FAMILY HERE!

As MUCH as I love Christmas, I've been a bit bitter towards all of the "I'll be home for Christmas" and "we're together at Christmas" songs this year. I've been waiting impatiently for my family to arrive and that day FINALLY came! Actually, I got to pick up Ryan on Tuesday and we've been hiking and messing around and chilling out for almost a week.

Meanwhile, Mom, Dad, and Elyse have been living it up in New York going to White Christmas on Broadway and staying in a hotel on Times Square and going to Macys and Anthropologie and and afternoon in Paris!

so stinkin cute! i kind of forgot that the rest of the world was cold right now, but they have mentioned SEVERAL times that new york was freezing!!

Monday we jumped out of bed at 5:00 am to pick them up at the airport. They made it, without some luggage, but they're here!

pooly erica!

Poor family, going from OKC to NYC to Paris to Nairobi in just a few days! Culture SHOCK! Welcome to steamy Kenya, lose some bags, traffic and truck exhaust . . . good thing my family has traveled before, they took it all in stride.

We've decorated the tree and made a gingerbread house as I tried to make up for lost time celebrating Christmas with my family.


They took turns konking out on my fun but I forgive them. They can do whatever they want, as long as they're here with me!

Wedding Bells Again!

This weekend my Bible study friends convinced me to go to the wedding of someone who used to be in the study . . . but left before I got here. They assured me that it was perfectly ok to show up uninvited to a wedding of someone I had never met. So, since it's vac and there is not much going on in my life, I took them up on it and signed up for a hilarious day of the "Kenyan Experience."

Francis, Sarah, Dexter and I left at about 8 am from Kijabe. No one actually had an invitation and but they called and thought it started at 10:30. We traveled happily on lovely roads for about three hours past towns I had heard of and yet never seen, taking in the lovely countryside, spotting zebra . . . great fun. We stopped for chai and samosas.


And then the fun really began. Suddenly our good road was gone and Francis was forced to take his car on the rockiest of 'roads' for 15 km . . . or an HOUR's worth of travel in search of Rotich's house. In order to make an already random trip more surreal, our music choice varied between Johnny Cash and "Franye's Techno Mix." We finally found the way, indicated by a sign labeled "Rotich's Place" and an arrow pointing up the driveway . . . which was really another 3 km of bumpity bump.

And here we are after hours of travel, arriving at a wedding that should've commenced at 10:30 and still hadn't started 12:30.

Here's proof of the wedding plan vs. wedding reality:

Before the bride arrived, I had opportunity to meet the groom. You know you're in Kenya when the groom shakes your hand and has to introduce himself. I felt a bit awkward but he didn't seem to mind. In traditional Kalenjin fashion, the bride was escorted in by a crowd of friends and relatives, and then the party could really start. The wedding ceremony was held outside under tents and translated from Kalenjin into Swahili/English - whatever the pastor felt like.

This is what the seats next to me looked like once the wedding started:
empty.

Because all of my friends were busy doing this:
Their best paparazzi impressions. But that's ok, too - it's perfectly legit to stand in front/beside/behind the bride and groom and snap away as they say their vows.

Here's my paparazzi pic of the happy couple feeding cake to the parents:

After the ceremony we washed our hands and dug into traditional Kenyan food for the feast. There was also some Kalenjin dancing performed by Grandpa and soon joined by the rest of the family. Please notice Grandma's stylin hat:

I joined the Kijabe crowd of hospital staff and Bible study buddies during the speech giving and ended up singing along to a song I didn't know . . . in Swahili . . . I think it was kind of obvious I was just a wedding crasher.

We couldn't stay long as we had to get back to Kijabe . . . so we piled back in to the car and headed down our favorite 15 km stretch, this time chosing "Franye's Rock Ballads" as the cd accompianament. My friends said I should show some pictures of the road and ask my supporters to raise money for a BS vehicle - preferably a Prado. I didn't think that would fly . . .

After a long day of wedding crashing and air guitar playing in the back seat, I fell asleep on the way home. But I woke up to catch this:

And this:

And thus ended another Kenyan Adventure.

Kenyan BBQ

Wednesday nights I go to a Bible Study on lower station. It has been such a blessing - I appreciate leaving the gates of RVA and developing these friendships with some of the lower station crew. We are comprised of surgeons/doctors/dentists and one teacher - me! So sometimes when discussion goes to what enzyme ibuprofen inhibits, I tune out . . . (not even sure if I got that right). We also meet Monday nights for prayers (and chai and popcorn). Right now we're studying money matters. This topic is especially hilarious - besides the cultural differences, everyone else is salaried, not to mention older and more established in life than I am. So sometimes I don't have a ton to add but they kindly tolerate my presence. =)

most of us!

These pictures are from a barbeque we had a couple weeks ago. My friend Dexter is a dentist here and his fiance was back in town. She works for CURE and used to work at the hospital here but has been transfered and now lives in Al Ain and works at the hospital there - the one I was born in! Small world. Dexter will be moving there after their wedding in February. Another random connection . . . before I met Jenna I was looking at Dex's photos on his fridge of them together in the States . . . and thought I recognized the shore in the background. Jenna is from Essex, Masachusetts, where I visited in May, and is good friends with the Hammons, whom I know from college. LOVE connections like that!

firing up the grill

wema, one of my favorite babies!

bbq turned to wedding planning and committee forming. as you can see, this was rather exhausting for some of us. :)

the happy couple at Dexter's baptism

Sleepover Fun

Nothing like a little sleepover to say VACATION is here! Apparently I started to miss some of my kiddos after about a week off, so I called up the 'station girls,' the ones who live either at RVA or lower station. My house is too tiny to party in, but we had a great time in my friend Anita's house. Her empty dorm was the perfect place for sardines in the dark - quite scary!

We made cookies . . .
and cards for the Christmas hampers and ran around screaming and watched a movie and slept out with the Christmas lights. We also played one of my favorite games - set the time and make up a scenario.

"cool people"

"christmas morning"

"pouty attitude"

"tickle the unsuspecting"

Arachnophobia

My dad used to threaten me with that movie growing up . . . I didn't actually watch it until I was a senior in high school and, although the effects were obviously ridiculous, I still was completely freaked out. That was the summer we moved to Oklahoma and there were ridiculous spiders EVERYwhere . . . my worst nightmare coming true.

Well, I'd like to say I've grown up a bit. Rather than crying, I actually kill spiders on my own. And sometimes I see them and don't kill them. But I've decided to stop that practice since one of the ladies I work with was bitten in her sleep . . . resulting in a very swollen finger and a couple trips to the hospital. No, thank you.

The following are photos taken in the last moments of these little arachnids' lives. Perhaps that is a bit morbid, but I have this great camera and sometimes I think, Is that thing really inside my house? And I feel the need to share that for REAL? moment with others.

Enjoy.

Christmas in the Classroom

So, just to clarify, I no longer walk the 15 steps from my house to my classroom. No, these mornings are free from the sounds of Titchies playing boys-chase-girls or basketball on the court. Yes, Vac has arrived, and it is QUIET around here.

But before they left, we celebrated Christmas. The decorations actually went up a week and a half before leaving day. I just couldn't imagine missing out on the Christmas celebration with my kiddos, so we went to town in the middle of November and studied Thanksgiving and Christmas at the same time.

Thanksgiving: We braved the unpredictable internet situation and used two really great websites, one from Plimoth Plantation and one from Scholastic. The first one came with great lesson plans my class really got into adding to the giant KWL chart I put up in the computer lab. It also offered the option of downloading the entire thing onto the network, which was fantastic - except it only worked on my login. But at least I could have that up on the screen for the kids to follow along in case there computer never chose to load.

Christmas: We started out by making snowflakes, and my kids are apparently AWESOME at it. They made such beautiful creations - big ones that I hung from the ceiling and small ones that I stuck to the windows. We spent most of our mornings with only the twinkle lights on, writing poems, reading stories of pilgrims, and discussing the characters of the first Christmas.

Each student chose someone from the first Christmas (Gabriel, Zachariah, etc) and did a little project on him or her. They did such a great job! This little exercise helped me to see the first Christmas in a whole new light and really prepared my heart for the season. Sitting outside and listening to my students talk about why God chose this person for that time, and how it affects them was such a precious time, and it encouraged a lot of conversation about what that Christmas was really like. Certainly nothing like how we celebrate it today! I especially liked comparing Bethlehem and its shepherds to Kijabe and the people that live around here. I think in it is a pretty accurate analogy.

Thanksgiving!

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving! I had a very traditional Thanksgiving feast here on our first day of vacation. And just to make it feel like home, I brought along the Anderson favorites - chocolate pecan and regular pecan pie. For me, pie making is always a challenge, made so even more out here. But between the pecans I received in the mail or that people brought out here, I had enough of those . . . borrowed two pie plates . . . and used chocolate chips that were mailed from America. So, supplies assembled, now the only challenge was to actually make them.

Gladys made the crusts the day before but I had to throw them out, making a 30 minute project into much longer! Thankfully, Super Kelsey to the rescue! Kelsey and I hang out about once a week and this week's time conveniently turned into "how to save Erica's Thanksgiving." With Betty Crocker in hand we went to work cutting in shortening, all the while mumbling what instructions I could remember from the pie making demo I had last year in Charlotte.

So that picture pretty much sums it up - Kelsey proud and accomplished, me - confused. BUT all of that went ok. I didn't exactly remember to put a cookie sheet under the pies as they baked so the kitchen/house may have been filled with smoke when I came back from my run . . . but that wasn't really THAT big of a deal. And pecan pie was had by all.