Vanovers' Travels: "5th" Kenyan birthday!

Marilyn celebrated her "5th birthday in Kenya" this year. She started off her day with a slice of special carrot? bread and a single "match candle", accompanied by a cup of Kenyan coffee, then off to work on the OB service. After a bit of excitement ( a prolapsed umbilical cord necessitating emergent C-section, and a surprise twin), she was able to finish out her day and spend a bit of time relaxing at our comfortable "home away from home". She was very moved to receive cards from home (thanks Jackie!), and a special gift from Fredericksburg which she has been eyeing for some time now (see picture below). We enjoyed a quiet dinner at the guesthouse (just the two of us), prepared by our personal Kenyan chef (Meatloaf (of some sort?), scalloped potatoes, fresh fruit, and roasted Kenyan vegetables, and cornbread...yum!)....we liked it so much, we had the same meal for lunch earlier today!! We never have reason to complain about our meals here...we are very well fed. Before dinner, we went for a walk around the local village and down to see the river, the waterfall, and hydroelectric plant. While walking, we encounter some charming local school children who were anxious to be immortalized in this blog...see below.

We were thankful for a relatively quiet evening after a night on call yesterday.

Over our short time here, we have been fortunate to spend some time sharing meals with the local missionaries and there families. This past Sunday, we were invited to breakfast with Barbara Pinckley ( an RN who has been at Tenwek 33 years!) and some of our fellow short term volunteers (John and Avital below)...we enjoyed Barbara's famous cinnamon roll, eggs and bacon, fruit, and more Kenya coffee!...wow!! See pictures below...

Barbara's famous Sunday breakfast.

Marilyn, John McPherson, and Avital, at Barbara Pinckley's breakfast.

We have also had an enjoyable time meeting new missionaries and their families. Dr. Johnny Shaw and his wife Anna have come to Tenwek this past year with their 3 children, and Johnny has joined the OB staff, so he and Marilyn have been working together. Johnny is from Ireland and Anna is from Canada...they met on the mission field in India!!...small world! His specialty is gynecologic urology, but he finds himself doing a fair amount of OB, while building his GYN urology referrals. We were invited to spend an evening in their home, and enjoyed some outstanding lasagna, salad and some sweet time with their kids. Twins Madeleine and Caleb competed for our attention with various items constructed from their magnetic building materials, while older brother Corbin generally tried to avoid being in the same room with us...at least at first! Once the gifts came out, all 3 children warmed to us and put their new gifts to some unusual uses (see below)!