Transitioning

I've started and abandoned several blog entries about our transition to Lusaka.  The problem with moving is that it keeps you running in crazy circles with little time to complete a thought, much less a blog entry.  It's been a whirlwind of new: new schools, new house, new neighborhood, new roads, new car, new stores, new everything.  I'm tired of new.  I think I might curl up with my 40 year old baby blanket that I found recently in the "yet to be unpacked room".


Here's the house we are living in:

 It's nice and has a lovely fruit-filled yard, but it exhausts me.  Everyday there is a new problem with the water or electric or termites or cockroaches or bats or on and on and on. 


Ani's new American school is great and Leena's also enjoying the Montesorri school.  Even Michael starts school tomorrow out on a farm.  Leena gave us a primer on negotiating the health system by having a terrible trampoline fall and breaking her leg.  She's healing nicely, though.

Lusaka is relaxed and a good family place, but sort of not that interesting.  So, I don't have many pictures to share of Lusaka but we did make it out to Livingstone and Victoria Falls.  Now that is quite scenic.

Hopefully we will get properly settled soon and find something interesting to blog about.  Preferably not about bats, roaches, etc....

Merry Christmas from Michigan

We are having a cold but joyful holiday in Michigan.  Although there hasn't been much snow, the kids have enjoyed the lights, family fun, and general experience of being in the cold.  It's great to have this time before our transition to Zambia.

Merry Christmas to all.....

Love, The Bellweathers

Thanksgiving, #MichaelBrown

The whole Ferguson/Michael Brown situation has made me very, very sad this Thanksgiving.

I remember back when the Trayvon Martin incident occurred and I was outraged.  Obviously, the murder of an unarmed teenager for the crime of acting like an angsty teenager was the most outrageous part, but also deeply troubling is all the apologetics from people who don't want to admit that we live in an unjust society: he shouldn't have been walking around at night in a hoodie, he shouldn't have fought the guy who was profiling him, etc...  I think the most troubling one to me is when people point to his size and declare him a full-grown adult, conveniently forgetting every stupid thing they ever did as a teenager when their brains were still developing and hormones were surging through their systems.

Clearly, this applies to the Michael Brown case as well.  Almost everyone out there on Facebook and the ugly world of the "comments section" has apparently read every line of testimony and knows for a FACT what happened.  It's such BS.  Even the people who were there have different accounts of what happened based on their filters and fears.  We don't need armchair legal analysts to know that we live in an unjust society where black males are much more likely to be killed, incarcerated, arrested, pulled-over, questioned, etc.. for the same behaviors and crimes as their white counterparts.  We have pretty clear cut statistics that demonstrate that.

With this case, instead of outrage I feel more of a deep sadness and fear.  The difference, of course, is that I have my own Michael to look out for and the main difference between this face

and this face

 

is approximately 16 years (and a sweet hat).  

Right now it seems like the focus on the topic is the "black rage", which is a great distraction from our real problem of systematic discrimination and injustice.  The African Americans that I know actually seem a lot more weary than angry.  They are tired of trying to explain this problem to the rest of us and getting denial and woefully inadequate analogies.  They are so tired that I think if one more person says something like, "but my Irish great-grandparents experienced discrimination and they got over it," they are going to need to lay down for awhile.

I guess that means that some of the rest of us are going to have to stand up.  I'm not sure what that means, to be honest, and I'm open to suggestions.  Facebook battles seem fruitless and this blog is certainly not the answer considering it typically has an audience of one (Hi Mom!). I'm looking into organizations to financially contribute to and will try to be more challenging to statements of ignorance, even though engaging in this type of discourse is difficult for me. I like to keep things easy breezy and non-confrontational.  

But really, it isn't all that challenging to say that American society has a deep problem with race that hasn't evaporated with the Obama presidency. We can all recognize that systematic injustice persists in our legal system and admitting this doesn't mean that we hate the police or condone looting and rioting.  It means we see the problem and want to do better.

UnHalloween

Last year, or a whopping 9 blog posts ago, we had our typical Halloween.  I collected a list of  about 25 participating apartments and kids in the complex got dressed up and went trick-or-treating.  It was all great except for the fact that my daughter absolutely hated it.  She particularly hates scary costumes and in a tearful outburst asked "WHY?  Why do we dress like DEATH and go house to house?  I don't understand!!!!"  I looked at my Egyptian mummy and her sister, the skeleton, and said, "umm.....for candy?"

I never questioned Halloween and its creepy elements as a child.  To me, it was my big chance for sweets in a nearly sugar-free household.  My costumes were planned specifically to not hinder my ability to RUN house to house and gather as much candy, preferably chocolate, as possible.  I remember one Halloween where my friends and I did a quick costume change and bolted out for another round.  That was epic.

Annice asked that I not plan Halloween this year so we decided to have our  own UnHalloween, which involved fruit carving, a living room candy hunt, and watching a non-scary movie.

Leena was still able to trick-or-treat with the neighbors and we left out candy on the front step.  I've tried explaining to Annice that Halloween is a holiday where we take what scares us and make it into a party, thereby taking some of the scare out of it.  She is skeptical of this explanation and truth-be-told, it does seem like a nice but BS post-hoc explanation for something that is messed up.  Sort of like Humanae Vita, in my opinion, but, I digress.....

UnHalloween turned out to be a raging success.  A sugar high without the frightening nightmares and melt downs of years past.  The best part, though, was the thank you note I received:

Camping

We tried out some camping this weekend.  I love the IDEA of camping, but the execution is not my favorite.  Between all the prep/packing/set-up and the constant need to keep the baby away from the fire/away from the knives/ away from the river/ etc... I find it all very exhausting.  Kids (and I include Ben in this group) really love it though.


Girls having breakfast

Michael enjoying the view

Don't expect ANYTHING from me before coffee

Feeding Baraka the rhino some sugar cane

Visiting the grave of Robert Baden-Powell -- founder of the boy scouts

#AdamActs

A brief departure from my online scrapbooking to participate in a lovely internet phenomenon titled AdamActs in honor of a high school classmate and friend - an amazing kid whose life was senselessly cut short in 1992.   See: http://iquitwhenitscold.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-hardest-story-i-never-told-adamsacts.html.

Anyways, the idea of doing acts of kindness in October is great but harder for me to put into practice than one might think here in Nairobi.  I try to tip well, give away stuff all the time, and treat people decently in general, but it's all a bit more complicated to do something special without either feeling like I've painted a target on my back for theft/abduction or looking like some silly white woman on a mission to save the day with muffins too moist for the typical Kenyan pallet.

So, today my brilliant plan was to talk with the veiled woman at school.  School drop-off/pick-up is my social time of the day and I chat with my friends, complain about my kids, etc..  For awhile I've noticed this veiled woman sort of stands alone like an island waiting for her kid and not talking to anyone.  It's an international school with plenty of Muslim kids, but not a lot of veiled ladies and I've always found this look intimidating:

note: not actual woman i spoke with.

I've noticed her daughter is adorable.  I've noticed she wears white sandals with blue hosiery sometimes.  But I've never spoken with her; too busy gabbing away with my friends or chasing after Michael. Well, that's my official excuse but honestly it's more because it's difficult to talk with someone who seems so very "other".  This morning, though, I marched up there and started talking -- she experienced the fully caffeinated Nicole, which means a lot of words spoken quickly with frequent changes of topic, etc...  Others joined in too -- maybe to save this poor woman from dealing with Fully Caffeinated Nicole by herself, but still, she was no island this morning.  

So, I will not win the prize for the best AdamsActs of all times, but it's an attempt. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that this woman's Facebook status currently reads: "Let a white lady yammer at me for 20 minutes and I didn't tell her to stop. #AdamActs".

UPDATE: I've stopped conversation assaulting this woman, but now when I see her, I smile and wave.  She waves back and I think she smiles back too.  Hard to tell since I can't see her actual mouth, but the eyes sort of lift and I'm taking it as a smile. When in doubt, it's always better to assume people are smiling at you, anyways.

Summer

Sending my girls off to Michigan for the summer without me was tough but I knew they would have a great time and they certainly did.  We were so happy to finally sort out Michael's passport and visit so he could meet the family as well.

Here's a few photos:

Recent moments

Time for a photo dump.

Annice turns 8!

Leena's first disco at Braeburn.  Dressed as Elsa from Frozen.

Kids dressed in white for International Peace Day, which also is on the 1 year anniversary of the Westgate attack

Handsome Michael after a very cold swim

Rock churches of Ethiopia

The girls are in Michigan for the summer having a grand ol' time with their grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, and friends.  Unfortunately, we were unable to get Michael's passport in time to get a US visa so that we could all go.  We finally got Michael's passport last week and decided to try it out on a trip to Ethiopia.  

I heard that the rock hewn churches of Lalibela were amazing, but perhaps not the most fun for kids, so it seemed like a good time to check them out while the girls were gone.  They are pretty amazing -- all carved out of rock.  UNESCO has recently declared them a world heritage site and are helping to protect and restore them.

Here's a few photos:

International Day at Braeburn

Today was International Day at school and the girls were allowed to choose whatever country they wanted to represent.  The decided to dress in Kenya cloth and bring American food --- Oreos.  The best of world fusion!  Here's a couple of photos:

Leena and friend Herane 

Annice's class - which represented Kenya

Happy Thanksgiving

Our not-so-little Butterball

Trick or Treat!

We went trick-or-treating around our apartment complex this Halloween.

Leena has the BEST time for about 8 apartments, and then she was tired and done.  Annice didn't care for it at all and questioned the whole point of the holiday.  Taking a step back, it is sort of strange, but at least we had fun dressing up.

Warning: Serious Cuteness Ahead

Art interpretation

The girls do their own thing as long as I provide minimal art supplies.  Ben and I find their art work scattered across the house and have to make our own conclusions on the meaning.  We think this pair of drawings was done to demonstrate the dangers of sun worship.  ;)

Annice came home with this "future globe" picture today.  Methinks it's about global warming.

Hidden offices

Leena is into a fun form of play where she is always setting up an office to do her "work".  She might invite you to have a seat in her office and then look through her appointment book (the Bible) to see if you are actually visiting with her at your scheduled time.  Then she'll ask how your day is going and before you can adequately answer she is looking to make you another appointment.  It's pretty hilarious and her "office" migrates around the house.  Today, I found it under my bed.

She's got her appointment book (Bible), a picture of my late Aunt Fina, some U.S. state flash cards, finger nail clippers, a mini flash light, a magic trick, staples, and 20 shillings.  I haven't quite figured out what her profession is but I know it's very important work.

Look who's 7!

Beautiful girl with a beautiful heart.

More Michael photos

I am a fairly terrible photographer and most of the time I easily accept this about myself since I prefer to absorb the moment rather than document it for posterity.  Sometimes, though, I wish I was better at taking pictures and this is one of those times.  Michael is such a cutie and I cannot really capture it on camera.  These will have to suffice until others get a chance to meet him.

 Enjoying some tummy time.

 Sisters introducing him to the joys of eating snacks in front of the TV.

Fun with the girls

Sleeping teddy bear.

Last vacation for the Bellows 4

Before getting custody of Michael, we went to the coast for our last vacation as a family of four.  We  hung out in relaxing Watamu, even more relaxing during low season when the seaweed is thick on the beach.  It didn't stop us from having a great time though.

Welcoming Baby Michael

Hello Family and Friends....

We are thrilled to be welcoming Michael into our family and embarking on the first leg of our adoption journey here in Kenya.  Expecting a child around 1 year, we were surprisingly matched with Michael who just turned 3 months.  He's very precious and we feel incredibly lucky.  Of course, we still have a long road to go before everything is finalized... 3 months fostering, however long the legal process takes to finalize in Kenya, and then the 2 year + process of getting his U.S. citizenship.  But, as any parent knows....time moves fast when caring for little ones.  We're hoping to be matched with our second boy in about 6 months.  That's when things will get REAL interesting.  Looking for prayers, good vibes, whatever you got.  :)

 Mary the social worker with Michael.  Mary brought him from the hospital (Pumwani) to the orphanage (Thomas Bernardo) after he was born.  She is the one who gave him the name Michael.