Elsa at Lake Langano

Driving the Boat

Camping at Lake Langano with Marshal and Rachel

Baby Chicks!

Cobra in the Bathroom

(Beck Judy--don't read this post. Seriously, I mean it.)
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> No, it's not the title of the newest Samuel L. Jackson movie. It was Elsa's morning. This morning I was washing the breakfast dishes while Elsa was in the bathroom washing her hands and brushing her teeth. Suddenly she starts screaming at the top of her lungs and yelling "Snake! Snake! It's growing and standing up!" Thankfully, she was already on her way out the door as I ran toward the bathroom. I got to the door just in time to see a baby cobra slip up behind the sink console. Which is, by the way, exactly where Elsa was standing on a stool washing her hands. Caleb was across the river, and seeing as I am less than inclined to be brave when it comes to snakes, I armed myself with two sticks and ventured back into the bathroom. The snake was gone. I heard the boat come back and so decided to just stand guard until Caleb got back up to the house. At first he didn't believe me (our house was promised to me to be snake proof-ha), but we stood there long enough to see its head poke out again from behind the sink. It slinked back to the safety of the sink, and so Caleb decided to bug spray behind the sink and irritate it enough to make it come out. It worked, Caleb smashed it, good-bye cobra.
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> It's 'cobra season' around here. With the rains from April and May, the increased number of bugs and frogs make the snakes venture out from under the bushes more. In the last two weeks Caleb and/or Dick have killed 5 cobras and one baby puff adder. Thankfully no one has been hurt, although we have lost one chicken and our poor dog Bauer was spit in the eye. Hopefully he learned his lesson about playing with snakes in the grass. Knucklehead.

You Could Be Al-Qaeda!

The "Dick" Effect has become a given on any riding trip that Caleb and his father, Dick, take together. Inevitably, if Dick goes along, they are bound to encounter some kind of hassle--police officers exerting authority, immigration officials harping on technicalities. This past weekend was no exception. Caleb and Dick took a Sunday afternoon ride to Kokoro, a town not far across the Kenyan border. Caleb has a good relationship with the border guards at the Kenyan border, and he often crosses the border a few miles into Kenya with their permission. Someone forgot to inform the police in Kokoro of Caleb's special relationship.

Once in Kokoro, Caleb and Dick were detained by a Kenyan police officer. His command of English being poor and his manner resembling a ranting lunatic, Caleb at one point leaned over to his father and asked quietly, "Is he drunk?" "Drunk", it turns out, is one word the officer did know, and so was none too pleased at the observation. He railed at Dick and Caleb for travelling into Kenya without proper identification and without a letter from the border post granting permission to travel--all wise suggestions, especially in the face of the officer's reasoning--"You could be anyone and we would not know...You could be Al-Qaeda!"

Thankfully, one of the officers and also the village chief--a friendly man named Ezra carrying a tent pole as his official stick--intervened and explained to Caleb and Dick that although their colleague's manner was suspect, all he was trying to say was that next time they come, it'd be a good idea to carry some identification.

Al-Qaeda? Doubtful. Travelling again to Kokoro without identification? Definitely not.

Meeting Obama

I met Obama this morning. He was round, a beautiful caramel brown, wrapped in a pink blanket, wearing a cross necklace around his chubby little neck.

I went to do clinic about 45 minutes from our house and about half-way to the middle of nowhere. Obviously, though, despite being rather far from any local American voting district, Obama fever has travelled the airwaves and someone in Libumket must have a radio.