rain mud rain sun rain mud rain sun MANGOES

Well it is officially the rainy season. We get rain every other day, sometimes more but it only actually rains for 10-20 minutes at a time. After it rains, it is incredibly muddy and your feet are only ever really clean for 5 minutes after a shower. Because of the rains, everything is really green but the ground dries up within a few hours, to the point where the ground is cracking.

Last weekend Chloe and I went to Lamu island for three days. Lamu is 7 hours north of Mombasa by bus and is closer to the Somali border. We had to take a speedboat to get to the island but once there getting around is either by foot or by donkey. Donkeys everywhere (heehaw). We stayed at Kipepeo (butterfly) Guesthouse, owned by a German woman and her Kenyan husband. Lamu itself is a traditional Swahili town and is mostly a Muslim town. The streets are very narrow and you have to stand up against the houses to get out of the way of people riding donkeys. One of the nights we were there, we ate at Ali Hippi's house, a man who hosts dinners for tourists at his house (he is in the Lonely Planet guide for Kenya). We had some really good seafood and Tamarind juice which was....interesting-- kind of like watered down and sweetened apple juice. We also went to Shella beach which is a speedboat away from Lamu town. The beach itself was very quiet and relaxing, unlike Bamburi beach which is packed, and I could read Spenser (Robert Parker) I found in a used bookshop. Lamu is also the best place to get fruit juice and milkshakes so we must have had at least 3 a day.

Last Thursday we got quite the surprise when we got to Mwokoeni. The director had been talking to Barclay's Bank for awhile and wasn't expecting any money from them but over the weekend, they donated money for a new roof (which was really needed because all the books were being rained on) and volunteers from the bank painted all the classrooms and the library. They also donated a huge bookshelf for the library which is great. The one slightly annoying thing was that when they repainted the library, they took all the books, that we had already sorted, out of the bookshelves and put them in huge bags. SO basically we have to reorganize all the books. Because we know what books there are now and how we want to set them up, we are hoping to have the library done by the time Chloe leaves this Saturday. After Mwokoeni, we went to the Bomobolulu workshops for a second time. Bombolulu workshops is a center for disabled people where they can rent subsidized houses and are employed by the workshops. We got a tour of the workshops and got to see how everything was made. The art is amazing and it is incredible how some of it is made. We met some blind women who coil wire using a rod and a turny thing and then who cut it into small metal rings used to make chains, all by touch!

This week, we are going to have a movie night at Calvary for all the adults who work there and then on Saturday, I am planning some things for Halloween. Bobbing for apples and mask making for the kids. I am also going to carve some pumpkins, we'll see how many I will carve once my hands are in pumpkin goo with the first one.

Today on our way to lunch at home, we stopped at the juice parlor and had MANGO JUICE!! Delicious and finally in season so I am very very excited.

I have been told that it has snowed in Cambridge which is crazy and that the leaves are absolutely amazing so enjoy the leaves and being cold as I try to stay as cool as possible in this heat ;)