Life These Days

There isn't much to write about these days, which feels like a wonderful thing!  Eli is well into his Swahili study, I'm back to homeschooling the boys, and we're finally getting enough family time to have some reserve.  We've even babysat a couple times and had friends over for dinner, which rarely happens during our normal rhythm of busy busy busy.  It feels so good to breathe this much, especially since we know that as soon as Eli returns to work at the hospital we will return to a state of busyness and exhaustion.

We still have our fingers in some pies, however, lest you think we're twiddling our thumbs over here!  I have taken on teaching Caleb's class twice a week for the 4- and 5-year old MKs (because their normal teacher is studying Swahili for the next three months), and it's been more work than I anticipated since most of my ideas for crafts/activities require supplies which can't be easily found in rural Kenya.  I'm being forced to get creative, and my stamina and patience is sometimes put to the test with nine kids in the class, but it's an overall good experience and I'm glad to help out rather than have the class cancelled altogether (which was the alternative).  Eli, on top of daily Swahili lessons, is continuing to teach didactics to the residents once a week and has been attending meetings for the residency as well as the HIV program.  We're discovering that it's hard to be truly "left alone to study language" while still being here at the hospital, but it's better than the alternate choice of uprooting our family for three months and moving away to study language elsewhere.  So we are keeping busy, but overall our life is good right now and we're so thankful for this time.

Here are some random pictures of late:

the first time we saw a chameleon turn a shade of bright gold

dinner with some of our favorite people at Tenwek, 

our neighbors and friends: the Parkers

they decided this wasn't a fort, but rather an ice floe 

and they were narwhals coming up to breathe

went for a Nature Walk with Caleb's class today

and saw numerous black kites in this tree

walking to the river on our Nature Walk

Caleb's class 

(he's the one in the Batman hat)

Basi, ni wote kwa sasa.  Labda baadaye nitachukua picha zaidi na naweka wao hapa.  (I'm also practicing the Swahili I learned over the past three months!)

Ready for a New Year

We recently had a week of vacation, which was much needed.  We went to Nairobi for a couple days, then headed to another place a few hours away which offered us the quietiest and most relaxing days we've experienced since moving to Kenya.  It wasn't fancy - in fact, we felt like we were at camp - but we were undisturbed, which we really needed.  So after reading books and watching movies and breathing deeply, we're ready to dive back in to life at Tenwek.

The next few months will be different than usual because Eli will be exchanging his doctorial duties for Swahili studies.  After a week of rest (and realizing how exhausted we were), his language study is a welcome change because it means Eli will be home in the afternoons.  He'll be studying Swahili at home, but he'll be home.  It's a blessed way to begin the new year!  Last year was crazy in so many ways, and this year will probably be more crazy than not, but we'll kickstart 2017 by slowing our pace and focusing on our family.  We thank God for the chance to do so!