Life at Tenwek (take II)

We have very much been enjoying our second stay at Tenwek.  In some ways it feels like we have only been gone a few months!  Rachel has been working 3 days a week at the hospital and taking call, and Eric has been helping the medicine and peds teams round on her off days, as well as leading worship at church and taking care of the kiddos.  We feel like we've settled into as much routine as we could have hoped for, given that this is only a 4 week stopover on our way to Burundi.  Thought we'd share some photo highlights with you from our 2 1/2 weeks so far.

The waterfall:  a classic Tenwek photo op. :)  The kids loved throwing rocks in the water.  We loved reminiscing about all our previous hikes.  Thought we had taken some previous family pictures (in 2010/11) at the waterfall but I guess not.

The chai ritual!  A great part of Kenyan life is the daily chai break, at home and at the hospital.  Rose, our beloved househelper who watched Maggie when I was at work, is working for another family here but they just happened to be on vacation during our month long stay.  So she agreed to come and help us out!  It is so great to see her again, and of course she makes awesome chai.  The kids can't get enough (since it's mostly milk and sugar).

The giggle tree:  We are staying at the guesthouse, not our old house down in the "lower compound."  It has its plusses and minuses.  One of the plusses is this tree.  Even Ben can climb up on the lowest branches, which are less than a foot off the ground.  There is also a trampoline and swing at the house next door to us, so there are lots of fun things to do all day outside.  And since the weather is perfect...

The turtles:  A long term family has always had at least a couple of turtles.  Maggie used to love going to visit, and in fact turtle (tuh-duh) was one of her first words.  Now there are 6 turtles and Ben enjoys them as much as Maggie.

The treehouse:  When we lived here before, a missionary kid and his grandpa built a treehouse right in front of the apartment building we stayed in.  In fact, it's more of a tree fortress and required supporting pillars under the tree branches.  Nice to see it's alive and well and being loved by many kids.

The guesthouse:  We never spent much time here during our previous stay, since it's just short termers who stay here.  But it's been fun this time to meet people (new visitors come almost daily), use the porch swing, play in the activity room, and run up and down all the stairs.

Jolly Green:  Our great McCropder van is still around!  We had sold it to another missionary family, who decided they were looking for something different, and sold it to a Kenyan pastor from Kericho.  He just happened to be taking some folks on a mission trip to Bomet and stopped by Tenwek to wash the van.  Looks like he has taken very good care of it.  John Cropsey's name is still clearly stenciled by the driver's side door. :)

Bethesda worship:  The regular worship leaders wasted no time in enlisting Eric and Jason to help lead worship.  Even though Eric didn't have a voice the first Sunday due to an unfortunate bout of laryngitis, he still played piano and guitar.  It has been wonderful to sing all our favorite Swahili songs again.  A careful observer will note the drummer, Asante Musyoka, all of about 6 yrs old.  He's actually quite good.

More of Bethesda...Maggie and Ben went to Sunday school last week, which was led by a short term missions team from Indiana. They loved the puppet show and then got to help act out the story of Noah.  Lots of little Kenyan kiddos and my two blondies, sitting in the back.

New friends!  There is a Urologist and his family here for 2 yrs, staying just down the sidewalk from us.  Their 3 yr old daughter Ivey has become fast friends with both Ben and Maggie.  Here they are playing in our kitchen cupboard (staying in the guesthouse means lots of empty cupboards for playing in, since we don't have anything to PUT in the cupboards!).

Learning some African drumming skills!

So, all in all we're having a great time!  We'll be here until August 2, then head back to Nairobi for a few days before leaving for Burundi August 5.  It's been a perfect transition for our family between France and Burundi.