Short Rains Season

We received our U.S. background clearances in the mail this week.  I ordered two sets - one from the actual FBI, which will already have the apostille (msp?) stamp on it and one from a private company that we paid to have expedited here.  I am not sure which one will be accepted by the government, so that's why we went ahead and ordered both.  The FBI said it could take up to 8 weeks to receive theirs in the mail.

Now I am in the process of working on my dossier, which means sending each of my individual documents to the Secretaries of State in which they originated.  I am so happy to have a way to mail things here!  And to have a DPO address!  It takes only a week and a half to receive mail here as opposed to 3+ weeks with the diplomatic mail system we had in Taiwan.  That cuts the time in half!  So even though we have a lot of documents to mail back and forth from overseas it will definitely be a little easier with this system set in place.

It is turning fall in the States, but it is the "short rains" season here.  It rains a little bit every day and pretty much every night.  But it is very warm when the sun is out, so we spend a lot of time at the pool during the day when it is not raining.  We are decorating for Halloween.  Apparently Halloween is a big deal here on the compound, just like our neighborhood in Taiwan.  The kids are so excited and can't wait!

There is a lot of stuff going on here in Kenya.  The military here has gone into Somalia to push back AlShabaab, who keeps coming over the border and kidnapping people from Kenya.  The kidnappings are maddening, so although I hate war, I am happy that Kenya is standing up and defending themselves.
In fact, yesterday a helicopter flew over many times with this banner attached:  "Defending Kenya".

It was a good morale booster.  Go Kenya!

Today is a Kenyan holiday, Mashujaa Day.  Happy Heroes Day!