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Shelly Beach continued..

Something I have noticed, is that my speech has begun to drop unimportant words like pronouns, adjectives, and silly unnecessary parts of speech.  This is to try to be understood by people here.. so my writing has also become pretty bad as a result.. but if you are still reading on this the 14 (15?) entry then you obviously don't care too much.

Anyways, to continue where I left off...

Before we actually got to play at Shelly, the Wednesday was spent buying all the food for the weekend. The weekend was sponsered by myself and Curtis (an american missionary who has lived in Mombasa with his wife and kids for the past 3 years. Daughter by the name of Claire is what M.O.Y.O/St. Claire's Nursery School was named after).  So he covered the accomodation and I covered the food.  Shopping was interesting.. shopping for 3 days for nearly 40 people (including the chaperones) was about buying in bulk. Then getting 4 people to carry it all (on their heads no less).  We then squeezed into Curtis' car with the food (the T.V. a table, and 4 people), to head over the ferry for my first time.  I like the ferry.. its got a nice view.. but if you are stuck on the lower level you sweat buckets (happened to us on the way back from Shelly with the kids). We met the facilitators at the resort, and discussed the outline for the 3 days, the expectations we had and how we were gonna execute the talks.  It was interesting, cause the facilitators led some team building exercises for us adults.    At the end of the afternoon.. Bokey and I walked back to the ferry (REALLY long walk.. its like 10 mins by matatu...) but we talked about politics & history...

Back to Shelly... the place being sooo quiet,was such a change from Magongo and Mombasa... also, it was nice to eat in the communal manner in which we did.  Like each of the girls brought their own cup, plate and spoon (i did too). You put your plate down out where they cook (which was behind one of the houses on a charcoal stove, with 2 huge pots).  Then the cooks would dish out the food, and the girls would come grab their plates.  For some meals, some of the food is shared.. like for dinner we ate meat and ugali. Everyone gets their own plate of ugali.. but 2 people share a bowl/plate of meat, sorta in like a "goat-curry-like" stew.  And most actually use their hands.  Then if you have too much, you give what you don't eat to someone else who wants more.  (This was the case for me pretty much every meal.. they all like to fill their bellies on starches.. but I just can't eat that much!).

Another interesting occurance of the weekend was how as the weekend progressed, how I cared less and less about drinking bottled water (kids kept filling empty bottle with the local water and putting it in the fridge.. so I am sure I drank a lot of non filtered water.. and I have lived to tell the tale).  Also how I didn't care about wearing my flipflops cause shoes just get in the way when you are playing....

We left Shelly Sunday morning. I was originally only going to stay over their for Thursday and Friday nights, and come home Saturday evening.. but we were having the finaly blow out Saturday night so I stayed (Bokey and Liz stayed too.. they would go home every night around 8pm and come early each morning).  Ahh... and the most interesting was that the girls did infact braid my hair on Saturday night.  I really like it..it should last for about a week before it comes out alot.. so I will get it done again before I come home.  

So after we returned from Shelly Sunday late morning (exhausted from the very few hours of sleep each night), I took Bokey, Liz, Buda, Ciaran and Tina (Bokey's Daughter) for dinner.  It was a good end to a great excursion.

On a different note, I go on Safari this weekend (right now the date is tentative cause but it will likely be Friday to Sunday).  Technically, I don't have a place to stay from the 12-14 (Monday-Wed, next week) and so I will likely stay at M.O.Y.O. which is quite convienient. Its like a 10-15 minute walk to the airport....and then the time here is done.... the girls are all asking,  "Can I take them to Canada?".. "When will I come again?".. or more importantly, can they have my hat or sunglasses or watch to remember me by!  They really are good kids.. only thing left to do is to really get them disciplined like the football girls.. now those girls are disciplined at their sport.. but they have been playing for 2.5 years.. have 3 local coaches, and most volunteers have helped with soccer.  The basketball have been neglected, and they are new (only playing together since september).  There is 2 in particular that are just amazing... I could totally bring them to Canada and they would dribble circles around the high school kids!   Hmmm.... interesting idea.. they aren't too tall.. they could fit in a suitcase...

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