our neighborhood.

last saturday, while the morning was sloughing its soft skin of sleep, braden and i headed out to photograph our haunts for you. i’ve shown you bits of campus, but i feel like you’ve been missing out on our larger neighborhood.

here we go.

when we head downhill from the main gate, this is the first little intersection we meet. (i used to look both ways before crossing the street, but i’ve since learned that anything large enough to do me damage will rattle and shudder from a quarter mile off.)

most days i turn left where the road spiders off toward the dukas (stores). by the time we work past those leggy pines, at least twenty people have said hello from the street. folks walk a lot here, and we’ve all got dust climbing our ankles.

this building with the flaming door is the place i buy produce for the week. it smells of must and earth. we were too early on this particular morning, but usually i circle the dim interior and pile up potatoes, blushing romas, green beans–purchasing an equal amount from each lady.

but back to the door for a sec. i love how this is a thing here, adorning cinder-block with an entrance the color of fire or sky.

walking on a bit, we hit the supa duka (first door in the red building), impeccably run by sarah and sammy. i mostly buy flour, sugar, blue band (margarine), and sometimes bread and red plum jam. sammy jokes with us about cannibals, and sarah tells me about the antics of her son, who turns two at the end of this month.

three shops down (green door, red umbrella) is mama chiku’s, a pint-sized eatery where we get samosas–some four dozen in one go–for our dorm guys. the samosas are savory with just the right chili kick, and mama chiku herself is about the sweetest person south of the equator.

if we circle back and head downhill, we pretty much trip over the post office. i have not yet braved the postal service, as i haven’t gotten a straight story on whether or not my mail will manage to find its way out of kenya.

but i’m determined to try it soon. possibly.

following the downward slip of dust and rock, we arrive at kijabe hospital, which for all its humble trappings harbors some of the finest medical staff in the nation.

also down this way but unphotographed–a children’s hospital that treats ambulatory needs, several schools, a college educating african pastors from a dozen countries.

i’m not sure when a place stops feeling new and starts being home. i’m not sure if we’re there yet. but the students look like mine and our dorm boys are mine and the neighborhood feels like we belong to it. this seems like a beginning, at least.

there’s so much to love here, and i find that’s true everywhere we’ve lived…that God is there too, bright and fierce and redeeming.

love you all. come see our neighborhood in person. 🙂