Where we stayed

We stayed in what they call on the ranch “The Green House” well, because it is green. It had a large room with kitchen/dining/living areas with a pantry.

 It had a 3/4 bathroom and a bedroom with an adjoining office space which we used as the boys’ bedroom. There were a four person table/chairs, a love seat, a day bed, and twin beds for the boys and a queen bed for us. We had our share of mosquito nets for our beds. We had a highchair and a crib made for Eden while we were there.

 We also had a shelf made for Solomon’s school books. The kitchen boasted a propane stove and fridge. The fridge had to have a new bottle every 14 days or so and we would use what was left in it for the stove which worked well. The shelves were open and below the counter, which posed a problem as Eden learned to crawl and reach all of the glasses, dishes, and serving ware. We were welcomed by a host of geckos when we got there which stayed for the entire three months depleting the bug population by night and peaking at us from the curtains by day.

 I tried to resist, but my overwhelming urge to change furniture started the day we came. It started with a quick switch of the day bed and the love seat. Then it turned into the bed moving twice and the table and love seat were switched later in our stay (It gave me something to take my mind off of leaving the last day because I worked at switching it all back)!

Our pantry consisted of, at any given time, Irish potatoes (close to reds), cabbage, onions, tomatoes, green peppers, pineapple, bananas, eggs, spaghetti noodles, beans, ground nuts (peanuts), oats, rice, white flour, and maize flour. We ate lots of fried beans and posho (beats the pants off of rice and beans with no nutritional value), spaghetti and fried cabbage and eggs and potatoes. When someone would go to town, they would bring us back some frozen chicken breasts and we would make popcorn chicken and French fries.

We had a girl names Salima to help with cooking, cleaning, laundry, and starting the fire for warm water at bath time. She did these things every day.

 Eventually, Eden liked to help with the laundry. The first week, three men came and dug a trash pit, which turned out to be a 6 foot hole in the ground through lava rock! Africans can be very hard workers.

Our roof was consisted of a thin metal. It is a great upgrade from the grass roof, but there was one drawback. When it rained, it poured! And when it poured, the noise on the roof was absolutely deafening! It was so loud, Abraham had to wear the noise reducing headphones we had brought along at the last minute (thank you God!) and the rest of us had to either go outside or cover our ears. We have already started thinking of ways to lessen the sound when we go back and build our house.