Latest email from Africa

I emailed Becky with questions that I had after reading her blog. You may have had some of the same questions so I will share the email. Funny fact there is a man named Mike staying in the volunteer house that Becky and Travis are in that is also from Minnesota from the same small town that Chris and I graduated high school in. Annandale MN and he grew up on Pleasant Lake. He is younger then us and we do not know him or recognize his family name. Also when Becky was online this morning and trying to get a hold of us we were at church. I knew that would happen and really considered skipping church so I could talk with our world travelers. I'm loving all the blogs and emails and I am appreciating technology on a whole new level as we can stay so connected! It is awesome. Polly

Hi Mom, here are all the answers:

We do have to pay rent, and its actually quite a bit. We’re paying 450 for our whole trip, which is almost twice as much as rent at home.

We were supposed to stay in hotel but rooms in the Komaza house opened up. Other people live there, too so we’re staying with people we work with.

I asked Mike from Annandale and he went to school with Heather. I said Froelich and he went “Yeah! I know Froelichs” but he had to really think before he thought of Heather’s name.

We have been swimming in the pool and the ocean. I prefer the pool but its shady and hard to get tan there. Travis likes the beach but it’s too seaweedy for me.

We have several drivers while we’re here that we use regularly. Our other main driver, who picked us up from the airport, is named Osito and he wants to be a famous singer in America. Travis agreed to make a music video for him this next weekend. It should be pretty awesome.

I don’t think the drivers cost very much. For example, last night we took a bus to Mumbasa (an hour away) and it was 3500 shillings for the whole group. That’s essentially 45$. We rented out the whole bus though… so it was pretty good.

Peter was great and while Matt and Travis did lots of things we talked about religion and family and things for a long time. It was very cool to learn all about his life.

I am sunburned because I forget to put on sunscreen and also because I only put on a little and thought I would be fine, but the malaria pills make me really susceptible to the sun.

We brought both laptops and we have a lot of pictures, but we have more video. The video is awesome though. There’s a family that we had dinner with tonight across the street, just outside their little mud hut and their kids LOVE the camera. Travis would film them dancing and then show it to them and they would laugh until they cried. He had like 12 kids following him around for a few hours. They learned Travis but had a hard time with Becky. They just call me Pick or Picky.

The monkeys, I think, are Vervet monkeys. I looked up Kenyan animals and those look like the ones by our pool.

Our plane ride here was fine, but we didn’t sleep much. We had the worst seats ever. London was awesome, but I’m planning on just grouping together all the London stuff after we go again in three weeks.

It’s awesome that Kathryn can read, I think you should move her on to first grade though. She’s so smart, it would be hard to stay in Kindergarten.

I wish you guys were online now. Grandma was and I asked her to call you and she said Dad was going to get online, but he hasn’t.

I wonder where you are…

Love you

Becky (and everyone else… aka Travis.)