just a small note...

The kitchen





The living room


My room (Janine's old room)


Hey everyone!

The other day I added some new pics of the old house and, as of today, we moved into the new house next door Pictures above). The reason for the move was that Foundation Team One left for the States today (4 a.m.). Early this morning, FT2 awoke to send off FT1 and in the same token, they officially passed the hat to us. Nicole and Doug are off to fight Extreme Poverty in Africa from the States until Nuru heads to Malawi next year (which is the normal rotation); and Janine and Jake are home until June and then return to the field with FT2.

We made the move because the house that FT2 was staying in is not yet finished and so the Fundis (workmen) can finally finish the house. Then, when Janine and Jake return, they will stay in our old house. As you can see from the pictures from earlier in the week, the old house wasn't that bad off (although some referred to it as a jail cell)-- mainly just some painting and final touches.

The nice thing about both houses is that the shower head is hooked to the electricity so that we get hot water straight from the shower head. Our only current challenge is with the pump, so as of late, we have no running water, but that should be fixed again by tomorrow. When we don't have running water, there is a spring very close to the house for fetching "clean" water. Actually, the spring water is probably clean, it's the jerry cans we use that are questionable. So we filter our drinking water and boil it for coffee and tea, but its clean enough for bathing and washing without assistance.

On to the schools:
Thanks to everyone who prayed for me in finding a CDC Chairman for Education. In the last blog I posted a picture of Francis Magige. He's a retired teacher of 30 yrs and offers much wise counsel. I think he's going to make a great chairperson for Nuru.
We've been going around to the 8 different schools the past 2 weeks and already he has added so much to the meetings. Such as his ability to speak in-and-out of English, Kiswahili, and Kikuria, to name one attribute. He also offered advice to one of the headmasters to start keeping records of those who drop out of school and those who stay-- yes, they really didn't have those.
Another thing to mention is that Francis is ALWAYS on time, if not early!! That is a rarity here in Africa. As they say in Swahili "haraka, haraka, hiena, baraka" (hurry, hurry brings no blessing). My Kiswahili teacher had a rebuttal to that statement when I repeated it to him: "pole pole huumiza matumbo" (slowly slowly brings pain to the belly).

Well, I'd love to update more, but it's getting about that time for dinner prep, as I can smell from my room...

I'd like to let you all know that I changed my settings for the COMMENTS section of my blog so that ANYONE can enter a comment without having to register an account. Just click "anonymous." Also, I added a "wish list" to the right-hand column; and the links to my fellows teammates' blogs. Lastly, Please check out the Be Hope To Her website and watch the video. It's great!! The link is: www.bhope2her.org

kwaheri!!