Mazungu Maasai Day 1- Saturday

Hello all,
We send you greetings from the African bush! We are settling in to our house in Najile (the Maasai village we will be living in for the rest of our 3 year term). We've had a strangely full and yet slow few days.

Day 1: Bright and early Saturday, around 5:30am Matt and I got up to prepare for the moving truck, which would arrive at 6. We had packed up & moved almost everything into the living room, but there are always those last little things that seem to be everywhere. By 7:15 the truck was loaded, our country directors Ron & Martha came with their land rover & we were headed toward Najile. I don't really know how long the trip took, probably about 2.5 hours, but we measured the driving distance: from Ngong to our house is 46km. As we were pulling into our house we saw throngs of people. Pastor Steven, who is the head of our Maasai partner organization, Presbyterian Outreach Mission Church (POMC), and Daniel, who runs the Food for Work project, greeted us with the message that "the house isn't quite finished, but will be in a couple of hours." The electrician was still wiring some parts of the house, the plumber was working on getting the water to work, and there was the normal mess that accompanies construction projects. So, we stood around outside. For a long time.
Matt and I got up the nerve to start going around and greeting people and try out our language skills. The children gravitated toward us and took great pleasure in picking up an object and quizzing us on it's name. Our food had accidentally gotten packed among our stuff, so we hadn't eaten anything except a banana all day. At one point I tried to nonchalantly have some banana bread, only to have a group of people gather around me and stare.... I only ate 2 bites and quickly tucked it away. The waiting continued. Overall, we were feeling very successful with understanding people's questions, being able to communicate what we wanted to say, and just doing our best to reach out to our new community.
Around noon the floors had been mopped, all debris cleared out, the electricity was working, one sink had running water, so the house was ready for us to move in. There were many hands to carry in all of our stuff. Meanwhile, Ron & Martha went with Daniel to see food distribution for Food-for-Work nearby. With them, they took some of our stuff that was still loaded in their car, including all the screws to put the beds together, curtains, our perishable food items, etc.. As soon as there were chairs inside, there were people sitting in them. It seemed like everyone from the community was showing up. They would just walk in, sit down in our chairs, wander through the house and look around, maybe leave, maybe stay. We left to take tea at Pastor Steven's house, many still stayed. There weren't any women around at Pastor Steven's house to make tea (the men don't cook), so we just sat and talked to Pastor Steven. Eventually I just left and went back to our house to unpack. Matt stayed with the other men who showed up, including church elders and people involved with the MFSP (Maasai Food Security Project). They were very impressed with how much he could say in Maasai. They asked him about his family, why he's here, why is he learning Maa and many other things. All of them were willing to correct mistakes and help when needed with vocabulary and grammar. Meanwhile, I was having a similar experience with the women and children in the house. I was unpacking our clothes and they all found it very interesting to watch. Normally this would have made me very uncomfortable. I value my space when getting settled, but God gave me the grace to just enjoy their curiosity and the opportunity to get to know some people. They asked me lots of questions and got great enjoyment out of anything I said in Maasai. I started asking them the names of the various household objects and articles of clothing. It became almost a game, I'd take out a piece of clothing from the suitcase, ask its name, they gave me the name, and I'd tried to say it, they'd correct my pronunciation and I'd put it away. I'd make little comments, like "Aata inkilani kumok (I have lots of clothes), and they thought that was fabulous. Eventually I was called back to Pastor Steven's house for tea and lunch. Matt was asked to pray (in Maasai) for the meal. It was now about 4pm.
After lunch, we headed back to the house to try to get more settled. Many people had left, but some were still around. Daniel, Pastor Steven, Ron & Matt set to work building the beds. Meanwhile the mason was fixing our table (that had broke on Thursday). Martha, Paulina and I were putting up curtains, putting away dishes and other items. Paulina, the head of the Women's Fellowship at church, was so great. She speaks Maasai, I speak English, but putting a house together doesn't require words. Over the next few hours Ron, Martha, Matt and I just kept unpacking, arranging furniture, etc. People might wander in and look around... we just kept keeping on. At some point when night had fallen, men started gathering in our living room. Matt and Ron carried the conversation as Martha and I continued to unpack more boxes. The conversation continued outside when they built a fire using our boxes, newspapers and other unneeded packing stuff. Much of the conversation centered around language learning, the differences between Maasai & western cultures. It was very interesting how the language would switch between Maasai and English. We spent a lot of time translating what we understood to Ron & Martha. Near the end of the night Pastor Steven even asked us to translate his speech of welcome for them (even though there were many people who speak much better Maasai & English in the room). Around 9pm Esther brought over dinner that she had made for us. There were as many people as we have chairs, so I think about 12 of us. Around 10:30 everyone went home. The office was the only room not yet unpacked or arranged, so we worked quickly to get it put together. We practiced music with Ron & Martha for the service the next day, got ready for bed and crashed. It was a long day.