Esther, the little girl who was silent even when she was being poked with needles or frightened with chemo is now starting to chatter and laugh. She is really ticklish.

Thursday Esther went to BJC Children’s Hospital with Naomi and Karen Smith to have Esther’s PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) insertion location in her arm checked. Naomi is in charge of cleaning Esther’s PICC line on a daily basis, a task which she approaches gently but meticulously.

Earlier this week on Wednesday, Naomi and Esther got out of the house for some lunch and a little shopping. At Global Foods in Kirkwood Naomi was happy to find the ingredients for Kenyan cooking, including the collards and tomatoes to make sukuma wiki, a vegetable stew, and maize to make ugali, a polenta-like dish cooked in a thick pot.

Happy with those finds, Naomi decided to try her luck and wanted to know if the store carried goat meat. “Do you want fresh or frozen?,” the butcher asked.

Thursday night Josphat made a Kenyan chicken stew mchuzi for dinner. Esther – who for the most part has been existing on whole wheat bread and chai with a few French fries thrown in – cleaned her plate.