Very Green Missionaries

Life here in Kijabe is many things. One thing I have added to that list is "green". Now I am by no means a tree hugging environmentalist. My environmental philosophy goes something like this: I care for the creation but worship the Creator. Anyway, no doubt about it life here is considerably greener than our old life in the US. A few examples:

We have no heat and no a/c. We have a fireburning fireplace for the cold months (which is essential because, yes, there are cold places in Africa and Kijabe in July is one of them). It never gets hot enough to want or need an AC.

My refrigerator is slightly bigger than the one in my dorm at Brumby Hall at UGA. But you know what? We manage. We get creative with packing things in there and it is fine. Our oven is also tee-tiny. It does have 4 burners and can hold exactly one pan in the oven. But it also works fine for our family.

Our hot water heater runs for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. We have warm showers and enough warm water to wash out dishes through the day.

We grow some of our food in our garden and buy a lot of our food locally.

We have a car that we drive occasionally. We drive it locally due to the steep terrain and the logistics of shopping and walking along dangerous roads with three little kids. But when we drive it locally it is never more than a mile round trip. Rhett walks to work each day. We drive further to Nairobi a few times a month.

We do have a washer but no dryer. Which means that all of our clothes get hung out on a line to dry each day. Don't believe what those advertisements say about being "April Fresh" and "Windy Breeze" scented. If you are lucky your clothes smell like nothing. If the wind is blowing in the wrong direction there is a long list of unpleasant things your clothes can smell like.

So you see, I have enough carbon credits stored for the next little while to do exactly as I please. (I don't actually believe in carbon credits by the way :) So if you happen to run into me in the US and I'm driving around in an exceptionally large vehicle, idling at the drive thru with the windows down and AC cranked up just know that I'm working on that carbon credit balance and things are all good.