Here's a Glimpse: A Letter from 1953

From Photos for Blog

For a while now, I've been wanting to share a glimpse of what it is I'm working on, so here's the first of at least a few posts I want to share with you.

The above is the front photograph of a letter the British Government intercepted in 1953. The letter's written by Senior Chief Mbiyu Koinange who, at the time of writing, was a prisoner in the Marsabit camp during the Mau Mau rebellion/war/events. It's written to his eldest son, Peter, who was living in the UK at the time. Peter, because he was living in the UK at the time, was not imprisoned like 12 of his family members during the Mau Mau period.

It's a sweet and insightful letter from an elderly man to his son. Throughout the letter he shares little 'sayings' with his son. I'm guessing that these are things that the Chief would have said as his son grew up, but either way, they're insightful:

'The more you are together the happier you will be.'
[In reference to Peter spending time with other Kenyans who were in the UK at this time.]

'Surely no place like home.'
[In reference to the rough conditions in the prison camp.]

'Land is Life!'
[In reference to a petition sent to the House of Commons in July 1953, signed in thumb prints of blood by '158, 642 citizens of Kenya']

'we regard H.M. the King as a father trustee, and Land as our Mother, and that if and when either is disturbed we would cry and lament the [?more]'
[Reminding Peter of what the Chief had told His Majesty the King in 1931 when the Chief visited London.]

And, warmly, like one expect from a father to his eldest son of whom he is very proud, the Chief ends his letter:

'Your loving Father'

[Note: Can you tell why it is that I love what I'm doing! I have over 1500 images and 700 files to go through that include letters like this, overheard conversations in the Communist Headquarters, intercepted telephone calls, and the on going dialog between the Secret Service (MI5) office in London and in Nairobi.]

Home Makeover - Lakeside Edition!

New showers! Up this point, the place I'm living at has only had two showers: one of which takes 15 minutes to get any hot water to it and the other which is an old cast-iron bathtub without much water pressure or dependable hot water. As thankful as I am for the place I live, I can't tell you how nice it is to have a dependably hot shower and a shower that doesn't require walking across the entire house and up a flight of stairs to get to. :-)

The one with the glass doors is what the other two that he'll be putting in will look like. It looks so sharp. He did a great job! The other one is the 'handicap' shower that we need to have. The entire room is a tile floor, with the wall tiled in one corner and a shower curtain (that's not up yet) to go around the shower area.

My housemate get's creeped out by it - not a 'real' shower - but I actually love it. But that's alright, cause he loves the other shower with the glass doors - the 'real' shower. So we're both happy I guess. :-)

Spring's In the Air

[I'm having a hard time concentrating on school work this afternoon, so I've decided instead to write several blog posts that have been on my mind. I'll spread them out so there should be a new one every two days or so for the next week and a half. Enjoy!]

Spring's coming! David, our Irish-American Liaison here at Lakeside (RE: house maintenance, gardner, and all-around handy man), pointed out a tree to me in the yard today. It looked like the edges of it were glimmering in the sun - like little droplets of water were hanging on the edge of the tree. It was flower buds!

Evidently, this tree's flowers come out before the leaves and is a good indicator of when Spring's coming. It's the picture above with the 'white' flower and the blury branches in the background.

Over the year's David's planted a grouping of white flowers in the shape of a swan - the symbol for Lakeside - that's coming up out in the front. You'll see it above in the pictures. As you might notice - and so did David - it may have lost it's head, so he might need to plant more.

Also, David's planted nearly 400 tulips around the compound and the leaves of those are coming up - so I can't wait till they're in bloom. Don't worry, I'll take pictures! Then there's the rose garden out front with 100 rose plants, the daffodils coming out already (in the pictures above), and the hyacinths. Spring here should be gorgeous!

On top of that, the weather's warming up and the sun's out a lot more - it's beautiful! :-)

A Day With People

From Photos for Blog

This is the group that was over for Settlers and the huge board. From left: Julie, Melissa, Daniel (that's how he looks normally, he's pretty sensitive about being teased for it :-), Seth, David, and Mary.

Yesterday was a blast! A long day and a day with a bunch of people throughout the day, but a lot of fun. In the morning, 6 friends came over and we played Settler's of Catan. We 'experimented' with putting two boards together for 7 of us to play. Crazy! Chaos! But, we still had a lot of fun! (Tip: If you ever try it, leave the goal at 10pts, 12 is almost/is impossible :-).

After the game, they hung around and we threw a frisbee and football around in the back yard. David just cut the grass on Friday. The fresh-cut smell was wonderful!

Around 3pm, another set of friends showed up and we did brinner (aka 'breakfast for dinner'). French toast, pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit salad - it was amazing! :-) After that we sat around and played Uno for a while, watched the Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia ice hockey game (there are three Canadians in our group so they were glad to get to see it). After that, we caught up on this week's episode of Burn Notice and then everyone headed home on the bus.

It was really a GREAT day! A lot of fun to keep getting to share this wonderful place with people and have them enjoy being here.

Well, I'm off to church in a little while. I'm doing powerpoint tonight, so I gotta go early and make sure that's all good to go.

Blessings and love to you all!

It Snowed, I Got Conned, and God Provided

It's been one heck of an end to a week. It snowed this week. I got conned and scammed last night to the tune of $863. God provided a free microwave, saving me £40. What a day!

God Provided
A few weeks back I burned a bag of popcorn in the microwave. It was so bad that the kitchen was filled with smoke and, after a week of scrubbing the microwave and using every internet how-to suggestion I could find, it still smells bad.

My mistake, I didn't feel right about asking JBU to replace it - although several people argued that they were going to need a new one anyway. It was my mistake and, therefore, my responsibility to shoulder the cost for the fix to the problem I created.

I meant to order the new microwave at the beginning of this last week. Typical of my procrastination, I kept putting it off. I planned to go into town this morning to pick one up.

Where God's provision come in was through Jim, my second housemate. He and his son had a house they were going to rent, but they've changed their minds and now are going to sell it. Inside that house, is a microwave they recently bought for it. Jim's going to pick the microwave up and donate it to Lakeside...and won't let me pay him for it.

I Got Conned
You know the old saying, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is'? Well, if it sounds good (but not too good), you're probably talking to a con that's pretty good at their job. Which is what I spent an hour last night doing, but didn't know till after I'd hung up.

Long-story short, I bought a holiday package for Florida, having been told by Holly, Victoria, and Karen (sadly enough, I think Victoria was one of the few who knew they were involved in a scam) - that it could be returned within 30 days. Two mistakes: spending money I didn't really have and good intentions. The good intentions were that I had hoped it would enable friends and I to have an affordable vacation. The money I didn't have was...well, money I didn't have.

Having spent the hour asking the questions I thought I needed to to make sure the package was genuine, I Googled the company, after hanging up, looking forward to finding out about the good experiences people had had. Instead, the second thru tenth hit that came up - under the company's website, which was first - were all scam alerts. So, I immediately called my credit card company and called the scam/travel company back. I'm in the process of getting the money refunded....unfortunately, the company doesn't have a great reputation for refunding.

Thankfully, the Florida State Government has two laws that protect me: statute 559.933 and statute 501 - entitled 'Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices'. I'm not too worried. Between Bank of America's muscle and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the refund should come back - hopefully sooner rather than later.

It's one of those days where I've become really thankful for government laws and regulations, such as these, to protect citizens. It's also got a fire burning in me to make sure people that run scams like this don't get away with it. Makes me want to go into government law. Argh!

It Snowed
Lastly, it finally snowed this week, which has been a lot of fun. It snowed late Wed. night and has stuck around since - although it's now a frozen sheet of ice. There's more storms coming in tomorrow, so maybe it'll stick around for a while. We'll see! :-)