Monday, July 30, 2007

Travels and Birthdays

London in a day.



Here are the boys at Trafalgar Square. Ben especially enjoyed throwing our leftover US coins into the fountain.


Sleeping on an airport bench; a true MK rite of passage:


And lastly,
here's a picture of Ben's early 2nd birthday party.
We celebrated it with my parents and Kurt's brother and sister-in-law,
Ryan and Kristen, in Nairobi.
He enjoyed blowing out the candle repeatedly.
We'll try to post pictures of Africa soon.




Friday, July 27, 2007

So it begins

As I type there is bustle all around me. I'm sitting in my parents' old duplex at Rosslyn Academy. My mom is unpacking some bags that just arrived from the airport today, excited to finally be setting up home. Dad is out with Ben teaching him how to swing a bat. And Kurt is busy at work fixing lamps, computers, tables, and cameras on demand. I can smell a fresh pot of coffee almost finished brewing and I'm listening to tunes by Simon and Garfunkel.

And yet somehow, we are in Africa. How can Africa feel so normal?

We arrived here on Wednesday night after leaving Akron on Monday afternoon. We had a LONG 30 hour layover in London. It was fun, exhausting, and a little testing. Between jet lag, reclaiming bags, taking trains, buses, and the tube, finding places to eat...it was pretty exhausting. But we managed to get to Trafalgar Square, and snap a couple pics of Big Ben and Little Ben.

We arrived in Nairobi around 11:00 pm on Wednesday and got to the Mennonite Guest House 12:30 am. It was surreal. Of course, our camera batteries died in London and they didn't get recharged until now. So I've only taken 5 pictures of Africa and 3 of them are of Ben hitting a ball with a stick.

This post will not be long, since there is no time, but lots of chaos around me. We are happy to be back. We are excited about the moment, and also about what lies in wait. We are off to Arusha on Tuesday to start MCC Orientation.

I wil post some pictures and some more details when the dust settles in a couple of days. We are off to Ryan and Kristen's Kurt's brother and sister-in-law, here with MAF) tonight for supper. Ahhh, it's great having family on the continent.