Something to hope for...

Hello friends!  Here's an unfinished post with a few photos from May... I've just finished an amazing month in the USA visiting friends & family and will put in some fun captions after I return to Kenya! Off to the airport now (June 19th)!

 

Although May is now coming to a close, it started with three days of activities for the HOPE students.  

 

After Easter we had our office open each day for our students to study.  Our tutor, Ben, would give the high school students practice tests in the morning and they'd take turns answering the questions on a blackboard.  I was thrilled we had over 20 students come for tutoring.  Only 8-10 can fit inside our office/library, so we had benches set up outside for overflow.

We also had 2 days of workshops for the students aged 13 and older.  A highlight for the students was a visit from a young female lawyer who works on justice and peace issues in the area.  We also had a session on the environment and a relay race designed to include team building and problem solving activities.

We are trying to help the students identify different skills they have.

One of the relay activities was building a Lego boat by sending "scouts" one at a time to look at the instructions.

None of the students had ever seen Legos before! 

The winning team

We also want to encourage students to give back and volunteer, so we had a church "clean-up" day.

Another highlight of May was getting together with the guardians of 8th grade students, since it's a high-pressure year for students.  Many of the guardians were able to offer suggestions on how to face specific problems - which was especially helpful for the two young men who are now guardians for their younger sisters.

We had a very generous donation of books from a book drive at St James School of Red Bank NJ in memory of Rose Rusch.  You can read about her and the foundation started in her honor here.  The students in the Red Bank Catholic High School Maryknoll Affiliates raised money for the bookshelf in this photo and now it's full of books!  I'm particularly excited about the opportunity these books have given for the young girls who were waiting to start a vocational course to improve their English & to encourage all of our students to read.

This photo slipped in from April - the Maryknoll Lay Missioners of Kenya!

As part of our environment day, we had a competition of which team could find the most materials in the area to recycle.

Esther and Maxmilla taking a break.

Titus checking out the local garbage pile for recyclables.

Comparing who brought back the most plastic bottles.

Since one of my hobbies is composting, we had a lesson in composting natural waste, too!

The winning team, Team Orange

The 2nd place team, Team White (it was almost a tie!)

Super Moon in Mombasa

Pasaka Njema - Happy Easter!

It's Easter.  The man in the moon looks like a rabbit in this part of the world and it's almost full so it might have been the Easter Bunny...

This Holy Week I've been fully engaged in the activities of the local church and my small Christian Community.  It's been one event after another and I'm grateful for the 4-day weekend, as Good Friday and Easter Monday are both national holidays in Kenya.  This year is my fifth Easter in another language (German in 2002, French in Rwanda in 2008, and now three years in Swahili). It's sometimes still difficult catching the words so I have to let myself listen to the Spirit and move with the familiar liturgy. 

I was asked to read during the Palm Sunday liturgy.  People were surprised I could read so well ... in English!  Thanks to Sr. Milda at Our Lady of Grace & even further back, my training at St. Thomas Aquinas in Ames.  =)

I've been reflecting on what it means to believe in resurrection - new life can come from death.  Does it come from every death?  Every letting go of what might have been or what we had dreamed possible?  Challenges I have no answers for?  I continue to want answers to difficult questions and struggle to surrender my "need" to know in the midst of uncertainty.

There have also been moments of grace this Holy Week that I hope to remember.

• A dreaded meeting where we came up with a solution that saved face for another without re-writing history.  
• An unexpected gift.  
• Finding a young person as excited about recycling as I am and meeting a group making "charcoal" from newspapers.
• Sharing Vitamin O ... the ocean with a friend
• Rain
• Peace within
• Being proud of our Archbishop speaking out about injustice in Kenya's leadership

There's another story that cannot fit into a bullet point, a story of a young girl who was attacked this week.  For a few days I was so sad for her, but words cannot describe the relief now that she's going to be okay.  But for so many others, I hope for better endings to their stories.  For an end to violence.

All of these bring me back to my center.  My belief in a God of Love.  A God who's stories have been told in many ways, sometimes with violence - perhaps in our human way of expressing what is inexpressible.  I continue to hope that Love will find a way.

  

Home - Nyumbani

This past week I've been doing home visits to meet with guardians who are requesting help for a child staying with them who has been orphaned by AIDS.  Walking in the community is something that amazes and humbles me, every time. 

I'm invited into people's lives for a few intimate moments of sharing the challenges of life; each story seems so different but then quickly begins to blur with the others. There's woman who lost her business due to the expenses of her mother's death and now has TB and can't manage to feed her children.  Then another who's daughter finished high school last year and is too ashamed to admit to her own mother her final grades.  One without furniture since she knows that one wall of her 8'x8' home is soon to collapse so she moved the bed she has to her parent's place.  After these, I enter a home with electricity and a TV and try hard not to compare and judge.   Knowing all these homes have children that should be in school. 

Many of the families are managing to pay enough that they at least go occasionally. School fees have risen dramatically over the last year.  Everyone is struggling to make ends meet, including teachers. Children who haven't had their fees paid are often sent home, which is a constant source of frustration for me.  I feel I should be sharing stories of hope, rather than frustration, but both co-exist here.  A nurse I work with reminded me of the spirit of acceptance that is common here - taking both the good and bad in stride. 

I find that I want to do more than I can & I continually need to be reminded that walking with others, listening and encouraging them is an important part of my work.  There's one boy that just an introduction was enough to change the current trajectory of his life.  Martin was introduced to me a year ago, when he'd finished supporting himself through driving school and opened a bank account.  He was doing so much better than the other young people who were seeking assistance. 

 Unfortunately Martin's mother died late last year and now he's living not far from my office with his aunt.  He came by to greet me and ended up asking about getting a job on the building being put up next door to our office.  I've told so many people that I couldn't assist with what they asked, that it is still good that they ask, that continuing to seek answers is part of the solution.  So I told Martin, I didn't know who was in charge, but it didn't hurt to ask.  After multiple conversations, most of them saying that they work was almost finished or they needed trained craftspeople for the rest of the work.  But we kept asking until we met the contractor in charge.  After my brief explanation, he told Martin that he'll be judged on his own effort and to show up for work the next day at 8 am. 

Martin's now been at work for over a month and I'm told he's the hard-working one there.  I often see him covered in cement dust, dirty from head-to-toe, sweating from moving bricks or a wheelbarrow of sand in the hot dust.  But he smiles.  He is so grateful for the work.  Two weeks ago he sent one of my students with 50 shillings and said that he wanted to buy me a soda.  When I talked to him, he had such pride that now he was able to take something home to help out his family.  Tuesday he stopped me again and told me that he had something for me to thank me.  It was 500 shillings all folded up, almost two days wages.  I couldn't take it.  Someone advised me that I should have, then used it on the other children, but my instinct was to give it back. 

You never know when just asking will make a difference.

Village Life - Maisha ya kijiji

I was honored to be invited to visit one of my friend's home in an area 2 hours from Mombasa.  She's a primary school teacher who I met during the December school holiday. I had promised her I'd come, and the last weekend in March was the first one I had open.

I went with another friend, her cousin Mary, who's a nurse I work with. We were grateful to arrive, after the last mini-bus had plastic jugs beneath our feet reeking of kerosene and someone's roofing supplies and window tied above and behind us.

Sunset as we walked to the village from the main road.

Our hostess and her very curious neighbor

To market, to market ... yes, those are chickens tied on the bicycle

Love the market!  So much to take in.

Market scene ... liked the person carrying poles on her head and the baby tied on the woman's back.

Small dried fish (left) called omena are a staple source of protein for many.  Larger dried fish are in the bags on right.

School uniforms in Mombasa are usually custom made by a tailor, so I was surprised to see them sold at the market (top left)

Local homes - the lack of ventilation makes me think it must be a sauna inside at night.

We went home to make coconut cake.  I'm sitting on the "mbuzi" stool, literally means goat, which has a grater attached.

After grating, the coconut milk is squeezed out in a local sieve made of woven grass.The cake was baked on a charcoal stove inside a larger pan filled with hot sand.

Collecting water from the well - 20 Liters of water is a bit heavy!

Possibly the most intriguing bug I have ever seen- I reduced the photo resolution due to my internet connection, but its eyes have yellow & red vertical stripes. 

But what was most interesting was its profile ... exactly like a leaf!

Hope you each find something to marvel into today!

Trash into treasure

One of my passions caring for the earth.  I've been composting and re-learning to garden in new soil now for two years, only to be "defeated" as they say here by the new and continually expanding family of chickens that have moved in to my garden and eaten all young leaves and seedlings.  Ironically, my gardening inspired their young owner, the 10-year old grandson of our landlady, to get involved in agriculture and thus, start growing chickens! 

After my retreat in February where the theme was 'Praying with God's Creation', I committed myself to do something more to help care for the natural world around me.  For most Kenyans, there is not a waste management company that comes for their household trash.  Most commonly, things are dumped in an open lot or burned, regardless of the toxic fumes emitted.  What to do with trash often seems like an after thought here in Kenya, with many people dropping what they no longer need on the roadside.  Larger issues await and solutions aren't obvious, especially with no systems in place for waste removal.

My first effort has been with the Community Based Health Care support group "Tuamkeni" Let's wake up, which meets each Friday near my office.  I had met with them a few weeks ago to share samples of what composting has done for my rocky soil and assess their interest.  I found as in any group, there were some eager beavers and other more reticent participants.

I also enlisted the support of Kate, a volunteer with AFCA, who was here supporting agriculture efforts to help HIV+ children and their guardians.  Her enthusiasm and training at ECHO - Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization were such a blessing.  We started with a bit of an experiment - three methods of composting.

Explaining the plan...

Raphael digging one of the holes

Kate (right) and group members with dry grasses and leaves

Edwina and I got a gunny sack full of fruit and vegetable peelings from a local street vendor.

Sorting out the trash from the good stuff ... we found out who was willing to get their hands dirty!

This might have been posed  ... pile #1 and the box we tried composting in

Watering the completed pile ... 

It's been dry, so the station nurse has helped with keeping the piles damp for all those little micro-organisms to do their work!

And just in time for Easter, we have new little chicks!  If only their father would keep quiet until 6 am in the morning...

Freshly hatched

Two days old ... I'm hoping none of them grow up to be a noisy rooster!

Mgeni ni baraka - A visitor is a blessing

It's been one adventure after another the last three days, since I've had a friend in town.  In the midst of a children protection meeting, visits with guardians and people seeking assistance and home visits, it's been a delight to share moments of my life here with a friend from home.

I'm reminded once again what a blessing it is to be here, to walk in the midst of the on-going struggles of life around me and be welcomed in various ways.  It also has it's challenges, since in some way I am still a visitor.  Yesterday was a day where many parts of my work almost happened simultaneously.  Highlights for me were meeting the HIV+ support group and talking about compost (one of my hobbies), listening to a student learn together with my friend about English and Swahili and life, and walking into one of the neighborhoods I serve with my colleague.

It was one of those walks that you might be able to envision ... starting off the main road through an alley separating trucking company lots into a maze of walk-ways between small informal shops and iron-roof covered stands selling charcoal, fried food or vegetables,  then opening up into a broad view of what looks like a delta - the Tudor creek, which expands and contracts with the tide.  As we walk down the hill on a dusty path that soon will be thick mud when the rains start, there are shower stalls made of grass and tarps above us and things no longer wanted covering the hillside.  Ahead is a large pipeline and low trees that survive in the constantly moving waters, goats tied on ropes to graze and a scattering of shacks.  These homes are for those who cannot afford the rent of the iron-sheeted, cement block rooms above, but somehow manage to put together enough materials to make a shelter.

I had promised a gentleman who has trouble walking that I would visit him sometime back, and having a visitor myself, it was a good reason to get out of the office and into the community.  We carried simple gifts of rice, beans, flour, sugar, and tea, and entered his simple home, much more simple than I had expected. His arms are sinewy but his face is bright with an easy smile, someone I'm happy to meet again.  As the plastic around us shifted in the wind, I tried to make sense of our conversation - I still struggle to understand Swahili, depending on the speed, accent and words - but I had two delightful women with me to assist. 

I learned Daudi is a carpenter.  We carried newly bought stools back up the hill with us & the nurse I work with and I helped young girls with their water jugs, filled from the creek below.  These moments are ones to treasure.  It is such a blessing to be a visitor and to be reminded what a gift it is to have one, too. 

Returning to my roots - Mizizi yangu

It's a sunny Sunday afternoon in Mombasa.  The birds are chirping and all seems to be at peace.  I'm savoring the moment.  The challenges are still there, but I am grateful for a day of rest and the shift within that feels more calm.

Yesterday I ventured out with a ECHO volunteer who's here for 5 months to help the HIV+ people I work with to use better agricultural practices to improve their nutrition, their environment, & their income.  All things which I'm excited about and which take me back to my roots in Iowa.  I'm trying to soak up everything I can & feeling like a 4-H'er again.  She's come over a few times to help me in my little garden, but yesterday I went to help with the clinic shamba (field).  The sun was hot but the work both interesting and cathartic - throwing the jembe (hoe) over my head and back down to pull up the grasses and soften the soil in new raised beds.

The garden project was started a few months ago and has been successful in producing the greens from cow peas several times over - which have been sold locally - other leafy greens, onions, tomatoes and the carrot tops are now looking good.  A cow is providing milk daily and her young calf grazes and fertilizes the soil.  It will be an interesting project to watch grow and one I hope to contribute to as time allows.  I've been composting in my own little garden for 2 years now and have patches of good earth.  My addition to their training this week was samples of fresh compost vs the rocky stuff I started with - and a photo documentary of how to compost with kitchen scraps.

From the shamba, I went to my office (with a quick costume change & rinsing the dirt off my hands & feet - waa-la! new person) to be with my students for an afternoon of tutoring.  I hadn't told many that I was coming & was surprised and delighted that 10 students came.  There were some that came right from the mandatory Saturday morning school session - so I'd like to be able to provide them with lunch (Let me know if you're interested - 50 cents per student will do!). 

We did quadratic equations, statistics, logarithms and indices - including things I don't remember from my own high school experience.  Working with some students is a delight, helping them to make a connection they didn't see before or watching a light bulb go on.  With others, I see how far behind they are and realize that academic success may be out of reach.

In trying to help these students, I struggle with my own ambition, wanting change that might not be realistic and realizing so much is out of my control.  It is at this moment when I am reminded my work is not just mine, but of many and hopefully, the work of the God I try to serve.  My faith is challenged and stretched and helps me to return to my roots.

A prayer I will be praying with my co-missioner, Judy, later today, starts with the words,

Firmly rooted in the center of my being,

listening,

and opening to the touch of your Spirit ...

Grateful for my roots deep in the soil of Iowa and in my faith in a God of love,

Mary