it's a hamster

Nate is extremely verbal. He has no inner monologue - he says aloud everything that's in his head.

As he's running to the kitchen, "I wanna tell Daddy, 'It's a chip!'"
He arrives in the kitchen, "Daddy! It's a chip!"

He has a great vocabulary. He even knows the names of some things in English and Swahili, though he isn't completely bilingual.

He mispronounces some things cutely, such as yo-yurk for yogurt.

But sometimes, he just calls things by the wrong name. Some are understandable, but some, I have no idea.

Any big truck is a "choo-choo."
He has a toy monster truck that he calls "helicopter." In other cases, he properly identifies truck vs. helicopter, but this particular truck is a helicopter.
Anything with a screen, though it may be a TV, is a "'puter."
The tag in his shirt is a "ticket."
Most birds are "penguins."
My emery board is a "hamster."

learning to pray

As Nate learns to pray, we are focusing on thanksgiving. My thoughts on this are that I don't want his introduction to prayer to be asking God for things, but also thanks is a simple aspect of prayer for him to understand.

I adore Nate's prayers. I have never told him what to pray. Rather, I pray thanks for various aspects of our day and our lives, then I tell him he can have a turn, too. He prays whatever he wants. Sometimes he prays things that are very sweet. Sometimes he prays things that an adult would never thank God for (but might be thinking!).

Occasionally, I write Nate's prayers down in my prayer journal. They are things I want to remember in years to come, but there is no space for this in his baby book.

Tonight, Nate prayed:

Thank you, Jesus, I had fun playing in the dirt. Thank you for Daddy, and for Ben, and for Nate, and for Mama, and for poop, and for chocolate, and for Don and the [con]ductor [characters from Dinosaur Train]. Amen.

it's bean day!

The first week we were here, Nate hardly ate anything at all. Then, we visited our friends Francis and Constance. Constance served us a lovely lunch of maharagwe nazi (beans cooked with coconut milk) and chapati (flatbread). Nate ate more than I did. The following Saturday, we made out own maharagwe nazi and decided that henceforth, Saturday is bean day.

We start by sorting the beans. Nate loves this part. We throw the “yucky beans” on the ground and put the “nummy beans” in the pot. Then, we wash the nummy beans.

I soak them overnight. I’ve done a quick soak before by simmering them for a few hours (when I had a crock pot), but I prefer soaking overnight. It just takes a little planning. In the morning, I make sure there is still water in the pot (sometimes I put too many beans and not enough water, and all the water gets absorbed by morning).

clean beans

cooking beans

Around 4 in the afternoon, we begin the cooking part. The beans are washed again and drained. Then, we put them on the stove to start cooking with some spices (whatever strikes our fancy on that particular day). I think they cook for about an hour, but honestly, I have no idea. When we think about it, we taste test to see if they are getting ready.

Kenyan kitchen essentials: mbuzi and machete

Meanwhile, Rodgers shreds the coconut. I should get more practice with the mbuzi (literally: goat), but usually he does it because he’s just more efficient. Before we had the mbuzi, he used a spoon.

The juice (Rodgers says, “It’s just water.”) from the middle of the coconut is poured out. We don’t use that part. I don’t know why.

The shredded coconut goes into the kifumbu (sieve). He squeezes it and squishes it to get the coconut milk out. When no more comes out, Rodgers sets it in a small bowl of water, then squeezes it some more.

We add the coconut milk to the beans when they are almost cooked and let them simmer until they are done.

We are no good at making chapati (yet!), so we go down the street to a little restaurant (or sometimes just a woman with a stool and a chapati jiko) and buy a few for 15 shillings each.

Karibuni kwa siku ya maharagwe! (Welcome to bean day!)

relocating to Kenya: with kids

When I lived overseas previously, I was neither married nor a parent. There are a lot of new things I've had to take into consideration this time.

First of all, diapers. Diapers are not used much here, therefore, they are very expensive. We have seen both Huggies and Pampers, but the more affordable disposables (which are still more expensive than disposables in the US) are not very good. We made the decision to switch to cloth diapers based on this. Since all of our laundry is being line-dried, I have Ben mostly in flats. Flat diapers are the super-old-fashioned kind of cloth diapers. They dry fast, though! Nate still wears diapers for sleeping and when we leave home, but awake at home, he's either in undies or naked.

Nate's little potty for downstairs, since all of our bathrooms are upstairs

Which brings us to potty training...We have had some potty training regression since moving, but he seems to be getting back into the swing of things. If I could get him to pee outside on the ground, we could ditch having him in diapers away from home, which I think would help progress, and I think he is ready for that again. With limited availability of public restrooms (and those that do exist are not sitting potties), he needs to be able to pee standing up before he can leave home in undies again.

Next, feeding them. There are several brands of formula here; we went with Nestle. We had brought Good Start with us to transition Ben gradually. We use bottled water for our drinking water, including mixing Ben's formula. We couldn't bring as much Good Start as I wanted to, but he transitioned just fine with the small amount we brought.

There is not a big variety of pureed baby food available in stores here. We were able to find a blender, though, so I have been making Ben's baby food. I never did this when Nate was a baby, but it's really easy.

Which brings us to Nate's food. I try to feed him what we eat, but he's not always willing. If we have leftover beans and rice in the fridge, though, he's good to go. He regularly asks for his favorite American snacks, but we haven't been able to find most of them. We have been trying out all kinds of snack food here to find some kind of replacements, with limited success. We have some cereal that is very close to Honey Nut Cheerios, but his favorite Kenyan cereal is bran flakes with raisins.

Then there are also things to consider like malaria pills (both boys are on a pediatric anti-malarial), mosquito repellent (DEET is the best repellent, and though not generally recommended to use on small children, it's not as dangerous as malaria, and is what the pedi told us to use), and shots (like Nate's typhoid and yellow fever shots; Ben hasn't had any extras yet, but he will when he's 9 months old).

We have a car, which makes getting around town so easy. Without the kids, Rodgers and I would probably take matatus (15 passenger public transport mini-buses) most of the time. Getting 2 small children in and out of a matatu would be a hassle. We have a double stroller, but will likely only use it when we are flying. I have seen some strollers being used at the mall, but most places aren't really stroller accessible. I wear Ben, and Nate walks or Rodgers holds him (or he goes in the shopping cart if we're somewhere that has them).

In a lot of ways, taking care of them isn't really that different than in the US. As my mom said this week, with a little creativity, you can make anything work!

ice cream

Church service here lasts all day. Since I don't understand enough Swahili to "get" everything that's going on, and since Nate doesn't have the attention span for it or the stamina to skip lunch, we just go to the "English service" (semi-English, semi-Swahili) and go home.

Of the four Sundays we've been here, Rodgers has preached 3. One Sunday, he preached in 2 services, but that's not the point. He was asked to preach during the Swahili service again this week. There is some time between the end of the English service and the sermon in the Swahili service, so he brought us home around 10:15, ran a couple of errands, then went back to church to preach.

I expected him to be gone at least 4 hours. It takes 3 minutes to get from our driveway to the dirt road that leads to the church and 5-10 minutes from the paved road to the church, though it's a very short distance. But I know that the service is long, plus there are meetings afterwards (for what? I do not know.)

I started to get a little anxious when he wasn't home by 3, but I was sure he'd be home soon. I texted him around 4, just to make sure he was still breathing. He is out of texts on his cell phone plan this month (for sending texts), but I thought he could call me if he wasn't in the middle of praying or something. He didn't. I called him around 5. He just told me, "Sorry, I got stuck here. I hope I'll be home soon," and left it at that. (Later I found out they'd gone to the home of one church member who had a new baby to do a dedication service, and of course the parents fed everyone, so it took a few hours.)

So we waited. I fed the kids dinner. I ate dinner. We started getting ready for bedtime. Finally, he came home around 6:45. He said, "It's been a long day. You look worn out. Let's go get ice cream."

There is a decent ice cream shop not far from home (in a real live shopping mall), so we headed there, with the boys in pjs. Being Sunday night, the mall was super busy, so I picked up the ice cream to go, and we ate it at home. We had strawberry, coconut, and chocolate with chocolate pieces. Nate's favorite is pink ice cream (strawberry).

Then, we resumed getting the boys ready for bed. For Nate's bedtime, we always read 4 books, say prayers, then sing Jesus Loves Me. I say a prayer first, then ask Nate what he wants to thank Jesus for today. He usually thanks Jesus for his soccer ball and either Sesame Street, Super Why, or Sid the Science Kid. Sometimes he thanks Jesus for his friends, Gigi, Grandpa, other relatives as they come to mind. Since getting his typhoid and yellow fever vaccines a couple of weeks ago, he has been saying thank you for "the shot's done."

Last night, Nate said, "Thank you, Jesus, for ice cream. Oh, and Daddy's ice cream. Oh, and Mama's ice cream. And Ben's ice cream." [note: Ben did not eat any ice cream]

It was so sweet, and yes, we are thankful for a yummy treat at the end of a long day.