Friday, I woke up and did my laundry.  It took about an hour and a half.  I sat by our washer and dryer the entire time and watched them do their magic while eating a Reeses and partaking in a glass of milk.  I was happy and sad at the same time throughout the experience.  I cannot describe what it feels like, but I definitely feel something very strongly...

When I left for Kenya I weighted 170.4 lbs at 6'5 which is pretty light weight.  I knew I had lost some weight while in Kenya because when my mom and seminary friends have hugged me throughout the year the first thing they've said is, "You've lost weight."  I never weighed myself in Kenya, but believed them.  Here's the answer:



15 lbs!  Impressive.  I'm fine, hukuna shida (no worries).  I've been walking a few miles a day and living on a different diet for nine months so it makes sense that I've lost weight (not sure about 15 lbs.).  Any who, the beauty of being underweight means that I can have the unusually fun goal of putting on weight in the next three weeks.  My goal is ten pounds.  We'll see what happens.

I have been conflicted on how to talk about food since returning.  I have just left my Kenyan home where I eat mainly rice because it is inexpensive.  States home, I am eating a lot of food like a King which is not inexpensive in the Kenyan sense so I feel a bit out of place and self.  I kept telling myself that I would post pictures of all the food I eat while home.  Then I considered how unusual that would be.  Finally, I told myself, "Well, you're eating the food whether you post pictures of it or not so you minus well put pictures up."  By the way, it is my M.O. to take pictures of my food.  I love food so I think it should be photographed... like other loved ones.

Chik-Fil-A (My Kenya YAVs asked me to eat some Chik-Fil-A for them, I done did it!):


Homemade Pizza and Dr. Pepper (doesn't exist in Kenya) from Josh and Laura Reese:


Mom's famous steak dinner:


Dinner with the Montana's (Dad's side):


Breakfast on the go:


Pizza Hut Finally!:


Huninghake Graduation Party (Mom's side):


Memorial Day Lunch:

The Week Begins

I must say that it is a rather unusual feeling returning home after nine months in Kenya.  This is further compounded by the fact that it is only for three weeks and then I head back which makes the trip feel awkward.

Monday and Tuesday I went through my usual routine, coaching basketball at the boys and girls high schools and teaching computers at ByGrace.  It began as a very normal week as my previous 36 had been.  Then as I semi-frantically packed to leave by means of head lamp because the power had gone out (note to self: always pack for trips in Africa when the sun is up) I realized it was not going to be a normal week. 

Tuesday at ByGrace:


Wednesday night, I was eating dinner by myself before my flight because the Foxies had gone to a school, Cosmas walked in out of the blue which was really nice.  Rodgers, Cosmas, and I loaded in the van, which has taken me all over Kenya inthe last nine months, and headed for the airport with a few detours.  The first was to the school to pick the Foxies up and the second was to get Rodgers' wife, Carol, from school.  So, we were a full van of eight people.  They all saw me off at the airport which was really nice.

Plane One

It took me a while to remember plane one which is because I took my PM as we were boarding, sat down, put on my blinder, and woke up in London.  Not bad.

London

I had a nine hour layover in London so I wanted to go into the city and do something.  I took the Heathrow Connect in as I begrudgingly grumbled at the Pound.  My goal was to go on the bus tour of London.  However, it was going to take longer than I had anticipated and drop me back at the station right when I was planning on leaving the station.  This would have been beautiful providence to old Robert, but Kenyan Robert did not believe that the bus would return on time or anywhere near on time (I also tried to bargain down the tour ticket price at which the seller gave me a curious look).  Not in Kenya anymore!   To make a short story long, I ended up hanging out in the vicinity of Paddington Station and having a nice lunch before heading back to Heathrow.

Thursday in London at Paddington Station


Plane Two

Now that I had slept an entire plane ride, I felt the need to take advantage of the movies on flight number two.  Fate had it that I sat by a nice 23 year old Iowan, Sneha, who had been living in Florence for the past year and was in my situation returning to the States.  We started talking and as I attempted to remember and pronounce her name correctly, I informed her of my love of chick flicks.  Not like 27 Dresses or Princess Diaries, but more in the line of the Notebook.  This led to us looking for a chick flick and watching P.S. I love you and Benjamin Button.  P.S. was her choice and Button was mine.  The most entertaining part was that I continually attempted to sink our little TVs so we would laugh at the same time and not be staggered.  It was a beautiful event and I really liked P.S. I love you.

Chicago

Let's see, what did Chicago have... well, I ate a Chicago style pizza which was amazing and expensive.  The coolest part of Chicago and its food court was that this is where the Kenyan YAVs sat on our way over to Kenya and played the "get to know you" game.  It was really surreal to sit and reflect upon us then and us now, individually and as a group.  Also, Chicago is where I was a bit shocked by the site of people in shorts again.  I kept looking at people thinking, "I can see their legs, huh."

Plane Three

I was really tired by this point obviously.  I sat by a very nice woman who is a social worker and lives by my parents' home.  We had a good conversation, but I'm not sure how my focus was.  It was really interesting to hear all of the Oklahoman accents.  Before I left, I would claim that Oklahomans don't have an accent (everybody does), but we do and I definitely enjoy it.  It was unusual to sit and listen to all of my state people talk.  They sound like me...

Home

The family was at the airport.  Patrick drove up from Dwight to pick me up from the airport which was really nice.  We drove home as I kept saying, "This is so weird."  I sat on the couch, ate a Reeses and drank a glass of milk (my happy place), hopped in the spa (as I promised myself I would do in London when I was freezing), and then passed out in my brother's waterbed.  I woke up a few times throughout the night wondering where I was and why.  Then, bright and early at 11 AM I got up and greeted Oklahoma and my house properly.  It was good, but very weird to be home.

Thursday Mom and me at the Tulsa airport:


The 6'5 Hug:


The Quiring Males:


Me in front my home for the last 26 years (I'm 25... ):

I'm in London right now.  My hands are so cold that I can't type properly.  I think I define cold as a Kenyan now.  I need to be broken back in to my Oklahoman self!

I've had a few discussions about this song recently and I love it.  Enjoy!

           So, I'm a big fan of transparency and all that bo-jazz.  Therefore, I wanted to let you all know that I will be returning to the States for three weeks next week because I need to meet with my Committee on Preparation for Ministry (CPM) and Presbytery for ordination bo-jazz.  I have to be approved as a "Candidate" and be a Candidate for one year before I can circulate my pastor resume.  Since I'm graduating from seminary exactly a year from now it is important that I become a Candidate soon.  If I don't come home now I would have to wait until the end of September to seek approval as a Candidate.  Then I would have to wait until September 2010 before I could circulate my pastor resume.  So, I would sit around next summer and wait for permission from my Presbytery to circulate my resume for a Call.  After talking with mentors and some prayer, I feel that coming home for less than a month is a better option than having to wait for three months next summer.  I tried to become a Candidate before I left for Kenya, but encountered some problems.  So, there's that.  I hope that this explanation will be read so I don't have to repeat it too many times.

            I've gone through a really interesting thought process since deciding to come home.  I still wish I wasn't coming home until my time of service was up.  This led to the fantastic idea of locking myself in a room at my parents' house and only coming out for the two meetings I need to go to then flying back to Kenya.  I still entertain this idea daily.  However, I have decided since I need to go home that I should take advantage of it and make the most out of it.  I regrettably will not be able to see everyone I want to see, but I still want you to know where I am and why.  I will be able to call people and that call won't be dropped after one minute which is what happens when I call the States from Kenya usually.

            I've been away from the States for nine months and am not quite sure what to expect upon return.  Therefore, I'm a bit terrified. I am working on realizing that the world will not stop once I return.  I've become accustomed to being the center of attention so that when I walk by, everyone stops and stares.  It will be unusual realizing I'm part of the majority.  I've already promised a few friends that when I do have a cultural freakout I will turn my camera on and put it on this blog, so you have something to look forward to.  Besides seeing family and friends, I am most looking forward to eating mom's cooking and going out to missed restaurants.  I've been craving a personal pan pepperoni pizza with no sauce from Pizza Hut since I came to Kenya.  Every time that I would think of it, I would have this deep craving in my gut.  It wasn't hunger, it was different.  Well, the day I knew I was coming home (a month ago) this feeling started subsiding.  Humorously, food has caused my biggest case of desiring what I can't have and then not as intensely desiring what I can have.  Funny that human nature... and frustrating.

Back to Kenya

         Since returning from Mount Kenya, I've been busy starting back up at schools from their month off in April.  It is really good to see all of the students again.  I've missed them.  The unusual part for them and for me is that I've been bringing and introducing two Foxies to the class and then telling them that I have to go home for a bit.  I ask if there are any questions and each class has asked, "Are you coming back?" and "when exactly are you coming back?"  This has been a good affirmation which has made me feel warm and fuzzy inside and excited about returning to Kenya in June.

         One of the main reasons that I wanted to spend a year in another culture was to develop deeper relationships with people from another culture.  I would say to people before I came, "I don't like just flying in and flying out of a place without getting to know the people.  I want to have deep relationships with these people where we laugh, fight, and experience the whole breadth of relationships."  I have definitely received what I asked for in the past nine months.  Not surprisingly, when the fights come I don't like them, but the laughs have far outnumbered the fights.  Bwana Asifiwe! (Praise the Lord!)

Have a good day!

RTQ

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there.  I want to say a special happy Mother's Day to my beautiful loving mother!  Today, I blessed her with 26 phone calls because my skype kept cutting out every minute or less because of my slow internet connection.  I bet no other mothers out there can say that your child called you 26 times for Mother's Day.  That's an original Mother's Day gift right there!

I don't want to write a lot of gushy bo-jazz, so I will write a normal amount of gushy bo-jazz... My mother is amazing!  She takes after her mom in being able to accomplish a ridiculous amount every day and say very wise things simply.  She has always been there for me from getting up at two in the morning when I was working on a paper in high school and needed English teacher mom's help to being there to watch every basketball game and sermon I've preached to answering the phone 26 times when I call in a day.  I'm a mama's boy and I'm not afraid to say it.  I love you very much mom!

Mom and me:

So, I just finished my three and a half hour escapade of washing all of my clothes by hand which I'm accustomed to now.  My arms and hands ache and are made at me and my hands feel like I've been in a pool for the past few days.  Today was different and entertaining because it was the first time that I did my laundry with the new Foxfires.  I really miss Cosmas and I's laundry time where he would whistle and sing Luo songs like he was having the time of his life while I labored away at an unforgiving task.  Any way, today the Foxies started asking me about how I washed my clothes in the States.  I told them I put my clothes in a washing machine, go do something else for half an hour, move the clothes from the washing machine to the drying machine, do something else for 45 minutes, take my clothes out and I'm done.  They got a big kick out of this obviously.  I decided to be honest with them and told them that a majority of people in the States find washing their clothes a big annoyance especially when they're younger.  A majority of Kenyans go to boarding schools for high school, so when you're 14-15 years old you have to start washing your clothes by hand.  I imagined me in high school and some of my youth group kiddos having to wash our clothes by hand and laughed out loud.  We would think it was the end of the world.  This is when Cosmas would always remind me of the women who wash their clothes, their husband's, and their one to eight kids' clothes every few days.  This is an example of one of my perspectives that has been extremely transformed by my time in Kenya.

This picture didn't make it into the blog yesterday for some reason, but it is me sitting at the tip top of Point Lenana with the highest point of Mount Kenya in the background (second highest place in Africa behind Kilimanjaro).  This is the same place from where I took the video below.  Word.

As previously mentioned, I met two guys at a coffee shop in early March from Oklahoma and Texas, Nick and Mark.  Well, we have gotten together a few times since then and two weeks ago Mark invited me to go climb Mount Kenya with him and his girlfriend.  First thought, "welp, you only live once."  My boss okayed the trip and as the day approached for us to leave I slowly learned more about what we were doing.  I'm an outdoor kind of guy and love to go camping, but have never been on a serious climb/hike.  Mark's major in college was Outdoor Ministry, so he is THE outdoor man and gets to say things like, "I know how to do an Eskimo Roll out of kayak, do you?"  So, I started asking Mark what to bring and he told me that I needed clothes for ten degrees and I said, "Celcius, right?"  Nope.  Fahrenheit.  Poop.  Furthermore, I thought we were going with just a guide at first.  No, we had three porters, a cook, and a guide.  We ate like royalty.  Besides the climbing it was the most posh outdoor trip I've been on.

The Contestants: Robert, Mark, and Karen (who is strangely the first cousin of a person I went to college and Dwight Mission with)


Monday - We woke up at 5 AM and were on the road to Mount Kenya getting to Chogoria at around 9 AM.  Then we took an old-school Land Rover from Chogoria to the Park Gate which was 20 miles.  We only got stuck once and it was thoroughly entertaining with the nine of us in there.  We reached the park gate and had lunch and then began our relatively easy 7 km (4.35 miles) first day.  Our camp site was in a cave by two water falls and was absolutely beautiful. 

Mark and I at the Edge of the Waterfall:


It was -5 degrees Celcius (23 F) that night, but we were all warm.

Crazy Cool Flower:


Tuesday - We had a leasurely day on Tuesday only going 10 km (6.21 miles). 

Us Hiking on Day Two:


Beautiful Waterfall and View on Day Two:


I got a migraine at some point during our way up and right after lunch my stomach started feeling queezy.  We were now at 14,075 ft. and so I believe me and the altitude weren't agreeing on life. 

Minto's Hut (where we stayed Tuesday night)


My migraine got worse so I went to bed at 7 PM which was good because...

Wednesday - we got up at 1:30 AM so we could be ready to climb to Point Lenana.  Point Lenana is the third highest peak of the Mount Kenya peaks at 16,355 ft.  The first two have to be scaled with equipment, so those were not options.  So, by 2:45 AM we were climbing the last 7 km (4.35 miles) to point Lenana.  It was dark (obviously) and about half way I saw the first snow I've seen in Kenya which was exciting.  Then the snow and ice became a nuisance.  My altitude sickness got a bit worse as we increased altitude (who'd a figured), but we arrived at Point Lenana just as the sun was rising.  It was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit and windy, but we had plenty of layers on so it was not bad.  We stuck around at the top for about fifteen minutes and then headed back down. 

At the top of Point Lenana of Mount Kenya at sunrise:


Mountain Peak Circle Rainbow (note the ice on the bottom left side):


The down was more annoying than the up because of the ice and rock combination so I took it really slow.  I'm definitely a 25 year old tortoise rather than a hare.  Slow and steady wins the race... or doesn't get hurt.  We got back to where we had spent the night Tuesday and met our porters and had breakfast.  I was feeling pretty sick, but after lying down for an hour I felt much better.  Then we walked the entire distance we had walked the previous two days back.  Therefore, we walked a total of 18ish miles Wednesday... I slept well.  I was really proud of my body and especially my legs because one has a titanium rod in it and the other has shin splints, not so great.  So, I was proud of my 18ish miles in one day and my legs, good job guys!  We got back to Chogoria later than expected so we had to stay the night there and catch the 5 AM matatu back to Nairobi.

Me in the back of the matatu for the ride home. I hope you're entertained because I sure wasn't during this experience, but now looking at the picture I am definitely entertained...


It's cool to say that I climbed Point Lenana of Mount Kenya and was at 16,355 ft.  So, I said it, I feel cool now.