babies and a birthday party

we have a couple families staying here with us at the TI compound.

katherine and her two little ones, anna (5), and joseph (3), are darling. the kids just love being here. they run around the compound dragging the guard dogs with them, along with any extra mud or dust they can find. its adorable, and quite the exciting adventure in even the smallest little things that only wee ones their age would notice... like following the ants to their hill, or the storks swooping over the backyard. it's all so exciting for them... and anna is currently reading over my shoulder as i write this blog. haha... hi anna.

she just read that and said "heeeey! why did you write that to meeee?!" as she tossed her head of curls that make her look like tarzan's child. oh she's a cutie.

the young couple we have staying here with us, mike and manon (man-oh), are amazing. we just adore them and their wee one, aliyah. its been a rough trip for them having to adjust to the time change along with life overseas with a one year old in tow. i dont know how they survive on so little sleep and still doing all they do during the day with their different projects in town. i love that manon's mother tongue is french. she speaks to aliyah in it... so, naturally, she also sings her french songs. it isnt uncommon to hear a soothing french lullaby wafting down the hall as she tries to get aliyah to bed. its so beautiful and surreal.

that said, manon wanted to have a surprise birthday party for mike... so on friday morning she got him out of the house to go meet with people at some projects they and a group of people from canada support. success! he was gone, and dan and lauren had covertly hired a few kenyan women to come and cook a feast for the 40 or so children that would be arriving around noon at the house.

at 9am, ina, michele, lauren and i went out to the side of the house where mark and derek (the newest TI staff members), had built 3 traditional kenyan firepits the day before. basically, just imagine three huge rocks in a triangle with space between them to build a medium sized campfire. on top of each of those, an army sized pot to hold cabbage (that we cut), tomatoes (that we boiled and then sliced), and a huge amount of meat and potatoes. most of the time michele and i didnt know what the crap we were doing, and the cooks corrected us, but we had a successful experience. along with all that was enough chapati (really thick flour tortillas) for the 40+ people.

it was alot of food.

the food was prepared and cooked for 3 hours and then the kids arrived. shortly afterwards, mike came back to the house and was thrilled that most of the kids from their projects had come to surprise him. he had no clue, so manon was pleased that the party was a success. the rest of the day was filled with laughter and games and pictures... and of course the eating of the food.

the kids loved the nailpolish i brought with me. ina and i painted toes and fingers for a good hour before the two bottles of polish id brought out were gone. they were such a hit. even some of the adult women asked for me to paint their nails... i hear the nailpolish will be an equally fantastic hit with the older kids as well as the young ones we saw at the party.