Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Happy Birthday to me #2

They say the grass is greener on the other side... well... I can't say that there is any grass here to be able to compare it with... but 30 hasn't been that bad so far!
 
I can't believe I forgot to tell you about my presents!  Ok, not all of them, but just two that I wanted to share with you.  The first was a gift to myself...  And yes, you can laugh about how sad the life of a missionary is when we get this excited about something so silly... I bought myself a new refrigerator!  Wahoo!  After the Johnson's left and took their full sized on, the one that I was using was only slightly larger than a dorm sized fridge (I could easily see over the top for goodness sakes!).  Which, when you have 3 people trying to share isn't the easiest thing in the world.  So, I decided, for my birthday, to go fridge shopping!  We found one at the local furniture store that was the perfect size, even if we go back up to having 5 people here again.  And the best part... turns out it was on sale!  Yippee!  Happy birthday to me!  :-)
 
The second present that I wanted to share with you is the one from Lauren and Janeen.  Knowing that I was pretty bummed about turning 30, they decided to make me a calendar.. "30 Days of Celebration".  Each day has a different activity to help me celebrate turning 30!  Just a few of the things that they have done for me so far: a massage, washing my car, movie night, and a day of 'retail therapy'.  How great is that idea?!?!?!  Thanks Lauren & Janeen! :-)  Today though, I have to admit, has been my favorite.  Today is 'Opera Day'.. For the entire day instead of talking to me, they sing their conversations in their best opera voices!  Ok, so it's a little bit of an inside joke... but you have to admit it's pretty funny!
 
I know that several of you have said that you celebrated my birthday, but so far I have only received one set of pictures.  I want to thank Sheila for being the first!  She sent me a picture that made me want to cry!  For my birthday, she got a Big Mac and took a picture of it with a candle in the middle and a Happy 30th Birthday card behind it!  Thanks Sheila!  (It also made my mouth water... that Big Mac looked so good!!)
 
lots of love to you all!
k
 
 
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Monday, February 25, 2008

Happy Birthday to me!

Greetings from the other side of 30!!! :-)  Ha! Ha!
 
I wanted to again say thank you to all of you who sent me birthday wishes.  It was a great weekend!  The first two days were more focused on Janeen's birthday and the last two were more about mine.  On Friday after work we drove down to Grootfontein (about 2 1/2 hrs away) and made pizza!  It is one of our favorite meals to make here and it tastes better made fresh too!  On Saturday we went to the private hospital where there is a nice lady who has a little day spa.  To treat ourselves we each got a massage and then got our legs waxed!  OUCH!!  Not a very fun thing to do for our birthdays, but the results were worth it...  :-)  Also on Saturday night we made my favorite food, Mexican!  We used a taco mix that was sent me to make shredded chicken.  Then we made our own sopapillas and guacamole... YUMMY!!!  After church on Sunday morning we made French toast and bacon.  Lauren's mom sent her real Canadian maple syrup that we enjoyed a lot!  The rest of Sunday was very relaxing as we just hung out, chatted and watched movies.  For lunch we were going to have sandwiches, but we had so many leftovers from the night before that we made some tortillas and had Mexican again!  It was just as good the second time as it was the first!  :-)  That evening we made our way a few miles out of town to the Kalkfontein Bed & Breakfast and farm.  That's where Mufasa lives. 
 
The B&B is a very nice place.  The rooms all open onto the pool, and in the middle of the night when you awaken you can often hear Mufasa roaring!  It's really cool!  Later that night, it was almost midnight and we decided to have more cake.  We didn't have forks or plates, but it didn't bother us!  We just ate African style with our hands!  Yummy!  Monday we did absolutely nothing productive but lay around and read.  There is no grass in Rundu, so we reveled in just sitting around outside on the lawn in the shade!  It was a perfectly relaxing day!  On Tuesday, my actual birthday, I had the pleasure of having breakfast outside with Mufasa!  Lauren and Janeen asked if they would move our table outside and if they could call Mufasa over to the fence.  They did both and it was a beautiful way to start being 30!  We lunged around after breakfast then went into town to meet up with Jessica and Linda (who live there) and Mick, who came up bringing our new team mates, David and Mckenzie (they're here for 3 months working with the Orphans and Vulnerable Children project {OVC}- they're from Montana).  After lunch, we lazily headed back to Rundu.  We unloaded the car, then headed to my favorite place for dinner... Kavango River Lodge.  Normally we would all order their beef steak, which is just about the best steak I have ever had in my entire life!  Unfortunately though, there were too many people booked in for dinner so they made us have a buffet.  It made me really sad, but I was promised we could go another day instead...
 
Overall, turning 30 wasn't too bad!  I loaded some pictures into the Facebook, just follow this link.  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=27963&l=a1fc7&id=624739114.  I hope you enjoy them!
 
lots of love,
kimmie
 
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Saturday, February 23, 2008

interesting news

This is the front page of the local newspaper today... thought you'd be interested in seeing it...
 
 

Street children locked up
The City Police on Wednesday night picked up 16 street children for allegedly contravening the Windhoek's bylaws by illegally squatting on public property.

The children, ranging in age from eight to 16 years old, were detained in the cells at the Windhoek Central Police Station in Independence Avenue, from where they were set to be transferred to the juvenile custody section of the Wanaheda Police station.

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Sunday, February 10, 2008

Quick update and first impressions

Dearest Family and Friends,
 
Metaha!  Good afternoon!  How are you?  Things here are going well.  I want to tell you about how my first week went, but first I have some good news!  I wanted to share with all of you that one of my best friends from home, Erin, and her husband Jeff, were blessed with their first child on the 5th!  Their daughter, Addison Lindley Anderson was born at 8:49pm, at a petite 6lbs 10oz and 19 1/2 inches long.  Mother and baby are doing very well.  Though I missed both their wedding and their daughter's birth, I am thankful to family (especially her mom) and friends who have kept me as up to date as possible with information and photos!  Congratulations Erin & Jeff!  Also in the good news category is Sally, one of the Canadians that was here last year, who just let us know that she got engaged!  Amy, Sarah and I feel personally invested in their relationship because there were many discussions about him during the months that she lived here! ;-) Congratulations Sally & David!
 
So, many of you are wondering if I am ever going to write about December.  Well, to be honest, it doesn't look like it's going to happen!  I can tell you that in December we went to Etosha and it was a great trip!  Anna (the American teacher who works with Mary at the College of Education) had never been on safari and so it was wonderful to watch her reactions!  We saw lots of animals including 5 elephants, 10 hyenas and 8 lions (including one cub) and countless giraffe, zebra, oryx, ostrich, and all the other animals you see when on safari.  (Jimmy, I got 3 new birds too!  :-)  I saw the blue crane, the goofy looking marabou stork and the blue cheeked bee-eater!)   In December we also started yoga classes!  How are we taking yoga classes you ask?  It's 'Hippie Yoga with Anna'!  :-)  Ok, so the hippie part is just her way of making me not feel bad when I can't do whatever it is that she's trying to get us to do... "Hey man, it's all cool, just do as much as you can".. Then again, she also says, as she demonstrates these beautiful yet impossible looking poses, that "yoga is like the Christian faith, you must always keep trying".  So far I have improved, though it isn't as easy as she makes it look!  
 
Aside from my news of my new job, January also brought the rains.  I can't tell you how happy we all were to get rid of the scorching heat!  However, with the rains come different problems.  The ruts in the road that small families could sleep in for instance.  Or the laundry that begins to mold because after you wash it there aren't any dry spells to hang it out to get it dry.  Or the times when you have a dry spell, get excited, place your laundry out on the line, and it starts raining again!  That's when we just tell ourselves that it really needed a second washing.  Ha!  Ha!  Sometimes it's a third or even fourth, but that's just the way it goes here!  The rains also make everything green and brings lots of things into bloom.  It's really beautiful here right now with tons of flowers of all different shapes and colors.  In January we also celebrated 3 birthdays!  Lauren, Mary and Luke all had their own celebrations that kept us pretty busy eating cake!  :-)    In January we also went to a church out in the bush with Pastor John.  It was Lauren & Janeen's first time out in the bush and it was fun to watch their reactions.  It was also their first time to have a traditional meal!  Thankfully no one got sick!  I have posted a few of the random pictures from January on my facebook page (click here to see them:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26694&l=89f0b&id=624739114).  You will be able to see them even without having a facebook account.  Let me know if that link doesn't work for you though!
 
Now for my first impressions of my new job.  This first week was a little rough.  The week started with trying to find an office.  I finally found a corner on the Assistant Matron's desk that she is willing to let me have.  After I found a place to hang my hat, so to speak, then I had to get started on brushing up on my knowledge.  To make sure that I'm not giving out bogus information, I have been reading nursing text books all week!  It's really no fair that teachers have to do more work than the students!  I don't think I read this much when I was actually in nursing school!!!!  ;-)  Other than reading, all I did was plan this month's schedule of training sessions.  This month, and hopefully the next as well, I am working with students on basic nursing things like how to assess and how to document what your findings are after you assess your patient.  After I think they have it down then I will start working on the suggestions that I received from each of the wards.  Many of the items that the nurses have asked for is information that is way above my head, and I will have to ask different people for assistance in getting the information.  For example, Maternity Ward was asking questions about handling complicated labors such as shoulder distocia and cephalopelvic disproportion.  Though I know what those are, I have no idea what to do about them!  Hopefully Rob will come to my rescue in this area!  Anyway, this week I plan on starting informal training with the students.  I plan on doing two each day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon so I can make my way through all the wards.  Please pray with me that my voice will keep up with me and that the I will be sensitive to all the nurses as they deal with my presence in their wards!  Thanks!
 
lots of love to you all!
kapande
 
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