Wild Strawberries

Logic is an interesting animal- things that make So Much Sense in one's own head can be rather off-base.

My best example is the time my father tried to poison me.

I was probably 3 or 4 years old, and our family went hiking a lot. So of course my mother had instructed me to never eat anything I found in the woods, no matter how good it looked- it could poison me. In typical Gac "squeeze all the learning out of every moment" fashion, we had discussed how big bodies might not be as susceptible to poison as small bodies because it would be dispersed in a greater mass (ok, we might not have used the word dispersed, but then again, we might have). So it was especially important that I, as a tiny person, not eat even a taste of something that could harm me.

It was a Sunday afternoon a few months later, and I remember that I had been a bit of a pill earlier in the day. My wise father took me off my mother's hands for the afternoon, and we went to hike at East Fork. It's now one of my favorite places in the world, pictured here:

It was late June, and Dad found a patch of wild strawberries in some shady glen. Wanting to share the experience with his young strawberry-loving daughter, he invited me to try some.

I quite logically assumed that, as punishment for being a pain earlier in the day, he was trying to poison me. I hadn't quite grasped the "consider the character of the person making the argument" aspect of debate, and I had a mental rebuttal for every reason he gave. He said, "Look, I'm eating them!" I thought, "Yes, but you have a bigger body. Poison won't affect you as much." He said, "They look good, don't they?" But I knew, "Poison might look good. Like in the Garden of Eden. It's still poison." And so I cried and got worked up and absolutely refused to eat the strawberries he was offering me. It was all so logical, though I didn't explain my thought process to my dad- I just sobbed, sniffled, and shook my head.

A few years ago, I recounted this story to my parents, who had never heard it before. We all had a good laugh at my familiar strong will. But it made me think: how often do we follow the same pattern with our Heavenly Father? How often do we apply our limited, makes-sense-to-me understanding to His actions? What exquisite gifts do we miss out on because we refuse to consider the character of the One making the offer?

So, my friends, may you accept the wild strawberries you happen upon today...

Hiking the Ngong Hills

Yesterday, 5 friends and I hiked the Ngong Hills. This was my second time (first here), and it was much easier with no culture shock and, well, a slightly less eggplant-shaped body. The men still hiked faster, of course. When we topped the first hill, they had drawn quite the admiring crowd.

This time our guard was Humphrey. He says his gun is a ?G-4?, which I made a point to ask about since it raised such a comment storm last time. He stated that he's never actually seen any bad guys on the trail, which is good I suppose. Anyhow, we girls felt quite safe, and here we are triumphant at the top of the highest hill.

On the way back, we had fabulous conversation about competitive cheese-chasing (apparently there is a televised sport involving pursuing a giant wheel of cheese down an alpine slope), and I took the defining photograph of the Lehman-Barnett rock band. Too bad none of them play instruments.
The day ended beautifully with a nap under a shade tree and Ethiopian food for supper (shiro-wat makes my heart sing, appropriate for Valentine's Day). What a very good day!

Eau de Seventh Grade Boy

This priceless distillation of middle school boy was relayed to me by his mom, when his team dressed up for an important soccer game...

Mom: Wow, buddy, you look great! What will the girls say?
Boy: Don't worry, Mom. That's why I'm not wearing deodorant.

Birthday Dinner Pic

Faces from left to right: Jess, Wendy, Chris R, Kim, Jessie, Chris L, and Dalina

Summary: great friends and mediocre Thai food. Did I mention the great friends? =)

Middle School Banquet 09

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This year's banquet again had delicious Indian food, round tables, and strings of lights. We all stuffed ourselves and had a fabulous time.

More Grocery Adventures

I'm pretty decent at food shopping these days, though a trip to the vegetable stand and Nakumatt still holds its challenges. I know and plan for it to be a multi-hour commitment, between driving there, greeting the stand owner, finding out whether she has what I need and if not if she knows anyone who does, then driving over the the shopping center, experiencing the world of Nakumatt, bringing the groceries home, then cleaning/soaking/deboning/repackaging the appropriate parts. The store is constantly being reorganized- today I saw beer next to Tom Yum sauce- so there's not much predictability in product location. Add that to the mental gymnastics of planning a week's worth of meals from scratch, translating that into quantities of staple ingredients (how much flour do I need to make tortillas, ginger cookies, that one chicken dish, dinner rolls, and banana bread this week?), and then being familiar enough with the recipes that I can adjust/substitute/recover when one or more ingredients is inevitably AWOL... On the plus side, I don't find myself haggling over prices anymore; I know what's reasonable to pay, I have a relationship with the people I regularly purchase from, and they quote me the real price right off.

But today I had a new mission: bread crumbs. I decided to bravely try to make Chicken Parmigiana from scratch for supper tonight, on the hope that it would turn out well and be a meal I can predictably serve to guests. I wanted some these pre-packaged bread crumbs that are great for coating chicken. I know they exist. I have some in my freezer. How they got there I couldn't tell you, but they are good and useful. The packaging looks cheap enough that I suspect they came from Nakumatt and are actually produced in the store, increasing my chances of finding them. But I had never bought them nor seen them on the shelves. Despite these obstacles, I decided to venture forth with hope and not despair: I put bread crumbs on my list.

I arrived at Nakumatt this morning during Stocking Time. Now, when I told my friend Beth this story, she heard it as Stalking Time and giggled. I responded that yes, I was stalking my prey of bread crumbs; she informed me that she meant the kind of stalking that creepy men do, and thought it was funny that there was a specific time set aside for that. Hm. Well, I might have been stalked while at Nakumatt, and I was indeed stalking the breadcrumbs like a lioness, and fortunately someone was also stocking the bread crumbs while I stalked. I procured the new ingredient without the usual 14-times-round-the-store search! 'Twas a miracle.

As it turned out, the Chicken Parmigiana was guest-worthy, so I have more good food to add to my repertoire. Stalking/stocking/stalking was well worth it.

First Weekend Back

Diving back into school at the start of a semester is always challenging, but my students did well. We were all pretty exhausted by the end of the day Friday, though, so I'm glad I've had such a restful and pleasant weekend. Here's the rundown, you gluttons for boring details:

Friday after school: Bus duty. Every other day for 18 weeks, I stay a few extra hours after school and make sure everybody's doing what they're supposed to be doing. Basically I halt elementary kids who are playing and ask them who's watching them. If they can't point to the mom/dad/driver, we start making phone calls. This week there were two little munchkins who were un-picked-up for some reason, so we hung out and tried to solve the problem until I eventually dropped them off at the elementary principal's house for safekeeping. (Another reason I don't want to be an administrator). But a bizarre benefit to the whole experience- the aforementioned administrator has found Good Milk here!! It comes from the organic food store and can only be purchased on Wednesdays (of course), but it is Good Milk! She gave me a liter in her great kindness, and I have been drinking it all weekend.

Friday night: Bollywood at Wendy's. A bunch of friends got together to make mini-pizzas and watch a movie. This evening's treasure was Dhoom 2, a mix of action-adventure-romance and of course catchy musical numbers. It lasted a long time, was in Hindi, and was just so dramatic. A noteworthy experience.

Saturday: The National Museum. My friend Dalina will be taking her class there on a field trip later this week, so Chris L and I joined her to scope the joint and write 3rd-grade-appropriate questions about the exhibits. The museum gets a solid B in my opinion. It's not huge, but it's interesting, and it's somewhere I've driven past for a year and a half and wanted to go in. A good activity on a rainy Saturday.

Hey! It rained on Saturday and Sunday! Remember, it's summer here- hot and dry. And Kenya's experiencing a drought that's putting lots of folks in danger of starvation. So this rain was quite welcome; it's truly a miracle to have rain in January. But we're still doing water conservation measures like saving our shower water to use to flush the toilet. So please keep praying about the food shortages in Kenya.

Saturday night: DP & Australia. DP stands for Diamond Plaza, the El Parasol of Indian food. Cheap, basic, unhealthy, and phenomenally delicious/addictive. Australia was the movie Australia. It was epic.

Sunday morning: a pleasant early run on the track- the cassia trees are starting to bloom. When the flame trees are in bloom, I think they're my favorite. Same with the jacarandas. But I've changed my mind again- the cassias are my favorite. =) Church was also good, as was lunch afterwards. Dalina contributed ranch dressing to our wraps, and Chris can now saute chicken. Big step forward.

And finally, this evening I spent with some Wheaton-connected friends and their kids. This husband's an excellent cook, the wife is serious about her relationship with Christ, and the kids are smart and delightful. I had a wonderful time.

The gaps in the weekend were a nice mix of sudoku (new big book from my parents for Christmas), Numb3rs (featuring the most handsome man on television, or on DVD as it were), and naps. I am well rested and looking forward to this upcoming week of school! I like living in Nairobi. =)