"Does THAT hurt!?!"

Thursday

It is 12:43am your time, 7:43am "my" time. I'm so tired. I haven't really slept the last two nights, on account of my leg hurting so badly. It's pretty discolored now, and swollen. It still just feels like a really bad bruise. I'll hope so anyway.

We had an earlier start today.. just by one hour. Steve arrived at 8am sharp with Patrick and his mother (Mama) Anna.

Now here's the deal with Anna, she is the mother of 4 children. She lives in a small 10'x10' house. If you count it, that's 5 people in the house... each one getting 20sq ft. Seems like a nightmare, huh? Well, I suppose that now would be a good time to tell you that Anna has also taken in 6, yes SIX orphaned relatives of hers. Cousins, nephews, nieces, etc... that's ELEVEN PEOPLE in a 100sq ft house. Let's redo the math, shall we? 100sq ft / 11 people = 9.. 9sq ft. to live in. Can you imagine that?

Anyway... we brought Anna and Patrick some food, as we were sure that they were starving. And headed up to Kijabe which is way up in the mountains a little. In fact, the road parallels with the Great Rift Valley. Now, I'll tell you what... you've never seen anything until you see the Great Rift Valley. It stretches over most of Africa. In fact, here in Nairobi on the way to Kijabe it reaches it's highest altitude ... over 8,000ft high!!

I just couldn't help but take in the scenery. Such a beautiful sight! Everything around was all farm land. So you would see people living in a way that I would've imagined that God intended. Just living off of the land, making all of their own clothes. Raising their own cattle to eat and get milk from... it was amazing. I can't begin to describe the beauty! I wish that I could've taken pictures... just very hard to get good ones from inside a moving Safari Truck... know what I mean?

We continued up the road making small talk with Patrick and his mother.

On the way there, we were stopped by THREE police road blocks in a row. It's very weird here... they'll just stop you for no reason, most of the time. They'll want to randomly search you and your passengers. Or randomly run your plates... or in Steve's case, randomly mess with you.

During the second police stop, one officer came to Steve's window and pulled out his gun, told him that he was under arrest and to get out of the car. The second officer then pulled out HIS gun and came to MY window! Now, I would not have been afraid had I not known that in this country Police, Admin. Police, and the Army can shoot you anytime they want, without any reason. "For real!?!" I thought.

Steve asked the officer "For what am I being arrested for? I've done nothing wrong!" the officer looked at him and said "Okay, you can go."

SAY WHAT!?!?!?!?!

"Did anyone else see what happened!" I though... so yeah... turns out here... the police get so bored that they'll pull you over and tell you that you're under arrest just to see your reaction. If you're calm, like Steve, they'll just let you go... if you freak out you're probably headed for a bullet...

Another fun fact, police don't move around in cars... well, some of them do, but most don't. Therefore, if a cop stops you and tells you to drive him somewhere, YOU MUST. It doesn't matter if you're late for an appointment and he's going the opposite direction. It doesn't matter if he wants you to drive him to Japan, YOU MUST. If you try to speed off, he will shoot you tires out. If you try to speed off and you're too slow, he'll just shoot you! Crazy!

So, anyway, after a couple of scares we were back on our way.

We reached the CURE International Hospital.

This facility was AMAZING. It was immaculate, and very well built. It's an American run hospital for children. It's also located on the property with the local hospital (the good hospital.) Sadly, this hospital is so far away from the city and the slums.

We got Patrick in to see Dr. Joseph Thuri, however he was in surgery and was evidently going to be a while. So, we showed Patrick's leg to another Dr. there... his jaw immediately hit the floor!

He literally ran to get Dr. Thuri, who came rushing back to look at it. He told us that these were deformative growths on his leg (2 of them) and that he also had about 4 more across his body. He got him all checked out, and set a date for Patrick's surgeries.

We decided to go ahead and pay for Patrick's surgeries... we planned on them being a few thousand dollars... we were surprised by the total. Two. Well, just over two. $230 to be precise.

For real? $230 could fix this boy? Amazing.

After that, we had the good Dr. check my leg... "Take your pants off." He says "Dr. Thuri, don't you think you should AT LEAST take me to dinner first!?!" I replied... yeah... evidently he didn't get the joke. He stood there confused... so I just dropped trou.

He looked at the swollen, discolored craziness and said "How in the world did that happen!?!" I explained the story to him... he laughed... a lot.

He then started pushing the spot over and over again, which was truly excruciating! He would push it hard and go "Does that hurt?" I felt like punching him in the neck and going "Does THAT hurt!?! Booyah!!" ... "Yes, it hurts badly Dr.!" I replied.

He had me on my back, bending my leg all sorts of ways saying "That hurt?" "Yes, yes... a thousand times yes!"

"Fracture!" he exclaimed. Now to really appreciate it, you need to re-read that word, but really roll the 'r' to get the dialect going... it was more like "Frrrrrrrracture!"

"What do you mean, frrrrrracture!?!" I said, "It's just a bruise!"

"Nope. It's a fracture."

"Well, what am I supposed to do?"

"It's not very bad, yet. Just take it easy for the next month. No running or jumping."

Now it was my turn to laugh... right in his face!! No running OR jumping? Shucks!! I was really hoping that I would get to run and jump... oh well...

So yeah... now my left femur is fractured do to a faulty piece of wood on a wooden bridge. I would also like to sate, for the record, that the breaking of said wood had nothing to do with my shear size and stature. I'm not fat. I'm fluffy.

The board broke on its own accord due to it's inherent weakness.

So, yeah... gonna take it easy for the next month or so.

Anyway... we left there... headed for Kibera to drop Patrick and Anna off.

Luckily, we didn't get hit by any police check points on the way back.

We got into Kibera, and headed towards their "house". We let them out, but Anna wanted us to see her house. She's very proud of it. We walked a short ways up the street and found her place. A small room... ten feet by ten feet. She used newspaper as wallpaper.... it was plastered all around the walls, with a HUGE picture of Jesus hanging up in the center. Some clean pots hung on the wall. There were three beds, they were all maid up properly. The floor was spotless. She truly kept her house EXCEPTIONALLY clean!

We walked back outside and met some of her kids and orphans. I was able to snap a picture of the ones that were there. Most were out though.

It was very sad. As we drove away I couldn't help but think over and over again.. that these people have nothing, and in Anna's case she has lived outside of Kibera. She knows of a life outside of the slums. Yet she's happy and thankful for God's blessings. Man, I suck at life!

We headed from there to "Saints Alive Church" near Pipeline. This is Edward's church. He is the youth pastor there. But I think that "youth pastor" here means "Children's Pastor" back in the states.

This was actually a very nice church (considering the circumstances.) It was a big church, on a big piece of land. Big stage with a sound system. It was nice. This church was actually where Pastor Amos got married.

They had a separate building called the "Saints Alive Youth Church" where the youth were... (a bunch of preschoolers during nap time.. haha) also a very nice facility!

They had a RIDICULOUSLY long meeting with the people from Action Kenya Now, a micro-lending company. I was so bored, so I went outside to take pictures of the chickenses, and these kids:

I went back in to find Amos sleeping on the couch, in the middle of the meeting!! Haha... how punk rock!

He woke up and took me to the sanctuary to film the women's group meeting in there. I literally took maybe 25 seconds of footage and maybe 3 pictures... there was nothing going on in there....

So Amos and I just sat up on the stage talking about our wives, and wife-to-be's... Talking about how/where we met, how long we "courted" before getting engaged and such. He then asked if we wanted kids... I felt like punching him in the neck and saying "Does that hurt!?!" however this didn't quite seem relevant anymore.

I told him yes... we'd like to have 3. If we can, have two and adopt the third. He thought that was awesome. "How long are you going to wait?" he asked "Dude, we're just trying to make it to the wedding... ask me in a couple months!" I responded... so I asked out long they waited. Funny story... he went on to tell me that they got married on November 5th, and their daughter was born on August 5th... EXACTLY nine months later... haha...

He said "We wasted not one second!" haha... good times.

The lame, boring meeting was finally over. We headed out.

Steve dropped us off at the Nairobi Java House for some American food, and we taxied back to the guesthouse.

I was able to post a little bit and have a good conversation with my sweet babe.

Then I took me and my frrrrrractured leg to bed.

I'm not sure what is on the agenda for tomorrow, but I would imagine that whatever we're doing tomorrow is what I'll be doing.

Okaybye....

S

p.s.- Most of Africa is MANY years behind us in many ways... evidently they still haven't heard about two-ply toilet paper yet... when I come back, I'll open their eyes...