Meet our BFF Joyce

Joyce is the one person who has made our life here in Kenya so much easier. She works in our cook house from 8 AM to 4:30 PM every M-F just to take care of the ex-pats. She cooks lunch for the 3 of us every day and often bakes bread, cakes or cookies. She cleans the cook house and does our laundry twice a week (by hand, in a big plastic pail out back). Her cooking is pretty versatile and from working at Lalmba for 10 years she’s learned to cook for the American palate. She’s made personal pan pizzas and brownies as well as traditional Luo food like rice, beans and sakumawiki. She is very even tempered and laughs easier like most of the Luo we’ve met. She tells us interesting things about everything from the bugs on the floor to the fruits in the trees. For instance, she showed us the mango tree growing just outside our front door and told us when the fruit is ready to eat. There’s another tree called a “mapear” (spelled phonetically) that has small green fruits that we can eat when they get a little riper. And she’s taught me how to fry fish and saute sakumawiki. I took her picture and told her I was going to introduce her to our family and friends and that made her very happy.