Carroll's Final Words

Dear friends, We arrived back at Dulles yesterday. This was our busiest trip. I actually never even read the blog or emails. We had so much to do and so little time to get it all done.We appreciate all your prayers and love. We felt your prayers. Just surviving Nairobi traffic is a miracle. It has gotten awful. Often it took us 1 hour to get to the school. The kids are looking well and Patrick has worked so hard on the school spending the rotary money. I will report all at our next meeting. Our group of folks were wonderful. The clinic saw over 600 people. Katie was able to examine ears and diagnose and there were a lot of ear problems! The clinic took up 6-8 people and lasted for 7 days. We now have a wonderful nurse who takes care of the kids beautifully. Her name is Katherine and she is very smart and teaches health lessons also.I hope you read that the primary choir came home from Mombasa with 3 first place trophies! Can you imagine their self esteem after such an experience! Patrick has the computer lab going and the high school students are so excited. They did not want to leave. Some tried to stay through the next session. Tom, Angie and Debbie worked hard getting the lab finished before we left. Internet connection at the school is $50 per month and I felt it was essential for teaching, communication, etc. The spirit of the teachers was high and they loved the party we gave all of them and they all came.This is a wonderful way of getting to know them and showing how much we appreciate their hard work. I have my time all mixed up and I typed this without my glasses but I wanted all of you to know the trip was a blessing to all of us and we are thankful for a safe trip home. Blessings and love, Carroll

News From Tanzania

News from the team:
We arrived safely and had a great time at Tarangare National Park, Marangu and at KCMC. We are to visit the Masai clinic tomorrow and Panagani on Wednesday for some time at the Beach. The internet is slow so will be unable to post until back in Kenya. All are safe and enjoying Tanzania. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers for safe travels!

Just a little reminder

We are heading to Tanzania for a week. I do not think we will get internet for the next week. You can check the blog every few days and see if something gets posted. If we get some internet, than I will for surely put something up. Also, sorry about no pics from the field day. I had no time yesterday. I tried to get a few of the girls to post some pics while I was out, but I can see that did not get done. Van is here, so I got to get going. Take care everyone. 

another exhausting day

I ran out of time last night to post everything we did. It looks like I might run into a little trouble as well tonight. I am heading to the movies with Kate and Wayne, so I will try to get through as much as I can. I also am in the process of doing laundry. So I am multi tasking at the moment. 

First of all, I want to mention the traffic. I know everyone gets it by now. The troubles of travel here in the city. Yesterday was by far the most horrible traffic we have encountered. It was so miserable. It was the hottest day that we have been in Africa by far. We have not had many sunny days here. But yesterday the sun was out in full force. So, it was like sitting in an oven while traveling in the vans. We were suppose to get back to the school at 1. That ended up being close to 3. I thought we were going to have a few people pass out on our way. We surely did have a few people with farmers tan. Not O Aaron thou. I am from the sunshine state. So, bring on the sun! 

The school put on another performance for us. It was mostly for the people who were not with us the first day. It was still a great time. They did a few new songs this time. So it was a nice treat once again. Jane taught some of the kids how to use the recorders. They had a few days to practice a song and were put to the test. I was surprised. These kids had it down and performed it well. I was blow away by the time frame that they had to learn the song. But these kids are amazing. They continue to surprise me day by day. 

Today was the olympic day for the school. Mostly all the events were running events. I got to perform in the 100 meter dash. I say dash, but I was nearly crawling along. I did not realize how far 100 meters really was. I only had to compete against the teachers and parents. But they all burned me. Well, except for one. I got him! I even got to slow down at the end and pull a Usain Bolt. There was a kid who ran the 5000 meter race. He was like a gazelle out there. He ran every lap like it was his first lap. There was no slowing up for this kid. He ran the first lap with over sized flip flops on. Than he kicked those off and ran in just his bare feet. A member from my team placed third. This gazelle lapped him twice. Half the field dropped out half way through. I do not blame them. I don't think I could of made it one lap. One lap is 400 meters. There surely is some true talent in this school. Both academically and physically. 

One sad note to the day was watching the kids drop out of a race and fall to the ground. It was from a lack of water. Nearly all these kids drink one glass of water a day. So most of these kids are dehydrated most of the time. So you take that combination of dehydration. Than you throw a 5000 meter or 1500 meter race in there. What do you get? Mass chaos! The next sad note was that there was no water to drink at the field. I purchased a big bottle of water before I left for the field. So I started hooking up the runners from the red team with my water. They surely needed it more than me. I felt bad for the other teams, but I was being a team player first. Sorry guys! All the teams did a great job today. The yellow team, the lions, won the overall competition. The red team came in second. But one positive note was that the red team won the team who stood out the most. I like to contribute that to Caroline's and my leadership. I will give the teachers some credit too. They were the ones getting the team to stay off the track. We had a secondary student named Sam who was outstanding with the younger kids. He was by far the leader of the team. He was keeping all the kids in line, as well as, screaming out a chant. That chant was followed by another chant from the entire team. It really sounded awesome. I just wish I knew what they were saying. 

Most of us got to walk back with the kids through the valley. It was most of our first experience with walking through the slums. It was a real eye opening experience. I walked alongside another guy name John. This kid is really sharp. He told me a little bit about his story, as well as, a little bit about the people of the valley. It costs a family around $6 U.S. dollars a month to rent a place in the valley. That seems like so little to us, but to these people it is alot of money. Especially when 80% of the population here is unemployed. Now John has to wake up at 4:30. He is at the bus stop by 5:30 to catch the bus into town. He has no parents, but lives with his aunt. He works odd jobs to raise money for his bus fair. I love this kid, because he is good looking, has great charisma, and works hard just to make it to school. Now, how many kids back in the states would do that to get to school. This kid is awesome. I have a new friend. 

Oh, our driver his here. I got to run. I will catch up with you later. We leave at 6 in the morning to head to tanzania. Bye!

What a long day.

Today was by far, the longest day we have had in Africa. Well, at least it felt like that to me. I am sure a few of the others would agree with me on that. We were on the road by 8 in the morning. We first headed to the giraffe farm. It was on the other side of the city, so it was quite a little drive to get out there. I wish I could comment on the giraffe farm, but I did not go in. Wayne and I just sat on the side lines and had a coke. There was not alot to the farm. They had 3 giraffes from what I could see. I live in Tampa bay and my parents have a home in Orlando. So, I can go to Disney's animal kingdom or busch garden's to see giraffes. So I passed on the $10 fee to look at the giraffe's for 30 minutes. I had a great time talking with Wayne and Claude. Claude is one of our drivers. We really have two great drivers. Their name's are Claude, of course, and Maxwell. They are not your typical drivers, because these men are educated men. They speak 3 or 4 languages and have been such a huge help to us here. I don't think our trip would be the same without these guys. 

It was then off to the elephant orphanage. Now, I did partake in this activity. The orphanage takes care of 23 elephants at the moment. It was really funny, because you see the care takers come walking towards you with a line of what appears to be, pigmy elephants. It is just a big group of babies that were found in man holes or mother's had recently died. So they raise them, as well as, teach them some of the things that elephants must know to survive in the wild. They have these big O bottles filled with elephant formula. They first have the elephants chug down the bottle. Than they have them play in the water hole. The sun is really intense here along the equator, so it is vital that the elephants learn how to throw mud on themselves to protect themselves form the suns rays. The orphanage also has 3 rhinos. 

Shopping time! We headed to this masai market to do a little shopping. It must of been the Macy's of masai markets. It was so expensive. If you got a chance to experience this market compared to the rest of the shopping here in Africa, it was a bit pricey. Akhuna matada( no worries) on my part. I did no shopping. But everyone else got ripped according to me. The best part of this experience for me was Julian. It was the masai warrior that greeted you at the door. He was in the full get up. He had more beads on than any Masai I have seen in Africa. Now Tom and some of the girls thought he was a fruity Masai. I was not to sure, but he sure did like talking to me, so they might have been right. He handed me his spear and ran off. He came back with his business card. He pointed out his e-mail and his cell phone number to me. The funny thing about that was, this guy did not really speak english. He knew a few words in english. So we were doing those hand gestures and stuff to communicate. So, now, how am I suppose to talk to him through e-mail or a call. I don't think that dictionary.com has a translation for masai to english. Funny guy still anyways. 

To Mark and Rebekah's family. They wanted me to let everyone back home know that they made it to the airport and got off. So you should be seeing them tomorrow at some time. I am sure they will have many stories to tell you. Too bad they will not have a few more to tell you from the next week and half to come. You can always check back and see what the rest of the group is up to. 

I really wish I could write some more. I sure do have more I can mention, but it is past 11 p.m. here and the computer room closes at 11. So I am sure the guard will be walking up any minute to kick me out. So I will get back on tomorrow to fill you in on a few more details for the day, as well as, our field day tomorrow. Bye bye!

Rebekah and Mark

This will be our last blog since we are leaving tomorrow night. Please keep us in your prayers as we depart from Nairobi at 10:10 pm and arrive in Amsterdam at 5:30 am. Then we leave Amsterdam at 8:10 am and arrive in Detroit at 10:40 am American time Friday. From there, we fly out from Detroit at 1:50 pm and hope to arrive home in Greensboro around 3:30 pm Friday. We have missed everyone very much but it has been an incredible experience!!! Updating you everyday on here is a true blessing but we can't wait to tell you so much more in person!!! Today, we went to Mercy Care Centre for our last full day there. It was a very busy day with many projects going on and we also had to work around a testing schedule. I started out by going to the kindergarten class and asked them to sing to us again so we could videotape. The teacher and students were so excited about having an audience so they sang 15 songs to us!!!! It sounded so beautiful and I joined in with the songs that were not in Swahili. Then I had foam visors for each kindergartner to decorate and wear. I don't believe they had ever seen anything like it before because they were so appreciative and the smiles on their faces never went away. After that, I went to the first grade class where I told the story of Jonah and we made two crafts. One of those crafts was using tissue paper and none of the kids wanted to tear it. Dad and I had to tear most of the paper for them. This shows how thankful they are of having crafts and not waste anything. After lunch, Patrick took dad and I on a tour of the Mathare Valley. Every where we walked, we were stepping around trash or sewage. He took us up to a higher point that overlooked the valley and we took many pictures of the hundreds of shacks packed so close together. We stood there for awhile just looking all around and thanking God for a home to live in, showers, bathrooms, clean floors, and a safe environment. We also ask that you would remember in prayer the people that were involved in an uprising today. An individual was run over and killed by a van on a street we drive on everyday. A riot broke out and spread through some parts of Nairobi. I believe it has settled down some but we pray for easy travel tomorrow as we head to the airport. We want to say again how grateful we are for our church who helped provide for this opportunity to spread God's love among all the people here. Also, thank you so much to those who have been reading the blog and keeping us in your daily prayers. It means the world to us and we can't wait to see you all soon and tell you about all the incredible stories we have!!!!! We love you!!!!