Sunday, January 9, 2011

Mom and Dad are here

I am writing this Sunday evening and I hear that all my family and friends in Alberta are stuck in a blizzard, and even some church services have been cancelled and the roads are horrid. I will pray for you all and in the meantime enjoy the beautiful weather here.

My parents have been very supportive of my trip to Kenya and the work I am doing here. When I told them things were falling into place for me to go my parents responded with: we will come visit. So Tuesday I went into Nairobi and picked them up at the airport after a long wait of seeing them through the glass while they were picking up their baggage I could finally give them a hug.
The next day after a stop at Nakumatt we headed of to Tenwek
Dad excited to see a bag of Red beans in Nairobi
Mom and Dad experienced  the long drive to Tenwek - beautiful at one point as you look down and across the Rift Valley and drive down through it - pictures do not do justice. Once we arrived at Tenwek is was time to walk around meet some people and get settled in.
The next day was a tour of the hospital where Mom and Dad had Chai with the ICU nurses as well as saw the nursery including the quadruplets (please pray for the quads as they have an infection) Mom also was able to watch a C-section in the afternoon. Dad was more than happy to stay as far away from the hospital as possible and talk to the yard men.
Mom and Dad at the Waterfall

Enjoying Chai and Mandazi in ICU with the staff
A day at the hospital done, Friday we went for a walk, being in a Rural part of Kenya ladies wear skirts, so Mom and I hiked in our skirts
Our hike brought us to the top of Motigo the local high point and it is great to see the view you can see previous pictures of Motigo here. I was quite happy that we made it to the top and that we did not get lost as I had always hiked it with people who  knew the way and never paid a lot of attention to the direction we were going.

Those of you who know my parents well know how much they (Dad) loves to see farms. There was never a family trip without touring a farm whether it was the San Joquin Valley in California or a dairy in Ontario or a green house in Holland. A vacation was not complete without it. Therefore when I heard my parents were coming to visit I found a farm to visit. Saturday we took off to Kericho were we had a tour of a large tea farm, factory and a green house full of roses, it was great to see a different side of Kenya and see how tea is made.
Heather and I in the tea

Harvesting the tea by machine, much of it is still hand plucked.
Tea and trees as far as you can see all run by the same company


At the end of the tour we stopped for some lunch we were quite excited to see burgers on the menu I ordered the beef burger, Dad the pineapple burger and Heather the cheese burger. When our food (finally) arrived I had a normal hamburger, Dad had a burger with pineapple - no meat and Heather, well she got a cheeseburger - no meat she had ordered cheese. Many surprises in Kenya.

So this is Marie blogging now. The next time I hike in Kananaskis, will I wear a long skirt? Today was so special, I still am pinching myself to see if it is real. After church we were invited to a co-worker'  for chai. We walked over hill and dale, and he met us at the end of the path which lead to where he and his wife lived. It was about a 20 minute walk, which he and his wife make daily to work at the hospital. What a beautiful commute. Both have very good jobs. He owns a small farm which produces far more than he can eat. For instance, he grew three varieties of dry beans which yielded 50kg in total each. They eat some and sell the rest.We visited in his home and felt very blessed by each others company. They are so happy to own land. They hire people to help with harvesting, because they work full time. Someone milks the two cows and pans out the milk. I think of the lifestyle of a couple in Canada where both have good jobs--quite different.

2 comments:

  1. It is so good to see your parents on the blog! How fun to share this experience with them. I love your perspective with the blog, and it is so great to read about the visit with your folks. I laughed when I read about your dad steering clear of the c-section experience, and then again when you wrote about visiting a farm. So very appropriate to visit a farm.

    Enjoy the rest of their visit - please pass along a hello to them both.

    spot

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  2. Annette, it made our day to see your Mom and dad on your blog. Farm visits rock, just ask my kids about visiting the Bega cheese Museum in Australia:) Calia is home sick today so she is reading over my shoulder and says a big hello. I am not sure about the hiking in skirts thing? I would be concerned about bugs or getting it caught on something.Enjoy the visit and keep posting.

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