Language School, dislocated shoulder, and snake.

Thursday and Friday Doug and I had Deo as our language teacher. Our friend
from Germany left early due to rain soaking their tent. We miss them. They
had become nice friends to us.
Friday the SIL International group started arriving. We now have another
family with two young children with a tutor, two other couples, and then the
HR director and a lady that will be helping with his job as they are leaving
the country soon. The latter two will be leaving tomorrow and the others
will be staying for many weeks. There are more people expected today with
children. We are making many new friends, which we are enjoying very much.
The lessons have been keeping us quite busy during the week. We do try to
hike and walk when it is not raining. We have been getting a lot of rain
here, and hope that Kibidula is getting the same. It absolutely poured rain
one day this week, so much that we found a few leaks in our grass-roof
banda. We didn't notice the one leak for some time because it was directly
above where we had a towel hung. That was convenient. I am trying to
practice my Swahili more and more. The locals seem to enjoy that but they
also laugh at us. We laugh along with them. The South African pilot that
came one day after us will be staying the same amount of time. We have been
enjoying our time with him also.
We went on a nice hike through the coffee plantation yesterday afternoon and
to the neighboring camp. We met several of the university students from the
US who are there for four months. I especially enjoyed my time visiting
with Amanda.
It seems that there is always a "shoe" issue with each of our trips. This
time as we were climbing some rocks, my shoe slipped off and fell down
between some rocks into a very deep hole. This brought Joshua into a
serious bout of stress. That was about the time that Amanda came down the
path and I visited with her. Soon Doug was out of site and then calling for
Joshua to join him. Doug spotted my shoe and there was a very small opening
that Joshua was able to squeeze through to retrieve my shoe that had fallen
around five feed down this hole. We were all very, very grateful.
The path over and back was very interesting as we walked between coffee
bushes, along the river and crossed fields and small ravines. Some of the
grassy trail contained many ticks. Since I was wearing a long skirt, I
scooped up most of them. I had 80 by the end of the day. Only one or two
actually had bitten me, the others we picked off my skirt, shoes and socks.

I don't like ticks. At least they were big enough to easily pick off.
Polly, the camp dog was glad to guide us there and back. There are many
beautiful trails here.
I have not been able to receive any emails since we have arrived. I am
thankful that I was at least able to send some to the blog so people know
that we are still doing well. I may not be able to get any email here. I
may have to go to town to the internet café to get them.
All the studies and altitude seem to have taken a bit of a toll on us. Doug
and I took a three hour nap yesterday! That is so strange for me. We had
slept in also. Then we slept in again today, Sunday. We had a nice
breakfast (oatmeal, fruit and toast.) Afterwards we did our devotional
time, had a great time of family worship and discussing more of our Bible
studies, and then Joshua and I started a puzzle while Doug studied Swahili.
I am concerned that there may be many pieces of the puzzle missing. It is a
complicated puzzle to begin with (not the picture that is on the box.) I am
not sure how far we will get with it. It is a puzzle that belongs to the
camp.
It is a beautiful day and I plan to hike up to the "voda rock" to see if I
can send this via "voda" internet. If you see this, you know it worked.
Now to choose some pictures. I hope this works!
Thank you everyone for the prayers. We continue to appreciate each prayer
very much! We have been having a few health issues and hope they all clear
up. And we appreciate the prayers that we will learn the language
exceptionally well.

Sunday
Okay it didn't work. We tried for some time, but we never got signal.
Sunday there was some excitement here.
Several of the new people went to the neighboring camp along the river to
where there water falls over some huge boulders. As he crossed the rocks,
he fell. He fell into the swift river but fortunately was not swept away.
He was able to get his feet on something solid. He did dislocate his right
shoulder though. The owner of the neighboring camp re-located it for him.
It was an intense time for those that were there. Joshua and a friend came
over there about the time it all had happened also. Along with all that
excitement there was a huge downpour of rain. One of the campers ran back
along the path (dangerous in the rain) and brought a vehicle back to
retrieve everyone (so they stayed dry.)
Other than that, it was a nice quiet day. The camp manager saw that the
rain did cause flooding somewhere in Tanzania where 23 people died. We are
unsure where that happened, though.

Tuesday
We had a touch of excitement at the end of this day.
We didn't sleep very well last night. We though more exercise would help.
Just as the sun was going down, we decided to walk back up the road to the
highway. As we went, we were not using flashlights yet. There was a full
moon. Joshua was running ahead with the camp's dog, Polly.
He suddenly stopped and said there was a snake. It was a very small snake,
but we are quite sure it was a puff adder. I don't know if Joshua stepping
over it or Polly upset it, but it was striking at us. It was very small
though and we were not harmed. That is the first one we have seen alive.
It is a very interesting looking snake. I couldn't even tell it was a snake
until I used the flashlight because it had coiled up a bit and it was in a
strange shape in the light sandy road.
We were much more careful on the remaining walk.
We still didn't sleep well, though!

Wednesday
I hope to try to send my blog update again today. I hope I can receive
emails also. I haven't had any outside contact coming in since we arrived.
We hope to walk back up to the highway and see if there is a better signal.
If that doesn't work, I may pay for a ride into town so I can go to the
internet café. We will see how the day goes!
Classes remain quite challenging. We have a lot to learn! We are also
using other materials (our BYKI program) the Pimsleur audio and reading
program, and our books. We keep praying and working.
We are enjoying meeting all the new people coming here and making new
friends. There are people from New Tribes Missions in addition to SIL and
MAF. We have made many new friends. Along with this the teachers are
asking many questions about health and other things also. We enjoy sharing
when they ask.