Almost home

In heathrow now. Eight hours away now from Kenya. I miss the place a ton already Paul was/is a good host and awesome friend and i'll miss the good times.

I'm still excited though to get home and see friends i haven't seen for over a month. Also can't wait to see my dog Syd.

See you all when i get back.

Pauls parents both have/had surgery so keep them in prayer for the procedures/recoveries.

Amboseli

Had a nice last 2 full days in Kenya at Amboseli. Probably will just touch a few highlights as it was a long time and i think the pictures will speak for themselves.

We stayed at Ol Tukai lodge and it was incredible. great atmosphere, great food, a pool (oh man so nice), and nice service. Probably the most posh place i've ever stayed and it was like seventy dollars a night.

Biggest highlight of the trip though was seeing a female lion run 3 cheetah off a fresh kill and seeing her dragging the corpse of the antelope and eventually calling the rest of her pride and eating it. Probably one of the coolest things i've seen.

I have more stories but i'd have too much to write so ask me in person. :) Got around 600 pics from the park alone. O.o

Excited to be home but sad to leave. See you all soon.

P.S. Paul is looking for a bride and he's pretty much incredible. so ladies. i'll give you his number. :P

Nakuru National park

Went to my first game park today. My knees are scorched. Spent the whole day, roof off, sitting on top of Pauls SUV cruising the park, photoing game, and just relaxing.

First thing we did when we got there was buy tickets to get into the park. That was our first sighting of animals. Just a few feet away there was a monkey running all over someones car. All the people were inside and it just sat there. They tried to scare it off by turning on the windshield wipers and it just stood there resting its hands on their windshield when they werent moving.

After that we made our way into the park. Even though there hadn't been much rain the place was beautiful. Much more green and lush than the camp. Almost as soon as we entered the park there was a herd of about one hundred buffalo. Not even 30 feet off the road next to us was a lone hyena. I yelled at it, it looked up and i got some decent shots. Went a bit farther and closer to Lake Nakuru and saw a whole horde of flamingo, pelican, and various other water fowl. Also spotted some various antelope, gazelles, waterbucks, and a rhino.

Took another route and headed up a huge cliff to a humongous over look. It looked over most of the park and especially the lake area. It was breathtaking looking down and seeing animals and seeing the great vastness and beauty of the area from above.

Made our way into the bush. It was beautiful lots of animals lots of beautiful scenery. Even spotted a lions leg. Unfortunately couldn't even get a full shot of the beast. Only the leg and the belly of the the 2nd lion.

Looking forward to going to ambiselli on monday .

Those first shots that i'm uploading are of the semi active volcano longonot.

Goodbyes

Camp is officially over and i said alot of goodbyes. I'll miss alot of the good people i spent time with. One dude in particular Julius Juma was the man (pictured) well it's not working now so later it'll be up lol.

Got a nice letter from the neighboring orphan kids thanking me for befriending them. It put a smile on my face.

Went to jane's house again and had another great time. I took some pictures this time some of her house which are uploading as i'm writing this. Also a vid of me quad riding in there. Also she took us into her house and saw a huge bunch of trophys. Tons of tusks and skulls and a huge lion skin on the wall. Quite incredible.

Leaving tommorow for some game parks and really looking forward too it.

AHHH HUGE THINGY

sorry that was just to get your attention. last few days have been good. last full day of camp ended tonight.

Dad caught an egytptian cobra today. luckily it was too young to even bite. I thought it was a mamba but paul was convinced it was a cobra.

Also caught a lizard the other day too. He was running. i grabbed his tail. Of course being a lizard it popped off and started bleeding and he ran under a desk. i finally wore him out and grabbed the little bugger.

Paul baked us a cake today. It was real sweet of him. He's pretty much my cooking rolemodel.

next week getting ready to go to some game parks. WOOO HOOO

Climbing mount Lukenya

First full day of camp today and finally got a chance during free time to climb the mount.

It was a great hike. Lotsa uphill of course but fun and definetly not a cakewalk. There was lots of cow poop everywhere. Apparently the maasai who are a nomad cow herding tribe take them up the mountain. Don't ask me how i dind't think cows were that nimble but they do.

Man o man the view at the top was incredible. We climbed onto this rock jutting off the mountain and could see for miles and miles in almost every direction. The elevation was i want to say around 7000 feet. I think we just sat there for around fifteen minutes. it was that beautiful.

Dad was panting all the way. but he made it :)

After we got down the mountain there was a nice sized rock face that we could freeclimb so me and paul did that while my dad stood at the bottom taking pictures. Was a good view as well. Not quite as high but still a fun climb.

I'll post a couple pics in this post and some more on my album later.

Start of the last week

Last week of camp is starting today. Have around 100 new kids and quite a few new counselors all of whom it was a pleasure to meet.

One of the new counselors this week, mark, is only twenty five and is already a doctor. Maybe i'm out of touch but that seems really young.

My padre is here and having a good time. he's taken lots of pictures and videos and had some good times i hope.

Talked to my mom this morning over skype. Even used videochat. It's pretty amazing. If both people have the skype program it's free computer to computer calling and something like 2cents a minute for computer to phone. Definetly worth a look into.

I'll be posting some new pics shortly.

Stoneys

If you haven't tried it we need it in the states. It's a tasty beverage made from ginger root and it makes your tummy tingle. That sounds pretty retarded but that's the best way to describe it.

Oh yah i was watching a show called timewarp and there's something i saw i have to try. Apparently if you fill a beer bottle with water, cup your hand over the top, then smack the top of the bottle the bottom of the bottle will explode.

Definitely on the to do list.

Watched some will ferell SnL tonight. Jeoporday is brilliant. Wow i didn't think i spelled that right but the interwebs aren't underlining it so it must be ok.

So i need to be filled in on what's going on in the states. Any big news? How are gas prices? i'm really curious. It's only been two weeks but it feels like an eternity.

That girl with the devil hair is gatwiri. hahaha.

Another week done

Another full week of camp done. it's been a good one and i'm just chilling now.

After camp I traveled with some of the orphans, james, amigo, samuel went back to their place and hung out for a bit. then i watched a rousing game of football between them and a team from aonther camp place. They lost 2 to 1 but it was still fun to watch.

After the game there was a huge pack of camel right next to the field it was pretty great.

Dads arriving tommorow and then we're off to the whitie market.

Wazemu day

It was a good day today. Last full day before camp is over.

Got the group together and played a rousing game of big ball volleyball.

Then me and james just chilled and talked with people during freetime. Some people from the orphanage where james is from came down and i met a buncha cool people. Also met this really cool swedish girl named moa who's training to be a nursing assistant. Seems like everywhere i go i meet someone taking up that career.

After a bit we got a real game of volleyball going. it was pretty rousing. Had a few good volleys and bump, set, spikes combos. It was a good time.

My buddy julius went to town today because apparently he won a phone for some contest. After he got there they told him they wouldn't get it till monday. how dismal.

Right before dinner played a crazy game of four square. Paul is a savage, a savage at taking out peoples knees and crushing their feet. haha. Paul is cruel but i still like him. hahaha. I hope he reads this.

Mm

I guess i choose the title as a sort of sigh of contentedness. Just got back from a good service tonight and took a look up at the open skies, the stars, and the blowing grass revealed by the moonlight. It's a beautiful night. It is more often than not here in africa and it's nice.

It was another smooth day at camp. Went during afternoon freetime and helped paul paint the bedroom of his house. It's really quite an amazing house on the camp property. Built it from the ground up with his own plans, materials, and hired work.

Looking forward to another good day tommorow.

Somebody shake your neighbor!

Start of week 2 at camp

The week has started a little slow. The camp this week was really slow to arrive. Some of the campers didn't arrive till around 8 pm. Most were supposed to arrive around 3 pm.

That doesn't mean the day was bad tho. It was really fun meeting lots of new people and getting a new sense of comfort around people i already knew. Me, Zach (a kenyan zach), Amigo, James, and Samuel played some smaller games i've never seen before and they were pretty fun. Definetly a good laugh and definetly something i'll bring back to the states.

Good night all a new day awaits tommorow.

edit: O YAH how could i forget. so i'm asking paul for swahili phrases. I was how i say "you are cool" he tells me "wewe ni Matako." Silly me for believing him. So a counselor claire walks by and i unknowingly say this to her. Apparently it means "You are a butt" in an extremely derogatory way....haha. Thanks paul. haha.

Another sunday

Another great message today from a pastor named olly. It was a message focusing on faith and trusting God. Some of his main passages were Hebrews 11:1 and 6 and also parts of habakkuk. He also did a message for sunday school and used a great hand example which i can't remember. :(

After church we went to to an ethiopian restaurant named Habesha. I didn't really know what to expect. They served us a bunch of sauces and dips on a massive platter and we all picked up this food with a roll of fermented bread/slime which seconded as your napkin. It was actually really good. Definetly a strange experience but definetly worth it.

Bike ride

After we got back from the ostrich ranch paul took a short nap and we went bike riding behind the camp on a ranch.

It was probably the closest thing i've done to pure africa. We went on dirt roads right through the middle of packs of eland, zebra, giraffe, and wildebeast. I was maybe 70 feet from a whole pack of giraffe.

I could look for miles and not see one building. It was a truly beautiful thing. The sun was beating down, the breeze blowing through the grass and animals running around and grazing.

I'll put up some pictures later.

Maasai Ostrich farm

Slept in till 11:30 today. whoops.

once i had showered we headed to the Ostrich farm it was pretty fantastic. We ate some tasty ostrich then i got to ride one. I jumped on the beast and was pretty much dragged around by a couple kenyans.



Oh yah and i bought an ostrich skin wallet.

Old british ladies house

After the campers finally left and we chilled for a bit we headed up to a british ladie friend of pauls residence. The road was really really bad that way but it was really worth it.

We saw quite a few zebra, giraffe, and other creatures on the way and for the first time i saw the live animal of the head we have on our wall. A eland.

I didn't know what to expect at this ladies house but it was incredible. She had a grass roof with tons of animal horns, and trophys, and even a huge lion skin on the wall. We sat on their back porch and had tea and some fruitcake with her and her daughter. All of this looking out on an absoloutely incredible view of the area. Probably the best view i've seen yet.

Last day of camp for the week

Today was the last day of camp for the week.

Woke up this morning and felt a lump on my leg. pulled it off. turned out it was a tick. He was sucking my blood apparently. Kinda nasty but went right back to sleep.

It was sad saying goodbye to the kids that i'd met but i think they learned quite a bit and i'm hoping they'll retain all they learned.

I gave my number to a few kids so who knows how that'll go. The African way is to call and immediately hang up so that the richer person (aka the whitie) does the calling back and pays for the call.

Not sure what's planned for the rest of the day but i'll keep you updated.

Since i've forgotten. Swahili words to learn.

I've been slacking i promised to do a daily word and now it's time to catch up.

Hii Ni Yako - "Is this yours?"

Kimbia - "Run"

Sasa - "Hi"

Habari Yako - "How are you"

Rest of the day

The rest of the day was quite a blast. After a kids soccer tournament we played a full soccer game on the full field. I was able to get a few good runs and connected with my friend for some clean goals.

Today was the day i also finally felt the burn. my arms, neck, nose, and back of my legs are scorched. i'm slapping on sunscreen every 2 hours haha.

Had a a well thought out message tonight from our speaker ken. The highlight for me was the comparing of gargoyles who come alive at night to christians who only come alive on the Lord's day.

oh yah and i found a tree frog in the bathroom today. I wasn't sure as to the toxicity of it so i let it go. it had real mad hops though. took me a few minutes to catch the little bugger. haha.

Hopefully i'll be unburned by tommorow. Or i hope it rains. i'd love to see a hard rain here.

Mid day 3rd day

I'm being overcome with the culture. i already say "yah" after every question. maybe i'll come back to the states with an accent. that'd be fun :P

another good day so far. played some more games and stuff. I think i'm gonna be posting less often as something incredible doesn't happen each day and it's wearing on me to try and remember and type up everything that goes on.

If you guys have questions please ask and if there's enough to say on it i'll write a full blog post on it.

So lemme know.

Day 2 of camp.

Started the day waking up an hour earlier than i had too. whoops.

First order of business in the morning was breakfast which i skipped and went with andy and headed up the cabin inspection. The guys, as expected had alot to work on.

after cabin inspections we had morning service. Our speaker was a kenyan named ken. quite fitting i think. He was one of the people who took a 3 day bus from zambia. He's enrolled in bible college down there right now. The message was quite good and the main thing i took away from it was the phrase, "Our responses determine our successes" in otherwords our reactions to everyday things will determine how much success we have in the future.

After the message me, paul, frances, and on of their guards headed to town to buy some supplies. Paul went his own way the guard another and me and frances went to buy maize and green beans. The market was a bunch of wooden poles with old tarps strewn accross the top. It seemed like one of the lowest points in africa. It smelled, there was rotten food all over the place, but it was a strangely enjoyable experience.

As me and frances went around buying no english was spoken and everytime frances tried to buy something they would point at me and use me as the excuse for why they were overcharging. After all i'm a whitie i must be rich. Eventually we got our goods and headed back to camp.

i'm gonna skip ahead as not much exciting happened between then and the next activity.

Finally right before dinner we had a gaming event. In one game we lined up three intertubes and a bench. The goal of this game was to take a cup full of water through this obstacle course and dump it into a bucket at the end of the course. Here's the catch though. The whole team the opposing team is on either side throwing dodgeballs at you trying to knock the cup out of your hand. Needless to say it was pure chaos. people flying around, people faceplanting, it was incredibly hilarious.

I'm about to head to our second message today. The camp has been very enjoyable so far and i look forward to what tommorow brings.

First day of camp

Camp starts at 3 so i was able to sleep til 10. That was nice. I think i've finally gotten used to the different time zone. 11 hour difference is still much more extreme than i thought it would be.

went down to camp and met a few new people. we talked about all sorts of stuff it was really nice to just jump in and have casual conversation with them. i even put a beetle in my mouth. not sure what kind it was, but afterwards they said it was a dung beetle. I hope not. It did taste funny.

i've got names coming out my ears so i dont know what i'm going to do. i'm gonna say them here just so i can keep track. we have claire, ken, joe, zach, ricky, justice, more as i remember lol.

camp has been great so far. it's now about 8 pm and it's been a full day. campers arrived and me and paul, well paul mostly, climbed up on top of the bus, tossed down some bags while everyone else carried them to the meeting house.

after we got the bags down we had team meetings, then got the kids to their cabins and then played a rousing game of Big ball volleyball.

For this game you had teams of about 80 on each side and would just try and get the ball over the rope. every 15 seconds the whistle would blow and whatever side had the ball got a point. The team with the most points loses. There was screaming and hollering and chanting. It was amazingly fun.

After that we had a delicious dinner with rice and stew. Man it was good. Earlier in the day we had some collared greens and rice meal or something. not quite as good haha.

About to leave for service so hopefully tommorow i'll get some pictures of the camp and get more up as i didn't have my camera with me all day.

Thanks for the comments guys, keep asking questions i'll be happy to answer.

also, please excuse bad english. i'm really just trying to pour out my thoughts as they come :P

Day 2

Started off the day well. First night and only woke up once. definetly happy about that.

Headed to to church and heard a sermon from a indian man named sukesh. It was a really good sermon. He used the testimony of paul as the lesson and talked about repentance, faith, and the difference between belief in God and believing God. He used some examples from jonah for repentance and i was really happy to see that he was not afraid to preach about how God was not just a happy, loving, never angry God. Nice to know that the gospel is not getting dumbed down like it is in the states.

Met some really fun people named, claire, gordon, and vincentm and another kid from rwanda whose name escapes me. They came up and talked to me so that was a nice gesture :)

After church played soccer with some of the kids. That was really fun. A couple of the boys were quite good and there celebrations were hilarious.

After the service we went to pick up some vegetables a lady named pam buys for paul at the market, then went to pick up some mail and eat.

We got indian food and it tasted great but made me feel slightly queasy. I had some amazing passion fruit juice though and some actually quite terrible mint pineapple. yuck.

Headed home after that but not without alot of traffic coming the other way because there was a rally car race. It was cool to see a buncha nice cars but strange to see them in this country where there are so many poor.

First day in Kenya

Arrived in kenya and it took forever to get a visa. there were two lines and you guessed it i chose the real real slow one. I eventually got through the line and it was around 8:20 am and my bags were right there waiting for me.

Got out and found paul right away and headed to town to get some supplies and eat. the city is amazing it's very slummy but very beautiful. We did alot in my opinion but according to paul we did nothing.

First thing when we left the airport we were harassed by a policeman. Then paul pulled out the big guns and scared him off.

This is gonna be kinda sporatic fyi i'm trying to pull memories from all day. haha.

O yah they have a dog named turbo. it has to be the best name over. After going through highschool saying woah there turbo so much it's hilarious to know an animal with that name.

Last memory before i call it for the day is the driving. You have to be a madman swerving in and out of traffic, playing chicken, if you don't drive aggresive you get left in the dust. my kinda town :D

Alright well i'll talk to you guys tommorow if not sooner. Thanks to God that i made it safe and thanks to paul for having me.

Landing in Nairobi

Well this is it. The last 20 minutes of the flight. Culture shock here we come. I can't wait to see everything and get settled it's going to be great. Talk to you all again when i reach the camp.

Another Late Night

I'm finally on the plan in flight to nairobi. I'm flying on Virgin Atlantic. I'm not sure if any of you guys saw the terrible music video called "flying the flag" i think it was. The crew kindof reminds me of the crew in the video haha. Dinner is about to come around. I hope it's a little different than last time but who knows.

I'm sitting next to a spanish man who is going to nairobi to do some translation for what appears to be interpol. He's a pretty interesting guy his english is fairly limited as far as speaking although i think he can read it well.

Its alot different from last flight in that so far we haven't crossed any water and we seem to be flying quite a bit lower so i'm seeing all the cities below. Pretty neat.

Around 6-7 hours till i land. According to my clock it's 2:22 pm washington time, 10:20 pm England time and i'll be landing in nairobi at 7 am. I'm so out of wack. I managed some sleep though, light sleep, before we took off.

I got a little extra sleep to because we had to actually redock and refuel cause someone had an allergic reaction on the plane. I'm not really sure how much this is gonna throw of my flight time. I'm hoping not too much. It's unfortunate i dont have a way to get ahold of paul who's picking me up

Talk to you all again on the ground.

edit: the battery life on my new apple is brilliant. I think i can get around 6 hours on a charge..mmmm

Heathrow

Well this is fairly dismal. Still no internet and now no power either. Grrr. No phone for that matter either.

On a lighter/stranger note the first lady i talked to in the airport was an indian lady. She looked at my ticket and saw zachariah and she was like "O like zach from high school musical".....YAY..... Also saw a lady walking the opposite way on those flat escelators. Maybe she wanted a workout as she was rather large.

Hopefully i'll get some internet and power so i can get these blogs up....

update: Woo hhoooo found power. Still can't get internet tho >.> Had to buy a 30 dollar converter to plug in. Good thing it works in 150 different countries. It's actually pretty nifty.

2 Hours Til London

Well, i don't think i slept. Landing in a couple hours i think and then i'll have a good 7 hours to nap in heathrow. You can take the airplane blankets right? I'll take your silence as a yes.

Hahaha wow i just saw one of the flight attendants try and flirt with another one by blocking the aisle with his cart. Amusing.

I wonder what it's gonna be like in the airport at nairobi. I guess i'll know in about 15 hours.

Flight Night

Well i'm in flight now. Decided to write something up even though i wont be able to post it till i land. Just bought a new laptop before the trip and it took me all of two hours to finally find the text document program.

Flight is good so far. a few bumps but i like the bumps. It makes the whole experience feel like a roller coaster. I guess if i could have my way the whole flight would be loaded with turbulence. I guess i'm just weird like that.

The flight attendants all seem pretty nice except for one anal dude that didn't like me taking a whole row despite their being only 66 people on the flight. haha.

Just ate dinner it was teriyaki chicken....doh. good but i have it all the time. THIS IS CROSS CONTINENT I WANT EXOTIC!

I think there's about 7 and a half hours left on the flight. I'm gonna watch some Wall-E then catch some Z's. Talk to you again on the ground.

Requesting prayer

Already complications have arisen. The two camp leaders Paul and Mary Ann Weaver are not going to be there for the camp as Mary Ann has been diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia. So they'll have to do brain surgery to separate the blood vessel that is pressing on that nerve and causing on the pain.

So I'll be there with their son Paul doing the camp. So prayer for Mary Ann and us leading the camp would be appreciated. Especially for Mary Ann.

I leave tomorrow. Hopefully the flight will go smoothly. I'll be in the air for around 18 hours so it's gonna be a long one.

Thanks for the support i'll see you when i return.

2 days to go

2 days till departure. Wow, i'm nervous. Got shots out of the way today. 2 in the right to in the left. Yellow fever, Hepatitis A, and polio. Dad insisted i didn't need this one but i insisted "Dude, I don't wanna be paralyzed"

So much left to do. Better get on it.

Preparation

Well it's a late evening and I've decided to start a blog and get it up and running before i head off to Africa for a month. I'll be there November 20th to December 20th and I'll be working on a mission camp/safarii (plural of safariring?). I've seen a schedule of the camp but i'm not really sure what i'm getting myself into. I'm going to be a counselor and i don't think i'm any where near spiritually ready to help even those with limited knowledge to an understanding of christ. I guess i should probably be preparing even now.

I'm really excited, nervous, anxious, i hope it goes well.