, care deeply for the students. If you can find a desk at Tirrim, you've got a good shot at the future. But Fabiano's shot was small.

There were 32 students enrolled in a classroom made for 30, so the only way Fabiano would get admitted is if someone dropped, which is extremely rare. But Someone was watching out for this kid; not planning to bring him this far (literally and figuratively) without taking him all the way. One of the girls originally enrolled at Tirrim was found to have lied on her exam scores, and so she was immediately crossed off the list. Fabiano got his desk assignment then and there.

We handed him his books, had him read through the school rules, assigned him a locker, and watched him walk off with a massive armload of school supplies and an indescribable smile on his face. A smile that you rarely rarely see but literally says, "I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil (well, maybe a little), but now I get to lay down by green pastures."

Total Eclipse of the Sun

It was only 8 am, but the light was fading, as if it were hazy outside. And the air looked thick, although don't ask me to describe that any further. I noticed that there weren't clouds, but didn't consider it really until I heard all the kids running out of their classroom next door. I walked outside and everyone was staring at the sun... What in the world?! You're going to shoot your eye out kid! Someone had finally put two and two together to realize that there was a solar eclipse going on!

We looked such a thing up in the kids physics book, and it turns out that a solar eclipse is quite rare and is often only seen around the equator, where we were currently standing. It occurs when the moon moves across the sun; essentially when the moon comes between the sun and the earth, casting a shadow on earth, and therefore blocking out a significant portion of the light that actually reaches earth particularly at the point where the moon is directly between the sun and earth (which happens to be right around Kenya latitude). If I said anything beyond this, I would probably be wrong, so check out this diagram and Wikipedia it if you're still curious. I'll just continue talking about my "feelings" on the eclipse.



So all the students are standing outside, and someone realizes that my sunglasses aren't helping them stare at the sun any longer, so they pull out their science class "pin point cameras." These little cardboard and wax paper boxes were actually really useful, and we were able to discern the tiny round disc of the sun turning into a crescent as the moon moved across its face. And even better than this was the red dust pan one of the teachers pulled out! If we held the plastic up to the sky just so, we were able to get a fingernail sized image of the sun with the moon's interference clearly visible. I really felt like I was witnessing the greatest astronomical event in history!

And so did the Rendille, evidently. One of the kids said that Jesus was coming back. One of our Abayas said that everyone out in the remote villages were praying for God to give the sun back, and pulling their cattle in from the "fora" just in case the apocalypse happened. I understand to a certain level... It was creepy if you didn't know what was going on. Like I said, the light changed. Even the light coming through the branches of the acacia trees cast thousands of eclipse-shaped shadows across our porch. It simply was not the correct sun or the correct light for that time of day.

But we pulled through safely, and are now planning a trip out to the goobs tomorrow to watch a Rendille New Year ceremony. I don't know if this annual ceremony is in fact coordinated with the occurrence of solar eclipses, but it is certainly fitting!

Taste, Touch, Smell, See, Hear: A Sensory Tour of Korr

Taste

Of all the things my palate has enjoyed while in Kenya, the "chipati" has got to be one of its absolute favorites. It is essentially a fried flour tortilla, but SO much better. Ingredients include wheat flour, water, cooking fat, and salt, mixed together into a stiff dough, which is then rolled out into circles, and laid in a frying pan of hot oil. The end result is a sweet round of fatty wonder that I could eat for every meal.

Then there is also Kenyan "chai," similar to what you can get at Starbucks, but with some distinct differences. If a Kenyan makes the chai, it usually contains 1/2 cup sugar per mug, and even more interestingly, camel's milk. Camel's milk is nowhere near the flavor of soy, and even quite distinct from cow's milk. It has a smokey flavor; like someone took the milk and stirred it up with a burnt log from the fireplace. That may sound funny, but the milk really does come in contact with smokey wood, as the barrels used to collect the milk are sterilized by smoking the inside. It's not a delightful flavor at first, but I've been training myself. If it were a wine, I would describe it as "earthy."

Touch

My hands come in contact with blackboard chalk every day, and I most certainly dislike it. It dries out my already suffering cuticles, leaves a residue that Purell can't remove, and then goes on to make a dusty mess on everything else I touch for the rest of the day. I can't seem to write well on the board with such a small utensil anyways, and then the stick inevitably crumbles into 6 minuscule bits.



Rendille skin is surprisingly soft; like worn leather, which I suppose it nearly is... In such a friendly culture, everyone shakes every one's hands, and walking around town, I'm no exception. Rendille Ingos and Mamas have hands that feel like they've been steamed over hot meals, exfoliated in desert sand, and then dipped in camel milk. The Abayas' and Abbas' hands feel like they've smoothed down by years of holding their walking sticks. And the kids; well, they just feel like they've been playing in dirt all day long.

(Above: A drive out to the goobs and saying hello to the kids)

Hot water on hot days, and cold water on cold days. That's how my shower operates. Our water tank for the shower head sits on the roof of the outdoor "personal care" shack. So on scorching days, directly sunlight hits the black tank, and by 8:30 pm when I hop in to rinse the sweat off, the water is balmy, which is not, in fact, what I was hoping for. And then on cloudy or rainy days, which are admittedly few, the water is likewise brisk.

Smell

Pepper, sweat, animal skins, wet-cardboard, goat dung, dust... A few of the everyday scents in Korr. My favorite, I think, is the smell of the very traditional people who live in cloth and stick huts out in the "goobs" (gobe-z) or villages. They smell like wet sand and smoke with a dash of cooking spices. I know what you're thinking: it's a little creepy to like the smell of a random person, but really, is it that much different than taking a big whiff as you walk past an Abercrombie & Fitch store in the mall? You certainly don't know those male models and probably don't shop there anymore, so the cologne scent is just as irrelevant to you as the natural smell of Rendille... And so I remain unashamed to say that these people smell good.

See

"Robeya" means "green" in Rendille, and it is such a prevalent color here right now, that the new short-term teacher (ironically N. Irish) has been named as such. The acacia trees are vibrant, thorn bushes are leafing out nicely, and there is fluffy grass all over the ground. I'm becoming quite spoiled I think, as it is evidently never this lush in Korr.





Color seems to be a theme of Sight here. The traditional women especially make a point of wearing yards of brightly printed cotton shifts and red, yellow, black, green, and blue beads that solidly frame their necks and faces. To enhance their sparkle, the unmarried women link silver spangles onto these neck and head pieces which reflect the light and make a lovely tinkling noise as they walk by. (This is, in fact, carefully planned, as the beautiful, feminine noise is meant to attract the attention of the warriors.) As a Californian (as opposed to an East Coaster) I thought I had a handle on the vibrant colors and fun jewelry, but I don't got nothing on these girls' bling.

(Above are some of the colorful Rendille ladies)

Hear

Every morning at 5:30 am, the mosque uses its over-amplified speakers to project calls to prayer. I don't really mind it, actually, as it's so novel to live in a world where someone would even bother to broadcast a religious service across town. And not only that, but the prayers are really quite beautiful; exotic words with a slight lilting melody.

There's also the near constant singing and chanting of the warriors. They're all in town right now with their camels, and it's a party! These guys are more or less on their own in the bush for long periods of time, so when everyone congregates in Korr, celebrations ensue. Along with this is the tradition of singing while they travel in large groups so as to distinguish themselves from malicious raiders. However, it is possible for this to have an equally terrifying effect, as on the occasion when they "distinguished" themselves just outside our gates in the middle of the night.

To be fair, I really have not been as finicky about the bugs as my family expected. But when they buzz in my ear, hop about on the floor, and slam their obnoxious little bodies into my mosquito net at night, I get a little... testy. It's tough to sleep when you worry about some African insect biting you and sending you back to the states with a tropical disease and considerable medical bills. And so I sleep with a can of "Doom" by my bed; religiously spraying toxic amounts into my room before bed and finding comfort in that deadly "hiss" of an aerosol can.

(A picture of the porch light attracting every insect in Korr)

Photo Journalism

I'm feeling a bit lazy at the moment so here's some photos from recent events in Kenya.

Here's a picture of our new roommate Ruth with her 19th Birthday Bun at breakfast.



This is a nice one of my adoptive mother Naryo and I on the day of my adoption. Through my new family, I'm now of the clan Dubsahay, and the family Chawle.



The notorious desert thorn bush. But the interesting thing is that these plants are usually so brown and dry, that I really thought they were dead and had just been stuck upright in the ground to form a very scary looking fence. Well, it lives!



Photo of the day: An African sunrise while Alicia and I were walking to school. I used to whine about waking up this early for crew practice, but there's something about about the whole village waking up at 5 AM and singing... laughing... crying that really gets you going.



My Form 2 students on Registration Day sitting and covering their books; a job they detest.



A picture is worth a thousand words?

"It's Go Time"

I think I'll start counting "the real" Korr experience from this past week, because this is when the car got cruising/the corn got poppin'/the game started getting good...

School started on Tuesday, as I noted in my last blog, and has progressively gotten more and more exciting! My students are the sweetest, most energetic, and HAPPY kids I've ever met. They think the world of my fellow short-termers, Alicia and Jamie, who have been here the past 3 months teaching them and it was quite precious to watch them get all excited about Jamie flying back into Korr and greeting her after she hopped off the plane. (They also thought it was enough of an excuse to get out of classes for the afternoon. Sorry buddies, no way.) They love to tell how to correctly pronounce Rendille words and how they are somehow related to you (with adoptive clans we have each gained 20 cousins.) All the students, including the 3 girls of 32 total, have now arrived on campus safely, despite some blisters from walking many kilometers to get here. I'm getting the hang of this whole teaching thing - lesson planning and reviewing English grammar rules I haven't looked at in years. I even pulled out the stern "These are my laws for my classroom" talk. The students are one of my joys here already and I can't wait to get to know them better...

Now that I've begun my actual job, I'm feeling quite settled. This is my vocational purpose in Korr, so having started working and getting to know the kids who'll be in my life for the next year means "nebey" (peace.)

Things have really gotten "interesting" around here especially since my first encounter with a hunting spider two days ago. These things are inappropriately large; like, the size of your hand. This one must have been a baby, though, as it body (not including legs) looked only as big as my palm. I was teaching a fabulous lesson on the parts of speech, when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye about 3 feet away. This was the catalyst for a series of events which eventually led to me standing on a desk while Abduhlai threw the door-stop rock on top of the arachnid and someone kicked it's gross little body out into the sand. The kids thought this was a riot, of course, because they've all seen hunting spiders before. Teasing ensued, and Shamy told me that "where there is one hunting spider, there are many" and someone else agreed, saying, "Yes, Mme., now they will come for you."

I went back later in the afternoon to see if I could get photo evidence of the spider's dead body, but it was gone... Dum dum dum.

Like I mentioned earlier, Jamie and Ruth, fellow short-term teachers have just arrived in town! They flew in today around 2 pm after circling our three potential landing strips multiple times and then flying off. Um, hi.. Um, hello...? We're here... All this rain has created small canyons and mushy soil in the airstrips, so the pilot evidently had to fly to Marsabit to first deposit some passenger weight, and then return to drop off the girls. But they arrived happy and healthy, and we've all begun settling into the house together - getting to know each other over Lynne's chocolate cake and the lost front door key I eventually found in my camera case... Oops.

(Included is my photo of the day: The students raising the Kenyan flag at assembly this morning. Also Jamie and Ruth's plane taxiing to our waiting car. Why I have a picture of their plane, but not the girls, I don't know...)

T.I.A.

T.I.A. stands for "This Is Africa" which means more than the obvious. T.I.A., according to my sources, is a term some Canadians coined to refer to the different standards of life in specifically Kenya, but I think the sentiment holds true for the rest of Africa as well. Things just move more slowly here... Africans focus on the actual "event" that is to take place and not the "time" it's meant to occur. There's also an unfortunate tendency for there to never be enough of or even the right thing of what you were expecting. I over-generalize here, and take a biased position as a privileged American, but really, in Africa, more often than not you should assume that you're going to use Plan B.

And so I do. Especially regarding Tirrim Secondary School.

Plan A: School starts today for the Form 2 class.
This goes according to plan, despite the confused conversation between school admin. at 6 PM yesterday about a rumor that school was actually starting on Friday.

T.I.A.

Plan A: Students have all their personal textbooks handed out to them on January 3.
Plan B: Students will now have to share certain texts in groups of 2-4 because either there wasn't enough money to buy 33 books and/or the book company gave you 25 books for Form 1 instead of Form 2.

T.I.A.

Plan A: You will start teaching the Form 2 English curriculum on January 5, 2009.
Plan B: You will review last years material for 1 week because a third of your class is still in transit from their villages to school due to bad weather.

T.I.A.

Plan A: You will be teaching students who are more or less fluent in English.
Plan B: You will be teaching students who can speak the English language but can barely understand basic grammar, listening comprehension, and note taking skills (bless their hearts...)

T.I.A.

Plan A: The principal of the school will be there to facilitate the First Day inaugural activities.
Plan B: The principal of school is off campus all day for a meeting and you have to take one of his classes.

T.I.A.

However, I can joyfully and honestly say that all this barely phases me now. It's part of life in Africa, and now that I know how to inversely plan the events in my daily routine, my American demands for immediacy and absolute perfection all the time are being set aside. Besides it always seems to work in the end; like Timon and Pumba say in the Lion King, "Hakuna Mata," or "No worries."

To prove my point:

8 students came to school today after having walked all night from a town a 3 hours drive away.

The kids are very adept at sharing school supplies.

Taking over another teacher's class really means you get 1 hour 20 minutes to teach your own subject.

And the best one: TIA. With everyone expecting the unexpected, you can become flexible merely by osmosis.

(Included at top is a picture of most of our students gathered in our living room for a "First Day Party." Second is John, our coworker and Maths teacher. Finally, a picture of Alicia and I with our little backpacks ready for school to start!)

Cry Me a River

There isn't a Rendille word for "river," or if there is, no one ever uses it. The word "lugga," however, means "river bed," and they say that one all the time, which makes sense, as we live in the desert. (Fun Fact: Lynne Swanepoel says that it is, on average, hotter here year round than in the deserts of the Middle East. Actually, scary fact?) There's hundreds of these topographical divots all over Korr, and for the most part they're just one more hill to climb. But when it rains... The divots can literally turn into raging rivers.

At 3 pm yesterday, Alicia and I crossed a dry, 15 ft. lugga on our way to school to organize the shipment of new books. At 3:30 pm, I thought the 2012 apocalypse had come early because it started POURING. Not raining; POURING. The rain was so thick you couldn't see to the end of the school yard. All of this was really cool for the first 15 minutes; but then red streams of desert sand and clay started swelling around the school buildings. The water pelted the football field so hard that it looked like a pot of molten silver, swirling and bubbling all over. The driveway into school turned into an aquatic people mover; like the ones in airports, except with water. For the most part, we were dry in the classrooms, with only one leak (and a slotted trashcan which collected 3 in. of water before losing the rest out the sides.) 4:30 pm rolled around, and the streams between the building were now at least 4 feet wide and 1 ft deep. Our school books had to be moved into a steel box in order to keep them dry. Lightning flashed across the sky, and thunder rumbled across the African desert; if we're to employ Gothic imagery. But seriously, it did.

Lynne showed up in the Land Rover, and very nearly got stuck in the mud on the windward side of the school, so there were some tense moments (and gear shifting) before she wheeled around and parked by the other door. Seeing Lynne was such a comfort 1) Because this lady can handle anything. There's a rumor she once stared down a lion. I'm inclined to believe that. 2) She also lives right next door to us, so she was the only dry way home for Alicia and I. It was about 5 pm by this point, and the rain hadn't let up one bit. It never rains this hard for too long according to the Rendille, so we were kind of hoping it would just stop. However, for about half an hour we all sat around in the classroom watching cement dry. Literally. A workman was installing the new blackboard, made by smearing a double layer of cement on the wall and then painting it with erasable black paint, so all of us watched him work.

30 minutes later, the rain had lessened slightly, so we decided to hop in the truck and see if there was a way home. Dozens of Rendille stopped us on the way out of town hoping for a ride in the bed of the truck. Upon arriving at the luga, which, remember, used to be a shallow, 15 foot ditch, was a 50 FOOT WIDE muddy river with WAVES! During this week of El Nino storms (not an exaggeration to call it that), we've heard of at least 3 cars being carried off down flash flood lugas, so we turned back to town to find our hired bush driver. He then slid into the Land Rover with us, and all the sopping passengers headed back to the river. Someone had discovered it was safe to walk the river by foot now, for within the past 20 minutes, the depth had diminished to knee height. (That should give you an idea of how fast these rivers come, flow, and go. And of how well I can rhyme.) So our driver took the wheel, got a running start, and took the truck across.

I'll pause here for a minute, to tell you how scary this actually was. "Trekking vehicles" always have these awesome commercials with the car splashing across stunning glacial streams and a Bear Grylls looking man at the wheel. That's not how it feels in real life. One of my students recently told me of how he had to swim out the window of the car he was in while holding his younger brother when their vehicle got washed downstream last week. So I cracked the window. I have also heard that cars quite unfortunately act like boats when water levels reach above the wheels. So I was grateful for the weight of those extra 20 people in the back. And finally, for effect, Lynne recited the names of people whose cars had been swamped, and even of the few Rendille who have drowned in swollen luggas. So I just prayed that the Lord would show us grace. And in this tortured mental state, we crossed the river; safely.

Water is a funny thing in the desert. You pray for it so the herds survive and your family has water to drink. You pray for it because it offers a respite from the heat and sun. AIC used it for baptisms this past New Years Day. The warriors bathe in the wells with it. But then if it comes too hard... Floods, leaky huts, pneumonia, camels die in muddy pits, school children can't get to class. It's a situation just as desperate as drought, and you must pray for it to stop. And, eventually, it does.

(Included is a picture of the "swimming pool" remaining in the lugga. Shame I didn't have my camera with me when crossing the river yesterday... I've also put in a picture of my adoptive mother, Naryo and her brother at his baptism on Friday.)