Through the storm ...

... of a long Christmas weekend with my family, that is. Luckily we were nowhere near the coast when the Christmas Tsunami hit. Parts of the Kenya coast were closed yesterday, but are open again today. The last time one of these big Tsunamis hit, bodies washed up as far away as in Zanzibar, a grisly thought.

But the closest we got to death-defying this weekend was the rickety-sounding 20 seat airplane that flew us back from Nyanza, where my grandparents live. There we had endured three days of church services: Christmas Day, the next day a memorial for my Dad, and then on Monday the dedication of the new church building. My grandpa, who is a retired reverend and always occupies a place of honor in the front of the church, warmed my heart by periodically awaking from a deeo slumber to shout abuses at the clergy for the intolerably long church program. Folks did not make it out of there until 4 PM.