8. August 24, 1967

 Dear Mom and Dad,

    Yesterday afternoon we finally arrived at our house on the compound of St. Mark's College near Embu. We had been spending the days between Friday and Tuesday in a hotel in Nairobi while all the details were settled and a couple of meetings for the men were held. The plane ride was not too bad, but very long. First thing, we had to wait two hours for the plane to have a periodic check that was due. Then as the plane backed out of its parking space we could see our white box (the one dad made for me) sitting on the loading pier. It had our air freight in it with everything to survive with until the sea freight arrived! However it came in on a plane Sunday morning so we have it now. When we finally got to Nairobi the Ministry of Education took us by bus to a hotel in Nairobi where we fell into bed and most of us "flew" the rest of the night and didn't awaken until four of so the next afternoon. We got to Nairobi about 1 am. The hotel was old but clean. We had two rooms across the hall from each other, one with a bathroom. Every night the maid came in and turned down the beds and sprayed for mosquitoes! We also ate English style...the children first and then the adults. The kids liked that!

    The house here is real nice, built of cinder block, painted (red) and waxed concrete floors, lots of windows, a fireplace, three bedrooms and the basin and tub in one room and the toilet in another. It was in real good shape, just dusty, and it has pretty nice furniture. It sits near the top of a hill and faces the valley. You can see for many miles down into and across the valley toward Nairobi, south. Mt. Kenya is about 30 miles behind us. We haven't seen the top yet, its's been too cloudy. This morning we had three men come hunting for work, a boy with some eggs for sale, and a woman with a bag of charcoal...all this by 8:00 before I had breakfast on the table! Most of them could understand enough English to get by and we quickly found our Swahili was pretty bad! Most of these people speak Kikuyu anyway. Then around 9 am one of the teachers from the school came to take us to Embu...Frank had to have another physical...and then to buy some groceries. That was a job! Frank went to the bank while I shopped. There are two Indian stores in town and some other smaller ones. They are old county style where you point to the things you want on the shelf, and he dishes the rice out of a large sack. The only familiar label on the canned goods was Royal Baking Powder! Then we went to the meat market and got a large chunk from a hind quarter, and it was a s tough as it looked! I also bought some cloth for curtains, some plain yellow, three shillings a yard or 42 cents, and some burlap for one shilling eighty, which is about 26 cents a yard. When we got back home the kids, who had stayed here had acquired three new friends, who had already left, and four fresh grapefruit.

    Now more about the house. We discovered that in addition to a nice lawn and flowers around the house there are tomatoes, rhubarb, carrots, a strawberry patch, a banana tree (no bananas yet) passion fruit on a vine, and an orange or grapefruit tree (too green to tell yet).

    This morning about eight horn bill toucans came swishing through the air and settled in a nearby tree. They are big birds and make a funny rasping noise.

    We have a gas stove to cook on, very nice, and no refrigerator as yet, but a sort of cool room. We have electricity from 6 pm to 10:30pm by generator and a little stove outside where you build a fire to heat the water. The water is stored in a tank up on the hill and chlorinated so we don't have to boil it, and a man (from the school farm) brings us four pints of milk every morning from the college's herd of Jerseys, and we do boil that!

    The house seems rather bare, and echoes terribly, but we have notice that all of our sea freight is in Nairobi. It was there when we were in fact, so we will get it up here in another week or so.

    Here is a plan of the house (sketchy picture of the floor plan fills up part of the page here). It doesn't add up quite right but will give you some idea.

    Dad, your card was delivered today after we got back from Embu. Thank you, it was very welcome. It was a real treat to see something familiar after all the strangeness of the shopping this morning. So far as I know we are the only white people here. The kids seem real happy and pleased with everything, first, because there is room to move again, and second because Frank bought them a length of rope for a swing!

    The prices of food are very interesting. You can get twelve pounds of potatoes for three shillings (42 cents US) and a jar of Salad Bowl salad dressing that costs 49 cents in Albertsons costs 11 shillings 90 cents or $2.50 a quart! Isn't that something?

    Well it's about time for the lights to go out so best quit. We finally got a man to come Friday and wash the clothes. I sure felt skittish about hiring one even half-way permanent. He's to work for a week, just a day at a time. I know that sounds confused...wait 'till next letter, I'll sort it out then.

                Lots of love to you both. Hope things are going well. 

                Love from all of us...Barb.

August 27 Sunday

Dear Mom and Dad,    

    This morning we got up around seven and for the first time it was clear enough to see the top of Mt. Kenya. It was really a beautiful sight. Frank took a picture of it. The season is changing to the hot dry period, seems like we can tell a difference just since we've been here. Tonight it is a lot warmer and clearer too. It is a strange feeling to look around and not see a single familiar set of stars. It is 9 pm here and according to our little time chart that makes it 11 am Sunday morning where you are. We are finally adjusted so that we don't wake up in the middle of the night hungry!

    Last Friday Frank went to Nairobi in the school's Land Rover with the vice principal. It was raining when we got up that morning, and we got breakfast and ate it by candlelight, as she was to be ready to leave by 6 am, and the sun doesn't come up until around 6:15. The last seven miles from Embu to here is just hard dirt with signs that say "closed when wet". I sort of wondered how they would make it, and I asked the driver when he came for Frank. He just smiled and said the Land Rover would make it fine. They really had a day of it alright. They got back around 8 pm that evening. Frank had cleared our sea baggage through customs, the only thing he had to pay duty on was some new knitting yarn I had packed. The baggage is in Nairobi and we will unpack the big boxes there and bring it up in our 1963 Commer bus when we finally get the deal closed on it. That will be some time next week I hope. We think it is a pretty good car for 375 pounds or $1050. Cars are expensive and we feel lucky to find this one. We are still hunting a refrigerator. Frank priced a small new gas one for $300. They are almost more expensive than cars. On Friday Francis came to wash our clothes. He is "trying out" for a week and he sure worked...scrounged up wood and chopped it all morning and washed clothes all afternoon, then finished up by scrubbing all the floors. His wages are 25 shillings a week or $3.75. I think he will be coming about two times a week when we get settled. Every day there are at least two people asking for work, and it is hard to turn everyone down.

    This morning we decided to take a walk and see what we could see. We walked up the road for about an hour. The countryside is filled with trees and bushes, small fields and houses. There seem to be people living on every foot of ground. As we went along the road almost everyone we met would wave and speak. There was on very old woman dressed in a tonga which is a big piece of material wrapped around the body under the arms and tucked under with another piece over one shoulder and under the other. She had large holes cut in her ear lobes and her head shaved. Kiva and I were behind the others, and when I spoke she came right over to us and shook both our hands enthusiastically an petted Kiva's hair. I couldn't understand a word she said, but is didn't seem to matter to her! She was smiling all the time.

    Later this afternoon the principal came calling. He is just back from his honeymoon. He is very nice and enthusiastic about the school and our being here. He says he may be hiring me half time to teach Domestic Science. That is not settled. It's a "we'll see" proposition that sounds good! He seemed well pleased with the talk he had with us and with Frank's reactions to his ideas. The staff here will be a wide variety--two Asians, one British, one Hollander, one American (us) and the remaining eleven African. I guess it's time to stop. The kids are well and have started correspondence courses and seem to like them. 

                Love, Barb.