January 2002

Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

A number of you have noted recently that your e-mails to me have been returned to you with the message "host unknown." No, I haven’t changed my e-mail, and I think most of you who have tried have been successful in getting your messages through. So, if you try, and get the message "host unknown," please just try again.

So, since I was sending you the notice about e-mails, let me send along some of my observations of life here in Nairobi, from the perspective of my Justin, now 4 years old:

What does it mean to be a child in Nairobi?

• In your school lunch, at least once a week you get sugar cane for dessert
• When you go to the public pool to swim, you also get to ride a camel
• When you go to visit friends out of town, you see donkeys pulling carts, plus zebras and baboons along the way
• As in England, "french fries" are chips, "potato chips" are crisps, and here, banana crisps are as likely as the potato ones
• You mix three languages to threaten another child: "Wewe! I’ll tell my cucu!" ("Wewe" means "You!" "Cucu," pronounced shosho, means "grandmother" in Kikuyu)
• If one language doesn’t get your mother’s attention, try another one: Mama, come! Come, Mama … Mama! Kuja hapa!
• Seeing cows, goats, and chickens in the city is no big deal
  It’s normal to have monkeys watching from the garden wall as the laundry is being hung out to dry (never mind that they eat all the avocados on the tree just before they ripen…)
• Your favorite breakfast fruit is mango
• Your friends’ names are Afsatou, Abdulaye, Iohvanyo, Aisha, Kareem, Karimi, Nadya, Awor, Aimee, Younes, Chaoki, Wema, Taji, Baina, Upendo, Zawadi, Sanae, Wanjiku (Shiko), Wanja, and Wanjiru (Shiro), and Joseph
• Your favorite animals to talk about are lions, crocodiles, ostriches, and giraffes
• Worship singing in church involves drums and dancing, whether urban or rural. (Betcha can’t stand still and not clap!)
• You can buy your mom a dozen red roses on the street corner for about U.S. $1.20, but a small box of Kellogg’s Cornflakes costs about $8.50, and a gallon of gas costs $3.00
• You don’t know what a smooth road feels like
• The changing of the seasons means rain vs. dust vs. rain vs. dust
• After running errands in town, your mom prays a silent prayer of praise when she returns to find the car right where she parked it, even with all parts seemingly still intact
• Your mom makes you roll up the car window even on a hot day, so no one on the street will reach in and grab something
• Your school field trip takes you to the Giraffe Centre, where you go up to the balcony to be eye level with the giraffes, and they eat grass pellets right from your hand (you get "slimed" with a long grey tongue)
• At a local park you get to feed leaves to the ostriches over the fence (but watch out for your fingers!)
• January is the hottest month, and July is the month that for sure you have to wear both a sweater and a coat to school, as well as trousers (note trousers, not pants. Pants are underwear, but hopefully you’re wearing those too)
• You get invited to the 50th birthday party of a neighbor girl who is turning 7 years old. It’s just that those were the only invitations being sold at the supermarket.
• Your favorite Christmas present was a good-sized rooster and a hen, which you kept in the back garden during the days, and the kitchen at night, until they became dinner a few days later

So, there you have a peep into normal daily life here. For something special, enjoy some nyama choma (roast goat)!.

With love,

Marta (along with Justin and Imani)

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 37