A Hike in the Hills

What some of us may call “mountains” are mere “hills” in Nepal. A mountain is something that towers above the clouds. Recently we joined friends for a hair-raising drive to a lovely hilly getaway at Namobuddha, just on the rim outside the city. Supposedly, there is a view of actual mountains from the hilltop resort, but we did not see any evidence of this. In late April in Kathmandu, after a long dusty winter where fires abound for warmth and heat, and before the monsoons have started to knock down factory and vehicle exhaust, everything is hazy.

Partiers wave an enthusiastic goodbye,
the kids can't get out quick enough.

Regardless, we enjoyed a lovely locally grown lunch while the kids pecked at their food and played on the hillside, and then took a hike over to one of the ubiquitous hilltop monasteries. Remarkable notes on the walk included, 1) actual trees in what could rightly be termed a forest, 2) a number of Nepali picnic-parties along the way, rife with loud music, local beer, and revelry (with one of such a giddy mood that all of us – especially the reluctant kids – were pulled in to participate in dancing / clapping / cheering), and 3) a high vantage point over a hazy valley that made one really, really wish the air would clear because the view must surely be spectacular.

Here are the we hikers as we set out.

Here they are again, at our destination. 

Nelsons Roll

I have to admit that I am doing a little back-dating blogging. I started several posts and didn't get them finished - time to catch up!

Starting with our home-leave: "Home-leave" is an official term meaning "minimum four weeks of extra paid vacation for the foreign service member so that you remember what it's like in America and also so you still think this job is cool after a few years' hard labor."

We Nelsons have been trained not to count on where we expect to be living or working in the future. For now, we can absolutely assured that we have a whole month to be on vacation in the US. Seize the day! Believe it or not, many foreign service members decry their enforced home leave... Why you ask? Because they have forgotten what it's like to have only 10 days' annual vacation? Probably, yes, but also because it is expensive. The majority of people would have trouble spending more than a reasonable one or so weeks at their in-laws, and  other places to stay generally cost money.

Our solution to this was to stay the one or so weeks at the respective in-laws', to travel between said in-laws' homes by our car which is wisely cared for by my parents while we are out of country, car-camping on our way from one to the other and back again. Thus, our schedule looked like this:

1. A week in Europe on the way, where we immersed ourselves in wine, bread, cheese, art, Parisian charm, and Disneyland

2. A few days in NM doing crazy-mad shopping that is hard for those not living in 3rd world countries to comprehend, as well as dentist and doc visits

3. Driving, camping, driving, etc, to include the following stops:

• Rock climbing in the Jemez, NM
• National forest near Pagosa Springs, CO
• Mesa Verde National Park, CO
• Arches NP, UT
• Zion NP, UT
• A'le'inn cafe along the Extra Terrestrial Highway in Rachel, NV (a quick stop so we could get out of NV before the tires melted)
• Mammoth Lakes, CA (in a BED)
• Yosemite NP, CA



The accomplished Junior Ranger in her favorite milieu.

• San Francisco, baby!

4. 10 days' worth of playing, 7-yr-old birthday celebrating, and avoiding forest-fire smoke inhalation at my in-laws' in OR

5. Driving, camping, driving, to include:

• Boise, ID, and a visit to an old college buddy of Andrew's
• Yellowstone NP, WY
• Grand Tetons NP, WY
• An night with a hotel shower and laundromat in lovely Laramie
• A few nights at one of our favorite haunts, my grandfather's house in CO

6. Back to NM for the last of the crazy shopping, packing, eating, and telling everyone we see how awesome our trip was.

Now, my dears, now, I sit in a lovely home in a cloudy city on the other side of the world. A city crammed with people, motorbikes, and houses that go UP; with rooftops where people gather, work, eat, and stare at us; where the dogs, roosters, and the locally-made horn blowing keep waking us up at night; where prayer flags flutter from buildings, marigolds decorate doors and gates, and people, dogs, and cows walk around with the red tikka on their foreheads. We can see the hills surrounding much of the Kathmandu valley from our own rooftop. I look around, think back to just 2 or 3 weeks ago, and wonder which experience is the dream. 

Reflections of a first tour

A couple weeks ago marked 18 months of living in Kenya. Since we are here for one (2-year) tour, we are now beginning the practicalities of getting to the next post, including figuring out the best school options without having visited, scheduling home leave, and closely related to both of these, putting through curtailment paperwork such that we may get home leave completed before the new school year starts. In addition, we need to get through medical clearance; figure out how much and which stuff here to give away, sell, burn or otherwise get rid of; identify what is in storage that should be sent on to next post; and start mentally detaching ourselves from Kenya.

This detachment is perhaps the most complicated; and is also irritatingly predicted in books on third culture kids or global nomads. In some ways, we cannot wait to leave. The robberies, hijacking, and police hijinx are commonplace and it is only by grace that we personally have not had more problems. Larger safety concerns about terrorism and national elections loom over all our activities, such that there is a travel lockdown enacted and school is already canceled during most of election week. On the other hand, we have an idyllic situation. We have friendly neighborhood cookouts; the kids chase each other on the playground and set up secret forts in each others' yards; I know all the kids in my daughter's class personally and chat with their parents on the playground after school.

Between going to the States over Christmas and a recent spate of visitors that included both friends and a visiting prison ministry team, I feel we have done an excess of putting either a rosy blush on things or emphasizing a dour outlook, depending on the situation. I suppose there is no true objective view of one's personal and situational circumstances, and, as I was telling a vendor at the Masai Market last week, the truth is that no matter where you are there is good and there is bad. Being in the foreign service, the question you always come back to is, "Is this a better life for our family than we could provide if we had stayed in America?" That is the true rubbing point.

In deference to my dear friend who recently told me, "I just don't want to mess up my kids!" I have been thinking about the "Kenya impact" on our daughter, who has now officially lived longer in our government housing in Nairobi than in any other location in her life.

• In the US, I would have walked her to the bus stop or driven her to the neighborhood school. Here, I walk her to school. Our school district in Virginia was a good one, but by its very nature and size would not have been as nurturing, individually-oriented, or parent-involved as our nearby Christian school here.

• In the US, Andrew's commute would have meant that our daughter almost didn't see him during the week, and here he is usually home at least 2 hours before her bedtime.

• In the US, having guards and soldiers would not be so commonplace that my daughter would express uncertainty if there wasn't one around.

• In the US, we would not have to rearrange our route home from lunch because students were protesting and burning tires in the middle of the main road, nor explain away why we are showing obvious concern at the number of people on foot rushing toward that site while we are trying to rush away in a locked car.

• In the US, our daughter would not have developed an ingrained sense of the need to visit and help orphans.

School  near Rift Valley / Western province borders so
rural the kids hadn't seen white people before.

• In the US, our daughter would not realize that the vast majority of people in rural areas of Kenya live in mud and dung huts, where they grow their food, herd cows and goats for a living, and collect water from puddles or muddy streams in jerry cans.  

• In the US, I would not feel the wrenching mama-bear need to protect my daughter from viewing the culture and non-urban attitude against women and girls that I have seen here with my own eyes and mourned in my own heart.

• In the US, I would not have looked into the faces of desperation, defeat, and hope which I have seen far more of in prisons here than I ever intended, and realized but for the grace of God it would be my husband in this place, the father of my child, and realize how much greater is the faith of others who can survive the intermittently applied justice in this country.

Prisoners in Migori, near Tanzanian border, enjoying our
ministry (and enjoying being photographed).

Honestly? If I'm really, truly honest: I'm tired of it. I'm tired of seeing how much need there is. In a country with bountiful natural resources, a thriving tourist trade, a huge port, and a populace that possesses ingenuity and understands hard work, why isn't it better here? (Reasons too numerous to count, we know). How are concerned Westerners supposed to deal with this? More specifically, how is our family supposed to deal with it? To our daughter, we are very matter-of-fact: it's just the way it is. Even for a 6-year-old, it's not a satisfactory explanation. On the one hand is my kid strapped into her safety seat in the diplomatic-plated vehicle with her coloring book in hand, and on the other is the dirty, barefoot kid on the side of the road carrying water on her head and her baby sister on her back. The difference between them comes down to which continent their DNA happened to be formed on. I am a woman of faith, and at some point I can hear my God saying to me, it's just the way it is.

I appreciate what we have been able to experience and learn in beautiful Kenya, but I think we'll be ready for a change of scenery.

Impressions of home

Eight days ago, my daughter and I arrived in the States for an extended Christmas holiday. (Hubby will be following shortly for a less extended vacation.) Immediately we notice a few sublime differences, unabashedly pointed out by my 6 year old in that way that kids have.


1. Thee road is so smooth! There are no potholes, no speed bumps.

2. It's COLD! (Followed quickly by, "SNOW!" and much running around inside and out)

3. You can drink water from the tap??

4. While watching the Grinch on TV, with real actual commercial breaks..."Why do they keep saying, 'buy this' and 'you need that' all the time?"

5. At the store: Can we get cherries? (yes.) Can we get strawberries? (yes.) Can we get toaster waffles? (yes.) Can we get fruit bars? (yes.)..... et cetera.

6. (2 hours after sundown in a parking lot) It is not dark out here! It can't be night time!

I for one, am enjoying the sedate style of driving and am getting over my shock at being able to safely and easily go out at night to run errands and do Christmas shopping.

Just sayin'

My daughter pointed it out. I have never said a thing out loud, though I have thought it every time we read this book...

Plimoth Plantation, a 1627 reproduction village, known to us from our love of the book Sarah Morton's Day 

Modern-day homestead in Western Kenya

Kwaheri

After a month of soccer, swimming, playing, swinging, animal-viewing, cooking, journaling, reading, pretending, camping, dancing, and partying, we have said goodbye to my dear friend and her two kids. Our kids have always gotten along very well, but I figured a month of together time would truly test the limits. Not true! Or rather, there didn't seem to be any limits. So our stand-in family has gone back to deal with reality, and we stay here suspended in this somewhere between the clouds and the African plains. We are sad they left, but sooo happy they came.

The 3 Musketeers watching Kenyan dances.

Things I don't miss

• Home Despot Depot
• Election year campaign ads
• Forecasts of "wintry mix"
• Cleaning toilets
• Hiring contractors
• Stink bugs and mosquito swarms
• DC-area customer service charm
• Utility bills
• Seeing zebras, rhinos, and giraffes at the zoo instead of in the wild

Why my housekeeper thinks I'm crazy...

Our housekeeper: a kind and cheerful emissary from the real Kenya into our own little Pleasantville. She cleans like a fiend, as noted in a previous post, and we are really her first expat family. With this comes a world of intercultural exchange and misunderstanding. So the top 10 reasons my housekeeper thinks I'm crazy, mind you from her perspective:

10. My child colors, cuts, hole-punches, glues, folds, and proudly displays every scrap of paper she can get her hands on... and I'm OK with it.

9. We do not shove all furniture against the walls.

8. We keep a tennis ball in the guest room.

7. We keep our shoes inside.

6. We have all these things sitting near the bathroom sink that she is forced to push into the far corner every day to make it habitable.

5. I had her make pasta and hand-cut it instead of using the perfectly good cutter on the pasta machine.

4. We keep used coffee grounds and eggshells in a can on the kitchen counter, and she is not allowed to throw them away and wash out the can.

3. We are obsessed about making sure the trashcan, dishwasher, and washing machine are full before anything is done about them.

2. We eat cheese but not goat.

1. I had her cook fish in the toaster.

Big time birthday

I took the kiddo to a classmate's birthday party today. May I just say, whoa. Bounce house, clown, horse rides, bungee trampoline, puppet show, magic show, not to mention food, cake, candy, playground, presents, all in a tranquil but extremely difficult to find nursery school campus.