All Creatures Great and Small

The Kenya Diaries (vol. 13)

June 28, 2006

Lucia's Turn

Last night we got to stay up late and color in our coloring books until 9:30, as long as we stayed under our mosquito nets. This morning Mama washed everyone's hair in a bucket.

I like to help do the chores. Two days ago I got to help Mama with the laundry, and I even helped Ania mop the kitchen floor. Then we went out behind the school with the boys to their agriculture class. It was fun. All the boys had to bring their own hoe from home or else they couldn't come to school here.

Some of the boys found a toad and showed it to us. We couldn't touch it because it had poison on its skin. Then some other boys found a baby snake that looked like a gray worm. We played with it because the boys said it wasn't a poisonous kind. Mama says there are lots of very poisonous snakes in Kenya, and we have to be careful.

Then another boy found a baby bird, and Edwin found a clicker beetle. He brought it to me, and it clicked itself right up my sleeve! It was a day of creatures, and I like creatures. So thank you, Jesus! Amina.


Kevin's Turn

I have been busy adding more stuff to my gorilla hide-out.  They now have two panthers that have become agents. I built a car for them, and a garage with a big garage door to park it in.

This morning Daddy told us that if we swept the house really well, we could watch a movie this afternoon. There weren't enough brooms, so we made some Kenyan style out of sticks and palm branches. We did a good job, so after lunch we got to watch E.T. It was a really good movie.

Lucia said this: I didn't want to watch E.T., so Daddy put me on his shoulders and took me on a date to Rongai. He bought me a coke and I drank the whole thing. Then he bought me a purple scarf, but we didn't know how to put it on right, so the lady at the store tied it on my head. Then I got an orange whistle pop, and a ride home on a boda-boda. It was so much fun. I want to do it again.

We now have to wear bug spray whenever we go outside. It has been raining so much lately that there are lots of mosquitos.

Mama made chipati for supper, and she used a rolling pin to roll it out this time. We brought some to Peter the Cook, and he couldn't believe that Mama made it. It said it tasted perfectly Kenyan! That made Mama so happy!

Ania's Turn

Tonight when Daddy was reading Peter Pan to us, all of a sudden the room was full of really cool bugs. They were flying around all over the place. They had four wings, and were as big as dragon flies, but they were really termites. Philip, Lucia and I had fun catching the bugs and playing with them. Kevin didn't want to. They came through a big hole in our screen.




Philip's Turn

Captain Hook died tonight.