Hello from Kisumu! Today it feels like a very hot Thursday, there has been little rain (well, the rainy season is officially over) and Rahel is at home because she woke up this morning with a headache and a sore throat. I am feeling fine, it seems my cold has gone away, but with the past experiences here, who knows? However, my spirits are up and its nice to be down in town to be in touch with people again.

- Tomorrow we leave for Nairobi as we will get our VISAs renewed on Monday, and so we will travel halfway to Nairobi to Nakuru, and go to the baby orphanage where Rahel was working before she joined SIM. We will stay there until Saturday evening and then go to Nairobi and the compound. On Tuesday at 6.30am we will leave to be back in Kisumu by the afternoon and start up again on Wednesday. It is a lot of traveling (6 hours aprox) but it will be nice to have a change.

- I thought I should talk a little about the lesson we have been giving the kids. They SHOULD know their ABC and how to write “Aa Bb Cc…. Zz” but we always go over it in their books just to practice. We have been doing three letter words and each week we start on a different vowel (i.e. on Monday we see “ba ca da fa..” and write it, on Tuesday we read “bad, cat, hat”, on Wednesday they change the words from small to capital letters “bat  BAT”, o Thursday they do the opposite and on Friday there is a dictation of the words to see if they remember. The biggest problem is they know the alphabet letters “ay bee sea dee ee ef jee” but not the sounds “ah bih cki di eh” and so when they see the word “hat”, they think “ach ay tee” and it should say achaytee but it reads h-ah-tuh (= hat). So now we are trying to focus on the letter SOUNDS more than their names. This is English, we also do Maths, Enviroment, Social and Music and movement but more on that another day =).

- Tinderet was wonderful! We were all crammed in the 4x4 and left on Friday night. We waited in Ahero (1/2 out of Kisumu) for Sarah’s school trip bus to come back (it was supposed to be back at 5.45 and but 7.00 it had still not gotten past Ahero) so we decided to leave her and go on. She stayed the night at a teachers (the house is to far away to get to/ walk to at night) and it turns out the school trip bus arrived at 10pm (the parents were NOT happy). Saturday morning found us in BEAUTIFUL tinderet, in the mountains at the Diguna mission station. Vitilus gave us a tour and then we went in the pool with the best view you can imagine (pix on facebook when I get to Nairobi!). That evening was the “Kwaheri” party (goodbye!) to two couple that were leaving (which is why we went) and it was a really enjoyable time. On Sunday it was nice to relax without rushing to church, we had a quiet morning, went in the pool around 11 and left around 1pm to go back to Kisumu. It was great weekend, like a mini-holiday.

- So apparently the internet conection seems to have gone in the whole of Kisumu but I am still sending my emails so either this is a miracle or they were exaggerating a bit. There is only one other lady in the internet café, everyone else has left! So anyway, I have been here too long now and will now cut off for this week.

- Cavin Akech had made me lose my temper but he is improving, there is improvement!!!, thanks for your prayers! Hebalyne is also showing signs of being a human, smiling more, but also making Loice, her classmate cry (although we never see HOW it happens). I have a little space in my heart for Pancreaus (yes that is his name)… he is quite behind in the class but is sweet (stubborn) and hyperactive (he reminds me of myself). When he has to do something he speaks to himself under his breath at top speed, which is what I did in stressful times before exams. I just pray he can catch up with the others and FOCUS so that he will not have to do Final Class again next year.

So, we will be in Nakuru, Nairobi and then on Friday a team of 13 people come to stay with us for a week (so we will be camping in Anne and Sarah’s room and relinquish our hold on the guest rooms). That will be awesome chaos that I am looking forward to. I have made a routine and now I enjoy breaking out of the routine.

Ok, now I depart! =D