Interrupted Sleep

It's hot in Magugu and we slept last night with the windows open. That was probably a mistake... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let me back up.

We left home at 5:45am and drove the two and half hours south west out of Arusha in order to accompany some friends to check up on the excellent school they are running in the sleepy, desert town. We passed herds of wildebeest and a few wandering giraffe on the way.

After a long and fulfilling day with students, our team treated the teaching staff to dinner out in order to thank and honor them for their hard work and dedication in a less than hospitable location. Then the ten of us headed in our two vehicles back to the guest house. The guest house is a small courtyard with simple rooms facing into the open area. There is no running water, but they heat water on the fire and provide buckets for sponge baths in your rooms. It's pleasant enough. No problems.

We squeezed our two vehicles into the courtyard area and the tall tin gates were closed behind us. Byron and I said goodnight to the others and we retired.

At 2:30am I woke up. Our bed faced the window and I gazed through the mosquito net toward the curtains, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. There was a light shining in where the curtain had been pushed aside. It was a fairly feeble beam, the kind you would get from a cheap flashlight with a fading battery. I turned my head to see what it was shining on and saw that it was attempting to light up Byron's shirt that was hanging from wooden pegs on the wall.

That's when I noticed the long pole coming in through the window and my brain cleared enough for me to realize that someone was trying to fish whatever they could out of our room.

Byron had checked out our windows before we went to sleep and decided that since they opend into the courtyard of the owner's home behind us, we were likely safe to leave them open. But someone (probably the whole town) had noticed the two carloads of foreigners in town and noted where they were staying. That someone had then climbed into the courtyard behind our room and was now busily trying to grab something worth taking.

My un-thought-out reaction was to sit up and call out "Kainyo?" Kainyo is a Maasai word that means "Why?" or "For what reason?" but it can be used as "What are you doing that for?" (Not that Magugu is a Maasai speaking area!) At the same time I was hitting Byron who was sound asleep next to me.

He heard my "Kainyo?" and woke up. He saw the shadow against the window and paused before lunging toward it to stop the thief. You should know that we were seperated by saftey bars so there was no chance that we were actually going to engage this person. But the lunge scared him off, as it was supposed to.

With the opportunist gone, I realized how hard and fast my heart was beating. We closed the windows and checked out the room. Nothing was gone. Byron's jeans were on the floor below the pegs, making me think that the dude hooked them first but then they fell. I believe it was the sound of them falling onto the ground that woke me.

Even if the dude had succeeded in getting Byron's jeans, he would not have found a wallet, car keys or a phone in them as Byron had put those away in other places. But it would have left Byron in a awkward spot as he didn't have anything else with him to wear on his lower half.

I've heard of this scenario where people are robbed by fishing thieves in the night but I've never experienced it before. We went back to sleep (not RIGHT away, I must admit) thankful for protection.

Byron called me a Jack Russell this morning because I had woken up with the slightest sound and barked out at a thief. Some thanks for the girl who saved his shirt!

Weirdness

I had a weird thing happen today. I was sorting through the sock basket which has largely been untouched for a couple of months as no one seems to have needed socks, and I noticed this very strange smell arising from within.

This is CLEAN sock basket. Some years ago I stopped sorting the socks for the whole family because who on earth has time for THAT? I put the clean socks in one basket and everyone can go dig when they need socks.

Well, I dug through the socks and, lo and behold, buried deep within the basket I found a rotten banana. It was black and slick and stinky. It was the cause for the little cloud of fruit flies. It was the reason for the rank smell.

I threw the banana away and I threw all the socks into the washing machine but I had to wonder...

Who would be walking by the sock basket with a banana thinking, "Gosh, this banana looks really good but I'm just too full right now so I'll have to eat it later. Let me just bury it in this sock basket for safe keeping" ??

Who would do that??

Frustration

There are lots of things to adjust to about being back in Africa but the one that makes us the most crazy is our slow internet connection.

Byron went on a website today that measures the speed of your connection. We scored 10 KB per second. The average in the U.S. is 4,000 KB per second.

10? Ten? TEN? The site says we're better than 1% of the world here at our house. That means that 99% of the people in the world who have internet have a faster connection than I do!

Tonight we went on the site again and it was a bit faster... 130 KB per second. But we already knew it was slightly better at night.

Supposedly, the norm in this city is better than what we're getting at our place so we're going to investigate and see if we can't get our server to pick up the pace a little for us.

Ten. Can you believe it?

For you, Mamma

our adventure

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Enjoy!
Ask the style master if he likes my new jacket : )

LOVE YOU TOO MUCH!
TREVOR

Little Boys Fly

I walked out onto the beach a few days ago and noticed Jesse and Trevor bending together over a tide pool on the reef. Jesse is 20 and Trevor is almost 18 but my brain instantly changed the scene to years ago when they were about 7 and almost 5, peering over tide pools and wearing the caps that I had sewn long flaps into to protect their necks from the equatorial sun. How familiar it was to see them in the midst of a seaside adventure.

This time they were coaxing an eel out of his hole in the coral and considering who would be the first to try to grab him. (In the end, they flipped him out onto the reef and danced around yelling as he squirmed rather violently between their feet and back into the water.)

Jesse and Trevor left Arusha by shuttle bus yesterday afternoon at 2pm. They got to the Nairobi airport at about 7pm and caught their flight at 11:25pm. They connected in Zurich (with a five hour lay-over) to Washington DC and will connect from there to LA. They will arrive at about 8pm California time.

That's the clinical side of what has happened. Real life is a little different.

Yesterday morning in bed I asked Byron, "If we don't get up, can we keep this day from happening?" "Yep," he answered and closed his eyes.

But we were wrong.

The sun came up and the boys put their last minute things in their bags and made sure they had their passports. When the time came, they boarded the bus and began the journey that would eventually be about 42 hours door to door.

It's SO good to see these boys become men. It's so fun to watch amazing paths opening up ahead of them. It so badly sucks that those paths take them 10,000 miles away.

We are truly excited for them and truly sad for us. Byron and I stood with Colin and Heather by the door of their bus, eyes all full of tears, and waited till they were gone before we moved. Much later in the day I asked Byron how he was doing and he said he wanted to be sick. I knew just exactly what he meant.

Colin says he feels really sad but peaceful about their departure. We all concurred. It's a good thing, the right thing, just a hard thing.

So little boys grow out of their caps with home-made sun flaps and big boys grow out of the need for their mother to be watching from the beach.

And I grow too.

As the dawn was rising yesterday and I tried my best to hold the day back, I kept hearing an Angels and Airways refrain in my head. It says,

"I cannot live, I can't breathe unless you do this with me..."

I don't even know what the rest of the song is about but that refrain has become my prayer. God beckons me on to growth through the circumstances I find myself in. I walk forward only because he walks with me.

And today, as I'm still achey from their departure, I am thankful that he is utterly patient with my pace. I feel him resting here beside me, letting me know we'll walk on only as I'm ready.

(Photo of Jesse paragliding)

Tuesday Last

I like this boy I've been married to for the last 25 years. Yessssirrreee!

(Photo by Jesse Borden)

Family Time

I'm writing from Watamu, a tropical setting on the Indian Ocean where our family is soaking in some alone time before Jesse and Trevor fly to California on the 16th. We have six nights here to celebrate our 25th anniversary and to send the boys off tanked up on time together. We could go on line at reception and collect mail but we likely won't.

Picture the six of us with sunburnt faces and big smiles. The air and water are both warm. The sound of the rain in the night is wonderful to sleep to.

These are precious days :-)

Day Trippers (or Dusty Boys are Happy Boys)

Byron and the boys have had a couple recent day-trips on the motorcycles with the Russell boys. They've had such a lot of fun.
I'm happy for them to have these little safaris out to enjoy time together.

It draws to a close quickly now...

Photos by Jesse Borden

Missing

BBC's news reports today that the Pentagon says 190,000 AK-47, pistols and other assault weapons that they gave to Iraqi security forces have "gone missing." About 30% of the weapons they have distributed there over the last three years cannot be accounted for.

190,000? I'm a little speechless.

His Face Shines Upon You

I love the Old Testament blessing that says,

"The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you. May He be gracious unto you, may He turn His face toward you and grant you peace."

I'll take that blessing any day :-)

Photo: Jesse Borden

Typos and Tammy

I write a lot but I'm really not any good at proof reading my own words. I think that's because I know what I meant to say so I can't see when the words on the page don't actually say the sentence I'm hearing in my head. So today I sent out an update to a bunch-a-zillion friends with at least two nice big typos in it. It's not that I didn't read it through (many times) first. It's just that I didn't see the bothersome mistakes until now, quite a few hours after pushing the send button.

I guess I wish my update went out all perfect, but the reality is that I just finished an afternoon of errands with Tammy and we rounded off our time with a coffee break in the lobby of a nice hotel in town. See, a latte with Tammy makes life seem too good to worry about typos.

I can't believe I live ten minutes from Tammy. I've been missing her for years. How blessed am I?