I Have Not Driven A Car In Over 4 Months!

And I suspect I probably will not be driving a car any time soon! We only just got our car in early September and Deron takes it to work most days,so it's not like I have had weeks and weeks to be learning some driving skills in Kisumu. But that only accounts for a teeny, tiny fraction of the reason why I have not driven here. I look at the pedestrians, tuk tuks, boda bodas (bicycles), and occasional cows and goats and the way they freely (make that capriciously if you factor in the mattatus!) move in and around the street upon which I would be driving and I just can't get the nerve to climb into our giant SUV and join them lest I end up bumping into one of them! And, hey, every time I take a taxi to the grocery store or a tuk tuk to Bible Study or on another errand, I am helping the local economy. So that is laudable. Yes, my timidity serves the local community well financially! Or something like that. I realize I need to conquer this fear and get behind the wheel at some point. Everyone suggests driving SLOWLY and I can certainly manage that. But I am none too excited about it. None too excited at all!

Living here amazes me in that in just a few months I feel so at home. I feel like we are exactly where we are meant to be and I can't imagine my life WITHOUT having come to live here now. Had anyone tried to convince me that I would be typing such a sentiment on my blog, I would have nodded, smiled politely, and utterly dismissed the notion as well intended but epically inaccurate.

Which is not to say that life here is without challenges. I still find myself just wanting to pick up the phone or send a text message to family and friends in the U.S. and have them receive it in live time. The massive time difference and massive cost and technological limitations of my phone make that a no go. BUT, there is Skype and that is hugely helpful. Having internet be so very erratic and slow is also a challenge and frustration at times. Living in a cash society can be challenging. However, I can see Dave Ramsey's* point about spending less when you use cash. While it's true that there are less places to do shopping here and I have much less ease to hop in a car and go shopping, there is also something about having only the money in your pocket that tends to limit impulse buys. Also in the category of challenges, there seems to be a huge net effect to the incremental increase it takes to get basic things done that finds me often feeling like my to do list is just a wishful fantasy that won't see fulfillment until I am back in the U.S. And don't even get me started on my frustrations with the maintenance of this blog. It turns out that having inspiration, time without kiddos underfoot, AND an obliging and working internet all conspire together is more elusive than one might think. I will have these blog topics and posts composed in my head which, naturally, sound eloquent, witty, interesting, and riveting whilst in my head, evaporate to nothing once a few days of not being able to type them out go by.

But despite challenges and affronts to the Type A portion of my personality, there are so many grace notes and moments that eclipse all that. There are two women on my compound who are at home during the day, just as I am. We have started "Wonderful Women Wednesdays" and have gone out for coffee at the one coffee shop in town (and it's quite good!), had lunch at the Nyanza Club across the way, and had beauty treatments in town (a much needed pedicure and haircut for me! And before you snort derisively about a much needed pedicure, my heels could snag the mosquito net when I sat down for that pedi! They are exposed to way more dust and dirt here and the least I can do is give them a bit of pampering from time to time!). It's been really great and we are all in different seasons of life, so that's a fun dimension to have too. I also have joined a wonderful, wonderful women's Bible Study that meets each Thursday. We just started a study of Daniel and it's wonderful because if you know your Daniel, you know that he and his friends trusted God through EVERYTHING and it's surely inspiring and reassuring stuff to read!

I have also been spending a chunk of internet time on the Food Network website. Along with the amazing brownies I posted about in August, I have also discovered a delicious green tea based apple and mint punch. It tastes so light and fresh and is wonderfully refreshing! We also made a slow cooker Korean inspired beef and noodle soup this weekend and it had lots of flavor, was easy to make, AND used ingredients we can actually get here. I came to Kisumu with nary a cookbook and with visions of plunging in to the local cuisine and learning to cook from the cook we would hire. Well, there's not a terriby extensive cuisine in Kenya, turns out. And our cook, Rose, has asked me for cookbooks and recipes. So, while we have tried a couple traditional dishes, that is not going to hold us for 365 days a year and it turns out things are a bit different than I expected. Food Network is an investment of time, rather than money. (And I note the latter having frantically purchased Kenyan magazines for their recipes and some cookbooks from home I thought might work. While I got SOME workable options from the U.S. cookbooks, it's amazing how many ingredients show up that are so easy to get in the U.S. and so NOT an option nor easily substituted with other ingredients here.)

But speaking of those Kenyan magazines purchased for recipes. While the recipes, for various reasons, were a bust, (I noticed a certain vague quality to the ingredient list and directions that even Rose could not make heads nor tails of, for example.) the magazines were a giant success when it came to giving me some glimpses of culture. I really LOVED getting to read articles in the voices of insiders. I learned about health issues, for example, since my New African Woman magazine was devoted to health in September and October. I learned, for example, that there is a stigma to having TB and how one South African television personaity who contracted TB is fighting that stigma and on a crusade to make care and information accessible to all. I learned about another woman's crusade against female circumcision. I read a lighter article about protecting one's marriage. Regarding advice not to pester spouse with a zillion phone calls when he is having time and space with friends, the article quoted a man as thinking about taking a second wife so he could tell his wife he was with her when he was actually out with the guys and he could just enjoy their company in peace. Now, I gotta say, I surely never encountered such a scenario in any articles on relationships in U.S. magazines. There were also book reviews on books all written by African women. It wasn't that I got PhD level sociological insight into modern women of Africa by reading the magazine, but it was so many little details and little insights and I really thrilled to that. I am not sure how well I am articulating all that adequately. I suppose it's the thrill of learning something new and having a glimpse into the small (and not so small) details that are part of familiar life for many here, but all new to me.

Am now hoping to grab a shower before Tiras awakes. Still no pump to give us water pressure, but we do have hot water back after a week without, so I am happy. It is well here!




*Dave Ramsey hosts a really great radio talk show about managing one's money wisely. I liked, in particulalr, one ad campaign where he had the phrase "Act your wage."