Music Class

I've always known that our kids would only learn music if I taught them.  We don't have options for music lessons here, and although my husband loves and appreciates music, he can't read music and simply doesn't know music theory.  So I've always known the lot would fall to me as long as we're living in Africa.

And it has.  The lot has fallen to me.  This year I officially started teaching music to our kids!

Music class has become one of my favorite parts of the week.  It's reawakened my love of music.  I've found myself missing the chance to play my cello, I've been flexing my piano fingers (because I'm also teaching piano to these kids), and getting more acquainted with the guitar (because I'm also teaching guitar to these kids).  It's been a huge reminder of how much I love music and want my kids to love music too!

My mom, who was an elementary music teacher for years, supplied me with some basic "music class essentials" and made my job much easier than it would have been otherwise.  I hauled a box of her music stuff across the ocean and we use it every week in my music class with the four oldest MKs.

There are many days when I'm winging it, making it up as I go.  But there's so much to learn when a kid's music knowledge is next to nothing, so the bar is low and anything I teach is increasing their knowledge!  I've been going through all the instruments and finding videos on YouTube that show how they're played and what they sound like.  We spent several weeks learning about string instruments - my personal favorite - and now we're on to wind instruments.  

We had planned a music field trip to attend a band concert at a boarding school where a friend of ours is in the band, but coronavirus ruined those plans.  So we just keep watching videos on YouTube - everything from watching a string quartet play Mozart, Ricky Skaggs dominating the bluegrass scene, how to put together a saxophone, and the University of Michigan marching band halftime show!  It's been a lot of fun.

And of course they're learning music theory.  Notes, clefs, keys, dynamics, time signatures...  This job has been incredibly easier for me because an intern (a friend of the Webber family) was here last fall and did initial teaching on these points.  She's also the one who started them on piano and guitar, which means I got to jump in after the foundations were laid and am helping to maintain that basic knowledge and teach them even more.

Once a week I spend a couple hours doing piano practice with all four kids too.  And they're all making progress!  It's very gratifying.  Granted, the progress is slow since we can only work on it once a week (which is all the time and energy I can afford), but progress is progress and I am pleased.  Kudos to the Webbers for making their keyboard available to us all!

Asa is clamboring to play piano and guitar like the big kids, but I'm making him wait because, let's be honest, I've got enough on my plate right now.  But someday soon he'll be able to join the ranks of missionary kids under the musical tutelage of Mama Horn!

The Bandas

One of the greatest things about living in Chogoria is how close we are to Mount Kenya National Park. 

We've taken several drives through the forest on our side of the mountain and seen various wildlife (mostly monkeys) and enjoyed picnics at the official "Chogoria Gate" where hikers can start their hikes up the mountain.  We've never ventured beyond that because the rainy season has made the trails difficult to navigate and because little boys always make hiking more difficult than you think it should be.  BUT what we did do recently was stay overnight at the bandas.

The bandas are rustic cabins at the Chogoria Gate where hikers can stay coming/going on a hike.  We stayed there just because we live so close and thought it sounded like fun.

It was a lot of fun.  And it was freezing overnight!

The cabin we stayed in had two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen with fireplace for cooking, and a bathroom with a toilet!  Plus it had running water!  The caretaker even turned on the generator for a couple hours so we could have some electricity at night.  We were living in the lap of luxury :)

The boys, of course, took off running and exploring the minute we arrived.  I could hear their giggles and shouts of joy as I unpacked everything.  It's a boy's paradise up there and these boys were definitely living their best life running around the foothills of Mount Kenya!

While the older two could barely be corralled for supper, the Bubba was hungry right on time.  I made him a sandwich and he entertained me with songs and funny faces as we sat on the porch together.  That boy steals my heart every day with his antics!  He is the funniest, loudest, most expressive Mama's Boy I know of.  And I loved sitting on that stoop, just him and me, eating our PBJ  sandwiches and feeling the air getting chilly and scooting closer to each other to keep each other warm.

The other two finally came back and I just loved watching them sit on that stoop, with the tree out front and the foothills beyond.  Little boys and PBJ sandwiches make such an iconic picture!

The highlight of the evening was Caleb's Catch.  He went around the side of the house to "wash my hands in a puddle" (I know, I know...) and he saw something sitting in the puddle and just reached in to grab it without knowing what it was.  Thank God it wasn't a snake.  It was a frog!  The boys, of course, were enamored and many people have since heard about Caleb's Catch at the Bandas.

We finally got tucked in for the night, and let me tell you it was COLD!  I think we've officially been in Africa too long.  This Michigander and my Minnesota husband were both freezing in that cabin overnight.  The beds had a wool blanket on them but it simply wasn't enough.  We wore long pants and long sleeves and jackets with the hoodies up, plus wool socks on our feet, and it wasn't until I added an extra big blanket and a Bubba to snuggle with me that I felt truly warm enough!  I had to remind myself that we were sleeping at 9600 feet and that I wasn't a total wimp!

Suffice it to say, it wasn't the best night of sleep we've ever had.  Eli had knocked himself out with a Benadryl because the dust in the cabin was so bad his allergies were going haywire, and 2/3 boys woke me up 6 times before morning.  The silver lining of being awake so much was hearing a munching noise outside the cabin and peeking out the window to see a waterbuck!  I saw it on two different occasions, and it was big.  I had no idea they wandered around at night, but it was apparently pretty hungry and liked the grass right beside our cabin.  It was amazing to see that!

After a wonderfully slow morning, Eli found a place to hang the hammock.  We don't have a great place to hang the hammock around our house, so it was particularly fun to use it at the bandas.

We very slowly made our way home (and saw more monkeys along the way!) and crashed into our own beds that were warm enough for us all :)

We absolutely love being this close to the national park.  It's only an hour to get to the Chogoria gate, and most of that drive is through the forest, quiet and beautiful and rejuvenating.  Besides, there's nowhere else to go around here.  It's the closest thing we've got.  And it's a pretty good thing :)