Ellen'e e-mail excerpts JAn 12-Jan 17 2007

jans

January 12 2007

Hey. Sorry for the slow reply. Things have been very busy back in Shirati. It is so weird. Last year at this time we were struggling thru drought and heat. Now we are having tons of rain and it is almost chilly. Isaac has been off of school and he worked up our garden area and we planted some stuff. Of course now it will probably stop raining. With the rain comes allergies. Both Alex and I have been sneezing and sniffling. The other morning I woke up at 4am and was sneezing like crazy!!! Now I just take a Benadryl before bed.

It is very hard to get rest in. I have been working hard at being sure we are eating good, tasty meals which means I need to spend more time teaching Stella. I made a menu for 2 weeks and so far the first several days have gone well. It stinks though that with the rain brings additional electricity problems which has made the fridge not work. We were running the generator some which helped, but yesterday the fuel line blew off it and it spewed diesel everywhere!!!! I am happy to say that when there is electricity, the guys at the pump house at the lake have been diligent in pumping water and we have yet to run out since we got back.

This week Kezia was gone. Her sister died (there have been a lot of deaths the last 2-3 months. On Thursday, our good friend Dr. Chirangi, his dad died unexpectedly. We ran to his house to pray with him and hug him before friends drove him to Musoma to be with his mom and family. Keith is going to the funeral tomorrow and I am staying here with the kids. I know I will not have the energy for the all-day affair, even though the stubborn side of me wants to go anyway. I have strict orders, more on that later.). Anyway, without Kezia I had to do all the wash by hand which was a real drag as I have been doing very little physical stuff. Part of me felt really good to “work”, though. The worst to wash are jeans and towels which we usually don’t go through much of here, but since it is raining and chilly there are a lot of muddy and sandy things to wash!!!!

It looks like we will be arriving home on Feb 10-12th. Not definite yet. As soon as I know, I’ll let you know!!! I am very excited to see you, too!!! I want to go with you to Starbucks at the airport first thing!!!! I don’t know how many people will be there…probably most of Keith’s family; Chet, Sandy and the boys; and others from our church. It may be a bit chaotic and we may be very tired, overwhelmed and culture-shocked….just to let you know. We have been living this other life for a year and a half now and I don’t know how each of us will react to being home. Also, I would like to spend at least a few days with you, but not all at once. Maybe we could do that overdue weekend to Baltimore??? But then I know my guys really want to go there also (we love Phillips restaurant). At this point most of our weekends have speaking engagements, but there is at least one that is still open. I can’t find the schedule at this moment!!!! I could also just hang out and help you with whatever you need help with. And by the way…I believe you have me way up on a pedestal!!!! I can think of a few times when I wasn’t there for you (before Africa) as much as I wanted to be. I thought it was hard (being there for you) when we moved to the farm!!!! Little did I know what God had in store for us all, huh?.


OOPS…Now January 11th. Life has been too busy and when Keith is here he is usually on the computer. Since I last typed this, we have had no rain whatsoever! I KNEW that would happen if we planted a garden1!! Now it is getting hot again. February is the hottest month, so it will be quite strange to go back to really cold weather. Thanks so much for collecting the clothes for us!! Oh yeah, and the official date and time that we arrive in Philly is Feb 10th (Saturday) 2:20 pm. Hopefully there won’t be a lot of snow or anything so that air and road travel will go smoothly. We are all so excited. We have a schedule up on our wall and are working at planning and organizing visits, etc. (so let me know of some dates that you would like me to invade your space) We will be staying at the MCC Welcoming Place in Akron. We stayed there for one of our training sessions a couple years ago, it is a cool place.

I read a somewhat sobering e-mail from Kevin and Sharon. Basically it stated that they did not think it wise that I be here in Shirati, and were concerned that I would not get the rest I need. They reluctantly gave their blessings because they stated that I was forceful!!!!! (which I was, absolutely). They did include that it was very possible that I would not return from the States and that I need to consider saying my good-byes now. This is very hard to take. Sure, I would love to go home, but I’m just not ready yet. It is not time to leave here and I can’t say why. They also stated that if I lost any weight or got any worse otherwise that they would expect Clair to keep me in the States for medical leave. (ok now, no praying for me to lose 10lbs!). It was just very hard to read for whatever reason. So, I am trying to be careful, but as you can imagine it is quite a challenge.

As far as school, I cringe when I hear that word. We have not even completed our first year and honestly I don’t know how much more we will get done. I have been doing a few lessons this week and last, mostly math with the boys and reading and writing with Leah. I feel like I have failed so badly, but I don’t know what else I could have done. Life here is extremely taxing both physically and emotionally. Getting school done at home had its challenges to get through a school year. Don’t know what I was thinking. Just today, let’s see….I had a really bad night’s sleep with allergies again and had sneezing episodes throughout the night. I took more Benadryl and woke up in a post allergic/antihistamine fog and really late. Keith was gracious and got up earlier and cooked breakfast for everyone (he’s done that twice since Nairobi…what’s the world coming to???). Even so, I jumped out of bed at 8:45 and boiled and strained the milk, made some more oatmeal for William and Stella, did some dishes, etc. I already had Stella’s list written out from the night before, but I had to go over everything with her which is no big deal. I cut Keith’s hair, which probably takes me longer than it should. Kezia was sick yesterday and didn’t come today. There was a lot of laundry to do and even though I was really, really tired, I did it anyway figuring that Kezia will most likely not come tomorrow either and the laundry pile will not miraculously shrink by then!!! The bathtub was full of clothes, towels, etc. and it took me over 2 hours to do it all. I had to wash stuff twice as the water was so gross the first time. My hands still ache from wringing and scrubbing. (I thought after last week’s laundry washing they wouldn’t hurt so much, but the soap is quite harsh and burns any cuts and scratches you have….nasty). It was after 1pm when I was done and Stella still wasn’t finished with her work. She is usually done by 12 or 12:30, so I helped her finish up with things. Everything is done from scratch. We had beef fajitas for lunch and as we were preparing the tortillas, I thought about how much I miss buying a few packs of tortillas at Aldi’s and how easy it was!!!! I made the boys work on the mountain of dishes, pots and pans as I just couldn’t stick my hands in more soapy water. They have helped out a lot since Nairobi and haven’t been too upset about it either. We finally ate lunch around 2 and I cleaned up, etc. I feel I have to be fairly fastidious about keeping things clean as we frequently get critters (big ants, roaches the size of your thumb, scorpions, etc) and I really try to discourage their visits!!!! About 2:30 I laid down and passed out until 5pm. I did indulge and read for a half hour or so (The Crewel Yule book…it was pretty good and I was itching to do some sort of crafty thing as I read it!). then went outside to get laundry and our friend Samwel was sitting out there. He heard I was sleeping and didn’t want to disturb me!!! Luckily he had only just arrived (or so he said). Keith and I talked with him for a long time. We are having a number of issues with Aloi (the guy we got the hand pedaled bike for) and his family. They just want more and more and more. This is how it goes here. This family is extremely poor with six kids and another on the way. The mom is a maid in the hospital. Anyway, the kids are down at our house all the time (better since Nairobi) and would even come before we were out of bed in the morning and call “Mama Leah” outside until I got up. Another tactic was the other kids would push Aloi’s bike into the yard at a good clip and Aloi would crash into the side of the house. Of course I would go out and yell at them to not do that and I’m sure that was quite amusing to them. Anyway, yesterday, two of them (Esther and Beetay) came to me and were trying to explain something to me. They wanted something and they said they had told me about it before Nairobi and now they wanted me to follow through. We had to call Samwel as I couldn’t fully understand what they wanted and we needed a translator (it is so hard to “get it”. It is so tiring and frustrating…just missing a word or infix, which is a two letter insert into a verb, totally changes the meaning of the communication!!!). Samwel said they wanted us to build them a house!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, right!!!! I told him in no way did I agree to such a thing and explained a limited conversation I had with them a couple months ago. He agreed that I had not committed to anything and that they were misunderstanding the whole thing (maybe intentionally, but Samwel would never say something like that ). Anyway, Samwel was here today and we had a lengthy conversation. He spoke to their mom and told her to get better control of her children in a number of regards. Also she needs to be sure that the bike is better taken care of. Literally it is broken every day!!!! It is abused completely. I don’t regret collecting funds for it and giving it to Aloi as it has changed his life for the better, it is just frustrating that it will not last as long as I had hoped. We had “washed our hands” of any further repairs before Nairobi and they still came to use our air pump at least once a day. We gave them an air pump, too, but now that is also broken. Samwel is pretty upset about the whole thing. So, we had a good discussion with him and he left around 7pm. I ate some dinner and began using the computer at 7:30. I am still feeling quite tired and will only do this e-mail (novella) and then go to bed. Most days go like this. I feel like so little gets done and just living takes way too much time. I fear that education-wise I have hurt the kids, but I don’t feel I can/could push any harder. Boarding school is/was not an option. I just trust that God did not bring us here for our ruin and hopefully the kids will do ok. Keith reminds me that in the scheme of things, if the kids begin back in a public school setting a year behind, it’s not that big of a deal. That’s true, I just expected much more out of myself. I feel I have done nothing well here. I have done a lot of things haphazardly. It is hard to do things well when there is no rhythm, no predictability so to speak. The predictable part is that things will not go as you expect them to.

Alleluia, it is raining!!!! Well, bye for now and sorry again that it took me so long…. Love you lots,

Keith has had a very busy and tiring time back. Last week he went to an all day funeral in Musoma (2 hours away) and then to Mwanza (5 hours away) 2 days later. He jokes with folks back home that he is so looking forward to DRIVING in the States. The roads are worse than ever right now with all the freak rains we have gotten and still are receiving.



Guess I’m not cut out for missionary life, at least not the way this experience has been set up.

Anyway, As far as arrangements: I personally would LOVE to stay at your guys house for a day or 2, if that is ok and if Peter could cook his London broil there would be several very happy Hummels!!! A salad would be great, too. As far as Dr. appointments, I’m not sure yet what things will be like. Overall, I feel ok. I don’t know how much of it is Africa and how much of it is my body. I would like to have a week or two to be “home” and evaluate then whether or not I want to pursue further medical advice, and I will take care of those arrangements, Thanks!!!

We got your package last week and we have thouroughly enjoyed the Snowman soup and the candles and candy. Just the little ornaments and stockings we so meaningful as we don’t see things like that here and I didn’t think to pack any “sentimentals” to bring from home.