In late April, one of Francis' employees (in fact, my favorite employee) had a baby--the first born son--that he named Francis. The picture below is visiting with Stephen's family. We brought them some groceries, a couple onesies (bought from the second-hand clothing "tarps" in the market because there were no infant clothes for sale in the regular shops) and a pair of new shoes for Sophie--their two-year-old. In visiting them, I was so happy and surprised to see the alphabet sign on the wall. It got me thinking that, while people are always asking me to buy clothes for their kids, I really should be giving them children's books. Any reading material is rare (and thus precious) in Sudan, but I've NEVER seen children's books. A recent trip to Nairobi had me spending hours in the book store picking out durable and Sudan-appropriate childrens books (stories of lions and hippos, but also a couple stories of fairy princesses because even little Sudanese girls need to dream.)
The delay in getting food for my project also gave Francis and me a chance to go on a short break in Kenya. We spent a day in Nairobi, dining at fancy restaurants and tool shopping (he was in heaven) and then went on a short safari for 3 days to Lake Nakuru. Though lions and leopards are reportedly there, the grass was too thick to see them. We did, however, see lots of zebras, buffalo, rhinos, flamingos, some giraffes (from afar) and a hyena (which is much bigger than The Lion King makes them out to be--they are somewhere between the size of a big dog and a small-ish bear).
