Foreign Toilets

If you've ever traveled to Southeast Asia, you know that toilets can have a different connotation in varying parts of the world.  And those who have visited rural areas of many places (including Africa) know that some toilets are more retro than others.  But did you know that even the inner workings of toilets have their regional affiliations?  We learned this the hard way...

As we were awaiting the arrival of Sophia, we decided we were going to try cloth diapering.  It seemed only logical in this place of growing trash heaps.  As such, we registered for and received a diaper sprayer to go along with our cloth diapers.  We were rather excited about this simple invention that attaches a sprayer to the toilet and allows you to clean the solid matter from diapers directly into the commode. 

A few months before Sophia's arrival, we were blessed to have friends carry over baby gifts to us as they visited Kenya.  Our diapers and sprayer arrived with our fearless leader from CMF in plenty of time for us to get things set up.  We opened the packaging to see all that we would need, grateful that it only required something to trim plastic tubing to size.  So we set out on the task of putting things together.

Our first realization that things didn't match up was with the flex pipe that came from the wall to deliver water to the toilet.  No problem (we thought).  We can just get another one from the hardware store with the small connection at one end to match the wall and a larger one to match the sprayer hardware.

Well...we tried 3/4" - too small.  We tried 1" - too big.  How could they not match???  These were the ONLY adapters they had!  That is when we realized that the connections on our sprayer must be 7/8" and that fittings in the US must be different from fittings in Kenya (more precisely the UK since that's what everything in Kenya is based upon). 

So, now we are stuck - what can we do with our fabulous new diaper sprayer that won't attach to the toilet??  Well, little did we know that we'd be going back to the US shortly after Sophia was born.  While there, we hit up Home Depot to see if we could find a flex pipe that would do the trick.  Easily enough we found a flex pipe to help us connect the sprayer unit to the water inlet in the wall (and learned that toilets are the only fixtures to use a 7/8" fitting...).  In the midst of our search, though, we realized that we'd also need to figure out how to connect the unit to the toilet tank as well!  So, to make a long story short, we ended up buying a new toilet fill valve to replace the existing one so that it too would have a 7/8" fitting.

A couple weeks ago (yes, we've been back for a while now, but just got around to doing this...), we took to the task of seeing if our shopping and deductive skills would pay off.  Lots of water and a little ingenuity later, our sprayer is attached and functioning.  Here are a few pictures of the finished product for your enjoyment.  I hope you've enjoyed this rambling glimpse into our life of living with foreign toilets.

In the midst of our clean up from the change.

The new inner workings of our toilet.  As you can see, we even had to rig the tubing to work right as it didn't match our existing overflow valve...

The beautiful sprayer.  What a blessing for cloth diapering!!

A visit

This past weekend, we took Sophia on her first trek into the bush. Several months ago (before our unscheduled trip to the US), we were invited to visit Losho, Joe's first "bush" location in Maasailand. The invitation was from Molonket, a young man Joe (and now we) has been assisting in school for quite some time. He is around 18 now (I think) and has just finished up his 8th grade year. Molonket is pictured here along with his father and Joe. They wanted to say thank you for the assistance we have given and give Joe a chance to come back to Losho and say hi to many old friends.




Molonket did a wonderful job setting up the day for us. First, we went to the CCC church at Losho where Joe preached a sermon on remembering who we are in Christ. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Joe at the pulpit. Here is a glimps inside the church with Olodikan (Joe's house worker at Losho) in the center and the pastor, Samson Kotikot, to the right.


From the church, we went to have lunch at the site where Joe used to live. It has been converted into a camp used mainly by a medical association that helps with the nearby clinic but also rented to tourists as the Masai Mara is just up the road about an hour. Joe's old house is now being used as the accommodations for tour guides that bring groups through.

Here is the dining hall where we took our lunch.


This is one of the cabins at the site for visitors.

Sophia & I standing outside Joe's old house. I think she was asleep at this point...



And during the rest of the afternoon, we visited with many other friends and loved ones. (Pic 1: Me, Sophia & Samson's daughter, Pic 2: Samson w/ Sophia, me, Molonket, Pic 3: Joe w/ Sophia & Olodikan).





I'm glad we had this chance to see a bit more of Joe's life in Kenya before his beautiful girls came along and that Joe was able to catch up with old friends. As a bonus, we had a giraffe cross right in front of us on our drive back home!! It's good to be back in Kenya...

Viewpoints

In our CHE lessons, there is one on Worldviews. It explains that people all have a worldview - the way they view and interpret the world around them. This is influenced by culture, gender, traditions, and many other things - both positive and negative, true and false. Many times we do not even know the foundations that shape our worldviews, we just take them for granted.

Our friend, Jacob Ouma, was over the other day asking about life in America. One thing he asked was whether you could get ugali in the US. Ugali is a staple of the Kenyan diet. It is a starch made from mixing cornmeal with water, cooking until it is somewhere between dough and bread. Once prepared, it is served with fried greens, meat/beans, and other veggies. You then form small portions of the ugali into balls, flatten, and use it to "scoop up" the other portions of the meal. It can be found in many other African countries, called by different names, maybe derived from another source like cassava.

I explained to Jacob that you can get ugali flour (cornmeal) in America, but people don't make ugali. You can't buy it at a corner shop/restaurant. The average American would not know what it was if you asked them. I don't know that my explanation really surprised him. He simply asked me what the staple food in America is.

This is where my own worldview was challenged. What is America's staple food? There are those that we might call "traditional," but we don't have a food, like ugali, that we eat for all meals. But it wasn't this that struck me. Kenyans eat ugali each meal because it is cheap, readily available. This is what they can afford. For us as Americans, we have disposable income and this is even represented in our great variety of meals.

While I don't know if this totally reflects worldview, it makes me contemplate those things in Kenyan culture that are different from American culture a bit more. In this case, it may not be that Kenyans LOVE ugali and thus eat it all the time. They eat it all the time out of necessity and thus most have come to love ugali, unable to imagine life without it.

Thank you for reading my ramblings of the day.

Christmas Celebration

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything. So, I guess there's a New Year's resolution I could make, although I haven't made any in a LONG time!

Any way, I thought you might enjoy some pictures from our Nairobi CCC Christmas celebration, which, of course, involved food.



Our fearless leader James Sinkua enjoying his meal in a rather laid back manner.

















A group shot of the crowd. Kind of medium in size as many people had already begun the exodus to celebrate with family at home.











Diana and Gladys - our cooks enjoying the spoils, too!












Mesayian giving a lovely pose for the camera.














Moses Samante, me, and my friend Vic. Vic was visiting from Kazakhstan. I met her during our training in Colorado before we came to Kenya.










Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!!

Having a Wild Animal

Some things don't translate. As we've been informing our friends about our pregnancy, we've found that most Kenyans don't just come out and say "I'm pregnant." I don't know why this would surprise me as this was true in my grandparent's and even to some degree parent's generation - "with child," "expecting," or "bun in the oven" were just a few of the phrases that developed to convey this "delicate condition." So, I thought you might enjoy learning how Kenyans, especially Maasai, convey the news.

Throughout Kenya, you can express being pregnant in Swahili by the phrase "mja mzito." Literally this translates to "one who is becoming heavy." There is really no word for "to be pregnant" although there is one for a pregnancy. In Maasai, I would be considered "keroshi," again, meaning "heavy."

In the past, many Maasai would commonly say the woman "keeta olowaru/osoit" - "has a wild animal/stone." According to our friends, this phrase was used in order to not place any real emphasis on it being a baby as they didn't want to hope too much in having a child in case they might lose it (common with high infant mortality). Today, many people within the CCC church have told us this is falling out of practice as they come to have hope in what God is doing, so using this phrase would show lack of faith/trust in God's provision. They have even told us that the usage has been preached against in many churches.

As our friend Cosmas was visiting, he informed us that there was an even more formal or polite way for a husband to say his wife is pregnant - "Keji entomonoi boo." When translated, this means "My wife is outside." This takes some thinking to understand. In Maasai culture, women are the ones to do much of the work apart from watching the cattle, including gathering wood for cooking, maintaining/building the house, going to market, working in the garden/field, etc. So, for a man to say his wife is "outside" it means that she is able to go outside to do the chores now, but will soon be "inside" as she has the baby and takes care of a newborn.

Whatever way you want to express it, we are grateful for the gift God has given us!

House Guests

For the last two weeks, our guest room has been occupied. Visitors are seen as a great blessing in Kenyan culture. In view of those we've been able to host, I'd have to agree.

At the beginning of last week, we hosted our apprentice, Eric Pitts. Eric has been in Kenya since the beginning of June. He started his time here working with our sister ministry in the Mathare slum of Nairobi. He transitioned to living in the bush at the beginning of September to work and learn among the Maasai. Eric is a student at Johnson Bible College in Knoxville, TN. He has taught a class at NBTI (see picture below), worked on myriads of computers, and gotten to know the ins and outs of life in the bush, including life with little to no water in the midst of a drought. Eric was with us as a mid-term break and debrief.


After Eric returned to Ewaso Ng'iro, we were joined by Jackson Erus and Paulo Lopoongo from Turkana. They are two Turkana church leaders that traveled to Nairobi for the Training Department meeting to discuss the recent gifts given by the church to Orphans & Vulnerable Children (OVCs). Unfortunately, our on again/off again toilet for the guest room broke just as they were coming, so their first experience at our house was the smell of sewage as it was being repaired! Below is a picture of Erus as he led the processional of the TBTI graduation ceremony with our fellow teammate, Gene Morden.


While Erus and Lopoongo were with us, we received a call from one of our Maasai church leaders, Cosmas Lemein, letting us know that he was coming to Nairobi with his father to go to hospital. His father has recently been diagnosed with leukemia. While we are sad to host Cosmas under less than pleasant circumstances, it has been nice to have him with us. Cosmas was Joe's Maasai language helper and employee when he transitioned to the bush. He currently serves with a former CMF teammate helping to produce Bible studies and other written materials in the Maasai language as well as serves on the Maasai Advisory Committee and NBTI board.


Please rejoice with us in our abundance of blessing from our visitors! And, as always, if you find yourself in the neighborhood, please consider yourself welcome!

Cultural Differences

One of the joys (and sometimes struggles!) of living in another culture is learning about cultural differences. This past week, we hosted the manager of our Kajiado Training Centre, Paul Lupempe, at our house. While he was with us, we talked about writing thank you notes to those who are supporting the centre directly. With the note, we thought it would be good to send a group shot of the centre staff. Paul agreed to go back and send one to us by email that we could have printed.

Here is the first version we received...
















We then explained to Paul that most Americans like to see smiling faces in pictures. As a result, here is version two that was sent with the letter...















What a difference a smile makes!