Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The Land of Milk and Honey...and Monkeys!

Until you move to a place like Africa, much less Burundi, honestly you have no idea how much you have. The little things go a really really long way.

For example, things that we (I mean you) have in the states, you have plenty of and probably don't think twice about....
Diet Coke
Diapers
Soda in plastic bottles
Desserts in general
Microwaves
Chocolate chips
Brown sugar
Meat that you can chew
Powered sugar
spices
chicken
Iced Mocha's
Hair Salons.
Justice. Think long and hard about this one...Whether you like it or not. We do have some goodness is our law system, imagine if you saw this around DC...

and

Normal Spiders... (Please the next time you breathe a sigh of annoyance as you squish the little piddly Daddy Long Leg that has placed itself in the corner of your living room. Take a moment, pause and thank the Lord that it isn't an African Rain spider that you are being forced to kill. And "kill", I use that lightly because they're so beastly, without a man (thank you Bob and Jon) to kill them, they remain alive and ugly as they sit on your wall staring down at you with a smug look on their hairy disgusting faces...)


Alright, let's refocus. Burundi is lacking in material goods, you're blessed and then I have discovered an amazing secret. Kenya. Kenya is seriously the "Land of Milk and Honey..." over here.

I cant tell you how many times I have said, "You have brown sugar?" or "Wow this meat is tender," or seriously, "you have a hair salon, I haven't had a haircut in 5 months." (Fear not, I have received a wonderful haircut in Nairobi and am looking fine FINE, fine!)

Some pleasant surprises for me while Visiting Kenya...

English. People speak English here! I cant tell you how many times I said "Madame, merci or oui..." and gotten a blank look...(I do appreciate my forming skill of French though;)

Or there's of course the food. So much western food... I've had iced mocha's, ice cream, pecan pie, turkey, enchiladas, Christmas cookies, and re fried beans...seriously canned re fried beans!
I am shocked by what I can find in Kenya's numerous Western-like stores...brown sugar, powdered sugar, and bread pans just to name a few. And not just any bread pans, bread pans that are only $7 instead of $40 (yes a bread pan in Burundi is $40 American Dollars). Cereal. I have had cereal on more than one occasion for breakfast...in Burundi a box of cornflakes is $24 American Dollars....think about that the next time you pour yourself a bowl of Special K.

The Internet. Man, most of you know how slow my Internet is in Burundi. Cant even get in a skype call. Here the Internet is so fast that I can actually download things and have a skype call without a delay. Amazing.

And Coke Light. I have had more than one Coke Light and even in a plastic bottle. MMMmmm...

Go ahead and have a cold diet coke right now. However when you're drinking that cold diet coke, remember that there are some people out there who are having to quench their thirst after killing a huge African rain spider by drinking a regular coke in a glass bottle...

However while they might be drinking a good old coke slightly warm in a 500 ml glass bottle, they might just be looking out at the moneys that live in their backyard...Kenya!


3 comments:

Holly Maggio said...

Sounds like you had fun in Kenya! It truly is a much more wealthy country. Kind of like Thailand versus Burma :)
How did you see God at work in Kenya versus Burundi? How is He exemplifying His love for the Kenyans differently? And how does He display Himself differently there versus Burundi? Can't wait to hear more!

Unknown said...

that spider... "thing".... sounds and looks mighty serious.... ew. i hate hate HATE spiders...

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Only a short time in Africa can open your eyes for things that you never thought would exist. Things that make people to appreciate what we have in the world.