"Free" service / A surprise visitor

We came down from the mountain on the 4th, which was my birthday, so my family took me out to eat.  While we were eating, a friend of Doug's spotted us and came to the table.  He said a female friend of his was trying to build her clientele at her salon, so I should go and get my nails done for free.

Two days later, I was in the chair.

My nails are far from glamorous, so she had to "create" some nails so she would have something to work with.  I had never had this done before, and it was quite an interesting process.

What I learned along the way is that she wasn't just short on clientele, she was short on trained workers. 

I was put with a "trainee" who was learning the process of gel nails. 

She worked on me for over three hours!!

Something else that came along with this "free" service was the absence of my opinion.

They said, "What color?"  (I showed them)

They said, "What accent color?" (I told her I didn't want an accent color)

They said, "Oh yes you do! How about white?" (I repeated that I really didn't want an accent color)

They said, "What sticker would you like?" (I told her I didn't want a sticker)

They said, "Oh yes you do!  Look at these books." (I looked and then said I was really ok without a sticker).

They said, "OH! This one is pretty.  How about this one?" (I just smiled).

                                                                                                    

January 6, 2020

And that is how I got nails like I have never had before :)

Eleven days later there was a missile attack at our airport.  

We had a surprise guest for Karis flying in at the end of the month and now our airport was closed!

But somehow, God worked it out.

I told Karis I was spending one night in a hotel to have some study time, but I really flew to a nearby country and met up with her friend who flew in with her mom (who was on her way to another destination). We had a quick visit in the airport with her mom, and then Karis' friend and I slept in the airport waiting for our flight the next morning to go back and surprise Karis.

It worked!!

We have the sweetest video of Karis answering the door when she arrived :)

One of the first things on the agenda was taking her out for a national breakfast here.  

It was amazing!!

Anyone else want to come for a visit??

Our second grader (at the time) finally lost the tooth she blackened (at age 3) by hitting it on a table and killing the roots.

And guess what?

She misses her black tooth :)

January 23, 2020

A Fresh Start to Fall

The start of school meant the start of dance and soccer.  The kids are always glad to get back to their extra curricular activities.

The dance ladies went out for sushi to celebrate being back together.  

I'm definitely NOT a dance lady, but they were kind enough to include me.

The first soccer game (not practice) was at this field across town, next to this mall.

 Why waste electricity running lights for the field when the lights from the mall do just fine.

Not.

After about 30 minutes, someone actually did turn some lights on which was nice for my more "mature" eyes.

Also, I decided to clean off some of our upstairs balconies so as the weather got more delightful in the fall, the kids could do school outside.

I worked hard hauling water in buckets from the bathtub to the balcony and then squeegieing it down a hole...not knowing where that hole went...I assumed the street.

Wrong!

All the bird poop and 9 months worth of dirt came rushing down this little spout...

onto part of our front entryway, so I had to clean it all again.

This one was about to start losing some front teeth, so I wanted to grab one last picture before they all started falling out :)

Opening Day

Why don't things like this scare children?

They scare me a little.

This was registration day back in the fall for the dance/gymnastics/hip hop/yoga/pilates/karate/guitar/piano/singing/art classes for the year.  Since my two older girls are teachers, they had to be available all day, so I hung out a little while with them.

I'm guessing the studio rented any suit they could find in-country, because there is no correlation between any of these characters and what was going on inside, but Keira still wanted her picture made with the "pretty cat."

The treats inside were pretty amazing though.

The sticks above, that the notes are on, are the reason we left the studio with a loose tooth.

There are no complaints here.  Keira was pretty excited.

And it was a successful registration day, so now every Saturday, the girls get to see these cuties.

Taking a Chance

Usually dentistry is not something you would want to take a chance with.

However, if you've ever had a pain in your mouth, there is not much else you can think about, and you just want something done NOW.

A few nights ago, I was brushing my teeth, and out of the blue, when the bristles hit a certain area of my mouth, I cringed, got weak in the knees and my eyes started watering.

All I could think was that somehow I had gotten a cavity, and I needed to get it fixed soon.

Two days later, we were driving near the ballet studio, and I saw a dentist's office.  I asked Doug to pull over and let me run in and check it out.

It seemed legit.  Clean.  The receptionist spoke some English.  She told me the dentist had trained in Austria.  She was wearing braces he had put on her.  And it was clean.  Did I mention that?

That's a big deal!  I can't even describe the clinic I went to in Uganda to get my first pregnancy check-up.

Anyway, I asked if I could make an appointment.  And she said I could come back at 6:45 that night.

I had guests coming for dinner at 8, but I finished cooking as much as I could before I left, and Kylie finished the rest.  I took Karis with me so the doctor could see her and do a consultation on whether he could fix her slight issue with braces.

I arrived back at his office, and the night time receptionist does NOT speak English.  I pointed to my name in her appointment book, and she took us right in.

The doctor had a recent dental graduate assisting him, and both were very kind.

He looked at Karis first and made a plan.  He told me the plan and said we could come back in two days after thinking about it.

My turn.

I cringed as he blew air on my teeth to try and find the weak spot.

When he found it, he put a tiny camera in my mouth and put the image up on the screen for me to see.

(This picture was taken two days after my appointment, when I took Karis back to get impressions made.  This is a new dental assistant on the left.  The first one was a female.) 

But you can still see the screen.

 It turns out that I didn't have a cavity but an exposed root.

He polished my teeth before he put the protective sealant on, but the funny part was the polishing.

On this particular day, his water sprayer wasn't working well.  It flew all over me, all over him, all over the wall, and dripped all over the floor. 

So after two tries, he asked me to walk across the hall to another room, and he and she went back and forth carrying all the sanitized tools they had already opened and put on the tray.

The next chair worked fine, but it was cold in the room.

Polishing that I'm familiar with looks something like this.

The dentist puts some polish on the polisher and then starts it spinning.

Not here.

He took a metal knife and scraped it on the front side of all of my teeth on the top.  He would then start polishing.  He later repeated for the inside and then the bottom, inside and out. 

So my mouth was filled with the polishing stuff while he went to work on one tooth.

The funny part was that the proportion of water being sprayed into my mouth and the amount of water being sucked out of my mouth was considerably off.

My mouth got so full of water, that it started running over the left side of my lip, down my neck, into my shirt, and down my back.

I thought I was in the clear until he switched sides.  Then the water started running over the right side of my lip, down my neck, into my shirt, and down my back.

When I had gotten pretty good and soaked, the assistant must have noticed, and stuck a wad of kleenexes right below my chin to try to catch some of the liquid.  However, when the doctor moved again, she didn't think about moving the kleenexes to the other side.

Oh well.  I was laughing on the inside, so it was entertaining (and cold) to me.

Because Karis liked him and felt good about him, we're taking an even bigger chance on her, because we decided to go to him for her braces.

His English is just okay, but what I gathered from him is that he knows exactly how to fix her teeth.

That picture above was taken two days ago when he made the impressions of her teeth.

Today, Doug and Karis went to get x-rays of her mouth.  The dentist doesn't have this capability in his office, so he told Doug where to go in town to get that done.  We will take the x-rays back after the holidays.

Speaking of holidays, tomorrow is Newroz, and it's been raining off and on here for a few days. 

I may not have any big picnic stories for you after all, but we'll see.

Tonight, we're going to "take a chance" with the crowds and taxi to a large park where a ceremonial lighting of fires is supposed to take place to mark the beginning of the holiday.

Happy first day of Spring!

Summertime

This is our church in Arua.  I think I've showed you pictures before, but I thought I would do it again.

Also, you should never complain about how hard the pews are where you go to church...ever ;)

The church is held in a secondary classroom on the second floor of a boarding school.  During the school term, a lot of students join us, but when this picture was taken, school was not in session.
To be fair, this is the beginning of the service, and people trickle in for the first hour, so the room does indeed fill up.  


AND, since you really never see pictures of us dressed up or looking nice, we decided to dress up for church one day and take pictures for you to show that we can still "clean up good."  But since we don't have a family photographer, we had to take them in shifts :)

Never underestimate the power of chalk.

The first week of school in August, they decided to do this in their free time.

Caleb, with his giraffe

The girls riding their camels.

One of Doug's jobs that he handles so graciously is the hair-cutting of the family.  He does his and Caleb's hair quite often, but this was the first time he had cut the girls'.

A lady from California came last December and cut mine, so as of now, I'm desperately in need of a trim.

So...our first week in Nairobi, I took the girls and myself to a real hair-cutting place!

We all got our hair washed and cut, but the price was a lot more than I'm used to, even for the States.

Kylie was worried about the money, but I told her that since we haven't paid for haircuts in 2 1/2 years, this was just the added price for all the missed ones. 






Kylie also got an interesting retainer this summer to spread her upper jaw apart, in hopes that the bottom jaw will follow suit.

Before, with spacers

After.  Interesting.

One of our special churches in the States had a baby shower for us over skype.  They gathered together and ate OUR favorite foods right in front of us and showed us what different people had bought.

It was a lot of fun laughing together as we watched them enjoy our party.

 

This is us watching them.

That about wraps up summer.

Now, for the baby story...

Hardware for the Face

I can go days and not see anyone wearing glasses or braces here.


I’m pretty sure this isn’t a “contact-wearing” culture, and I’m also quite certain they don’t all have 20/20 vision.


That leads me to believe that some of these boda drivers can’t really see a thing in front of them.

Yikes!


I’m pretty sure there are not any glasses or contacts sold in this town.

A lot of people cannot read, but those that can and have trouble seeing, can you imagine their struggle??


My houseworker is one of those. When I write her a note, she gets so close to the paper, her nose is touching it.


And about braces…for the most part, the people here are blessed beyond belief with a great jaw structure.


They have the most beautiful teeth. And funny enough, you will rarely see them brushing with toothbrush and toothpaste. But you will see them every morning with a piece of stick sticking out of their mouth. They walk around doing their morning routine while they rub this stick up and down on their teeth. Pretty amazing, huh?
When you don’t have...you make do.

We've lost something

Today was a long day for Kylie (and the rest of us). At lunch, she bit into some bread, and when I rushed over to see what the screaming was about (yes, screaming), I saw that her tooth that had been loose, was completely twisted around backward.


Yes, that is the back side of her tooth you are looking at.

Well, she was traumatized because she likes her lose teeth just to "fall out" on their own. This hanging-thing stressed her out most of the day. She didn't want anyone touching it, and I can sympathize, because I was the same way.

She worked on it, albeit slowly, with her tongue all day, and tonight...

eating a cookie...

the tooth turned itself back around!

Crazy!

She finally said, with a red, tear-stained face, that I could pull it out. I reached in, and it practically fell into my hand. It was only held in there by suction (and spit, if you will).

She is a happy girl with swollen eyes
(and so are we..minus the swollen eyes).