Celebrities

We knew that coming to Kenya as "wazungu" (white people) meant that we would get some additional stares.  However, Tenwek has been around for over 50 years and we thought that our presence might go a little more unnoticed.  That has not been the case.  There have been times when I am simply following my children as they walk along the sidewalk looking at bugs, flowers, etc. and people who are walking down a road parallel to our sidewalk will stop, stare for quite some time, and finally leave giggling.  I often wonder what they find so amusing.  Is it the glare of my white skin as it reflects the sun?  Quite possible.  Is it my clothes?  Highly likely.

Two days ago, I had quite the entourage of children in tow....Hannah Bemm (Kenyan child adopted by a missionary family), Leo Popp (Vietnamese child adopted by a missionary family), and my own two blue-eyed, blonde-haired munchkins.  It had recently stopped raining.  The older kids were standing under a rain gutter, getting completely soaked.  Micah was entertaining himself by playing in a puddle.  A common activity for young kids, right?  I watched as a crowd of about 15 Kenyan kids (all in school uniform) surrounded Micah, bending over to get a closer look at this strange creature.  A few were even bold enough to touch his hair or arm, which he didn't seem to mind too much.  Then they walked further down the sidewalk towards me.  I greeted them (handshake a necessity here) and asked if I could help them.  "No, we just want to watch the children.  What are their names?"  I responded and they stood and watched until we decided to head home.  Of course, we had quite the crowd following us to the gate.  I wasn't able to capture this special moment on camera, but I have a picture that illustrates this phenomenon.  Who would have thought that we needed to go to Africa to become celebrities?