My First Ever Blog Post!

   First of all, THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU to Emily, for setting up this blog for me!  You are incredible.  (Emily offered to make a blog site for me, because she knew that I hadn't set one up prior to leaving Canada...and she has first hand experience with Kenyan internet connections.  They're a little on the slow side most of the time.)

   So, I am Candice Veale, and for those of you who don't know already, I am currently in Kitale, Kenya.  I'm with a team of four other people, and we are primarily here to volunteer in Mercy and Caring Children's Home, which is a school and orphanage for kids who come from the Kipsongo slum on the outskirts of Kitale.

   Dane and Trudy Ruck are the 'leaders' of the group, and they have been to Kenya twice before.  Nancy Miller is a recently retired school secretary, and David Williams just graduated from high school. (In the same class as me)  We're calling ourselves an odd little makeshift family for now, with Dane and Trudy as the parents, Nancy as the grandma, and David and me as the kids.  We're staying with a Kenyan family (the Ochanas) who live about a ten minutes drive away from Mercy Home.  They are a wonderful, welcoming and incredibly hospitable group of people, who insist that their home is our home, and that we should make ourselves totally comfortable.  There is Geoffrey and Helen, their son David (34), their nephew Laban (24) and their neice Stella (15) who are all living at home.  Altogether there are 10 of us in the house, which makes for big happy family dinners!

   We've been here since Sept.24th, and we're all beginning to adjust to life in Africa.  It is so amazingly different than life in Canada, that I have no idea where to begin explaining it.  The way of living is different, the way of communicating is different, the food is different, the idea of time is different, and the way that I'm beginning to see God is different.  We've only been here for a little over two weeks, and already, I am starting to find that my views are being altered, and my normal is being shaken.  We're planning to be here for 3-6 months, so it'll be interesting to see the effect that that amount of time will be able to have on my general outlook of life.

Introduction

Welcome to Candice's blog! A place where stories and adventures unfold, and the experiences of her life in Kenya are documented.

Candice recently arrived in Kitale, Kenya where she will be spending the next six months living. She is serving at a local orphanage which is flooding with adorable exuberant children.

I am looking forward to hearing snippets of her journey and life experiences, and I know you will enjoy hearing them too, and journeying along with her. You can also read about what the rest of her team is up to by visiting thekenyablog.blogspot.com.

The internet in Kenya can be very tempermental and constant access is not an option, as I learned while spending three months there this spring, so I have set up this blog for her, which is a place where I hope you will enjoy coming to check up on Candice.

Em
grandfamilyadventures.blogspot.com