Ashby and Abram: July 2016

I have wanted for a while now to give you guys a glimpse of our daily life. But it's so hard! It's hard to find time. It's hard to explain to people who haven't been here. It's hard to strike a balance between "real" and "readable".

First of all, life here can be really heavy. There are funerals in our village at least once a week. People come to our door asking for work or loans, or selling their chickens or produce. People are hungry. The rains are always late, or not enough, and harvests are small. The economy is slow and work is scarce. Or they ask for medicine and medical advice (thanks, webMD!), or a ride to the hospital, or help paying a doctor's bill. We give protein and supplements to nursing mothers, cough medicine to sick babies (we have a full supply thanks to David's cough-a-thon last year), bandages and clean cloths for cut fingers, drinking water to whoever knocks on our door.

David sharing a cup of soup with some of his favourites

But there's so much that isn't said in that paragraph. "Drinking water" sounds so simple and can be taken for granted, but the people coming to our door often don't have running water, and even if they do, it has to be boiled, filtered and cooled before it is drinkable. "Harvests are small" means almost nothing to people who buy the bulk of their food at a grocery store, as I did when I lived in the States, but our friends and neighbours live off of what they can grow, and there is no grocery store in our village. A doctor's bill is often $5 or less, but if you don't have an income, it might as well be $500. A bus ticket into Mwanza, where the bigger hospitals are, is about $4. But the average daily wage is $2. Imagine if it cost you $150 to get to the hospital.

The weird thing about life being hard here is that most of this isn't happening to our family. Thank God we have our health and our finances are stable. We don't lack food. We have a car and can drive to the hospital if we need to. These things aren't happening to us, but happening around us. But when you live in a close-knit community, when you really love your neighbours "as yourselves", then their problems become yours; your burdens are theirs. (We are so grateful for our neighbours and friends when one of us- any of us- is sick and we need an extra hand around the house!)

So. As I said. Life here can be heavy. Just living here is a full-time job. I thank God every day for the two women who help me around the house, washing dishes and diapers (BY HAND), and watching David in the evenings while I cook dinner. I don't know what I would do without them, and they in turn are grateful for an income to support their families. Even with help, getting through the day is a full-time job: cooking all our meals from scratch (90% of our diet is perishable and local!), changing diapers, nursing James, trying to keep David busy, and answering the door a dozen times a day.

Essentially, that's my day: cooking, playing with the boys, and answering the door.

"Answering the door". I am starting to take this for granted, then a quick chat with my sister reminds me of how different life is in the West, or even in the suburbs. In the US, you could go an entire day without someone coming over to your house, unless they are invited and expected. Give or take a UPS guy or a quick hello from your neighbour, your door is probably closed and quiet. Try to visualise this with me:

Because doors here are often left open all day, and doorbells are nonexistent, people say "hodi" (hoe-dee) when they come to your door- it's essentially the equivalent of saying "knock, knock!". This was, notably, one of David's first words. We get around 15-20 "hodis" a day. The hodis range from friends stopping by, to workers (we try to find work find as many people as we can, doing work for the school, working in our yard, fixing things around the house, watering flowers- anything that helps them provide for their families), people asking for a cup of water, people in the village asking Abram for advice or counsel, people asking to borrow money, people wanting to play with David or hold James, people asking for a ride somewhere, people selling us food (chicken, fish, fruit and veggies), people asking what time it is, students dropping off assignments or asking for help with their work. There are often a few extra people around the table at mealtimes, and mornings can often find Abram in the kitchen, doling out bone broth to whoever stops by...and on and on. And on. Some days it takes me an hour (or more) to do something that should take about 15 minutes. (Though I'm not sure if it's the visitors or David who is to blame...)


These girls ask to hold James almost every day!

Some days, it feels overwhelming. Most days, I really enjoy it and look forward to it. Entire days go by where I don't leave my house (except to weed in the garden, if I'm lucky and James naps!), and being extremely extroverted, I appreciate the chance to talk to people over the age of 2. My Swahili is good enough to talk to them, and I know most of their names and faces by now. David loves the attention. Abram enjoys building relationships with people, but some days make it hard for him to get any work done. Our American neighbour described her life as a "ministry of interruptions", and I am starting to see it that way, too. Imagine yourself at home in the evening, chopping onions, nursing your baby, answering the door, getting someone a drink of water, and chatting with a neighbour, all at the same time. Lovely? Or stressful? Well, both.

A few of our neighbours stopping by for a visit

If we follow Jesus's example in the gospels, there's not a lot of room for privacy. But as a young couple with young kids, we need some family time! It's hard to find a balance, but we are learning and growing, and grateful for the opportunity to develop close relationships with the people in our village. The American church talks often of living authentically and living in community. In the West, "community" is controlled, planned, and safe. Here, it's unscheduled, unpredictable, and at times, inconvenient.

One of the reasons I struggle to write about this is because I don't want to seem like I'm complaining, but I want people to understand how different our life is here. If I mention offhand to someone that we have several visitors a day, I'm not sure they really grasp what I mean. I hope I've been able to paint a bit of a picture for you. We have such an amazing village of people who love David and James and we love sharing our home, our stories and our resources with them...it can be exhausting, but it is so worth it.

I have tried to update our blog a million times. Two kids under two is hard. Slow internet is hard. A thousand interruptions is hard. Just while writing that sentence I got interrupted six times, and only twice because of my kids.

My point is: James Silas Kidd was born on March 28, 2016, at 9:05 am, after 12 hours of (unmedicated*) labour in a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. He weighed 8lbs and was 20 inches long- a full pound heavier and two inches longer than David was. (Now, at 3.5 months, he's 14lbs, and more-than-20 inches.)

He's the best. He's very different than Davidy, and by that I mean, calm, quiet, laid-back, happy, easy going...you get the idea.

We named him James after my favourite book of the Bible/because it's a name we both like. His middle name, Silas, is from Abram's Tanzanian grandfather, who "adopted" Abram into the family several years ago, and who passed away in March, just two weeks before James was born. We miss him and love him so much!

We are settling into a routine as a family of four. About once a week I get the boys to nap at the same time. (About once a week David doesn't nap at all.)(It's really fun.) Of course this routine will quickly be disrupted, because we are headed to North America soon! We will be in the US and Canada from September-mid April. We are so excited to catch up with family and friends! In the meantime, here we are! A houseful of boys.

I would like to blog more (than twice a year), and often compose nice long posts in my head, but they rarely make it to my computer, as you can see. I have no idea if anyone actually checks our blog. But I"m too stubborn to give up entirely. Just being honest!

*Yes, I will brag about unmedicated labour. I won't preach about it, but I decided I have earned the right to brag!