Life is Different

Before we moved to Kenya, I knew life was going to be different. I just didn't know how it would be different. In case you are wondering, I thought I'd share some things.

We have a much bigger house in Kenya. The floors and walls are made of concrete and we have a rusty tin roof. The last family put in a type of self-stick tile floors throughout the family room, dining room, kitchen and a hallway. It's great! The house does not have a heating or cooling system. We use blankets when we are cold (it's winter here). I don't know what we will do when it's hot. There are bars on all of our windows and our door that has windows. Thankfully the bars protect us and are painted an offwhite color. They are as decorative as protective bars can be and I really don't mind them. Everybody has them.

Electricity is supposedly very expensive (we haven't been billed for any yet). One big implication for us is that we only turn on our water heater for 1-2 hours in the morning and 1 hour in the evening (if we have electricity to do so). The water heater is insulated by concrete so many days I have warm to hot water. We heat water on the stove for dishes and the boys' bath when we are out of warm water.

In the kitchen, we bought an all gas stove and oven. This means that I can cook without electricity. My oven doesn't have a temperature gauge. There is a big flame and a little flame and I turn my knob between the two to guess what temperature I am cooking at. We have been able to eat everything that I have baked so far. (Update-I found an oven thermometer, but I'm still having trouble keeping the temperature constant).

At night, we sleep under mosquito nets. I thought this might be oppressive, but it's really not. They are light colored and airy. At first, we had to close Nate's after he was asleep because he didn't like it. Now he requests to have his "tight" or closed most nights while he is falling asleep.

It's MUCH easier to get along in Kenya without electricity than it would be in the States. My kitchen only has two electric appliances, a refrigerator and a toaster. I have a big pantry and can often think of something to make without opening the fridge when I don't want to let the cool air out.

Driving is different. The vehicle that we rent has the driver's seat on the right and we drive on the left side of the road. I'm avoiding driving for the most part. I send Mbula, my househelper, to market on Fridays with a list of things to buy. She gets better prices than I would and I can rest at home for a bit.

Ordering at a restaurant is different. For our anniversary celebration, Todd and I went out to eat at the nicer of the two recommended restaurants in Machakos. There was a simple menu and we ordered, but the waiter had to come back and tell us that about half of the items we ordered were unavailable. So, we changed our order until we could get things that we thought we would like. Surprisingly, this doesn't stress us out. We just shrug our shoulders and say, "Oh well."

We live on a college campus next to a building that holds the cafeteria/chapel and at least two other activity rooms. There is music being played everyday, starting around 7am two days a week and music or activities almost everynight, till maybe 10pm. We feel a little old, but we know it's also dealing with culture shock that makes us exhausted, often by 8:30 or 9pm and we go to bed listening to music from the neighboring building.

That's enough differences for now. Life is good. God is faithful.