Wednesday - Jambo, friends! #2

It’s 9:30 pm here, which means it’s only lunchtime for those of you in OKC (9 hour time difference).

I am so pleased to be writing to you from Kenya for the 2nd year in a row! I came the first year without enough knowledge about this country to even have expectations of what I might find here. Every sight and experience was so exotic and foreign; it was too much to take in. This year, as I stepped out of the airport and felt the air and saw the jungle-like greenery mixed in with the city roads & buildings, it was all so familiar it felt like returning home after a long absence.

It ‘makes my heart sing’ (to quote Fridah) to see the evolution the library has made in only one year’s time. It’s beautifully painted, inside and out, and *best* of all: it is now FULL OF BOOKS! With the 20 foot container of books our church sent last year and the generous donation from a publisher here in Kenya, we estimate that we have around 10,000 books and another 10,000 textbooks. We’ve catalogued nearly half of the books but have not begun to put them on their shelves yet. Thank goodness (or should I thank Fridah?) for all the student & teacher volunteers who have been working with us.

We can tell whenever the children at the neighboring Kaaga School for the Deaf have a break in classes because we can see their heads pop up in all the library’s windows. They also try to sneak in the door at least a dozen times a day. It is a blessing to have children on the receiving end of our mission because gratitude is shown openly, without inhibition, and it is never false. I let 3 children look at one book once & it kept them totally quiet and engrossed for almost 10 full minutes. We all can’t wait to get the library up & functioning.

As you sit there shivering in the cold, I’d like to take this opportunity to kick you when you’re down: everyday we enjoy sunshine, perfect 70-something degree weather, and no humidity. Everything is so green here. Nothing is brown or dying & it seems like they must have every type of plant, bush, flower & tree that is in existence. There is so much variety (palm trees, banana trees, poinsettia bushes, tall grasses, cacti, trees with flat tops, trees that look like they came out of Dr. Seuss books, trees that are-no exaggeration- 50 feet tall, coffee bushes, weeping willows…) and everything is flourishing. Every shade of green is represented everywhere you look, and the backdrop of blue sky & strikingly white & enormous clouds make them look all the richer.

Until next time,

Katie McLain