Oh the Randomness...

Pendo's Birthday

Birthdays here we go all out! It's a great excuse to have a party, which always means yummy food and sugar! :) It was our cook Pendo's birthday and we decided to have a party for her. We took her out to dinner at a restaurant then invited a bunch of her family to come over after for a no-bake cookie cake and a dance party. She was so happy and so grateful for the celebration.

Pendo of all people certainly deserved to be celebrated! She is such an amazing woman. She has two young boys, Allen and Loren, which are adorable. Pendo is an incredibly hard worker. We pay her to cook 4 nights a week. She buys the groceries for the meals and usually comes to our house around 1 or 2 to begin cooking dinner and finishes sometime between 6 and 7. We bought a couple electric burners for her to use, but she still thinks that cooking on an open fire is much better. It also gives a lovely campfire scent to all the freshly washed clothes hanging on the line! Oops!

Landon and I with Pendo's son, Allen

Every time Landon says anything to Pendo or helps her in anyway, she always turns to me and says in a very serious tone, "Don't be jealous!" and then we both laugh. She jokes with us all the time about being married.

We have started to get very creative with food around here. You can only eat PB& J and oatmeal for so long before you can't stand it anymore! No-bake cookies have been an absolute delectable at our house since all we have to work with are some pots and some electric burners. We also really like having hot chocolate, remembering to add a whole lot of powdered milk, a bunch of sugar, and a little bit of chocolate. With a curfew of 6:30 every night, we watch a plethora of movies and pop lots of popcorn. We crowd around on air mattresses and blankets in the living room and shoot the projector onto the wall. It's a really good time!

A few Saturdays ago, Landon and I went to the Snake Park, which turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment, but we did get to hold some snakes and play with miniature crocodiles. That was exciting! We also stopped at the Cultural Heritage Center, a central hotspot for mzungus. Apparently President Bush built it a few years back. It is basically a huge museum full of ancient African artifacts, paintings, and photography. It's also a place for tourists to shop for souvenirs without begin hassled to death. 

Throughout the summer, our house has been turned into a sort of dog orphanage. We started out with two large dogs, then came three more baby puppies some of the volunteers found along the road, and finally one more puppy that just appeared one day out of nowhere. They have all been given names from the Lion King of course. And sadly we have lost two of the little puppies along the way, not exactly sure what happened. 

By now we are really starting to miss home. Landon really misses not being able to drink clean water right from the tap and having to either boil it or drink bottled water. I absolutely miss my fridge, oven, and washer. It is amazing how much you tend to take for granted in America. We are also excited to sleep in our bed and have our own car to drive around. We are sure some very lucky people.

This is just a random building currently in the construction phase to give you an idea of how things work around here. Those are literally just a bunch of branches holding up the 10-story building. These people sure don't have much, but they do with what they have. I would be quite nervous to work in the construction industry!