welcome to funnytown

Despite the fact that I have been decently sick since approximately last Thursday {i.e. is it possible for one human to create this much snot?}, it has been a dang funny week. When my eyeballs were not burning and when I was wasn’t releasing loud Hutchins croups that scared off the children…I was laughing.

For those who were lucky enough to meet “Thi-mon” {or Simon for those of you who do not speak 7-year-old-with-two-missing-front-teeth}, I had the pleasure of sitting down with him to briefly record his family history for the benefit of his new sponsors, Erin and Sean. After ten minutes of counting out brothers and sisters to get a consistent number of each, Simon informed us that his father’s name was Joroline. “Funny.” I thought. “That is not a Kikuyu name.” We called in his older brother for backup. His father’s name is actually Stanley. Joroline happens to be the brand name imprinted on his father’s bicycle.



Next in line was Ibrahim Kamau, one of my favorite little nursery students. We all think Kamau is special…in one way or another. My goal in his case was also to gather a brief family history for Sean and Erin’s benefit…and again we called in for backup. Kamau could just not wait. He attempted to run away at least five times…but without any remote purpose…lightly drifting out the door like he could not figure out for the life of him why he was standing in the room. I managed to catch his boredom in a snapshot: chin on the table, one arm up, and I got one smile only. Ta-dah!


Mr. Robi was kind enough to drive my ladies and me to town yesterday to pick up some much-needed supplies for our recent influx of special orders {thank you, America!} despite his slight annoyance that we hadn’t planned ahead for this earlier in the week. I was excited about this trip. A} I had planned not bother Mr. Robi and to brave the public transportation for the first time…with the protection of Dorcas and Ann, of course. That plan was quickly de-bowed by Reuben. B} I was going to personally meet the local tanner who has been working with us to complete our briefcase bags…and some secret new products {stay tuned here}! I expected to pull up to a modest shop: dusty, dimly sit, rudimentary but functional old machinery. Nope. Negative. We rolled up on Joseph sitting on the curb in the parking lot across from the post office. The man cuts and stitches the leather by hand folks. This is Africa. And then Mr. Robi dropkicked a tennis ball when we got home. And it was hilarious.

I’ve somehow managed to get another watch tan. This one is even more awesome than the last because I am marked with the lines of my $15 Wal-Mart sports watch: much bigger, much more conspicuous. I have hardly been outside for the past three days! How did this happen, for the love of man?!?

I finally kicked the dang goose. Enough said.

And sunsets here are still awesome.