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Published: February 20th 2008
Apartment
Our bedroom (excuse the mess, this applies for all the apartment pics)A lot has happened since our last blog. We spent a little over 2 weeks in England, being orientated for Murray’s new job. While Murray was working I spent a lot of time with a friend from Sri Lanka and her kids, a nice bonus. It was cold, which was a bit of a shock to poor Charlotte, who wore more clothes than ever before!! I was also included in Murray’s security training. This was mostly theory, but we did get to play with some VHF / HF radios and satellite telephones, which was fun. We also managed to catch up with a few London based family and friends, which is always nice 😊
We were delayed in coming to Kenya by a few days, as there were some political protests planned on the day we were suppose to arrive. Driving from the airport we passed Uhuru (Freedom) Park, which was guarded by heavily armed police.
The apartment where we are living is nice enough. We have hot water, and a microwave (two things we didn’t have in Sri Lanka). The apartment is two bedroom and comfortable. But it is up six flights of stairs, and with the altitude
(Nairobi is 1700m above sea level), baby, plus car seat, pram, shopping etc, it’s a bit of a mission 😞 We have a courtyard area in the middle of the five apartment blocks (6 apartments per block) where Charlotte and I play in the afternoon with the other children in the compound. We live 5 minutes away from a mall, which has pretty much everything. We are finding the food variety a great change from our limited variety in Galle. Three other shopping malls are also close by, but everything is very expensive.
Murray is settling into work life well. The programme is slower than the Tsunami team, which is understandable. Murray is also traveling a little bit more, and had a trip to Sudan last week. Sudan has been devastated by years of civil conflict, there is basically zero infrastructure and the people are very poor. The programme is involved in health work, and Murray is now assisting to set up a water and sanitation programme. The first project will be to drill water supply wells at all the health clinic sites.
Murray’s work colleague took us along to her bible study three days after we arrived,
The living room
We actually have 9 channels on TV, which we are enjoying. NZ "Street Legal" programme is on prime time :) which has been the best introduction into life here. The group is great. Murray and I have both made friends in the group. And since then my days have been occupied with play groups and shopping trips.
We finally managed to get on Safari (see pics) which is what we were waiting for, to make the blog photos a bit more exciting 😊
The situation here in Nairobi has been tense. We had one week where an MP was murdered, there was rioting at a nearby slum area called Kibera. On this day we were supposed to stay indoors. But we didn’t get that message till I was at a friend’s house. Her house was close to another slum and we heard gunfire and yelling. Driving home was a bit tense, with people on the street looking around a lot while they were walking, everyone was a bit nervous. This is about all the violence we have been in touch with, and things feel safe enough, despite what you are being told in NZ. Our church has been involved with some of the IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps in Naivasha, distributing food, nappies, etc. And also helping transport
people from IDP camps back to their rural homes.
Please continue to pray for the people in Kenya. Kofi Annan is holding peace talks currently, and the people here hold a lot of hope that things will be resolved.
As always we have spare beds, and would welcome any visitors 😊
Love
Miriam, Murray & Charlotte
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Lohan
non-member comment
Great photos and thanks for the update
Hey guys, Nice to see you guys have settled in. Charlotte is a darling and we miss her so much...not to mention you guys too. Oh we do hope that we'll get a chance to use those extra beds of yours ha ha. Much love, Lohan.