The widow's mite

My newest donor is an orphan from Mombasa.  How do you show your appreciation to a gift that you cannot hardly believe is possible?

Last weekend I received a phone call from one of the young men I know, an orphan who I helped get some casual work earlier this year.  He was helping building a new house and was known for his prompt arrival in the morning and for doing anything needed, usually ending up with the dirty physical labor of carrying and mixing cement.  He almost always had the same outfit on and was covered in dust, but he would smile & wave as I passed on my way to the office. 

This time Martin called me to tell me he'd found a job - as a security guard for an international company.  He was so proud.  I was happy to hear that he'd be paid a better wage than most guards - 10,000 Kenyan shillings or about $120 per month.  In American standards, not great, especially for 12-hour days, six days a week.  He told me he'd come to see me on his "off-day." 

I was still a bit surprised when today Martin came to our office, dressed in style!  He's being switched to a new site and was called to say that he'll need to work nights, but he's still happy with it.  His last assignment was at a tea packing place so they gave him two cups of tea - one in the morning & one in the afternoon, which was good since he doesn't get a lunch break.  He told me that it was okay, he didn't need to eat anyway.  He then started telling me about how he wanted to buy a uniform for a student that didn't have one.  I assumed he meant a neighbor boy that he had offered to have live with him while the other boy was going to school.  But when I asked about the boy, Martin said, no, the money is for one of my students.  He told me he thought 2000 shillings would be enough, and if I'd be around, he'd go to the bank right now and withdraw it. 

So he did. 
He gave me a fifth of his income.  
Two months rent. 
A third of the money he's going to try to save to go back to school.
Can you imagine?

I still can't believe it.  I know in my head that it was driven by his desire to help someone else, like all of the donors who help me do the work I do.  He told me how grateful he was that he had a job now,  that he wanted to show his appreciation.

And so how do I appreciate someone else's appreciation?

I am overwhelmed by his generosity.

Maisha magumu ... it's a hard life

Today was my first full day back at work since returning from vacation.

It's fascinating to be back in a culture different than my own.  I'm more aware of the non-verbal communication than what I may do naturally in my own culture.  Here an glance may mean yes, looking away meaning no.  Hugging on both sides or tapping foreheads as a sign of greeting - those are things that are new again, yet familiar since I've now lived in East Africa for 3 and a half years.  Respect is shown in words and in silence.  And working with teenagers, I've found silence is also a way of avoiding the reality.

About half of the children the HOPE project supports are partial orphans, which means that they've lost one parent to AIDS and their remaining parent is HIV+ and unable to support them to school.  These are the lucky ones.  They still have a mother who's usually willing to struggle to help them, even if she cannot afford their daily bread.

Two of the students I met today are total orphans, who live with aunt and uncles.  Both of these kids are ones for whom most people would say "maisha ni magumu."  Life is hard. Whether it's that the aunt is tired of caring for the children of her sister who passed away 15 years ago or that she finds the constant needs too much for her patience, it's tough for the child, especially for kids going through the tumultuous teenage years.

Eric did well in primary school and his older brother managed to get a chance at going to a good university.  But the last two years have been a tough transition for Eric, with his brother gone at school, his uncle busy at work and his aunt just not interested in him, his performance dropped and he found that being the class clown was more fun than being serious about his studies.  Now with a reputation and being far behind in his classes, it's almost too late to catch up. 

It's the students who's guardians don't show up - whether it's at parent meetings at the school or when we try to meet with them - that I feel for.  Life is hard enough for a teenager without being loved by the people around him everyday.  Mercy is another girl who's aunt doesn't always give her the care she needs - but today she came with another student we support, who's also studying hairdressing.  Sometimes having a friend is all you need to make the world seem like a better place and that life isn't so hard.

Having spent a month with my own family and friends, seeing Eric and Mercy again remind me why I'm here.  Hopefully to help them have a life that isn't so hard in the years to come.

Thanks to all my friends at home that support me in what I do.

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!