Kenya 1

Well its Sunday evening and Im just about getting used to being here. We started the day with a 3 ½ hour church service! I understood very little of it but it was a great experience. There was a girl there that had to go through some sort of forgivness exercise. From what I could work out she had either got married not in the church or had got married to someone her parents didn’t approve of. It took about half an hour for her to express how sorry she was and then for the parents and the church elders and every man and his dog to publically forgive her. Then each member of the parish youth was introduced as it was their monthly service and this took another 30 mins. By the time the sermon started we had been there 2 ½ hours although fortunately for me that was in English and translated into Kiswahili. At the point that they stated a public showing of how much money each person had given to the youth project we decided to leave. Although we couldn’t go home as we were expected for a meal. We went outside and Arwyn started sharing bible stories with the children. it was great to see such interest from them even though few spoke English. I also had the first person ask to touch my hair. Wherever you go in Kenya people should ‘Musungu’ meaning white man yet they rarely see ginger hair and never as long as mine. Anyway they got away with shared responsibility as a Doris asked on behalf of her friend Sharron, and they both promptly fell about with laughter.
Then came lunch. I dread to think what it was, but some kind of fatty meat with a huge bone, which could only have been a knee or skull, but they’d given us their best so it was only right of me to eat up.
Nothing much else to report from today, had my first shower. Suitably exposing but adequately hot and we didn’t loose power half way through which is always a bonus.
Xx Hannah