Thursday, April 23 only one day to go

Today was extremely busy. After just spending a normal day yesterday, sewing and running around at Amani, today was a very long day. The morning started out with a visit to the bank machine to get out cash to pay off my account here at the guest house. I haven't mentioned much about the money situation here, but the currency is the Kenya shilling. There are 100 shillings to around $.78. So when you go to buy something it may cost 2000 shillings which is like saying 2000 pennies to us. Then you have to divide it by 78! And the bank machine has a limit of 40,000 shillings per day that it will let you take out. The largest bill by the way is a 1,000 note. So I got 40 bills out of the machine today and will have to go get more tomorrow! It was good I thought of it two days ahead of time or I might have had a problem!I spent the morning at Amani finishing up the machine work on my jacket then left at 12:30 with Jackie who had been my staff teaching support person and her little boy, Unni (the ones I spent Easter with). Our driver from Amani, Japeth took us to the Safari Walk at the National Park. It was a 4 mile walk through a section that had been set up as natural habitats for the animals. In spots it was a suspended boardwalk up over the savannah, and in sections we were walking through forest. I got a lot of great pictures. After having lunch there we went into the city to the Kenyatta Market which is an old marketplace full of little stalls like a farmers market. Most of the vendors sold used clothes, beauty products, fabric and sewing services, embroidery services, shoes and many were braiding hair. My friend, Jackie has a tailoring business there and we stopped in to see her shop.I got back just in time for dinner and will start packing after finishing with this note. I leave for the airport tomorrow evening at 7 pm and will be in Germany Saturday morning through Sunday noon local times. I will arrive in Nashville Sunday evening. If I don't get to sign on again, thanks for all your prayers and support! The Amani ladies are praying for you, too!

Monday, April 20 - The Day It Rained

Today was the first day it actually rained during the day, and of course the only day i didn't have my umbrella with me. I had stayed overnight at Joyce's house, she's the director of Amani and was trying to pack light.She picked me up Sunday morning at 9 am for church at 10. But first let me tell you about Saturday....I slept in a little bit then went with my cab driver and picked up one of my students, Josephine who was my designated escort for the day. First we went to the part of the city called Karen. We visited the Kazuri bead making facility They also do other clay pieces there. We had a tour of the work being done there and then went into the little shop and got a few things. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't buy any loose beads, they only had ready made jewelry for sale.Then we went to the giraffe center which wasn't too far away. There we were able to pet and hand feed giraffes which were living in their natural habitat. This is where the house of the original lady named Karen is still standing. She's the one who wrote "Out of Africa". We had a soda there and took some pictures of the giant tortoises (for you, Sarah!). Then we went on the the Mamba Village which was a crocodile preserve. We saw baby and giant crocs. and also some ostriches. It was a lovely park around a lake which was shaped like Africa and there was a big company picnic going on with lots of kids. From there we went to a mall with a food court to find some lunch. By then it was getting late, so we dropped Josephine off to meet her husband and my driver brought me back.As I said, on Sunday i went to church with Joyce at her church which is a plant of Nairobi Chapel. It was under a tent with gravel on the ground, but God's Spirit was there! The music was wonderful and the preaching was sound. After the service visitors were invited to a little room for tea and welcomed by people from the welcome committee who asked where you were from and made sure you knew you were welcome to come back!After church we went to Joyce's house, had lunch and Sunday afternoon naps. That night there was a rainstorm and we lost power so we went to bed pretty early after dinner. I did have a short chance to visit with my family on Skype before my computer battery went out.Today we continued working on the jackets at our sewing classes. We are up to setting in the sleeves and encountering a little difficulty. I finally decided to tackle mine fresh in the morning! We did have a special lunch today that one of the ladies made, I'm not sure if they said it was from Western Kenya or Western Africa, but it was from Western somewhere and very good! I even ate the ugali which is the African equivalent to bread served at every meal and is kinda like thick grits. I have pictures to prove it! Well, let me see if I can get those pictures downloaded. Thanks everybody for your comments and your prayers. See you next week!

April 16- Dance, Dance, Revolution

The day I did the marriage dance with a Massai. I think I'm his third wife now!

April 16 - A Surprise

Just back from work at the Amani center. Some friends from here at the guest house showed up and surprised me while I was teaching. What a thrill! I looked up from the demo I was doing on how to do an undercollar for a jacket and there they were! The lady from downstairs had snuck them up to surprise me! It was the host and hostess and one of the other guests with whom I've been friendly. She and I hang out sometimes.

Tuesday, April 14 Nairobi, Kenya

I am really writing this entry, not in facebook and having Randy cut and paste it...hooray, the internet is working tonight. Maybe I'll even get some more pictures posted for all of you if it doesn't get too late!!
I had a really busy day today, starting with breakfast at 7:30 here at the guest house. We had PANCAKES!! I then grabbed a quick shower and was picked up by my taxi to get over to Amani. I ordered my latte (sorry Adrienne, no vanilla :( ), then headed upstairs to MY desk. I went over a few things with the administrator then went on up to the top floor for prayer time at 9:30. The ladies pray in English and Swahili and sing so beautifully, it doesn't matter what language it is! Then it was time for work...and did we ever!! We had one Burda pattern to share so each lady was given a large sheet of brown paper and took one piece of the pattern. We went over which size each lady would be. The pattern was multi-sized with multiple cutting lines. Some of the ladies needed to use more than one cutting line at different points in the pattern. Girls, you all know what I mean! The tables they work on are padded with oilcloth covers, so they just pin through the tissue pattern and the brown paper into the table. Then they used tracing wheels to trace over their size line on the pattern. They then removed the tissue pattern and drew with marker over where the tracing wheel had marked. Then they cut the brown paper out. They had to also mark all the notches, dots and grain lines with a ruler. After everybody had a chance to cut out all of the pattern pieces, they started laying it all out again on their fabric. This was after lunchtime. I had a delicious salad in the garden and spent the time with Janet, one of the ladies who has been assigned to be my hostess. I also stuck my head in the shop while my lunch was being made to see if anything was new. I'm still trying to figure out if I can find room to bring a quilt home, they are so pretty. After lunch we were going gangbusters trying to get all the jackets cut out which involved not only pinning the brown paper to the fabric but then measuring the seam allowance of 5/8" all the way around and marking it with chalk before cutting. The pattern did not include the seam allowance!! Mary Vassar, you would not have survived this, I promise you!! By 4 o'clock we were all ready to call it quits but some of the ladies were hanging in there to finish before leaving. Then Pat, the other helper and I realized we didn't know how they were going to transfer their markings tomorrow. There was no dressmaker's carbon! So we ended the day with prayer and a praise song and she and I headed over to the nearby mall where I had spotted a fabric store (she didn't even know it was there) and I got some dressmaker's carbon for them to use with their tracing wheels tomorrow. You can pray for me because I am supposed to demonstrate making this jacket and there are welt pockets. I haven't made one in at least 20 years and I will have to make 2 of them and they have to be even! I brought my jacket home to cut out tonight! It was fun going down to the storeroom and getting to pick out whatever fabric I wanted!
Tomorrow I will be putting postcards in the mail to all of you. Hopefully they will get there before I get back. Let me know, who's is the first one to arrive!
Thanks for all of your prayer support. I know things wouldn't be going so smoothly otherwise!