paintings

yesterday (even though i still have tons of things to do before i leave town for the rest of the year to head back up to P-town for summer school and the new school year) my sister decided she'd try and save some money and have me paint an idea she saw on etsy.
I am sure she could have found someone more qualified to paint these on the 24x24 canvas
but i am cheaper (more like free) so she had me do it..

they will be going in reese and charlee's room in my sisters house

video of africa

I put this video together to show some of my pictures and some videos of the trip as well...
It's 10 minutes long, i know i know. No one really cares, but it means something to me and i love watching it and listening to the little kids voices.
Tell me how you like it..
ps. i now officially have one video up on youtube.

pps. don't watch from my blog, it cuts off half the screen. double click on the actual video to take you to YouTube. I don't know why it did that but oh well. hakuna-matata

Masai Tribe

While we were on safari we went to a village of the Masai and it was an interesting experience.

They are such an awesome people. It was amazing to go to their village and see how they live, and the huts the women built and how many cows their future wives will be and the rich culture that they live in everyday.

they did a dance for us to welcome us to their village. i wasn't paying attention to what the dance was for but i think that it is the dance they do after they kill a lion. (they have to kill a lion before they can get married)
There is a video on youtube of the dance that i unwillingly got swept into, scared me. Scott from the WOD team recorded it.

video credits to Scott Thomas.

this tribe is amazing athletically as well. not only do they kill lions, scary, but they can jump so high and make it look so effortless. I should have recruited a few for the volleyball team. This is a standing vertical. no approach. no help from their spears. some of the best jumpers didn't even have shoes.

this picture makes me cringe, and i'm sure it makes a lot of people cringe as well. but he is also so cute, look past the flies. In the Masai village they build their huts out of dung and in a circle so during the night their cows sleep in the middle of the village, so being resourceful people they make their huts out of cow dung and there are flies all over. The flies never bother them because since they are little they crawl on them and they can't even tell.
I wish i had a tolerance for bugs, but unfortunately while i was there i looked as though i was having a seizure trying to swat the flies away from my face.
One of the guys in our group Tad, had the joyful experience of accidentally sniffing up a fly as he was trying to take a picture i believe. That gives me some gross chills, yuck. sorry tad!

the huts that the women have to make for the men

Masai warriors

More Masai Warriors, i think the one on my left liked me a bit.

Safari in the Masai Mara

After a full week of hard work we went on safari in the Masai Mara and it was a lot of fun and amazing experience to see the animals in the wild.

You could do a 360 look and see nothing for miles and miles. No buildings, no power lines, nothing. The Mara was absolutely beautiful.
Luckily for us this year they have been working on the roads on the way to the Masai Mara and usually they are full of potholes and they said it used to take them 5-6 hours to get there, but this time we got there in 4!

We stopped at the Great Rift Valley lookout

the great rift valley

pollycup's van

We also stopped at a gas station to pick up snacks/sodas and samosa's that were delicious and ruth decided on the corn puffs. well, when you buy things in africa it doesn't taste nearly the same as the states and these were no exception. We think they were packaging peanuts that they tried to flavor (they had weird flavors too, this one was "tomato ketchup") We just couldn't eat them, they were horrible. Throughout the rest of the trip ruth and i had a mission of hiding them in eachothers bags, rooms, luggage when the other wasnt looking. this went on throughout the rest of the trip.
who won you might ask?
depends on if ruth unpacked her service bag yet... :)

Being at the Sarova Mara was luxerious. We had showers and toilets that actually worked! a nice comfortable bed and pillow that wasn't lumpy, and this tend even had wood floors.
Dad, when we go camping let's bring this tent ok?

i love these Acacia trees

i love the elephants

just chillin' in the mara like lion king

the whole group on safari

the point of safari is to see animals right?
we got extremely lucky on this safari to be able to see the big 5
(water buffalo, leopard, rhino, elephant, and lion) as well as an added bonus of cheetahs.

water buffalo


on our first mini safari outing on a saturday night we got extremely lucky. we saw a leopard!
and he climbed down the tree, posed and went back up the tree probably just for a good picture. thank you leopard you were beautiful.
They thought he had a kill up the tree, but i didn't see itisn't it lovely?

When it was time for our long day safari we had already seen 4 of the big 5! incredible.
half of the group was confident we would see a rhino, the other half not so sure. Rhinos are becoming very rare and endangered so they are hard to see, but like i said we were so lucky and saw one on our way to the hippos.
It was so awesome! too bad it didn't run at us...

we then saw a bunch of lions.
there was 2 males, one looked older than the other and about 5 cubs and a couple lioness's i love the coat on this lioness, it has some subtle spots going on


this guy was huge!they are such pretty animals


we saw cheetahs the second day as well and they were stalking some impala across the way.
there was a mom teaching three younger cheetahs probably how to hunt.
they just sit and watch their prey for hours and hours before the attack waiting to the perfect moment and studying which ones to get.
i love how the three are watching the older cheetah.


we made it to where the hippos sleep and layout during the day.
we also met Renaldo who took us on a tour to see the hippos and had his gun for safety just in case one decided to attack. Apparently hippos are the only animals that will kill humans just for fun.at the hippo pool with ritch

impala

zebra

this is the border of Kenya and Tanzania.
My right foot in Kenya, my left in Tanzania
i was in two places at once


one thing on my safari wish list was to see a good sunset while i was there.
luckily pollycup needed to go pick up some letters from a lady that lived on a Masai village so he let a few of us tag along and we would see a sunset.
it was beautiful and we got the acacia trees in the background :) i was a happy girlpollycup and i after he gave me my sunset!


The next morning anyone that wanted to went on a morning safari for the sunrise and to try and find some lions feeding.the beautiful sunrise on the Masai Mara


it was an amazing adventure on safari! i was so grateful for all the animals i got to see in the wild. it was so surreal.one of my favorite pictures of the acacia trees and the Mara sky

Forgiveness and a Pee Story.

while we were in Kenya, we did extra side visits to past projects or future projects.
One of them was Grace's school that the World of Difference team built in the past.
It was interesting because each morning our World of Difference team has a devotional and this one morning we happened to be talking about forgiveness and how last year in Kenya during the election there was a lot of fighting. We were talking to Kisii (george) about how scary Kenya was last year and that neighbors would fight and possibly kill or hurt neighbor's family members and now that the politics are getting better they had to learn how to forgive each other even after they did the things that we might think are unforgivable.
We talked about this in our morning devotional and when we went to Grace's school what else would the lesson be but about forgiveness.

this little girl i think was scared when she saw me but could not stop staring at me. so we started playing peek-a-boo

this little guy cracked me up!
he is crying because when he saw me he thought i was going to take him away! I am a little scary, but did he really have to cry!? That makes a girl feel good

We went to Pastor Jared's school and he is such an amazing man. I wish to get to know him more in the future, He is in the dark blue. I believe he got in an accident and his arm got amputated or maybe i have the story wrong but he turned his life fully around and now dedicates his time and money to this school he opened up and i believe there are over 200 kids that go to him for schooling and in that around 80 kids are ophaned and sleep at the school in 2 bedrooms. one bedroom for the girls and one for the boys and they sleep three people per bed. It is incredible what the kids have to go through and will do anything to get an education. It is also amazing to see people like Pastor Jared to dedicate their time for these children.
Unfortunately there was a new rule that passed that buildings within 30 feet of a river has to be torn down for sanitation purposes. Hopefully something can work out so these kids can have a place to live and go to school.

While we were here one of our members was donating t-shirts from the Trudi Thomas Memorial 5K that takes place for his sister because she got hit by a car when she was young and died and her dream was to come to Africa and help the children gain a good education and have a better life. Each year they do a 5K to raise money to send to Africa and help the children and that was why he was there, for her.
It was very emotional, I never heard this story until then and i looked around and tears are coming from nearly everyone's eyes including my own.
Then i feel something warm, but not the warmth from the story
this warmth started to trickle down my leg.

True to form the child i was holding felt the emotion as well and let it out on my left leg!
what do you do? i couldn't freak out, i couldn't start laughing either.
but i couldn't help it, i started crying harder, and laughing and i felt so rude but who gets peed on... in Africa?

here is the little guy right after the catastrophe

he looks so sad or scared. i can't figure it out

She is beautiful and couldn't stay away from Aissa (an awesome girl in the WOD group and my roommate)

This girl's name is Selma and she loved talking to me and was so sweet and kind.
I gave her a few of my outfits on my last day because she was just so adorable and nice and i loved seeing her everyday when i was at Eunice's school. She did not go to that school but lived right around the corner with her grandmother.

kevin peter and i at the work site.

half the WOD team moved hardcore in and broke it up into smaller pieces and leveled the ground some more, this is the middle of the school at Eunice's and eventually it levels out and we filled it all in. (ignore the buff man he wanted his picture taken)

I loved this girl's dress and the color.
I love how they wear colors its beautiful