Hash #3

Hash #3 was definitely the most adventurous so far!  My teammates and I actually co-hosted this Hash with a doctor that lives just up the mountain from us.  We can't host one at our place, so he provides the location and the trail and we provide the bites (that's what we call snacks here).  It was a Hash to remember!
Not long after we started, we were already in a bunch trying to figure out where the trail was and where we were supposed to go.  About that time it also started raining pretty hard.  We were almost at the point of giving up and turning back when we heard "on-on", which means that someone found the trail.  So off we went, not letting the rain stop us.  Boy was I glad that I didn't turn back.  I would have missed out on so much fun!  Because of the rain, I don't have as many pictures as I would have liked to share, but I still got some good ones.  Enjoy!

Just before the down pour, already a little unsure
if we were on the right trail

There were 2 options - Good Hashers or Better Hashers
Everyone chose Better, so I went along and
became a "Better Hasher"

Down into the valley, a little slick

Looking back up for a different perspective

Going down into the valley meant that we got
down to the river.  This was just the first of many
water crossings.

I had to have one selfie to capture how much
fun I was having :)  Can you see happiness on my face?

Seemingly endless amounts of Angels' Trumpets
I remember saying that I felt like I was in the
garden of Eden

I just thought it was an adventure until we got to this water crossing.  Our option was either to shimmy across on the log or walk through the river.  I didn't want my shoes to be that wet, so I opted for shimmying across the log.  Again, so happy with my choice!  It was beautiful and so much fun!!!

The other crossings made us thankful for bridges

Yay, I see another bridge coming!

I guess it can be trusted? ;)

At least 4 or 5 of the crossings were hopping
from rock to rock, like you see here, and trying
our best to not fall in.

We all made it back!  We were a little wet and muddy, but nothing a shower won't fix.  The memories, the sights, and the experiences were totally worth it.  And then we got to enjoy bites.

The bites were quite a hit - samosas, carrots and
hummus, chips and guacamole, watermelon,
popcorn, cookies, and chocolate cake. Yum!

The School

We are blessed with a beautiful school campus here, and this post will take you on a tour of the various buildings and areas. 

The day students enter through the gate and are greeted by our friendly giraffes.

Yes, we have our own roundabout with friendly giraffes.
My school buildings are on the left and the college is on the right.

 As students come around the roundabout to head toward the dining hall for breakfast, they can catch a good view of the mountain on a clear day.

This is standing at the roundabout looking north.  You can see
the construction of the science labs and the corner of the
Junior Secondary School building.

As the students walk down the drive, the first building they come to on the left is the Junior Secondary School building.  This building has 4 classrooms, a science lab, a library, the art room, and teacher prep room, and two offices.  My office is one of those offices, so this is where I come to work every day.

As they continue down the drive a little further, they pass the Primary School building on the left.  The Primary School has 6 classrooms, a library, an office, and a teacher prep room.

 Behind the Primary School is our sports court/PE/recess area.  The tennis net is usually set up on the court, but there is also a basketball goal and a volleyball net could be set up instead of the tennis net.  There is an open field area where you can almost always find students playing soccer for recess.  And then there is also some playground equipment like monkey bars, swings, seesaws, and tires to climb on.

Can you believe that view?

Continuing on down the drive, the next building is the dining hall.  All students (residents and day) are served breakfast and lunch here.  The resident students also eat dinner here and use it as an area for playing board games and card games when it's not a meal time.

And the last building that students come to is the Pre-Primary School building.  This school building has 5 classrooms, a library/teacher prep room, and two offices (currently being used as the clinic and a space for extra academic support).

Inside the PP3 classroom, which would be the equivalent of
a kindergarten class

Pre-Primary students have their own play area so that they don't
get run over by the big kids :)

 That gives you a bit of an idea of the layout of the campus.  Now what does the school day entail?

After students eat breakfast in the dining hall, the school day always begins with an all-school assembly.  We all meet on the tennis court for the singing of a national song, prayer, reciting of the week's Bible verse, and any announcements that might be needed.

Students are lining up to march into the morning assembly

Pre-primary students are in purple uniforms
Primary students are in dark blue and khaki uniforms

The marching and singing are led by our excellent drummers.
Different student are assigned to this desired duty each day.

After morning assembly, all students go to their classrooms for Bible study with their classroom teacher.  Everyone across the village - teachers, students, mothers, and all other village staff - studies the same book of the Bible at the same time.  There are daily lessons written for every level and role: Pre-primary students, Primary students, Secondary students, Mothers, and staff.  Right now we are all studying 1 Thessalonians.  There is also a hymn for each week, so I enjoy walking past the classrooms during this time to hear the students in the various classrooms singing away.

Once Bible study is completed, the remaining periods commence.  Pre-primary students (ages 3-5) attend school for a half day, going home after they eat lunch.  The primary students (grade levels 1-7) attend for a full day of twelve 40-minute class periods.  We are blessed with many useful resources for teaching and learning and have a very good Christian classical education curriculum for all grade levels and content areas.  I have seen already how much the students are benefiting from such a quality education.  They are opening up many doors of opportunity for their futures.

And just for the sake of providing some perspective, this is a government school that I happened to get to see on Hash #2.  The classrooms had desks that likely have at least two, if not three, students sitting at each one.  There was simply a chalkboard and chalk in each classroom. 

Seeing this made me all the more thankful for the learning environment and the resources that God has given us here in the village so that these precious students are able to grow and flourish.

Hash #2

I was able to participate in another Sunday afternoon Hash.  This one was completely different from the first one.  We drove up the mountain a bit to the home of one of the members.  The route marked out for us was all on local foot trails up and down the hills, crossing rivers and passing waterfalls.  It was beautiful!!!  I had so much fun getting to see more of the mountain side and getting to hike, which is one of the things I miss from Colorado.

What was even better was that I had prayed that morning that God would provide me a new friend that day.  When I arrived at church that morning, there was my new friend!  Isn't He so faithful?!  There was a girl visiting for the first time and looked a bit lost, so I invited her to sit with us and we became fast friends.  She's here from Norway for a 3-month social work internship, so she won't be around for long but that's okay.  After church, I told her about the Hash that afternoon and she was excited to join us.  One thing I really enjoy about living internationally is that you can connect with people from all around the world and end up doing things that you would probably never do in your normal context.  After only knowing each other for a few hours, she was in a car driving up steep, bumpy, dirt roads with me and Phil.  Gotta love it!

Beginning the hash through the lush mountainside 

Over the river and up we go!

My new friend!  A great adventure buddy!

Through the corn field

Look at the waterfall!

Can you tell I was having fun?!

Our 2nd tallest mountain in the distance

This water crossing required balance

At the finish of our 4 km Hash, we enjoyed time at the host's house.  Kabobs, watermelon, and popcorn were provided as bites.  We finished up just in time to catch a colorful sunset!

Machweo (Sunset)

You can barely tell that the mountain was breaking through
the clouds for the reflection of the sunset.

A great end to the weekend, ready to start another week!!!

Wedding Festivities

One of the fun parts of moving into a new culture is learning about their traditions and customs.  I got thrown right into learning about wedding traditions and customs just 10 days after arriving.  In the span of four days, I attended two wedding send-offs and a wedding with a reception.  Let me tell you, it was quite the crash course.

It is customary for the bride to have a send-off party two or three days before the wedding ceremony.  This is the time when the bride's parents send her off to join the groom's family.  This send-off is just as big of a deal as the wedding day.  Basically, the send-off is the bride's celebration and the wedding and reception day is organized by the groom's side.

The first event I attended was the send-off for Peggy's childcare assistant.  Our whole team attended, as well as many other employees from our village.  It was neat to see how close-knit our staff is here.  They are like a family.  It was quite beautiful and decorations were top notch!

This is only half of the tent, so you can see it is no small party

The send-off party consists of grand entries by the bridal party, the bride's family, and the bride.  The groom actually isn't brought into all the celebrating until later in the party.  At a certain point probably about half way through the night, the bride goes looking for him.  When she finds him, then he is brought up to sit with her on the stage.

The bride-to-be in her beautiful peach dress

There is dancing - some traditional and some choreographed to contemporary music.  Then there were a lot of formalities, like introductions and toasts and passing out of various cakes.  It was all in Swahi!i, so I didn't have a clue what was going on half the time, but it was still great.  They also served us some snacks of goat soup, popcorn, peanuts, samosas, and cooked bananas.

One of the biggest events of the night is when the tribal "Cake" is brought out.  It is wheeled out to lots of music and dancing and celebrating!

Yep, the "cake" is a whole roasted goat decorated
with carrots and cucumbers

This is a tradition for the particular tribe that the bride and groom are both part of.  The goat is diced up right there, and the pieces are passed around for everyone to enjoy.  The bride and groom feed each other the first bites, like we would typically see at a wedding reception with cake.

Getting our pieces of the "cake"

I did eat goat...several pieces actually.  What I learned is to pick your piece strategically.  Some pieces are better than others :)

After more events on the send-off program, then comes the buffet meal that is served to everyone.  I just have to note that the party was scheduled to start at 6 pm.  We probably actually entered the tent around 7 pm.  And I'm pretty sure the meal was served at about 9:30 pm.  This is no short party, and I was thankful for the snacks earlier on in the party.

I learned that what I thought was just a tomato sauce I could
throw on my rice was actually a very, very spicy pepper sauce.
Every experience is a learning opportunity.

This was all on a Wednesday night, which meant we all had work the next day.  So when the party was still rolling along at 11 pm, our crew decided we needed to exit the party at an opportune time.  It was a lot of fun, and I quickly learned that these people know how to throw a party!

Having hardly recovered from the late night of festivities the night before, I was told on Thursday that Peggy and I had been selected to serve as representatives at another send-off that night.  This one was supposed to be a "smaller one" up a little ways on the mountain side.  Boy was I misinformed!!!  This had to have been one of the biggest parties of the year!  Not even exaggerating, we estimated that there were 800-1,000 people there.  And all of those people had come up a rough, narrow, mud road.  It was mind-blowing to me!  Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of pictures to show the magnitude of this send-off because it was in the bridal family's yard with people spread out under many, many tents.  This was also the week of the non-stop rain, so we were just trying to stay dry. 

This send-off still had a lot of the same events in the program, so I had a little bit better idea of what to expect.

We were very thankful for the tents to shield us from the rain

This serves as an indicator of the size of this
send-off.  There was not one, but FOUR "cakes"

These guys must train to become the "cake"
cutters for parties.  They get it diced up and passed
out to the guests so quickly!

We had a pretty prime location for the "cake" cutting

The party was so big that there were even TV screens to show
the bride so that everyone could see what was going on regardless
of where they were seated.

Wheeling the "cakes" around

Being very wise, Peggy decided that we needed to leave before it started getting dark.  So we actually left right after the "cake" was served, before the buffet and gift giving fun.  That was the best decision!  I can only imagine what chaos it must have been when it was time for all of those people to leave and make it back down that road. 

Walking carefully to our strategically parked
car that allowed us an early exit.

Saturday was the wedding day for Peggy's assistant.  Not wanting to miss an opportunity to get introduced even more to the culture, I agreed to go.  The ceremony was all in Swahi!i, but it was beautiful and I enjoyed hearing hymns sung in the heart language.  Two of our kids got to serve as the flower girl and ring bearer.  They kind of stole the show in my opinion ;)

The wedding party rides in a nicely decorated vehicle so that everyone on the road knows that it is a wedding procession.

And if that's not enough of a signal to everyone, it's all proceeded by this DJ truck blasting party music.

 After the wedding ceremony, everyone goes to another location for pictures.  We opted not to be part of that fun because we knew it was going to be a long day with the reception following.  I heard that where they went is a very popular wedding picture location and there are even camels there for the bride and groom to sit on and take pictures.  Maybe I'll make it out there another day.

After picture taking, everyone then goes to another location for the reception.  Another display that these people know how to throw a big party.  There were a lot of similarities to the send off, but this time more of the events were geared towards the groom's family.  There were still quite a few of our staff family members there.  It was lively with music, dancing, more "cake", and a buffet.

I really liked the ambiance of all the lights

The "cake"!!!

Their first pieces of "cake" as husband and wife

We had given a ride to several of our village mamas that work closely with the bride, so we committed to staying through at least the buffet dinner.  Little did we know that the dinner would be served at 11:15 pm :)  But we wouldn't have traded it at all for the hours of sleep we missed that night.  It was a wonderful celebration.  It just goes to show that the culture here values time together.  It is very relational and keeping things timely is of less importance.  I think we could all benefit from learning to be a little bit more like that.  I know I certainly could.  

I am so thankful that I was invited to all of these events so early on.  Experiencing customs and traditions gives a deeper understanding of the culture and the people.  And an added bonus to all of these festivities was that I picked up more of the language along the way.  I now have a pretty good party/wedding/celebration vocabulary.  Everything is an opportunity to learn!