We're here!

I've been writing this over many days, but we've had no internet till now. So here is what I have been compiling. 

We’re here! We’ve arrived at Tenwek and are in our new apartment. So much has happened in the past week, I feel like we’ve already been gone a year! Our apartment is great, even better than I expected (in most ways). It is clean and spacious. There are 3 bedrooms, so two boys in each. There’s even bunk beds and a crib. We’ve been “eating around” as they call it, or having one meal a day at other people’s houses. That has been nice, not worrying about cooking yet, and getting to meet people. The main meal of the day is at 1:00 and is your big meal. Then dinner is at 6:00 or 6:30 and is a lighter meal.

We are “down by the river” or “riverside” as they call it. (doesn’t that sound like a nice nursing home?) We can’t actually see the river because of the trees, but we can hear it. And so far I have not seen any hippos meandering past my window, much to the boys disappointment. We have to walk about 5 minutes uphill to get anywhere, but so far the boys haven’t complained too much.

The boys seem to be enjoying exploring and checking out the place. They love running and jumping everywhere, climbing trees, looking for lizards and chameleons to have as a pet. We all know what happened to Poisy the turtle, so we’ll see how that goes….

We got to go on a tour of the hospital on Sunday evening, which is much bigger than I expected. Hope Eric doesn’t get lost! We did get to go into the nursery and see all the tiny babies, that was fun. Don’t tell anyone that I slipped a little girl out in my bag and am harboring her in my dresser drawer. I thought if I started tanning in my spare time, no one might realize she’s not mine.

There are a few quirky things I’ve realized that must be noted:

* We have an oven. For that I am thankful. However, it is missing half of the knobs, that I am told can’t be replaced, and there is no knob to tell me what the oven temperature is. And no oven thermometer at this point. So…. It looks like I will be playing the guessing game, and we might have lasagna, or we might have lasagna smoothies. Or lasagna crisp.

* We have dressers in the bedrooms and drawers in the kitchen. That’s the good part. The bad part is I can’t really get them open. The drawers in the kitchen are sooo hard to get out, they must have been painted and then shoved back in and there are no knobs. The boys dresser drawers are also next to impossible to get open, I must open the bottom one first and then work my way up. Too bad we aren’t working at a nudist hospital. Then I wouldn’t need to worry. (well, I suppose that would cause it’s own set of worries)

*You can’t drink the water. And my children are half camel. Which is fine, because there is safe water to drink, it is just a matter of REMEMBERING to not drink the tap water. It becomes most obvious at teeth brushing time when I am so on edge yelling, “don’t put your brush under the tap!” “rinse your mouth with water from this cup while juggling your toothbrush and Don’t make a MESS on the floor that Tucker might try to lick!”

*There are two keys to the front door. One to open it and one to lock it. Yeah, try to figure that one out. I still haven’t.

*There is a booster seat for Tucker but no tray. So he is going to grow up real quick and be a big boy at the table. He has already knocked two plates off the table (that was at one meal) and it has no buckle. Casualty (what they call the E.R.), here we come. I wonder if we get a discount since Eric works there?

* We have to sleep under mosquito nets. Kind of like playing “tents” all the time. Tucker is trying to gnaw a hole through his with his tiny teeth. They are very annoying though, to put up and down in the morning/night.

*I have only been able to get the shower to be scalding hot or freezing cold. So, scalding hot it is! I don’t do well with cold showers.

*There is a bird here that sounds like a crying baby. For the love, that is the LAST thing I need, to be hearing fake crying babies. 

*We didn’t bring any tools with us, yet we have many things to hang, fix, adjust. What we DID bring was a set of tiny tools, they are meant to be toys, but are just miniature regular tools. And they have done the job! Thanks Greg and Marilyn, so glad Cooper loved them at your house J

All that being said, there are good moments and very hard moments as we try to adjust to our new home and new life, meet people and find our place. We appreciate all prayers and words of encouragement. We serve a big and worthy God, to Him be the glory.

Hope to write again soon.

PS. Eric started work today, waiting to hear how it went!