The first week

There's so much to tell and so little time and space, but we'll give it a shot. Found a faster Internet connection here in Malindi today, so this will be easier. Really wish we could add photos right now, but the logistics are a bit of a challenge.

It's amazing how quickly you can settle into a different culture, even one as distant from American life as this environment in Tarasaa. Full from the latest hot, heavy meal, exhausted from a day of hard work (and some play) in the African sun, and sandy and dirty from head to toe, it's now routine to step over the dead cockroach next to the bed post, dodge the chicken that's hanging out in the corner of the steamy and stuffy room, climb into bed, tuck in the mosquito net, thank God for the good life at home and the enrichment of the experience here, and fall asleep for eight hours without even flinching.

Sometimes the scratchy call to prayer over the loudspeaker at the nearby mosque will wake you up at 4:30 a.m. Sometimes it's the giant bullfrog outside the window at 5. Sometimes it's the rat scattering across the tarp on the ceiling at 5:30. But sometimes you slumber right on through until 6.

Sleeping is a small part of the experience here, though. After breakfast with our host families (usually fruit, eggs, plenty of fried bread products, perhaps some porridge and of course chai tea), we meet to sing, pray and share in the morning before heading to work. The primary project so far has been to fortify the cement and stone church in the neighboring village of Furaha that serves the Sanye or Watu people there. They are very poor, living in straw huts and mostly illiterate, and few of them speak English. But the women have been delighted as they learn how to use the sewing machines we brought, and the kids swarm us every day with wide eyes and even wider smiles to watch the cement slinging and mixing. Outside, the older boys play volleyball and soccer on their crudely but remarkably constructed fields. They're good athletes, and we are slow white folks from Minnesota, but it's not all that hard to bump and set.

The other project that has taken a chunk of our time is outside the elementary school in the neighboring village of Egecumbe, where one of the outhouses recently collapsed into the 30-foot hole that was originally dug for it. We've been shoveling and hacking and grading so that the other one won't fall apart, too.

We pack into the matutu in the early afternoon and travel back to Samson's (the house of the local pastor here that serves as our headquarters) for lunch. Then it's usually back to one of the work sites, back to Samson's for more singing, praying and scripture, then back to our host families for dinner with some time for hanging out in between.

Blog posts are ineffective when they run too long, so this is a good place to stop. Continue to keep our safety, health, energy and emotions in your prayers. We'll check in again soon.

--Dave (for Steve, Shelby, Lauren, Madison, Morgan, Doug, Andrew, Becky, Alex, Randy, Paul, Anne, Howard, Lynne, J.J., Ryan, Sarah and Pete)