Habari ya waka mpya (Happy New Year)!  It is hard to believe that we have been in Kenya almost one month.  Emma continues to teach us Swahili a few hours most days.  This past Friday we were given another “exam” but we didn’t do so well this time…. only 50%!  Emma told us that was fine as that is still a “C plain” which to us is a C.  At least it wasn’t an F!  Emma didn’t understand when we said we were happy we didn’t get an F.  Here in Kenya, they do not have an F for the worst possible grade - it is an E.  Coming to learn what individual words mean is not as difficult but trying to put them in a sentence AND in the correct order is another story.  Everything we learned in grade school English class does not hold true.  For instance, in Swahili an adjective comes after the noun or when asking a question, the Why or What comes at the end of the sentence instead of the beginning as we are used to.  We will travel to Nairobi this coming Sunday to start our official language school on January 11^th.  The program is set up over a three-month period with the goal of becoming proficient at reading, writing, and speaking Swahili…. prayers will be needed!  One of the events this week with the orphans was to pay their school fees for the coming term.  We have seen some of these orphans three weeks in a row so we are starting to know some of their names and to have a conversation with them as they can speak English.  It doesn’t take the younger ones long to engage with you whereas it is harder with the older ones.  The paying of school fees also involved orphans who are in post-secondary schools/university setting.  In a future blog, we will go into more detail with paying school fees – something that is at the heart of the mission.  Many children would not have a chance in life if not for the generosity of the people of the Bismarck diocese helping to provide these children with an education.  This week also brought a couple more Water with Blessings events with us attending two follow-up sessions and delivering a couple of the 210-liter drums to women who have completed 5 of the 6 follow-up sessions.  Women who are the recipient of a water filter and bucket are asked to attend follow-up sessions – one per month over six months.  These one-hour sessions are held for the women to reinforce the initial training through a workbook they are given, to answer questions they may have or give guidance if their filter is not working as it should.  Often times the reason for the filter not flowing well is because they have not done the daily backflushing as instructed in their initial training.  This time is what Lilian (the young lady who has taken over the training of the women) has called the “gossip session” in that it is time to not only get questions answered but also time to sit and visit with their neighbor and get a reprieve from their daily demands of working on the shamba and caring for the children.  These women work very hard and life is not easy for them.  We have seen them out in the tea fields plucking tea leaves and when full, balancing the basket on their head to walk to the tea pickup points.  The term picking tea is not used here – you pluck tea.  A basket of tea can take many hours to pick and to us looks to be a back-breaking job standing on the hillside plucking in the hot sun.   From what we were told by Emma, a full basket of plucked tea will garner about $3.50…such hard work for such a small amount of money or at least it seems so in our eyes.  This week also brought no electricity for a stretch of 13 hours!  We have had power outages here and there being from a half hour to a couple of hours but so far this was the longest.  Kathy was in the middle of making the evening meal when it went out so we had to finish cooking, eating, and doing dishes by solar lantern!  It gets dark here by 6:45 pm.  On January 1, we attempted to attend Mass at one of the outstations (mission parish) with Fr. David.  The drive there provided beautiful views of the green hillsides dotted with the shambas (the small piece of land the people farm and make their living from).  Mass was to begin at 11 am but when we arrived at 10:45 there was not a soul in sight which meant someone didn’t get the memo about when Mass was!  The outstations do not have Mass every weekend as there are 43 mission parishes and not enough priests to go to one every weekend.  We then drove back to Gekano where Wes and Kathy thought they would be late for Mass but weren’t.  The first Mass that started at 9 am was still going on at 11 am and lasted until 11:30!  On Sunday (January 2), the Mass we attended here at Gekano was to have started at 9 am but didn’t start until almost 10 am!  No one got up and walked out…everyone stayed and as time went on more and more people came.  Per Fr. David is it not that unusual for Mass to start late…except for Fr. David’s!  Another noticeable difference is the homily by the priests from here.  It is normal to have a 30-minute homily with one a couple of weeks ago being 50 minutes long…again not Fr. David’s!  When they have a homily, the congregation is very involved and the priest will call on people to repeat key points of his homily.  Fr. David says this is a way to reinforce the readings and their message.  They don’t have missals to read out of or sing from.  Wes and Kathy decided that they won’t be sitting in the front pew any time soon!  Fr. David has stated that people here will not leave if the priest is not there at the appointed time. They will stay for hours until the priest arrives to celebrate Mass…not sure how often this would happen back home in America!  Kuwa na siku njema (have a good day)!  The pictures in the photo album below give a glimpse of life here at the mission this past week: https://stjparish.com/photoalbums/kenya-1-3-2022