The Week Looked So Fun

It was supposed to be a fun week - especially for Mariah. One of her activities of the summer - Volleyball Camp has been ruined by a virulent attack of fever and vomiting. Taryn got a jump start on the illness by about 8 hrs. Oh joy. It's been 24 hrs for Taryn now and she is still weak as a kitten. Poor Mariah is in the throes of it and very feverish and sick as can be.

They can't seem to get cold enough - Taryn actually wanted to lay on the tile of the bathroom floor. I'm running the A/C at 70 but that ol' dog of a unit will only get the upstairs to about 75 with all the heat and humidity we are having this week. So I'm pushing cold water bottles and gatorade. I flash froze some otter pops and they gobbled two down so far. They are taking turns with the good ice pack and popping ibuprofin and anti-nausea meds. I need to remember to buy another ice pack to replace the one that sprung a leak. Gotta run! I'm being paged (again!)

Poor little babies.

Wheels of the Car

Today the wheels of the car go round & round....

Volleyball camp began this morning bright and early - 9:00 AM!! That is at least a couple hours earlier than I usually see any sign of life emerging from the upstairs inhabitants. Mariah and I zipped off and she was happy to jump right in after a long absence from playing volleyball.

Then I raced back home to get Gib and take him to his Ortho appt. Drove right back across town. Made it a few pages into my 12 pages a day in the Read the Bible in 90 days quest I am embarking on again this summer - right to the good part when God is stuffing everyone with Quail because they whined about Manna - and then Gib was done and we headed to the post office and then back home.

I have a little over half an hour and then it's back on the road again to pick up Mariah. After that we (Gib, Mariah and I) will decide whether or not to go to Pac Sun and use our discount cards on some back to school clothes, or save that for tomorrow when I don't have to go into work. Probably go with option B.

As an addendum to the High Summer entry: We ended up taking out almost an entire section of the store last night, which nobody knew would end up happening!! We each had a long transfer list we were to find the items on - like a big scavenger hunt - and then you had to fold everything just so (of course), put it in boxes to be scanned and then shipped out. But, 4 hrs later, we ran out of shipping boxes, ran out of storage for clothes hangers, ran out of time, etc., it was kind of funny because right near the end when we realized practically nothing would be left, our manager yells STOP! and madly calls other stores to see what they did. Guess I will see what happened this morning to make that section look beautiful. I'm sure they will find stuff to sell! I got out of the follow up morning detail at 6 am because of Mariah's volleyball camp or otherwise I would have been right back at it to finish up with my crew. It's good to be loved. I was the only newbie on the team! :)

High Summer

We have entered High Summer, in case you didn't know. There are certain colors the fashionable are wearing too, and if you would like to be enlightened, I am happy to do so. I have to wear them at work, and can no longer wear Spring and early Summer colors... unless of course they just so happen to be included in the High Summer collection. Geez, who knew?!

I am learning all sorts of new terminology in my retail work at Coldwater Creek. I am entering the week which completes my first month on the job and we just finished a complete "floor change" and major store cleaning. Wow, that was alot of work!!

Tonight I go in for another over night floor change after hours where I guess we will be unpacking more freight which was why I was supposed to learn everything one gal knew about it. We managed about 15 minutes of uninterrupted work and then the rest of the day we were in the store and never returned to freight work. Well, I sure hope opening one box and taking out two things, pushing the button once on the giant steamer closet and seeing how they organize one visual rack to represent the entire floor will at least give me some skill to be put to use.

Right now there is some 70% off merchandise so it's a great time to go get some good deals! I think we are probably moving around the clearance section to make room for more new stuff. I think there are 9 "stores" by number within the store. I still don't quite know the store numbers by sections. I probably need to memorize that this week. I am constantly being pulled and tugged by one associate or another as they are instructed to "teach me everything they know" and then 15 minutes later we get reassigned and that was that!

I have also learned how to use the cash register and am getting much faster and neat with hanging up clothes JUST SO. There is one associate who will walk by and shake her head at your rack of items to go back out on the floor and go, "No... No... Yes... Yes... No" and keep on walking. Gotta love that. Really, it kinda makes me smile because she can spot the problem while on the move. It's kind of dragonlady-ish but she doesn't mean to be unkind, she just knows her stuff. And I'd rather know back in the dressing room that the jeans I just hung up in a pleat fold should have been flat hung. And she is good at helping you figure out what you did wrong and teaching you how to hang items correctly. I learned more from her way of doing things about getting it right than from others who have showed us. Everyone has their system. The last time I worked with her I only got one NO when she walked by. Woot! Woot!

There is a stupid rhyme that drives me crazy about hanging pants:
2,4,6,8 - hang them straight
10, 12, 14 - let them lean (so you are supposed to fold back one side, on the hanger, but does the rhyme tell you which side, or which pair of pants are folded front side or sideways pleated, or which ones don't even get hung up on hangers at all and are folded on tables?! Noooooo)
16, 18, 20 - fold them plenty (it doesn't even rhyme...really)
And this is what goes thru my head the entire time I am buttoning, zipping, pinching the little hanger dohickeys, sliding everything around, centering it on the hanger, and tightening it all so a fricking quarter can bounce off the waistband if dragon lady should try when she walks by.... ah! it's soooo much fun!!!

And for all that.... my first paycheck was like $21 bucks hahahaha. It had 2 weeks withholding on it or something. I get a decent one I hope when I go in tonight. Gotta say, I have never worked so hard for so little. But it is still fun and when it's not fun, there's just no point.

Unless, that is, I want the inside track on what colors to wear for Early Fall....

Mercer On Mission Blog Posts

Just in case you haven't been following the blog posts, or the tweets, and so that we'll have it on our blog, I thought I'd transfer the first week over to ours. So far it looks like everything has been going pretty good. Indie has crossed the equator, seen a pair of hippos (hopefully from a very safe distance), met the community, and they have begun their work. As expected, the Sisit women can run circles around them. I bet the 8 yr olds can outwork them. Indie might have eaten agali with her fingers from the communal pot if she was A) hungry enough or B) was concerned about offending the community and/or the warriors who carry spears to protect them from the hippos. Grab a snack and enjoy... but if you want to see a couple pictures, click on the link:

TWEETS:

• First day of labor at Sisit. Moved + sifted + washed + dried a lot of sand. The Sisit women hauling sand were amazing. about 20 hours ago
• Good day at Sisit. Planning for sand source for water filters+water pump+pipeline. Met community. Labor starts tomorrow. 1 day ago
• Arrived Marich Pass. Rough roads but safe journey. Work at Sisit starts tomorrow. 2 days ago
• Dr. McCreanor is the mercer bear! 3 days ago
  
  
  http://mom-kenya-2010.blogspot.com/
  

6/5

Today started with a very early and completely amazing boat trip on Lake Baringo. The landscape was incredible and we got to see local wildlife including a fish eagle plucking a fish out of the water and a pair of hippos.

We then loaded up the vehicles and head into town for a breakfast of fried bread and eggs and then on to the Longiwan Integrative Child Development Center. The work Sam has coordinated at this site includes a nursery school building;a water supply and treatment facility for the nursery school, elementary school, and local community; garden area with grass for cattle feed and thatching roofs, millet, and maringa; and bee hives. The community fed us a very generous lunch of agali, rice, maringa leaves, chicken, and goat. On the ride back we saw monkeys and ostriches.

We spent the afternoon relaxing around the cabins and were visited by one of Sam's favorite birds, a Paradise Fly Catcher.

We will be up early tomorrow for the second half of the trip to Marich Pass and our main project while here. We will not have internet service once we leave Lake Baringo but think we have sorted Twitter out so, we should be able to send updates but, they will be brief.

6/4
Our updates may be coming in via Twitter so, be sure to check the side bar for updates. You can also check www.twitter.com/MOMKenya2010.

We are at Camp Roberts on Lake Baringo and have a signal on our wireless modem. Today was another day of travel with some flouride removal science and crossing of the equator to break up the trip.

We had a nice breakfast at the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Ecumenical Center then loaded up and started the trip towards Camp Roberts on Lake Baringo.

We stopped about halfway at the Catholic Diocese Flouride Removal Facility which is helping local communities by supporting water treatment systems for large and small facilities and homes. The systems use ceramic filters to remove bacteria and cintered cow bone to remove flouride. The high levels of flouride are a real problem as they cause the adult teeth to come in brown and weaken the bones of the body.

We lunched at the Yama Choma (The Barbecue Palace) - plates of fresh cooked meat, veggies, fries, and flat bread.

About an hour out from Lake Baringo we crossed the equator where we stopped to get some souvenirs and got a lesson in the high pressure sell.

We arrived at Camp Roberts about 4:30 and were sitting down to a cup of tea in our awesome accommodations within 30 minutes. A helicopter landed about 20 yards from us shortly thereafter.

We are still working on the Twitter updates, but no joy yet.


Lastly, a reminder for friends and family just in case we can't get back online - on our return trip, we arrive at the Atlanta airport at 6:10 PM on Thursday June 24. Not on Friday June 25.


6/3

Today started with a great breakfast in the hotel restaurant. There was an excellent millet porridge and Marielle invented a new breakfast sensation - coffee french toast.

After breakfast we took off and had a crash course in Kenyan driving and traffic followed by a tour of the Nairobi National Museum where we got some good background information on the history and culture of Kenya as well as the wildlife and natural history. We lunched as a group at the Savanah Coffee Lounge and then went to the mall to get our money changed.

In the afternoon we napped and relaxed around the hotel. The birds and cats at the trash heap were a great source of entertainment.

Sam took us to dinner at the Abyssinia, an Ethiopian restaurant. The food was experienced but not necessarily enjoyed by all. Sam took the leftovers home for his dogs.


Tomorrow we take off for Lake Baringo and then on to the Marich Pass Field Station and won't be back to Nairobi until the 23rd of June. Internet service will be spotty at best so don't worry if the blog is not being updated.


6/2
Today was a safe and pretty uneventful day of travel. We took the 7:15 bus to the airport, cleared baggage check and customs quickly, almost everyone at some chocolate, and we were in the air pretty close to on time.

8.5 hours later we landed in Nairobi, passport check and customs went smoothly. Sam and some of his crew met us at the airport and transported us to our lodgings in Nairobi, the Rev. Desmond Tutu Ecumenical Center. Sam also took the 10 duffels of vitamins off of our hands.

We get to sleep in a little bit tomorrow and will do some sightseeing in Nairobi. We leave Nairobi on Thursday.


6/1
Everyone got checked in and onto the plane in Atlanta. The flight was mostly uneventful except when Dr. Lackey got a big kiss on the cheek from the Senior Cabin Steward after she explained what we would be doing in Kenya.

After a little bit of logistic trouble with our ground transport we decided to take basically public transport to our hotel and the duffels of vitamins and research equipment cases were checked into baggage storage at the Heathrow airport so that we did not have to lug them around with us.

We had a nice lunch at our hotel at 3:30 PM we re-grouped and took local buses and the tube to the Green Park station in downtown London where we got on an open top sightseeing bus. We were blessed with some good English weather (cold, wet, and rainy) and after about an hour were below deck or under the top floor shelter. The tour was about 3 hours and gave us a great overview of the many historical sites in London.

After taking the tube back to our hotel, we picked up dinner to go (Sam's Chicken, Kentucky Fried Chicken, or Indian Deli) and caught a bus back to the hotel.

Beauty and the Beast

Today I spent the ENTIRE day driving in and out of the garage with a kid in the car, or on my way to get a kid in the car! Early this prevening (haha nod to us Big Bang Theory fans) on our way back in, Taryn said to look at the beautiful butterfly thingy on the garage.

I see that gargoyle moth and my face must have scrunched up because she immediately said "not that, the pretty GREEN one!!" I'm all thinking, GREEN?! A GREEN butterfly.... Oooooooh!
Taryn, Mariah and I all got out of the car and

snuck up on it with our camera phones. We found out later it was a Luna Moth.

No need to worry, I read on Wiki that after they emerge from their cocoon they climb up on something and wait until their wings dry out before they fly away. Considering it wasn't at all interesting in flying, I was originally thinking that might have been the case. But when I came back a minute later with the trash can from the curb, it was gone. I was kind of sad. :(

But I had sent Grammy down to see it. Apparently, it took off from the wall and hit her right smak dab on her forehead....hahaha! That would have been an awesome photo. So, I am renewing my guess after all that it was a newly emerged moth... and a female one at that!!

Me and Retail

I have been working practically non stop at Coldwater Creek for almost two weeks. Oh, my aching feet! I would have thought that all the running around I do at the preschool would have had my feet tough enough for retail, but when you have to do this kind of movement in strappy shoes, it is a whole different experience. I don't go in tomorrow until 4 pm (hallelujah!) and that gives me time to find a pair of Naturalizers or something that maybe I can survive the day in. I have one pair that I thought was pretty comfy. We are in the middle of a huge 50% off everything in the store and on Friday, I am quite certain that by mid-day I had already hit 5 miles easy. Since I often have a busy day at preschool and have worn the pedometer there, and walk 4-5 miles with Joanne and Lara, I know when the 5 mile mark is reached... and boy did it feel like I had passed it and then some!! I am going to locate my pedometer and try it out next time we have a big day and see what I hit.

Of course I enjoy working there, because as my friend Lynne summarized, "you have your dream job!". I love CWC clothes so I enjoy the store, helping people put together their outfits, and organizing and doing multiple things at once is always fun for me. I think they like me because I have been getting hours like crazy. I was told your hours would depend on how well you contributed to the team and your ability to sell CWC. You don't work on commission, but you need to have the ability to bring energy to the floor and talk with guests. Not a problem! One of the best rules I think is that you have to wear their clothes. "If you wear it, you will sell it!" It's true... I have been modeling stuff all week, and I get called over all the time to show off what I'm wearing. That's kind of fun. I get a nice employee discount and I can see how the other associates have chosen key pieces and are wearing them with other CWC "vintage" items (which I have alot of). I am looking forward to updating my wardrobe. My preschool director is laughing at me saying that I will not earn a penny all summer but I will be the best dressed preschool teacher next year! However, I have made it a few times now through work all day and went home without buying anything! Plus, I get to see the new stuff before it goes on sale! Ooooooh!!!

At the Atlanta Airport

After a great drive to Atlanta, we arrived very early (Thanks Mike, and we sincerely mean it this time!) and had a wonderful lunch at Long Horn Steakhouse... probably the last good meal Indie will get for almost a month. She had ribs... yum!! Also, the last of the normal meat she will eat too. Ewww - goat. Yuck. Which is a delicacy in Kenya. They don't usually get to have goat meat, but they are celebrating having the Mercer on Mission crew with them to work on the irrigation system for their village, so goat is added to the usual fare of communal mush pot and fruit. I expect to see a very skinny Indie return. And trust me, it's not like she has much to lose. I took this one photo, for kicks, of where she keeps her passport (she had to lift her shirt) which for the sake of Grandparents and Fathers it will not appear here (too sexy!).

Here we are - we just arrived outside the terminal and met up with some of the other early birds (and you can barely see the hidden passport thingy! That's about when I had her flash me!)

"Seriously?!"
Actually, Indie... I wanted to show everyone the olive duffel bags that are being brought to the village, or possibly they are being delivered elsewhere (it was unclear). They are full of vitamins and such. Each weighed about 40 lbs. Somehow Indie will have to carry that as well as her backpack. Hopefully just at the airports?

She said I could take another photo and she would smile. She actually did smile, I just didn't capture it, but that's OK...this is totally an "Indie Face". I like it! (oh, see that amazon woman in the background? I think that's Indie's Buddy!! hahaha)

Mike and Indie. I expect Mike will know every detail the minute it hits the blog. We just hope the blog guy gets to blog! Apparently, the no-electronics rule is being ignored and some people aren't too happy about that.

We got checked in just fine because we were extra early like nearly 3 1/2 hr to 4 hrs before our flight early (yes, Mike we recognized that you were responsible for that more than once!), but the group members who arrived 2 1/2 hrs before departure (like they were supposed to) were still at the back of the line an hour later when Mike and I said good bye to Indie. They had maybe moved forward 4 feet. Ouch. No electronics kinda sucks because we are just assuming they made it through security on time and all got on the plane. I hope Indie loved London!