I Am Readying

I love some of the ways Kenyan English works. One of them is to take nouns and make them verbs. So I am readying. My Kenya mobile phone is charging right now, I am pulling out my ksh and my phone cards. Start taking the anti-malarials in a couple of days, press the Ketange, and think of all that is ahead.

I am carrying well over the weight limit in medications. I am also bringing tee shirts from Tiny Revolutionary to our littlest children. I will be building a pre-school (well the building is there) and teaching the ECD teachers how to help children be more creative. They will learn about sandboxes and water play and dress up. None of that happens over there now. I will go to the local department store and buy cups and pans and spoons for children to learn to measure and experiment. Originally Monica asked me to bring toys, but I am going to do her one better. I will teach child development, where I started 40 years ago.

I am reading "Cutting For Stone" which many are as well. One of the sentences I loved is:
"We live our lives going forward, and then think about them going backward." There is no such thing as wasting time. With all the things I have done sometimes I wondered why did I have to learn that? or wow I didn't need that graduate degreee...but it's not so. Every moment of life lines up for the next thing and many years down the road you may find that something learned a lifetime ago is just what you need at this moment in time.

I am so glad to be going home to Kenya. When I am away this long there is an ache in the pores of my body. I long for the smells and sounds. I miss driving with Francis, laughing with Monica and most of all the children swarming to touch my hair. I want to see the weather coming at us over the valleys, hear the pounding of the rain on the tin roofs.

Check in on our website to follow my adventures. The blog is moving over there this week. I will always leave a link here for you to get there, but if you want to see what's happening it will be on our website. www.onevillageatatime.org

Do join me. I will try and open up the world for all of you.
Opak Ruoth