We LOVE Pictures!

Hello everyone!

Today was an AWESOME day! We had the opportunity to visit our first Maasai village today. It was so cool to really experience the culture first-hand.

After a slightly adventurous van ride, which included many pot holes and a lot of mud, we arrived at the village. The main point of our visit was to attend a church service. While the service was much longer than any of us are used to (about three hours!), it was very interesting and fun to be involved in. "The Wartburg Choir," as we are called, had its inagural performance at this service. I must say, we may not be as good as the actual Wartburg Choir, but we can definitely hold our own! It was nice to hear the people clapping for us after each song, and apparently they kept asking for us to sing more songs! The Maasai were very welcoming and seemed genuinely happy to have us there.

After the service, everyone gathered outside for a time of fellowship. At this time, we all got some pretty great pictures with the children in the village. They loved having their pictures taken! Even more, they loved seeing themselves on our cameras after the pictures had been taken. I think this was everyone's favorite part of today, simply because it was great being able to put such a huge smile on the children's faces. It was interesting to find out that the adults loved having their pictures taken as well. Many times, an adult would come up to me, point to my camera, point to herself, and pose for a picture! I think they enjoyed seeing themselves almost as much as the children did! A fun time was definitely had by all! :)

Contrary to popular belief, we found out that our driver actually isn't able to drive us through literally anything. On the way home (actually while we were still technically in the village), our van got stuck in a huge puddle! It turns out that muddy roads and pouring rain is not the best combination. However, after completely unloading the vehicle, putting some strategically placed branches under the tires, and some hard pushing from a few young men, we were free! It was definitely an exciting end to a great day!

Thanks for reading and we will post again soon! Asante sana!

-Emily