kenya :D

I am going to Kenya in three weeks! Rodgers is there already; he left Texas last week. He is staying for the whole summer, but I get to visit him for 2 weeks. I will leave June 10 and return June 25. I expect you know Kenya is in Africa, but for those who are not geography nerds, here are some maps:

Kenya is on the east side of Africa, bordering Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Lake Victoria, Tanzania, and the Indian Ocean. The Equator runs through the middle of Kenya.

The capitol is Nairobi. Rodgers and his family are from the coast. I will fly in to Mombasa. Rodgers will meet me at the airport. We will spend some time in the city there, but also spend some time out in the countryside with his mother. (That red triangle at the northern point of the country is a disputed border. Kenya controls it, but Ethiopia and Sudan also claim that area.)

Along the coastline, about 70 miles north of Mombasa is Malindi. Rodgers' family lives out in the country somewhere near Malindi. Of course, we will also make frequent visits to the beach - the "real" beach as Rodgers says.

Stereotypically, when people think of Africa, they think the weather is just hot. Either desert hot or hot and humid. Kenya is actually quite mild. Nairobi is cooler, since it is in the mountains (elevation is around 1 mile). Mombasa is not as cool as Nairobi, but as you can see from this chart the average high temperatures for every month are under 90 degrees. June is a cooler month. Depending on the source, the low average is either high 60s or low 70s. The high average temp for June is in the low to mid 80s. So, it will be much hotter here in Texas while I am there than it is in Mombasa. Of course, you will have a/c here, and I don't think most places in Kenya do.

I will be taking as many pictures as I possibly can. And I will have to remember to bring plenty of spare batteries, because I'm not sure if I'll be able to use my battery charger.

rodgers' graduation

Last Thursday was a momentous occasion for my Rodgers. He graduated from Blinn with an Associate Degree in Psychology! I'm so proud of my man! Here are some pics of the commencement.

Here I am arriving with 2 of Rodgers' moms (Pam in blue, Bonnie in black) and his Taiwanese girlfriend Poni.

The procession. Rodgers is about in the middle of this shot.

Still processing, he's got his arms crossed in this one.

Now all of his friends are screaming his name and cheering, so he is waving to us.

Here's Mom and I watching the graduates find their seats.

Rodgers with 2 of his moms at the after party.

At the after party.

hidden talents

Did you ever discover a talent that you didn't want to have? Something you really never wanted to do, but then you were forced to do it once and people who know about that sort of thing kept telling you how great you were at it. And you wished you could undo. No! I don't want to be good at that! Undo! Undo!

For no apparent reason, I started thinking about this today. The memory of discovering an unwanted talent has been haunting me since about 3:00 this afternoon.

I was making some tea to get me through the afternoon. As I was waiting for the water to boil, I was just standing in the kitchen with nothing to occupy myself. I caught my reflection in the mirror and started making faces at myself. This reminded me of a man who told me that he used to do that all the time as a child and that's how he practices now that HE'S A MIME.

While I was on Doulos, I had one day each week devoted to ministry outside my job. Sometimes, if there wasn't enough ministry lined up to do, they would hold ministry training sessions and assign us to attend them. They aren't actually training you to minister to people at all, but teaching you skits, miming, and the like. Once, I was assigned to a mime training session, led by a mime who happened to be staying on board with us for a week or so. As we know, a mime is a terrible thing to waste, so I went to my assigned training, grudgingly, as I have never wanted to be a mime.

So he taught us a mime to a song, probably by Ray Boltz (his songs naturally lend themselves to miming). We went step by step, verse by verse, practicing it for about an hour or so until we had it pretty well memorized. He also taught us a cute mime about a person picking an apple from a tree and giving half of it to a worm.

One of my friends deserted the training, feigning a headache. Actually she's severely creeped out by mimes.

I stuck it out to the end.

The next day, I was at work at the info/reception desk. This mime came up to me and told me how great I am at being a mime. He told me that I have great facial expressions/body language and should stick with miming.

I did not take his advice.

I have never wanted to be a mime and never enjoyed the times that I did miming. I don't ever want to do it again. It was a hidden talent of mine that I didn't want to discover. And now something as simple as making faces at myself in the mirror can bring up memories of the discovery which haunt me for hours.

[shuddering]

celebrating

It seemed to take forever. Some days I wondered if I would wind up having to walk everywhere in the future. But I did find a car to buy.

It's a 99 Camry, and it was a pretty great deal.

Meet Tallulah:

bacon

I always thought it looked like bacon. This cracks me up!

It would be a great way to get bacon, though.