Dear Friends,

   Here I am on December 9, Monday, feeling the gentle, rather cool morning breeze pass through my bedroom. It is coming in from the windows and out the door on the other side of the room.  The sun is shining brilliantly. The air is so clean; it is great to live in the mountains!

   I have a number of things I want to mention; I have been keeping my list so I won't forget.

   First, I am experiencing a lot of hassle from the immigration people of this country.  It is typical I am told.  Anyway, I have made trips into downtown Nairobi (2 hours, 20 minutes to go about 10 miles the last time I went.)  I found out my tourist visa has expired and was told "well, I guess you will have to leave our country in the next 2-3 weeks!"  To get a renewal of the tourist visa I have to show a receipt from my applying for the more permanent "entry visa."  Well, I did not have it.  It is supposedly in someone else's hands, a nun who is charged with getting that process going. She has been told to get going on this pronto and get me the receipt ASAP.  I am still waiting!

   In addition to this mess, the Immigration people want a copy of my diploma from the school I got the PhD from in California in 1984. (I had thrown into a dumpster long ago the diploma when cleaning out things.  I never framed it nor ever thought it was that important to keep!)  I had sent to Immigration the transcript of all the courses I took and on that page is the statement:  PhD degree granted on May 3, 1984. They refused it and demanded a copy of the diploma.  So I recontacted the school and find out that they do not have a copy of my diploma and do not make copies of any diploma.  So I got them to write a letter to Kenyan Immigration on paper with the school's letterhead to explain they don't have a copy of the diploma nor do they make copies of diplomas but do vouch for my having been granted the degree on May 3, 1984.  They added that they hoped Immigration would acknowledge that this is enough, that they have been given the assurance that I do have the credentials and that will be enough for granting me the entry visa.  The next few days will be interesting as I wait for word on whether their legalistic, literalistic attitude will yield and I will be granted the visa and be allowed to stay in the country.  If I were a betting man, I would put my money on staying here.

   In the meantime, we have had some heavy rains  these last 5-7 days, something the ground and trees have needed. Some of the rains pounded, so heavy were they. They have also led to numerous power outages.  I walk around with my flashlight on many evenings!  Really frustrating when you are working on your laptop computer!!

   One thing I have noticed are changes in my body since coming here.  For years I have had some eczema condition on my left forearm, something about the size of a Susan B. Anthony dollar.  I have often put some vaseline on it to soften the skin.  I have even had a dermatologist give me some cream to aid its healing but to no avail.  About a month ago I noticed it completely gone; the skin looks completely normal and blending in with the skin on the rest of my arm.  What do I attribute this to?? Diet.  I also notice the nails on my fingers thicker and shinier.  Again, diet.  I sense my "tush" is smaller as well.  Once again, diet.  What am I eating?  Almost no meat--some fish and chicken but no beef nor pork.  I hate the way the beef and pork is prepared and butchered.  It is often full of fat and gristle.  Every lunch and dinner we have a platter of fresh garden veggies provided.  Nothing is ever frozen here.  It is either raw or cooked.  So too we have whole milk and there are no food additive nor hormones in any of our food. Combined with the clean mountain air I might live to 100!!
 
I have been working some long hours on the rewrite of my book.  I took three chapters, 78 pages and collapsed all of that into one chapter, 30 pages long.  Now I have two other chapters I want to reduce to one chapter and take out 15 pages from a total of 41 pages.  I hope to have this all done by January 1, maybe by January 8.  The end is within sight!!

 I startmy annual 8-day retreat this coming Saturday evening, the 14th.  I will not be reading any email or doing anything on mycomputer till I finish, on the night of the 22nd.  As I begin the retreat I mark the end of my time avoiding the garden. My foot is healed enough now to permit me to resume gardening, just in time for the beginning of summer, whichcomes on December 21 here.

  Ten dasy ago I finished a period of about two weeks when my skin was itching so badly I would dig and press in hard on points where I was itching.  At first I blamed it on some medicine I was talking, but after going off the medicine for 4 days and still itching, I concluded that I am sitting in the midst of so man things that are flowering now.  We have a bee-hive on this property and the bees are having a great time working on getting to the pollen.  In the last week, with all the rains, the pollen is much less and my skin is much quieter.  Thank God. I thought the itching could be a form of hell.

   I got a haircut last week.  I got chopped.  Barbers here usually don't know what to do with straight hair. Thank God things grow out.

   One quaint thing I esxperience here is how geckos come in and out of my room, often under the door, to eat insdects, espec ially mosquitoes.  So they are my friends.  They are little salamanders, about 3 inches long and can crawl up and down on the sides of walls.  Their beady eyes are something else.  I make all kinds of noises with my lips to get their attention and they do stop and just stare at me making a fool out of myself.  It is fun to see them just stare and later move on behind my curtain or up my wall.

  I bought a 15 foot, 2.5 ft wide carpet to throw out on my bare tile floor.  I can now do stretching exercises in my room and some yoga stands, rather than having to go down to the "work-out room."  Nice addition to my room.

Lastly, there are the loudspeakers across the valley that blare in this area,  eitherMuslims on Friday calling people toprayer or some Christian tentpreacher typessounding like auctioneers who never take a breath as they go on and on with whatever they are saying.  Thank God this is all at some distance so that we con't have to call the police to tell them to cut it.


 This is enough for now.  I will write again after I finish my retreat, around Christmas day or so.  God bless all of you.  A blessed Christmas season to you all!

Bernie Owens