“Your Way Chinese Restaurant”

As a special treat to Mwazunga, his social worker and the woman who worked at the Compassion center, Dave took all of us out to eat for lunch that day. And we didn’t go to what I would consider a normal Kenyan restaurant. Instead we went to a Chinese restaurant named Your Way. Why Dave picked that particular restaurant I am not sure, except that he did know the owner and the food was excellent.

The owner practically met us at the door and ushered us to a private room. He also changed the radio to the only American music he had, Madonna. Val and I talk in German on occasion, just a few words not a whole conversation. So while we were in the Chinese restaurant in Kenya, Africa, with Madonna playing overhead, we were speaking in German. How many continents can you cover at one time?

But this day wasn’t about me; it was about Kari and her Compassion child Mwazunga. He ate the food just fine, though I bet he had never had any kind of foreign food before. And when it came to dessert, Dave insisted we all have ice cream. I don’t know if it was just that it had been so long since I had had ice cream (which is one of my big weaknesses) or if it was really that good, but it was really that good.

And what did Mwazunga think about it. Well, his social worker told us that he was certain that the little boy had never had ice cream before. He didn’t know quite how to eat it. He just kept licking off his spoon, instead of putting it in his mouth. When he was asked if he liked it, though, he beamed, his smile going from ear to ear.

It was way too soon that we had to drop them back off at the Compassion center.