WEEKLY UPDATE July 16, 2011

We have completed tons of travel this last week. Thursday night, we traveled to Eldoret (2 hours away) to spend the night in preparation for our Zone Conference early the next day. It is so nice to be with the other missionaries and to be recharged with the messages we get in those meetings.

ABERDARE NATIONAL PARK
We left Eldoret about noon to travel to Aberdare National Park on our way to Nairobi. It took us about 6 hours to get that far. It was very chilly, and we just barely made it before the park closed for the day at 6PM. That was important because believe me, there is NOWHERE to stay out there if we hadn’t been able to get into the park where we had reservations.

Aberdare is a very beautiful park. We stayed in the Ark Lodge with 3 other couples, who had traveled up for their P-day on Saturday. It was in this park that the present Queen Elizabeth learned that her father had passed away, and she was the new monarch.

Friday night we had a remarkable experience. The Ark Lodge is built on a hill that overlooks a watering hole and salted ground to lure the animals to come and mill about in front of viewing sites on three levels of the Lodge. We could look out of a cement type bunker on ground level—no glass—just openings with the animals about 15-20 feet from us, then glassed-in observation windows on the top level and an observation deck right over their heads in the middle. There were probably 100 guests there that night.

ELEPHANTS GALORE
It was just something else to see large groups of elephants come and go. At one point several of the guests (including us) counted about 45 elephants down below us, 2-3 water buffalo, and about 2AM the warning buzzer sounded in our room to notify us that 2 black rhinos had appeared. It was fascinating to us. We’ve never seen anything like it in the wild. I’m sure there were other buzzers during the night, but we slept through them. The park hosts a population of over 2,000 elephants.

The next day we traveled with the others to see 5 beautiful waterfalls on our way back to Nairobi. In one area, there were 3 waterfalls in the same place. Of course, Neal hiked to all of them.

FHE in the “NEST”
We had a wonderful Sunday visiting a very small branch in Nairobi. When we started, there weren’t enough men to administer the sacrament. I think it was just us, the branch pres and wife and maybe 5 others as well as the other missionary couple.

The Branch President and wife are from Utah. He works as an engineer scientist in a Soda Plant…Soda, the chemical, not the drink. They live 2 hours away from the Church on the company property. Both he and she have had Malaria this week. This is her 2nd bout in a month. They have married kids but look quite a bit younger than us. (I know it doesn’t take much).

We attended FHE on Monday with the couples. The lesson was based on Stone Soup (and we were served a vegetable soup)---the Lord’s storehouse…everyone contributing whatever talents they have to better the whole.

DOCTOR VISIT
Neal has been sick for awhile and still wasn’t any better after a course of our self-administered Amoxicillan. So, Monday, the doctor in Nairobi gave him some strong stuff and said if he wasn’t better by Friday (today) to come back to be tested for TB. He thinks his cough is some better today—not completely—and he has an ugly red sore on his foot…we wonder if it is another jigger. He is trying to treat it here at home with remedies he sees online. It seems like we just get one thing after another.

VISITOR-TRAINER FROM SOUTH AFRICA
We traveled to Nairobi for CES training. We had the supervisor for all of CES for SE Africa here. He and our Nairobi Supervisor taught us much during the 2-day training, the first training we’ve ever had here specific to our assignment. Both men planned to return with us to Kitale to do a training with our teachers here on Thursday (yesterday).

Our Nairobi boss rolled his car 2 weeks ago, and his wife has been in serious condition in the hospital, so he remained in Nairobi, and only the So African Supervisor came out to Kitale. We’ve had some wonderful training sessions with him. He has clarified many things for us, which is absolutely wonderful!

BORDER CROSSING
Today, we took him to Busia to the Uganda Border so that he could visit the CES workers there. It was a 6 hour round trip to the border, so we are tired tonight. It was quite disconcerting to get to the border crossover. A long line of big trucks parked on the side of the road up to the crossing (Neal estimated about ½ mile of trucks). The closer we got to the crossing, the more congested it became. The road runs through open markets on both sides of the pavement with big drop offs from the tarmac down to the dirt and mud below. Tons of people were walking back and forth hawking things, riding bikes and motorcycles, etc. It was dusty and loud and so many people, just chaotic.

As we approached the crossing, we had to weave in and out off the road and into dirty, muddy cracks in the pavement and paths on the shoulder. Looking up ahead, we thought there was no way we could get through. As we slowed, men approached our windows.

We were so glad we had an African in our car (even though he can’t speak Swahili). The men were trying to get us to pay to let them accompany us through the border. We didn’t understand what they were saying or what they really wanted us to do, but it was obvious they wanted money for whatever service they planned to render. We moved through a gated enclosure to turn around, hoping to meet the Ugandan CES workers to trade off our passenger to them.

Finally, they arrived, and they were so welcome. They, of course, were dressed in suits and looked official, and finally, the men that had been hounding us, backed off, and we turned around and made our way back to the end of the truck line where we waited to take another member back to our area. It was quite an intimidating experience.

SOUTH AFRICAN INSIGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS:
Yesterday, we took our South African visitor to our Inservice training and then to visit a counselor in the branch presidency and his wife and then over to the counselor’s mother’s home so the visitor could get a feel for the wonderful people here.

I think maybe it was the first time the supervisor had ever been in a mud home. He was really shocked at how humbly the people live—to see the bare feet and the hardships these good people experience. Both the counselor and his 19 yr old brother have had Malaria this week. The counselor is 29 yrs old (P.M.) and said he needed help to get home from Church last week because he was so sick he couldn’t walk. We asked if they had been to a doctor. They said they couldn’t afford it, but instead went to the chemist and used medicine they’ve tried before. He said they try 2 different kinds of Malaria pills usually, and then if they don’t work, they are forced to go to the doctor.

Just over and over again, the supervisor expressed surprise and shock at the cultural differences he observed and listened to in comparison to what he is used to in South Africa.

Native wisdom: It was pouring rain, and one of our branch presidents—such a kindly 60ish man, wisely commented: “When it rains, babies just go to sleep”

Sign on billboard: “Don’t point fingers, anybody can get AIDS.

Branch President testifying of blessings of tithing: I don’t worry about my cow being stolen any more. It was a blessing of paying tithing that made it possible for me to buy her. It is a “Mormon cow”. You can’t steal a “Mormon” cow.

Thomas Friedman, newspaper publisher wrote, “The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.”

Today we were driving down busy road…lots of people…full-grown man completely naked ran toward us as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. No one seemed to take much notice…