Friends

I am beginning to realise that home is not a house or even a place - but it is where God is and also where your family and friends are.  Take lovely Leafield where we used to live and call home. Beautiful as it was (and still is) and as much like home it still feels like, if all of our lovely friends upped and left, it would still be Leafield and still be beautiful, but it wouldn't be home.  It would just be Leafield.  It wouldn't carry the same love and fondness in my heart - it's my friends that do that.

So with that thought in mind, I would say that this big, bustling, noisy city called Nairobi is now beginning to feel like home as we are starting to make friends.  I found Edie this week playing 'clap hands' with a friend at school when I went to pick her up - it was so cute.  And when I took Audrey to panto practice yesterday she raced off to be with the 3 girls at another table (all of 3 different nationalities) and I was left on my own with my laptop!  Elijah too is making friends and enjoying being on a compound with ready made friends to play with.  He is also making friends at the local hospital too as we had to visit it last week when he cracked his head open and needed stitches! (photo taken the next day at a coffee shop (Costa replacement!) as a treat - thankfully his hat covers his stitches and the big bald patch he now has on his head!)

I too am making friends.  The MAF family here is amazing and Ken and I feel very blessed to have great people to be around.  I briefly stopped by at a friends house this morning as she too has just moved to Nairobi from Cairo and knows what it is like to be new!  She is busy this week unpacking all of her goods as her shipment of things arrived - unlike ours that still hasn't left the UK as Ken's work permit hasn't arrived yet.  She showed me around her lovely house that is beginning to also feel like 'home' as it is filled with items and photos that bring meaning and memories to them.  As we went into her attic room we laughed at the 30 or so boxes which still need to be opened.  I was about to ask her if I could have a few of the empty ones so that I could make things out of them for our children to play with as their toys are also still in the shipment in the UK.  But she told me that her house help has already asked for them so that she can insulate her house with them.  Wow - It certainly puts things into perspective!

Marsabit shuttle

Many of you have heard during our presentations about the essential weekly shuttle flight MAF runs between Nairobi and the town of Marsabit in Northern Kenya which makes it possible for aid and development workers and missionaries to serve this remote town.  Well Elijah and I were recently able to experience this trip for ourselves.  Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Here we are coming in to land at Marsabit.  The ground was so red and dry I could say it resembles "Mars a bit" but that would be a bit harsh!  However, there is a huge creator in the grounds near the town and it is believed that it was created by a meteorite crashing a long time ago.

On our flight there were seven passengers other than Elijah and I from six different mission, relief and development agencies.  The plane was also carrying clothes for a childrens' home, and freight for both a famine relief agency and a commercial bank. I spoke to some of my follow passengers who said just how valuable the flight was with only one other airline flying to this drought ridden and insecure region.   Without this two hour flight they would need to travel by land for two days and would risk getting attacked by the bandits which are prevalent in this area.

The Cessna Caravan flight has a solo pilot and so the co-pilot's seat is normally empty.  However, on the way back Elijah got the honour or sitting in the co-pilot's seat.  

I meanwhile enjoyed the journey in the seat behind him.

Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink!

It has been raining here for the past 24 hours almost non-stop, very unseasonable for this time of year.  We've had quite a lot of rain recently but this hasn't stopped us running out of water most weeks since we arrived.  This week we had to cope for three days with no water at all in our house.  We have certainly come to realise just how much we take water for granted in the UK.  Today we have got some water and we are trying to make it last as long as possible by keeping water usage to a minimum and recycling water.

Water collected whilst taking a morning shower.  Despite being a very frugal shower I collected enough water to nearly fill the toilet cistern.  The cistern still needed a slight top up despite having a brick in it to reduce the volume of water required to fill the cistern. 

Our problems in water supply however pail into insignificance compared to those of so many living in Kenya and other parts of Africa where villagers have to walk miles to collect a bucket of dirty water.  It feels so unjust that those in the Western nations have so much whilst so many suffer elsewhere in the world. 

Thankfully MAF is part of the solution as it multiplies the effectiveness of NGOs and others who are working hard to improve water supplies and sanitation.  It regularly flies these experts to areas that they wouldn't otherwise be able to reach safely or without several days travel on flights such as our Marsabit shuttle.

I shall be writing more about the Marsabit shuttle soon but today it is unlikely to fly, despite having passengers booked onto it, as the heavy rain would make it too dangerous to land on the basic runway at Marsabit.

Our water butt in the garden collecting rain water during a down pour.  In the foreground you can see another of our energy saving devices, a solar light, hanging from the rails on the window.  These lights are very useful as we suffer power cuts most days and so the lights enable the kids to do their school homework during a blackout.

Welcome Home

So this is home for the next 4 years or so.  Come and take a look with me - it's gorgeous ......

Here we are at the front of the house - well actually, it's the back really - but it's the door we use the most.

  And here we are at the back, (well the front actually) of the house.

 And the beautiful garden wraps around the whole of the house.  It's winter here at the moment, but I can't wait for the spring and summer to arrive to see what flowers are awaiting us.

Come and visit again soon and I'll show you around the inside.  What a privilege to be in such a beautiful spot.  We feel incredibly blessed.  Thank you Lord.

Our elephant - by Audrey

At six o’clock on Wednesday, Jasiri met the Browns.

Jasiri was born in December 2011. He was found in Amboseli National park three months after his mother was shot by poachers. Alone and frightened, he was taken to Nairobi’s elephant sanctuary at fifteen months. Here he met his new mother (a keeper) who fed and slept with him until he was 2 years old. He is now 2 ½ and he is still at the Elephant Sanctuary with other orphaned elephants.  He will stay here until he is about 3 and then he will move to a bigger orphanage deeper in the national park where he will stay until he is about 8 years old and will learn what it takes to live in the wild.  Eventually he will go back to the wild where he belongs.

Two years after he was found, Jasiri met his new foster family, Maz, Ken, Audrey, Elijah and Edie Brown. Together, they help Jasiri prepare for his future life where he belongs.  This week they came to see him have his milk from a bottle and go to bed.  They hope to come see him every few weeks to see him develop and grow into the Elephant he is meant to be.  

Bob's Blog

When Ken and I came to Kenya to have a 'look see' visit, we decided to 'adopt' an elephant at the Nairobi Elephant Sanctuary so that the children would have something to look forward to when we were preparing to move to Kenya.  His name is Jasari.
Here is Edie's (Bob's) Blog as we prepared to go to see him.

We have watched 'Elephant Diaries' over the last few days which was filmed in 2007 following other orphaned elephants at the same Elephant Sanctuary to help the children build up more of a picture of how the elephant sanctuary helps orphaned elephants.We had such a great time - pictures to follow....

My Terraphin

A Terrapin Is like a Turtle but is smaller.  He is about 5 cm long and will get to be about 20cm long when he is 3 years old.
Here  is a picture.

My Terrapin is called Shelly Bobby Brown. We brought  him on the 19th of August.  He is really cheap to keep and I love swimming animals so I think he is great.

By Elijah Brown