Wow! Another year has come and gone and my life has changed dramatically. I will try to stay on top of this blog a bit better, at least for awhile.

I have moved internationally to work as a missionary and am spending Christmas this year in a HOT climate. What a change from the white Christmas' I am so accustomed to. It was very hard to get into the Christmas spirit this year but shouldn't be as Christmas is the celebration of the birth of our savior, it should not be dependant upon being with family, or having the usual decorations in the streets or our home, the ability to make the goodies that have become traditional or the lack of snow.


This past week was long as everyone is excited and counting down days until the end of 1st term. On Wednesday night my roommate and I decided we were too exhausted for Bible study but decided we would order out some food. This sounds like a grand idea in the general scheme of things but this was one of those evenings my roommate would describe as an "AWA day/night' (Africa Wins Again). Wednesday was a national holiday here and we didn't have school, which means many others don't have work either. We decided to catch a dala-dala to T-square, a small little bar/restaurant to pick up our food. We stood and waited and waited for a dala that looked at least a little bit safe (meaning no people hanging out the side). We finally caught the dala and wound up at Africana where we wanted to stop. From Africana we took a walk to T-square, where they asked us to wait for our food. We had ordered 7 mishkaki and 2 chips. After 30 minutes they brought 'our' order: 9 mishkaki and 5 chips. We explained as best we could in our limited Swahili that we hadn't ordered that much and were quoted a price of elfu tisa (nine thousand shillings). They agreed not to charge us for two orders of chips. Crystal and I were on our merry way when we received a call "your food is ready come and pick it up" (all in Swahili). We tried to explain 'tulikuja chakula' we came and got the food. Needless to say we were on our way home and got a text, then two more phone calls---we could not quite bridge the language gap. So we asked our friendly guard to help us send a message--he can understand our limited Swahili and actions better than the restaurant ;) We had a crazy bajaji ride home, with a driver that did not listen to our directions and who grumbled about our fair price the entire way.

Last night we had our staff Christmas party which was great fun, on the way home we were going to catch a bajaj...they decided they needed 5,000TSH for what should have cost 1,500 at the most. The farther we walked towards home the more expensive and more rude the bajaj drivers got. We decided to walk all the way as we couldn't find a reliable bajaj. We were walking on the shoulder when the guy we were with says "watch out!" we look up to see a car coming at us in our lane (which is not really a lane---a two lane highway can become 4-6 on evenings with heavy traffic)...this means "Watch out Pedestrians--you don't have the right of way".

Today we took a dala on our way to go out to eat...the dala skipped our stop and kept going. We ended up a lot farther than we wanted to be and changed our plans for lunch. :)

I think it's just been one of those crazy weeks and one of wonderful memories in Africa! :)

Next week we will have a plethora of school Christmas activities and finish the end of our term! :) already one third of the way through the year, it's so hard to believe.

Well..time to end this post...more later!

Have a wonderful day!