Tragedy

Not just one tragedy...but two!! In one week! Either I am the master magician and have effectively misplaced both my camera AND my iPod...or something hokey's going on here.

I certainly don't want to jump to conclusions, let alone accusations, BUT! since we moved here, we've had some weird run-in's with people who are supposed to be taking care of our apartment complex. They haven't been exactly honest with us on every occasion and have made up some pretty amusing stories to get money from us. So, like I said, don't want to jump to conclusions, but I can't help but wonder...! I certainly wouldn't ask you to pray for me to find such frivolous items, but if you could share a moment in my bewilderment and frustration, that could suffice.

So, what does this tragedy mean for you? It means you get one long post...with no pictures. Without my earphones to curb my borderline ADD, it's possible none of this will make sense. You might leave this site wishing you had the last 15 minutes of your life back.

It's been about two weeks since my last post. I was gearing up for a doozey with all of the pics I'd been collecting. But, we all know the ending to that story. Anyway. We've had a lot of comings and goings of visitors and roommates. We had three visitors, two of which stayed with us, and lost two roommates.

The two visitors that stayed with us are two guys, originally from Finland. One of them used to be the CEO of Yehu before they hired the current CEO. He is now on the advisory board. He was coming to check up on the organization and see how things were going. His friend tagged along for the safari. Both went to Harvard Business School and are currently working the microfinance industry. Their visit coincided with a visit from Louis Pope, who is essentially the founder and financier of Yehu.

Louis, being a true humanitarian, took us to dinner three of the five nights he was here--and we're not just talking chicken and chips. He was really generous. During each dinner (well, all week actually) we had some very interesting conversations ranging from poverty to politics. I enjoy listening to people talk who are much smarter than me, who can throw stats and analyses around like... [I can't think of a good analogy]...like...something impressive, I'm sure. I learned that with two days of Pentagon spending, the world could be eradicated of Malaria. I also learned that with another negligible percent decrease in the Pentagon's budget, a whole country of children could be sent to school or entire communities could be given sustainable sources of drinking water. I'm not going to jump into politics at this point, because I do have family members that make a living through the military. But it's interesting to see from a macro level just where our priorities are...

In other news of the week: Aaron had two of the four people in his department quit at the beginning of last week. For those math whizzes out there, that's 50% turnover. Not such a good statistic. [See...these are the kinds of stats that I pull out of my hat. Impressive, eh?] This has translated into some really long nights in the office. It's a huge inconvenience, but I think in the long run, it will be good for the company. There were some serious performance issues with the other two employees. So...lot's of fun in finance these days!

It was my birthday this past week and Aaron was thoughtful enough and had the self-mastery to get up early, decorate the apartment, make breakfast (with the help of our awesome roomate), work 12 hours, and then take me to a late dinner. It would have been superhuman for him to stay awake long enough to eat the cake that he bought...so we had it on Saturday. I feel very lucky to be married to such a multi-functional man! He is great and I love him so very much!

Later that week, we lost our last roommate, Nicole. She had become such a great friend and we were really sad to see her go. We're crossing our fingers that things will work out for her to come back and finish some projects sometime in December...

Oh...and one highlight I forgot to chronologically mention!! (Silly me!) This is how we spend our Tuesday nights here in Mombasa:



I was actually quite impressed that in some not-so-remote town in Africa, Harry Potter premiered in sync with the rest of the world. If only we could all have the reach of J.K. Rowling. Seriously. Harry Potter. In Africa. I tell you...

I have to admit that I've been part of the Harry Potter counter-culture. I haven't read a single book. But, thanks to my fanatical sisters, I've heard hours of the books on cd, in no particular order. I know enough to identify the characters...and know something about almost all of the books, although I would never be able to tell you which. However, I will say that I really enjoyed the movie. And I'm pretty sure if I had seen that flick at the age of 10, I would have been sleeping on my parents' bedroom floor for months.

The sad thing about it was that it was a HUGE movie theater with some posh seats. We were about three of fifteen people there. And I guess that's why it was probably the cleanest movie theater I have ever been in.

Oh, and can I also say that another huge surprise about Mombasa is the amazing thin crust pizza (pronouced "peesa" by Kenyans). I've had it about three times in one week. Good stuff.

So...there you have the last 14 days of our lives and the random events therein. Hopefully someone will fess-up and return our electronics, so that future posts won't be so black and white. (PS...make that four! We just found out that we can't find our phone charger or Aaron's flash drive...! What a joke.)

Ok. I'm signing off--before I discover that anything else is missing.