Life marches on....

Sometimes I don’t know where to start. 

This week has been good.  “Building healthy relationships and self acceptance” …we also talked about sexuality and gender.  I gave a lot of talks, they all went well.

Father Emmanuel has been away for over a week now.  Strangely enough it has been a good thing.  I think I am finding my feet as an individual right now, which is good.  It will be nice when he comes home, but I am doing fine with learning to just be part of life here. 

I’ve made some good friends.  There is one guy, Faustine, who has struck up a wonderful friendship with me.  He has the most intensely kind eyes I have ever seen, and he always looks me square in the eyes.  His smile is pretty radiant too.  Today was great… I was all dressed up today for teaching.  In the morning I greeted him only briefly on the way to class.  But in the afternoon I say him and he signaled for me to come over to where he was.  I went, and he stood up and just said “You are SO smart today, you are really beautiful!” (something along those lines.)  It was a very nice moment. 

It’s the same with many of the other guys around… Frank, John, Baruk, Emmanuel, Lawrence, Mattias, Vincent and the others… they are very affirming, loving, fun and brotherly.  I feel safe as I relate to them. 

The girls are great as well.  My daughters on the DTS bring me great joy every day.  “Mama Noelle” is my name.  My housemate Paula is a really wonderful Kenyan woman, who is just FULL of joy and spunk.  The head of the DTS, Betty, is incredibly wise and a really good laugh.  We laugh so much as a team. 

There are so many others.  Today as I walked to the staff room, Monica, one of the other staff, started yelling “Hey, who is that pretty woman?  Who is that mozungu I see, she is so smart.  Who is this one?”  And she started doing the cute walk they do. 

Angel, Jane, Dorothy, Maris, Auntie Clare, Evelyn, Elizabeth, Jovia, Jovita, Monica…and so many others.  I’m not really white any more.  They will make a comment about “muzungus” and then say “but not Noelle” (or Noellina)…I like staying here because I don’t get yelled at or starred at any more.  Sometimes I forget and then I go out and the barrage comes again!

In closing, I am grateful for my busyness.  I have been VERY busy, but it has been a blessing to finally have real work.  I know that the work I am doing is effective, good and helpful.  I’ve been doing some writing, fund raising work for the DTS, a lot of teaching, mentoring, studying runyankore and other random things which come up. 

My body is still not doing very well.  It is struggling.  But I am just trying to figure out how to balance everything.  It will just take time and humility.  I noticed recently I have lost even more weight. 

The students are really growing.  It’s like being a gardener… watching these students become brighter, and grow in character is beautiful.

There are some Italians I am becoming friends with.  It’s fun.

This muzungu is going to SLEEP now!