Some Things of My Life

The sun was beating down on us unmercifully and the air had a dry dusty smell to it. All around us was short scrub brush, parched with the need of rain. The ground was rock, dust, and brown grass. Warm wind was blowing my hair but brought no relief. I could hear birds and crickets but even they sounded hot….. It may seem like a grim picture but I was loving it!

I was walking with Eunice, my friend, going to see where she lived. We were joking and having a good time. I have wanted to see where she lived for some time so I jumped at the chance when it came. Here in Masai Mara, going to a friend’s house doesn’t happen all that much.

To be honest, I don’t have that many good friends among the locals. The biggest reason is that none of them stay here very long. Most of the girls are ‘traditional’ and get married at thirteen. After which they go and live wherever their husband is from; very rarely is he from around here. The rest are ‘nontraditional’ and go to boarding school. This obviously means they are here only for a few weeks a year. Don’t get me wrong! I do have a couple good friends here and many elsewhere.

Some of my friends are in the US, who I write to. Others are MKs from our mission that also live in Kenya. I see them when we travel either to get supplies in Nairobi and meet or when we visit other mission stations. One thing I have found is that true friends are hard to find and because of that friendship is precious. I am sure that is true everywhere though, not just on the mission field. What is different here is the language and cultural barriers like early marriage. This makes it really hard to find a good Maasai friend.

Another hard thing about the mission field is what we call the ‘fish bowl’ effect. We are the fish! The people are always watching what we are doing. As you can imagine, we don’t really blend in very well with our pale tans and blond hair! Often people will pretend to be our best friend as long as they think they can get something from us. They will tell me what they imagine that I want to hear. Their idea of white people is the tourists who come here and have a seemingly unending amount of money. They are hoping that as my friend they will get help. That’s our life in the fish bowl though.

One of the best things about living here is the fact that our family is really close. We do everything together, from school to meals, to the ministry. Also, we have done a lot of fun things together! On our travels we have been to see castles in Germany, the Grand Canyon in America, and have gone on a balloon ride over the Masai Mara. In Kenya we have seen rain forests, deserts, grasslands, rolling hills and rocky mountains. We have watched lions eat their kill and vast herds of wildebeests running by. This is some pretty amazing stuff for a kid to do!

Pets are also something unique here. Among MK’s pets are chameleons, squirrels, praying mantises, dikdiks (a small deer), hedgehogs, house cats (not the big kind with large appetites although we do know of one cheetah that is a pet), tortoises, and dogs. That’s quite the variety!

MK life may have a lot of hardships with always sticking out and never belonging to one place, but I wouldn’t trade it with anyone. Seeing God work in the lives of people my own included, seeing amazing parts of His creation, and having such wonderful memories with my family is really awesome. How blessed I am!

-Tanya-