December 27, 2009 - My First Christmas

We have been in Denmark for a little over a week and have been celebrating Christmas for days. How could a ten-month old girl like me know that this holiday would be so fun?!

Christmas Take 1 (22nd of December): at Farfar's house

I helped Far decorate the tree...

and then I picked his wallet before Christmas dinner because I need to buy a right shoe!

Mama and I were matching in our red and black outfits...

and my finger fell even more deeply in love with my nose.

Christmas Take 2 (23rd-25th of December): at Farmor's house

I love, love, love to read books. I'm doing it all the time. This was one of Far's books from when he was a kid. "Hans and the Beanstalk" (Mama thinks Hans is the same as Jack!).

My "cousin" Leander came from Germany with his parents to celebrate Christmas. He is 4 months old but is almost the same size as me...can you believe that?! At least I can still out crawl him.

He was really fun to play with!

Farmor is also fun to play with everyday. She makes me laugh :)

Once again, when nobody knows what to do with me they just give me a book and I am happy for quite some time. What more does a girl need?

It is very snowy in this Danish land. An African baby like me would really be in trouble if I didn't have the right gear.
Mama and Far went sledding with Leander's parents, Mirja and Tommy, while we decided to take a mid-day nap. More important than my passport, this makes me officially Danish! Who knew that sleeping outside in the cold would be the best nap I've taken (possibly EVER)?!

And Mama and Far seemed to enjoy sledding down and climbing back up the hill behind Farmor's house. They were laughing so much!

My cousins Nikoline and Josefine also came to Farmor's house for Christmas. Nikoline was so good at entertaining me.

We left cookies and milk for Santa and a carrot for his reindeer. My cousins were skeptical that he would come, but Mama promised that he would find me!

The best part of a Danish Christmas is dancing around the Christmas tree when all of the candles are lit. I almost fell asleep before this happened, but I hate to miss out on a good party and managed to stay awake. It was so beautiful and special - I will never forget it.

On Christmas Eve we opened so many presents! This was one from my cousins: a new outfit!

I loved the new "laptop" that Mama and Far gave me. I have seen them use their computer so many times that I knew exactly what to do.

And I had a lot of fun opening my new train set from Nene and Pops. I wish they could have been in Denmark for Christmas too.

On Christmas morning we woke up to find that Santa did find us indeed!

I was so happy when I woke up on Christmas morning. It was the never-ending holiday!

Everyone had fun opening their stockings - Santa doesn't usually bring stockings to Denmark so it was a real surprise!

I liked playing with my new Little People dollhouse and blocks.

It was perfect that it snowed on Christmas day! We all went outside to play. My fleece was not waterproof so I had to sport a black plastic bag. I wonder if I've ever seen my Far so happy as he was playing in the snow!

They even stuck me inside a snowman!

And Far tossed me up so I could come down with the snowflakes.

Uncle Rasmus and Josefine came inside a little while after I did, but Far and Nikoline stayed outside for a long time and finished the snow people AND a super snow igloo!

Josefine and I opted for reading instead.

Christmas Take 3 (26th of December): at Gert and Kitte's house

The day after Christmas started with a drive around in my new wagon.

And then we went to Gert and Kitte's house to celebrate Christmas with Far's aunt and uncle and cousins. We gave Oldemor her Christmas gifts. She can be very silly.

Speaking of silly...Hans cracks me up! He is always trying to teach me to do more things like stand by myself and walk.

I got to meet my new cousin, Mads. His mom is Far's cousin Aja. He is one month old and is an extremely beautiful baby. His Mormor was happy to show him off.

The grown-ups tried to take a picture of me with Claudia, who is 14 months, and Mads. It was going well until I decided that I really wanted Mads' binky (sut) and pulled it straight out of his mouth. He is still pretty small and didn't like my idea of fun so he started to cry and that screwed up the picture. Sorry everyone!
We also found out on this day that I have another new "cousin": Han's daughter Tina had a baby boy the morning after Christmas! I hope maybe I can meet him some time this week before I go back to Kenya.

Phew! That was a busy couple of days. Today the house was quiet again. Just Mama, Far and me with Hans and Farmor. We went to the swimming hall and I had fun in the wave pool. Then we were at home reading and playing the rest of the day. This is the best Christmas vacation I could have imagined!

GEW

December 26, 2009 - Merry Ten Months!

Many Christmas photos to come, but for now just this...

LMW

December 20, 2009 - Good News/Bad News

The good news is that Grace is having a good time in Denmark so far...

The bad news is that yesterday she learned how to pick her nose...

LMW

December 17, 2009 - Holiday Happiness

I realized yesterday that some of my recent blogs have been a bit "down in the dumps" and that is not a good thing, especially at this time of year! Despite thieving Kenyans and Grace's high fever, there are many things that make us happy this holiday season. Here is a small list of some of the small things that make us happy; see if you can match up which bit of happiness belongs to Kristoffer, Grace or me (hint: some are tricky because they might belong to more than one of us)!

• Books!
• Playing squash
• Watching the TV show "Glee"
• Playing peekaboo
• Dancing to the song "Do They Know it's Christmas?"
• Drinking cold ginger ale
• Wearing nothing but a diaper
• Season 7 of the TV show "24" (thanks to Brooke and Dave for that!)
• Nice, not-thieving Kenyans who provide roadside assistance to broken-down Mzungus
• Swimming
• Getting ready for Grace's first Christmas
• Food that is delivered on time for the start of the January school term
• Not getting stung by a scorpion
• Really nice neighbors who provide early morning advice on having a baby with a fever
• Rotating around in circles on the floor
• Learning a few weeks ago that the By Grace Orphanage received an extremely significant grant from the United Nations to improve their conditions as well as provide services and necessities to over 300 orphans (more on that to come in another blog)

...and the #1 thing making all three of us very happy is that we will be in Denmark tomorrow morning, where rumor has it there is a bit of snow waiting for us!

Merry Christmas!

LMW

December 15, 2009 - 300

For our 300th blog, Kristoffer has requested that I crop and repost the picture he took of the hunting "fish eagle" because he thinks that it is much more impressive than the uncropped version I posted on yesterday's blog. Sheesh - tough crowd. Here it is:

Grace has been sick with a high fever for the last 24 hours. After a very tough night, we spent the morning at the doctor's office and getting some tests done. She does not have malaria (thank God) and they ruled out a few other possibilities, leading the doctor to conclude that she just has a virus and should be well enough to travel by Thursday night. Seeing your child sick and not being able to fully comfort her is definitely the hardest part of being parent so far. We are hoping for a good night's sleep tonight so that we can have a good day tomorrow getting ready for some Danish holiday cheer.

LMW

December 14, 2009 - Surprise Scorpion & Baringo Breakdown

Over the weekend we visited Lake Baringo in the Rift Valley. We stayed at a tented camp on an island in the middle of the lake; it was not the fanciest tented camp in Kenya but it was very comfortable, and so peaceful and relaxing. We really enjoyed some quiet time as a family away from phones, TVs, internet, traffic, shopping, etc.

We drove about 4 hours north of Nairobi and then took a 10 minute boat ride (a big row boat with a motor) out to the island. When we go to the camp we saw a list of their activities and noticed that water skiing was one of them. Then we saw this crocodile swim by the lake right outside our tent and decided that water skiing on a lake in Kenya is never going to happen in this lifetime:

It was really hot and Grace took a VERY long nap shortly after we arrived on Friday afternoon:

This was the sunrising right outside our tent at 6 am on Saturday morning:

Grace is a fast crawler these days and loved playing by our feet as we sat on our patio for morning tea/hot chocolate:

She also LOVED all of the birds that we saw! We were visited by these small birds on our patio and in the main dining room of the camp, but there were also hundreds of types of birds living on this island:

Sunrise #2 on Sunday morning:

Reason #2 not to go water skiing: this sweet little hippo chomping on some grass outside our tent (not to mention ALL the other hippos in the lake):

We saw lots and lots of beautiful birds (and some ugly ones too actually):

On Sunday morning we took a nice boat ride around the lake and saw some of the local people:

This is a small village that we could see:

The local people are from a tribe called "Njemps" and they are mostly fishermen but also have some cows. These are not the sickest looking cows we have seen in Kenya, but they certainly don't look too healthy:

There are many hot springs in this area because of all the volcanic rock:

This bird is called a "fish eagle" and here Kristoffer captured an incredible picture of it just before he grabbed a fish. These birds mate for life and we saw this one and its partner hunt:

On our boat ride we saw quite a few crocs and some hippos, but we saw this baby croc just before we finished:

So the weekend was great. We went swimming in the pool - which Grace loved once again! - and took lots of naps because of the heat. I got bit by one mosquito which I am praying did not give me malaria. What a Christmas gift that would be! Overall, it was a wonderful getaway weekend...BUT there were two tough moments.

Tough moment #1 happened when we got back to our tent after dinner on Saturday night to find a scorpion inside our tent that looked like this:

We assume that these deadly creatures are fast, so we started to freak out a little bit, but Kristoffer was able to smash it before it moved. I have never heard such expletive vocabulary come out of my husband's mouth before! After all, we are on an island essentially in the middle of nowhere with no electricity at night, so if we (or more importantly Grace) were to be stung/bit by a scorpion...well, we were making ourselves a bit sick thinking about the outcomeof that situation. We thoroughly checked the rest of the tent before going to sleep...but we were both really paranoid and maybe didn't sleep that well!

Tough moment #2 (although not nearly as scary as #1) came on our drive back to Nairobi on Sunday after breakfast. Our car had started to act a bit funny just as we were arriving at the lake on Friday, and by the time we were leaving on Sunday it was acting even worse. We were hoping to get to the next major city before anything crazy happened, but we really only made it an hour down the rode before some warning lights came on and the car essentially died. It would turn on fine, but would not go into gear or pick up. Neither of us know ANYTHING about cars, but luckily when we moved to Kenya my parents bought Kristoffer a "Cars for Dummies" book which we keep with us at all times. I was able to use the book to troubleshoot and figure out that we were out of "automatic transmission fluid (ATF)." We belong to a roadside car assistance club (like AAA in America) and so I also called them and had a mechanic talk Kristoffer through how to check things out. He confirmed that we needed ATF or we weren't going anywhere!

Luckily for us some REALLY NICE KENYANS (said in capital letters because my spirit is renewed to find out that they are out there!) stopped on the road to help us and called a guy who worked at a gas station 10 km away (6 miles) to bring us some ATF. Once he came we were able to get on our way after the mechanic in Nairobi talked us through what to do over the phone. We were so happy that these Kenyans helped us and didn't try to take advantage of us. What a relief! Of course, the whole process took about 2 1/2 hours in the blazing heat. We are very lucky that we had some food in the car for Grace and plenty of water for all of us because we were somewhat in the middle of nowhere and the whole situation could have ended up much worse than it did. We got home around 4:30 pm which made it a very long trip after leaving at 10 am, but Grace was such a good girl the whole time.

I think Kristoffer and I have learned something important while living in Kenya: don't panic! When you are in a stressful situation, try to be calm and optimistic and problem solve instead of being angry and negative and stressed. We worked as a team and came out of both "tough moments" just fine.

Now the task ahead of us is getting ready to depart for Grace's first Christmas in Denmark AND her first really COLD weather: we leave Thursday night and can't wait to see our Danish family!

LMW

December 10, 2009 - Play Group

Yesterday Grace and I hosted our play group at our house for the 2nd time because the cafe where we normally meet was closed. The larger group has been as big as 16 babies when we meet at the cafe, but I just invited Grace's "closest" buddies over (ok, maybe my closest buddies too!). There were six babies and one 2-year old in total (the pictures were taken before one baby had arrived) which was a fun and manageable crowd. To me, Grace seemed a bit overwhelmed at the thought that all these other babies were playing with her toys but it is never too early to try to teach the concept of "sharing", right?

This is Grace and Alvin, her Kenyan-Danish friend. Alvin was really into Grace but every time he was too close or stared too hard she cried. Poor guy - she already knows how to play hard to get!

Yesterday Grace really mastered crawling forwards all over the place to get what she wants. She seems particularly motivated by keys or cell phones, but below she crawled a good ways to a toy she wanted to take away from another baby.

Charlotte is the 2-year old standing up below (whose little sister Hayley is across from Grace) and she is very good at playing with the babies. Something about the way she says "Baby Grace" with her New Zealand accent makes my heart melt a little! Hayley is about 7 weeks younger than Grace but they are about the same size and Hayley is a lot tougher than Grace! We have to work on that.

These ladies and babies help keep me and Grace sane over here...thank you!

LMW

December 9, 2009 - You Know You Live in Kenya When...

• there is an article in the newspaper about how an airplane hit a warthog on the runway.
• your neighbor calls at 7:30 pm to ask if you just heard gunshots; you are not too sure so the neighbor calls the compound security who tell her that it was probably just a car backfiring; your neighbor calls you back and tells you to stay clear of the windows just in case AND you are not alarmed.
• you are at a dinner party and the power goes out at 8 pm; it is pitch, pitch, pitch black (no security lights or anything) and the conversation just continues as if nothing had happened for several minutes before the power comes back on; nobody moves, nobody stops talking, nobody's tone of voice gets tense.
• your house has resident mosquitos, and you've started to name them.
• your housekeeper told you today that she doesn't wash her hands with soap (and therefore you are not surprised that your family had a stomach virus a few weeks ago).
• your carpenter tries to charge you $20 for a small piece of wood (5x the actual price) and refuses to negotiate because you're a Mzungu.
• a monkey crawls into the Deputy Country Director's office at work (she is #2 at WFP) and poops on her desk.
• you realize that the sunflower seeds on your desk have been stolen and nobody had access to your office...except the monkey sitting outside your window.
• you've been typing for one hour on your keyboard when a gecko lizard suddenly crawls out from under it.
• it takes you 3x as long to drive home from the store as it should because you are stuck behind a man pulling a cart full of furniture and there is too much traffic in the other direction to pass him.
• you travel 5 miles to work and every day see that a different traffic accident has occurred en route.
• you drive 45 minutes to visit an orphanage and when you leave 1 hour later it takes you 3 hours to get home.
• you drive through red lights as if red means "go".
• none of the above mentioned events shock, frighten, disturb or surprise you. Ever. You don't even flinch.

LMW & KW

December 8, 2009 - Reality Check

Kristoffer and I always feel that our trips away from Kenya are timed perfectly because they always come when we are really frustrated with Kenya, or when we have "Kenya fatigue" as Kristoffer calls it. This upcoming vacation to Denmark for the holidays is no different.

One of the realities of living here is that you can't trust anyone. And I used to think that "anyone" meant "any total stranger or partial acquaintance", but really it is "anyone" as in "any Kenyan you meet at all and even Kenyans you know very well". Here's what I am rambling on about:

We had a visitor from the US over the weekend, a friend of a friend named Susan, and we spent a lot of time telling her about our life here. The "don't trust anyone" conversation came up and Kristoffer revealed that he doesn't even trust Charles. I was somewhat shocked, because I do (or did) trust Charles. He is a good driver and I feel safe in the car with Grace while he is driving. That's trust, right? I give him money to do some shopping and sometimes send him on errands that I don't want to do. That's trust, right? We traveled to his village, brought gifts to his family and broke bread with them. There has to be some trust there, right? Apparently, not so right.

Kristoffer said that he has suspected for a long time that Charles is stealing fuel from us and is possibly using our car to give rides to people for money. We have a fuel card at the UN that we put money on, and then Charles uses it to fill our tank. Kristoffer thinks he fills the tank too often and must either take it to a place for some of it to be sucked out for him to sell, or he has a friend at the fuel station that does it for him. Of course we have no evidence, this is just his hunch but, of course, I am very upset about it. First I was mad at Kristoffer for not telling me his suspicion but, in his defense, he said that he knew how much it would upset me and how personally I take this stuff. Apparently, the trick is to realize that if Charles is stealing it is not personal for him, he is just doing it because he thinks he can't get by without doing it and maybe he thinks we owe it to him. It is like Kenyans are born and bred to think that way. Maybe if he knew how personally I took it he would stop? But I doubt that!

So now we are coming up with ways to keep track of his mileage and fuel economy more closely to see if Kristoffer's suspicions are true. It just kills me. The tough part is, even if we have evidence of what Kristoffer suspects, we probably won't fire Charles because then we would just have to find another good driver who would probably do the same thing or worse. Sheesh! So it is like we are caught up in this world of pretending not to know what we really do know and so seeming to him (or "them") like we are so naive, whilst all along we really do know what their game is but are just letting them get away with it because that is what you do here.

And another thing...

When we bought our car it was recommended to us to put a "LoJack" type of car tracking system in our car given that car-hijacking is so common here. So we went to the Kenyan version of "LoJack" called "Track It" and had it installed. After one year it expired and we had it installed again on the day that Grace was born (thank you Charles). Well apparently a few months after that, one "Track It" customer called and said his car had been stolen and a few minutes later the company called back and said that they located it in Elodret, a city in the Rift Valley several hours away. Turns out the guy had suspected that they were a fraud and was just testing them; his car was at his house the entire time. It was a huge scandal and the company went under. I had too much of a baby-brain to know this happened until this past weekend when we drove by the place and asked Kristoffer why they were closed down. Can you believe that?!

Even legitimate UN-recommended companies here are fraudulent. There is corruption at every single level of society. You quite literally can't trust ANYONE, which does not say much for the society at large. It is an extremely sad and lonely way to live, and I am really grateful to have other expats here with us that I do trust so that I don't lose my faith in my humanity altogether. It is good for us to not be naive about Kenya anymore, but it is also just so sad. The old saying "ignorance is bliss" was definitely true in this case.

Now THAT is a reality check.

LMW

December 6, 2009 - Two Down, One to Go

Today is the 2nd anniversary of our arrival in Kenya. Two years - wow!

This time last year we were happily pregnant, both working at the UN and finally felt like we really live here. Now we are busy parents, one of us working for Grace full time and the other at the UN, and we feel that we know Kenya a lot more intimately than we did a year ago. We are certainly not naive about the realities of life in this country anymore and we are beginning to plan where this life will take us when Kristoffer's contract ends in one more year (November 30, 2010).

While our life has been enhanced a million times over since Grace's birth, I am not yet sure if she has made being here easier or more difficult. On the one hand, when you have a baby there is not a lot of time for being unhappy with your circumstances because there are too many things to do! On the other hand, we realize how little time our loved ones spend with our baby girl because we live so far away.

Either way, we are here for one more year and are hopeful that it will be a fantastic one. If you want to come visit us: the clock is ticking!

As for what is going with the little one: she is sporting two freckles these days, has cut a third tooth, and is increasingly mobile.

Grace shows us when she wants to be picked "up".

Grace does not want to be spoon fed anymore. She really won't eat pureed food or cereal too much anymore. She wants to feed herself so we tried to teach her to eat with a spoon:

you can see how that worked out!

Grace also tried to eat an orange for the first time yesterday.

She loved to suck the juice out!

Today Grace had her first swim lesson at a compound on our street with a really nice heated pool. She loved the warm water! Here she is with her teacher, Heather (an American mom), trying to learn how to blow bubbles (she didn't do it yet, but she watched intently).

We dunked her once all the way and she was shocked but didn't swallow water or cry. We played "Humpty Dumpty" and "Ring Around the Rosies" with the other babies (Kristoffer and I took turns with Grace) and it was really fun. We can't wait for her next lesson in January!

If this picture is any indication, I think she liked it too :)

Happy Kenyan Anniversary to us!

LMW

December 3, 2009 - Baby, It's Cold Outside

Today has been an unseasonably cold day in Nairobi. It has also been raining since last night which is, of course, a good thing for the country but has left me feeling a bit down in the dumps. In addition to the yucky weather, both Grace and I have a cold: stuffy, running noses with lots of sneezing! Due to her cold (and possibly teething as well) she barely slept last night and she barely napped today and we are all, therefore, exhausted. Despite her fussiness, her clinginess, and her general discomfort, though, she is still making progress!

Last night she crawled forward a little bit for the first time, after being able to crawl backwards for a few days now. She repeated the performance today but she only goes forward a few inches before going backwards or sitting up. Tonight she also "cruised" furniture for the first time! She walked from Kristoffer to me holding on to our sofa and ottoman. We were both very excited for her and think that she is destined for more crawling and cruising in the immediate days ahead of us.

Even when we are cold and damp, this baby has a way of warming us right up!

LMW

December 1, 2009 - Kristoffer's Field Pictures

These pictures were taken on my field visits in October.

Roof rain water harvesting at a rural school.

"Deforestation" caused by elephants at a primary school.

Common view from WFP Landcruiser in Laikipia (a semi-arid area).

Inefficient stoves used for cooking WFP school meals.

Entrance to a primary school.

This is a school kitchen; the women is the cook. Note that every child brings 3 liters of water to school every day because the school has no access to water.

The biggest tree Kristoffer has ever seen. It is a baobab tree, very common here.

Children outside of a primary school (staring at the Mzungu).

Drying rack for students' bowls after lunch.

After a long drought, the first drops of rain.

A hydropower dam...but very little water.

Chalkboard outside of a primary school, displaying the school's spending.

This is a household energy-saving stove that I am working on getting distributed to refugees in Kenya. I was testing it at home to see how much wood it used and how much time it took to boil water: the results showed that it used about 70% less wood than a traditional stove (1/2 pound of firewood to bring 2 liters of water to boil in 17 minutes).

KW