No time to blog
Since Renner was born we have been very busy and I have not been able to spend much time on the computer. I rarely leave home during the week and the weekends are so rushed with going places and getting things done that if I do get on the internet it is only for a few minutes. A lot has changed in this short month that Renner has been with us. The weather has been cool and beautiful, the electricity has become much more reliable, and our family has made a decision that we must return to the States. The last change is the biggest and requires some explanation. First of all we underestimated the cost of living here and did not raise enough funds. Also our support has been decreasing ever since we have been here and we can’t even pay our rent with the monthly support we receive. We still get the living stipend from the school which is enough to live on but if we stayed here we would never be able save any money of any sort for emergencies, travel, college funds etc. We feel that God has accomplished the changes in our lives that he had desired for us during this time and is telling us that our world travel experience has come to an end for now. We will be leaving the end of May and Barry has taken a job in Fayetteville, North Carolina, teaching Science at a Christian school there. We are excited about the plans but sad also to leave this new home. We are looking to sell the monkeys, Bajaji, and bikes at this point and are finishing up the work we have been doing this past year. As usual, I have little time to spend on the computer as Renner has decided he needs to eat again and I don’t like typing one handed. I have had several experiences in the last month worthy of a blog. I will have to find time to type those stories up this next week while Barry is on spring break.
Welcome Renner!
Renner's first day
The event we had been anticipating for months happened Sunday morning March 13th, when we welcomed our new addition, Renner Gene, to the family. As always we had him at home but this time was a little different because we chose not to do a water birth. (The water here in Africa is just not clean enough to give birth in.) The labor was my easiest one yet, despite the fact that he is our biggest baby thus far. All day Saturday I had been having contractions, but then I have had very strong braxten hicks contractions for the last 4 months. These were a little different and I could actually see my uterus get tight and move downward. In the evening they continued but I thought that they would probably stop when I layed down for the night. They stopped for a little while and I slept until about 1 AM when they got a little stronger. I got up and did some work just in case I was going to go into labor. The power had been off until 11pm so I decided I should boil some water now that I could use the stove so that we would have enough cool drinking water for the next few days. I also set up the spare bedroom by putting a plastic sheet on the floor with some pillows underneath it and a sheet over top. I then went back to bed and slept for another hour or so. I woke up at 2:30 with strong contractions. I was not able to deal with the pain while lying down so I got up and went into the spare room. Between contractions I set up candles and got my favorite relaxing music going. I remember getting very irritated because I couldn’t figure out the player on the computer and only the first song would play. At one point it started to rain outside. For some reason at bedtime Sabas had prayed that it would rain. I took the fact that it was raining as a sign from God that all our prayers would be answered about this little one on the way and I was filled with peace. The power went off for about 10 minutes during the rain storm. This caused Barry to wake up and around 3:30, Barry wandered into the room and said “what’s going on?” I informed him that we would be having a baby this morning. He set to work on preparing things. Sometime after 4AM things started to progress faster and I started to go into the transition stage of labor. I think that I only had about 3 transitional contractions before I had the urge to push. The baby crowned on the first pushing contraction. The next contraction I had the urge to push again. I had to yell for Barry to come and he barely made it in time to catch the baby who practically shot out of the womb. He was still in the bag of waters and started crying before Barry could even get the bag open. He ripped open the sack and a very pink, clean and strong baby was there to greet us. It was only 4:40 and I had only been up for a little more than 2 hours. By far it was the easiest labor that I have had. I have also had a very quick and easy recovery and now a week later I am feeling back to normal.
We woke up the kids and they came in to meet the new little guy. We all had a good family time. Barry and I were surprised at all the fat that Renner had around his face and shoulders. We have never had a chubby newborn before. The kids are all thrilled about their new little brother although Eilie is not so sure about all the attention he is getting.
The Lord has again blessed us with a beautiful little baby to raise and love, to Him be the glory for all He has done.
The Kids
For close family and friends that love to hear minuscule little tid-bits about the lives of our 3 children…
Anna: Now 6 years old, Anna is throwing herself wholeheartedly into her studies. She has been learning how to read as she is sent home reading books daily and is required to do 5-10 minutes of homework every night. The books are very simple and often the pictures will tell the kid what the big words are but she is doing very well at reading all the little words. She has almost filled in her “word fish” which is a fish picture filled with squares that contain different words. When Anna is able to read a word without help she can color the square. She has only one word left! They have also started having a math worksheet that they have to complete at home every week. Anna does very well with homework and only needs reminding to do it. She is often very excited to do her work and will color her whole math sheet beautifully despite the fact that it is not part of the homework. She has a spelling test of 5 words every Friday and she usually gets all the words correct. If she keeps on this path she will be an excellent student some day. Hopefully I don’t hinder her natural tendencies in any way with my disorganized parenting.
Anna loves to color and draw, she claims that someday she is going to be an artist. Lately she is drawing a lot of princesses which are very often named Anna or Rosie (her friend). She also likes to draw animals. In art class at school they tried to copy some of the traditional african paintings of animals. She stated that she was “very good” at copying the animals. I saw some of them and for a 6 year old I will have to agree with her that her animals were very well done. Anna has a very organized mind and likes to draw shapes and patterns. She can be a little obsessive about things as well and it can be very difficult to drag her away from a project she has not completed.
Ever since a certain grandmother sent Anna a “Fancy Nancy” book for her birthday we have been dealing with a very particular dresser. After school Anna immediately takes off her uniform and starts trying on different outfits. She brings a pile of clothes into my bedroom and stands in front of the full length mirror trying out all the different options. We are hoping this is just a phase and won’t last too long.
Last week Anna got sick during the night with nausea and vomiting. I told her in the morning that she had to stay home from school. At that point Anna immediately started crying and saying she wanted to go to school. She was very insistent that she was well enough so Barry and I allowed it. She ended up sleeping in the Kindergarten class room from 10 AM until school was done and she reported that she threw up 4 times during the day. She missed the next 2 days of school as well but did not insist on going against the advise of her mother. Other than that she has been healthy and only has to deal with occasional heat rash, something all our kids have.
Sabas: Despite a few social issues, Sabas has been doing pretty well. We took him out of the local preschool we had been attempting to send him too. It was to stressful for him and for me as well. Now he just comes with me to Hopac and plays in the nurse’s office. He is often getting attention from the kids who come in but he usually responds with strange noises and laughter instead of talking. We are trying to get him to be more social but he just gets goofy. I am not too worried about it since he does fine playing with boys his age during play group every Friday. Of course he and Anna play together all the time and he is starting to hold his own, which means there has been a lot more fighting going on lately. Anna does not like to lose her place of leadership but she is starting to let Sabas take the lead in play from time to time.
Sabas is an excellent big brother. He loves to play with Eilie and he often helps by running after her and bringing her back to mom or just watching her for short periods of time. Often Eilie and Sabas are found rolling all over the floor covering each other with kisses, hugs and “zurburs” (raspberries on the tummy). Not that he doesn’t cause problems at times. He frequently teases her and takes toys away just to get a reaction from her, but what are big brothers for, right?
Sabas is starting to show interest in reading and often watches over Anna’s shoulder as she reads and will call out a word from time to time. He is really good at memorizing so he always remembers the big words when sometimes Anna can’t remember. That is one way he irritates his big sister.
Sabas loves to play with the animals and often sits outside with the monkeys and dog. He also loves to swim and is becoming an excellent swimmer. He has many different jumps that he performs including the nail jump, cannon ball, spinning jump, butt dive, gut buster, and of course the traditional forward dive. I let him swim a lot because he is constantly getting heat rash all over his chest, back, arms and face. Any time he gets overly hot and sweaty it instantly appears. A few times I have wondered if he had chicken pox (he has been exposed several times in the last month) but the rash always goes away over night if the fans are running.
Eilie: Our youngest and most challenging edition to the family, Eilie is extremely high energy and is constantly on the move. There is a running joke with one of the men in our church. He often sits in the back row and counts the times that Barry or I have to run after Eilie as she tries to escape the service. This is of course usually only during the worship service, by the time the sermon has started we have given up on keeping her in the seats. At that point I just have to chase her around the grounds and courtyard so as not to disrupt too many people. She remains very small for her age but has no trouble walking down normal sized steps. She has very good balance but when she does fall she usually just gets up and keeps going.
She has trouble sitting still. I have yet to get through an entire baby book with her. She will sit and play with toys for no longer than about 5 minutes. If she is quiet for longer than that you know there is trouble. She has probably gotten up on the kitchen table and is either rubbing margarine all over herself or eating pure sugar out of the container. Eilie has always been very affectionate and never passes up a chance to give everyone in the family big hugs and kisses. She likes to kiss over and over again… it is very sweet.
She has started talking quite a bit. She almost always understands what I say to her. She likes to help me do work. She does things such as putting her diapers away on the shelf, putting a dirty diaper in the pail, wiping up spilled water on the floor, putting toys in the basket, etc. Hopefully these are the types of activities we will encourage her to continue. Her favorite word at this point is “nah” which depending on her intonation means either yes or no… most of the time no. She also likes to yell “MOM” at the top of her lungs when she wants me to get her something. This is often the first sound I hear early in the morning and sometimes even in the middle of the night. It is strange to hear a little baby yell “mom” instead of crying at night. The other words she uses right now are daddy, Eilie, happy, kittie, Badru (our monkey’s name), nanna (banana), and there are more that I can’t think of.
She is extremely cute right now. She has the Meg Ryan hair style from the movie “French Kiss” which so many people tried to copy back in the 90′s. Her hair on top is smooth and combed to the side and she has little curls in the back that stick out under her ears. We get lots of people commenting about her cuteness on a daily basis. Sarah (our house worker and baby sitter) is constantly getting a kick out of her antics. She always has a story to tell me when I get home from being at HOPAC all day. We call Eilie our “little monkey” because she is often behaving like the monkeys we have. She also gets along very well with them.
We very often let her run around naked at home for many reasons. One, because she likes to take her clothes off. Two, because she often has heat rash and diaper rash and it is too hot for diapers. And three because she is very often getting dirty and needing a bath and she loves being wet and naked so we let her go. I have taken to leaving her little bath tub full of water in the bathroom so that she can jump in whenever she wants to cool off during the day. She gets heat rash everywhere just after a few hours of being too hot and sweaty so I have found this is one way to keep it a little bit more under control. I hate seeing Eilie’s face covered in rash, which happens quite often.
She is a really fun little girl and is always doing something strange that makes us laugh. I am curious to see what type of person she will become. I of course could say the same thing about all our kids. Hopefully this next baby will be very calm and easy going… Only 10 days until the due date!
Conditions
The last few days we have had some relief from the heat. It has rained and it has been cloudy a lot of the time. We needed relief as the last few weeks have been extremely hot and humid and power outages have been daily. It remains very humid even after it rains so I have still been sweating a lot but the temps have been lower. We were very frustrated as the power was out for 3 days right after we had been grocery shopping. This means that the freezer thawed out and the 3 chickens we had in it have to be eaten in a short period of time. We have eaten a lot of chicken this week.
We have also come to realize in the last month or so that in order to stay here next year we will need to find a very cheap rental, which is not easy to do. (We have been praying about the future and asking the Lord to open and shut doors according to His will…) The one thing that has surprised us most in moving here is the cost of living. There really is no room for a middle class, which is why there is not much of one to be found. You either live in a shack with no electricity and no water, or you live in a huge, beautiful house with many workers. There are modest homes to be found for rent but they are still the same price as rentals in the States. We knew how much rent was before coming so that was not a surprise. What really has surprised us is the cost of food. We thought that in a place where most people work for less than $5 per day the price of food would be lower than in the States. We were wrong. We didn’t take into account the fact that most of the poor people’s diets consist of cheap starches like rice and corn flour and they eat very little meat, vegetables and fruits. This is also the reason that so few people live past 50 years of age. Poor nutrition equals poor health, so we don’t really want to eat that way. We have found that most of our budget goes toward food.
Another big expense is clothing which also costs more than in the States. I have often gone to the markets and shopped at the used clothing booths. I have many times been disgusted by finding a piece of clothing with a Value Village tag on it stating a price much below that of which I could ever buy it here. A lot of the high prices of everything have to do with the fact that I am white and for the first time in my life I am having to deal with discrimination. Sure it is not the same as what African Americans have to go through but I am still being treated differently just because of how I look. It can be extremely irritating. People instantly think that I have an unlimited cash flow just because I am white.
We had term break this week which meant we had Monday through Wednesday off from school. We decided to take the Monday and go to the embassy to make sure we had all the info we needed to get the baby registered once he or she is born. We were disgusted to find that the American Embassy will not allow you in or even talk to you unless you have set up an appointment on-line before coming. We drove halfway across town and stood outside the gate as someone who barely spoke English said we had to leave and set up an appointment. This probably has something to do with security due to the fact that several years back the Embassy was blown up by terrorists. But still it seemed completely rude.
A couple of nights ago I was sitting at home watching a movie when I heard and felt what seemed like bombs going off. It lasted a couple of hours. The neighborhood remained quiet and there was nothing on the radio so we assumed it was not a big deal. I actually thought it was fire works as it was the evening of a Muslim holiday. We went to bed without worries. The next morning I had completely forgotten about it until Sarah mentioned it and said a lot of people had died. I called up a friend and found out that an ammunition storage facility had blown up. Today I have heard just how serious the situation is and how many people have been killed or injured. I’m not going to say that I am surprised. The government here is a joke. Of course they were storing ammunition in a place located near a school and residential area… They will probably use it as an excuse for us to not have electricity for the rest of the month so they can sell the electricity to neighboring countries and embezzle the money for themselves. We are starting to figure out how things work in the government here. It’s every man for himself. No sense of civic duty or care for your fellow man.
Still everyday life remains simple and good. School, work, church, play. The same here as anywhere else in the world.
Chicken and chips
One of our weekly outings as a family is to go down the street and get chicken and chips from a local barbecue. This is, it seems, the only form of restaurant that most of the locals know of. There is very little creativity in restaurants unless they are owned by foreigners. These small local establishments are all over the place and sell the same things. The menu consists of fried chicken (very fried using tons of grease), chips (french fries also with lots of grease), mishitaki (beef strips on skewers, usually very well cooked), and occasionally a place will have cooked bananas, hot dogs and salad.
The place we go to is very well run. It has a nice outdoor seating place underneath a banda. Everything is clean (except for the hole in the ground toilets which are pretty nasty), and the food is always ready quickly and cooked well. The cook is always dressed in a white uniform. She is a big mama (for an African this phrase would not be offensive) who has gotten to know us quite well and always gives us extra chips.
We went last night and had chips, chicken and mishitaki, all for less than the equivalent of about ten dollars. Which means I didn’t have to cook in a very hot kitchen and we all had full bellies. I try not to think about the fact that much of the full feeling is due to the high amount of fat that is cooked into the food. We also enjoy hanging out with the locals whom we would never see if we didn’t get out of the house from time to time. The people there love watching the wazungu kids run around their little establishment and Eilie is always being picked up and handled even against her will.
We are always amused by the fact that there are very few little restaurants which serve other types of food for cheap prices. You can go to the nice restaurants usually owned by foreigners and get really good food but it usually costs the same as or more than restaurant food in the States. We refuse to pay so much for a meal while living in a place where most people could eat for a month off of that amount of money. Also we don’t have that much money to spend. There is other food available. Local ladies selling soup on the side of the road. Fried breads which are sold in the mornings. Smoked fish also sold on the side of the road. But if you want to sit down and eat something it is always the same… Mishitaki, chicken, chips… boring. I think there may be some bigger barbecues that sell ugali and sauces but no one ever has a menu and we never know what they have without going through the whole translation issue. Plus, the bigger the restaurant, the more expensive everything is. So for now we are happy with the chicken and chips down at the neighbor’s place.
Our two little rascals
monkeys, monkeys, they monkey around/ they never seem to stay on the ground/ they jump and hop and play all day/ they’re funny animals almost anyone would say/ their awkward stance makes us glance at them up in the tree/but we really like them, they make us laugh, they’re funny animals you see. (poem written by me when I was in elementary school.)
This little poem is so true and our monkeys have come to fit the stereotype of what everyone thinks a monkey would be like. They are unpredictable, playful, sneaky, and sometimes just plain nasty. Our female monkey, Badru, is very affectionate and sweet but is “prone to wander.” We unfortunately have to keep her tied almost all the time. We have tried letting her free a few times and if we turn our backs she ends up down the road at the neighbor’s causing havoc. We take her on walks around the yard and she seems quite content as long as she gets enough food and affection. Sabas will often just go outside and sit with her on his lap for a long time. She loves being petted and scratched. We tie her to a tree in our yard where she is able to climb to the lowest branches (which are a good 8-9 feet off the ground). There she can eat and sleep. If there is anything in her range to reach on the ground she will inevitably get herself wrapped up around it about 100 times and have to be untangled. She is very good at making knots.
For a while her collar kept coming undone and she would disappear for the day with our other monkey. They would almost always return in the evening to sleep and eat. One time the male returned but she did not. She was gone for 2 nights and we thought that someone must have caught her and tied her up. Then on the 3rd day of her absence two boys knocked on our gate and she was with them, tied with a long piece of rubber. We gave them a little money and thanked them for returning her. We are not sure what happened while she was gone but she acted a little traumatized for the next day as she sat around scratching herself nervously and was very affectionate toward me.
Whenever they escape all the neighborhood kids know where they come from and they have been brought back several times by kids who are hoping to get a soda out of the ordeal. We have since made her collar more secure and she has not escaped again.
Our male monkey stays home as long as Badru is there. He is not affectionate and does not willingly let you catch him unless you have food. He is extremely entertaining. He has a very high level of energy and is always causing trouble. His latest antics involve chicken chasing. He is teaching our puppy very bad habits and the two of them together ended up killing one of our chicks. Italis (his name) loves to chase the chickens, occasionally he will catch them and grab their tail feathers for a while which makes them freak out. This in and of itself is not a major problem, but he has taught our puppy how much fun it is to chase chickens and when he catches them he has teeth that can cause damage. That is what happened to our chick. Italis started the chase and Otis finished the job. Fortunately we were there at the time and the puppy found out that it was not something he was supposed to do. We also took away the chick’s body so we hope he doesn’t get the taste for eating them.
Italis is also called our “guard monkey.” We occasionally have neighborhood kids come and sit outside our gate. Barry at one time befriended them when they were by their own houses and they always follow us yelling “Mr. DeHaan!” every time we drive or walk by. Unfortunately they thought they could just come and sit outside our gate, watching us through the cracks… This is of course very annoying. Barry would tell them to “go home” in Swahili but they wouldn’t listen. Then we found that our monkey came in handy… He literally chased them away from our gate nipping at their heals all the way until they were past our property. Now anytime kids come to our gate that we don’t want there we warn them about our “guard monkey” and if they don’t go we open the gate and they are soon out of sight. We are of course still friendly to these kids when we pass them on the road, we just had to set up some boundaries for them.
Italis is also an avid swimmer as I have mentioned before. He only swims when the kids are swimming. He likes to jump off the side of the pool onto one of our heads. To get him off we simply duck under the water and he swims away. He is a very fast swimmer as well and it is fun to try to find him under the water and figure out where he will come out. He looks quite hilarious when he comes out of the water as he is extremely skinny under all his fur.
Italis and Otis (our puppy) are the best of friends. Italis likes to jump on Otis’ back and play with him. We are excited to see them when Otis is full grown because then Italis will be able to literally ride on Otis’ back just like the monkey and dog pictures you occasionally see. They play all the time and sometimes more than Otis wants to. He will often be sitting quietly with Italis climbing all over him and biting at his back. This doesn’t seem to bother him too much.
Monkeys are thieves. If you have food in your hand while outside you must guard it with your life or out of nowhere a monkey will jump from a tree you just walked by and your snack will be history. This is why many of the monkeys in the area have been killed off. The Africans do not tolerate food thieves. We have found that they are trainable and the monkeys never steal food from me or Barry, only the kids have trouble teaching them. Also, for a while Italis would try to come into the kitchen but I have stopped that practice quite quickly. A broom is a very handy training tool.
With monkeys around our lives will not get dull and hopefully some of their bad habits will be stopped as they get a little older… They are, by the way, both under 2 years old so they are still “kids” as far as monkeys go.
swimming and sweating
Self-sustaining Swimming Pool
Those two words describe the last several weeks of our lives quite well. The hot season really is HOT. Thank the Lord we have a nice cool pool to jump in any time it gets too hot to handle. Because Barry built a waterfall as part of the design, the water gets cooled as it is getting circulated so the pool remains a refreshing temperature. The pool at HOPAC right now feels like a warm bath.
Barry and I will often take an evening dip before going to bed at night and we sleep so much better. It is also a lot of fun to swim outside at night with the moonlight shining through the leaves of the palm trees above us. Barry and I have decided that a pool is much better than air-conditioning which would have cost about the same amount to set up and install.
Sabas has learned to swim really quickly. He is also an excellent diver. Anna has been able to swim for a while and continues to improve. Eilie is still a little bit leery of the water and stays clear unless mom is there to hold her. Our monkey has taken to jumping on people’s heads while they are swimming or jumping right on top of them after they have jumped in. He then swims around the whole pool until he decides he has had enough and climbs out.
The temps here remain in the 80′s and 90′s but the humidity is what gets you. The air is heavy and the sun is strong. To stay indoors (without AC) during the middle part of the day can be quite oppressive at times unless you have a fan blowing directly on you. To cool off I like to go outside and sit in the shade where there is usually a cooling breeze. I will also take a swim and then go lay down in bed with the fan blowing on me. The other day I was really tired from a rough night with Eilie and I wanted to take a nap. I went swimming to cool off and then lay down in bed. The power was off so there was no fan. I fell asleep for a while but woke up in a pool of sweat and despite still feeling tired, I was unable to get back to sleep. Amazingly enough, both Eilie and Sabas were able to take long naps that day. Children seem to adapt more quickly to the heat. When the power goes off during the night Barry and I will be tossing and turning while the kids just keep on sleeping. The power is often switched off from 6pm until 11pm. Barry and I will choose to stay up and hang out in the dark instead of sweating in our bed.
The weather here is great for going to the beach as well. We often go in the afternoons to swim and lay in the cool ocean breeze which is ever-present. Often after swimming the breeze comes and we feel cold, so the heat is not so bad that we cannot escape. We think we will survive this first hot season quite well. I am still looking forward to the rains in March though. With the rain also comes more consistent electricity (much of the power is from a hydroelectric plant) which will be nice. Until then I will keep reminding myself that most people in this city live in tiny huts with no windows and no electricity and I am a spoiled brat. 
Worker issues
We had a “fun” little incident involving our worker, Lameck, this past month. The whole situation ended in us having to let him go. We had been having problems with him for a long time. Many days Barry would come home and would instantly be irritated because of the work or lack of work that he had done during the day. Barry would give specific instructions about a project and Lameck would make it clear that he understood but somehow the work was very rarely done the way Barry had directed him. He often would disagree with Barry about how something should be done and actually refused to do it the way Barry asked.
For a few weeks in December he barely worked. He would show up for a few hours (half of the time spent eating food that we had provided) and then leave without asking. We were very upset about it all so we put him on a 2 week suspension without pay. We had a friend who speaks Swahili come by and we held a long meeting with him about our complaints. We hoped that this would encourage him to work harder and have a better attitude. When he returned though we found that he still took all day to do a simple task,which was done poorly. At this time he also brought a complaint that we had not paid him for part of the month of December. We reminded him that we had explained it clearly before that due to his poor performance he was not going to be paid for the two weeks he was gone. Barry again had his friend come and they all had a meeting. Lameck demanded that he be paid the whole month’s salary. Barry offered to let him keep our bike and a phone of ours that he had been using as final pay since it was clear we could not have him working for us anymore. He refused this offer (which was worth a month’s pay) and said he would come back with the police. This he did a few days later after talking on the phone with our friend. We were able to gather up a few other friends to back up our case. It turned out rather funny as the police officer he brought along ended up knowing one of our friends. Also, Lameck’s first request was that we pay him 5 million shillings for all the money he “saved us” while building the swimming pool. This was a laughable request as that is more money than we could ever pay and much more than we had even spent on the entire pool. It also made the police officer realize that Lameck was just trying to take advantage of us. His way of thinking, which is common here, is that if you cause enough trouble and make enough threats towards a mzungu, eventually they will just give in and pay you just to be rid of you. Barry would not give in as he felt that it was wrong to “pay him off.” In the end Lameck left with our bike and phone and no cash.
It is actually kind of a sad situation as from the start we had really liked him as a person. We kept him working for us, even though we didn’t need a night guard. We gave him a large pay raise. We helped him out several times financially when he had extra expenses. We gave him a bonus, a bike to use as his own, and the list goes on. Perhaps we had been too generous because he seemed to think we had tons of money. He also kind of ruined the situation for himself as we had just found out that Hopac was looking to hire more male workers. We would have given them his name if he hadn’t just proven himself to be more concerned with money than doing a good job.
Fortunately we never made out an official contract with him or we could have had a real problem letting him go. Many of the other missionaries I have spoken with have had similar problems but because they have work contracts with the person they have to take the issue to the courts in order to get them fired.
In the end we are relieved that he is gone. Barry no longer comes home to deal with problems caused by him during the day and we are saving the money that we were paying him every month. We just wish it could have worked out without all the drama. Oh well, such is the life we live.
Pictures of Dar and the family
Half-built abandoned building
Local shop or duka
- Eilie found a sponge on the beach! (not the natural kind…)
- Monkey and puppy playing
"Chicken for supper tonight anyone?"
The main road through town
Ready to ride home
Ode to Milo
The last day of break started off with sadness. Our Jack Russell terrier puppy died… Both puppies had been sick. The other one had gotten over it and was doing well. Milo was sick for 2 days and the night prior to his death he had eaten a little food and drank some water so we though he was improving. Sadly that was not the case as he was found dead in the morning. He had all his shots so we are unsure of the cause of his illness but we are very sad about it. We had Anna and Sabas watch as we buried him. I don’t think they fully understand death at the ages of 4 and 5. They did not act upset about it at all at the time but just yesterday Sabas said ”I am sad that Milo is gone, I miss him.”
Milo was a very cool puppy. Unique in that the only markings on his white body was the one brown patch over his left eye. His face was very whiskery and though he was a small puppy he looked a little bit like an old man. He was very intelligent. He naturally would fetch things without having to be taught. He was learning the rules of the house very well as he would not come inside without permission. He loved to play with our monkey. He also loved to swim and actually jumped into the pool without being urged to do so! We will miss the little guy and so will his puppy friend Otis who will be lost without him. Goodbye Milo.
