I Have Visitors!

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Well it has been about one or two weeks since I have put up my last blog…Things have been going very well. The parents visited for five days! I wish they could have been here longer! They were able to have a wonderful Kenyan lunch with Zinga, watch me train a team, see the the orphanage (all the kids and Ali, who is doing much better!), the start of the L.C.F.L. ( overall, a successful day) , and they took me on safari!…It was the first time I left Mombasa in the past two months!

Although I was excited to go on safari and see other parts of Kenya, I was mostly excited about touring my parents around Likoni. The first stop was lunch with Zinga. For some reason I have not mentioned Zinga in my previous blogs. Zinga lives down the hill from Pungu. He and his wife supply us with the bread we and sometimes the monkeys eat in the morning. (On a side note, Tom has been more courageous and tried to enter the house the other day.) Zinga is a very big, strong man. Actually ZINGA means BIG in kiswahili, his real name is Paul. He also trained me in boxing for the first two months. However, the training has been delayed due to my lack of energy at the end of the day. Lunch was wonderful! We had fish with coconut sauce, salad, bread, mango, mchicha (greens)..I am sure I am forgetting something. Lets just say we all were satiated at the end of the meal.

After Zinga's meal, we waited for my Mom and Dad's first tuc-tuc ride (the transport used to watch me train one of the teams). From what I observed and what they said, I believe they loved the tuc-tuc. As we reached the field, the team's coaches and players warmly greeted my parents. They watched me train the team as they spoke with the coaches, and heard about their lives in Likoni and their goals for the future. At the end of the night my Dad said something like this: "You and your sisters would never play on a field like that and those kids were playing so well, on such a terrible field"…This is true.

After the training, we took a tuc-tuc ride to the orphanage to have dinner. Dr. and Mrs. Levey were able to meet Ali and see that he was up and walking :). Ali is much better, the infection is gone, and he does not have to go to the doctor anymore. The wound is still healing, but it is very small and he will be able to play soccer in no time. Also, my parents were able to meet all the kids, and many friends who came to eat dinner at the orphanage. Everyone was saying how beautiful my parents were…I would have to agree.

It was great to have Mom and Dad see the start of the exhibition matches for the L.C.F.L. They watched the coaches and me mark the fields with dirt oil before the games began. This is a tedious process, but the coaches say that dirt oil is best for marking the fields. Later, during one of the matches an mze (old man) brought a bench out for my parents and him to sit on. Kids of all ages sat and surrounded them, and my parents spoke with him and all the kids as they watched the game :). Twenty-two out of the twenty-four teams played, which I looked at as a success. Also, after a full day of soccer, eleven out of the thirteen coaches sat down with me for two hours. We spoke about the challenges we still faced to create a well-run league. However, we were still very happy about the day . Yes, I was not able to be with my parents all day, but they understood and we still had two and a half days of Safari!

Safari was wonderful! However, I will admit that I had trouble sleeping at night due to all the strange noises (I also was in my own room…all alone. I blame my parents haha). We saw ostrich, elephants, gazelle, dik-dik (I may be spelling it wrong..look it up :) ), alligator (or crocodile..I don't know, I always mix them up) , hippo, giraffe, hyenas and more. If you read that list you may be saying, "What about the lions, leopards, or cheetahs????" Well, we are not cat people..We are dog people. So, it serves us right that we did not see any cats… O well, maybe next time.

Although no lions, leopards, or cheetahs were seen, my parents and I were very happy. We headed back home, to Mombasa, where we ate dinner and spoke about our adventure. They left shortly afterward, and I went back to Likoni. I was sad to see them go, but I will see them in one month when I return home.

You might be asking what about last Sunday, April 17th? How did everything go, and what is happening with the league now? I will put up a new blog in the next day or two about the league. Things keep changing for the better, and we now have 28 teams..27 of those teams played yesterday, Sunday, April 17th!