North Church Youth
 
As it turns out, Lydia and Caroline also stayed in Kenya with Ellen and Callie at Joseph’s home. After we said our goodbyes to the group Friday morning, we journeyed to Kakamega, Kenya where Joseph lives. We were greeted by his family (His wife, Anneh, his two sons, Chesil (6) and Tanzy (2), and his two nieces, Lucy and Yvonne) and were immediately immersed in daily Kenyan life. It turns out that a very large part of Kenya culture is food, food, and more food. We are gaining pounds by the hour.

On Saturday we accompanied Joseph and his family to his Seventh Day Adventist church. Afterwards we were given a tour of the nearby medical hospital. We began the tour by waltzing into the Psych Ward with the entire gang including the two small children. We shook the hands of all the patients who seemed to be very drugged.

Back home again to eat and eat some more. We played with the little ones and then headed to bed. Sunday brought a trip to the childhood home of Joseph. It was a forty five minute drive into the country, and when we arrived we were met by Joseph’s mother (Shosho Florence). She was an adorable little old biddy who welcomed us to her home. Lucy showed us around the compound and surrounding farmland, and we watched the harvesting of the sugarcane. Then we moseyed down to the riverside to collect water to prepare the midday meal with.

As you can guess soon came more food, lots of chapati of course. The skies began to darken with rainclouds as we said our goodbyes to Shosho, and we pulled away as it began to drizzle. It is a very different experience to see the day-to-day life of a Kenyan family than an American family. However, there are many similarities as well. We look forward to visiting the kids’ schools tommorow and exploring around Kakamega with the Okuya’s. We will hopefully be blogging more throughout the week as we have more computer opportunity at our guest house.