Today, Lindsey and I wanted to go to the Catholic mass that is in Swahili, so a lot of the older girls and one of the mums went with us, too. Of course, we knew we wouldn’t understand a single word (although we did understand a few…literally, like 3 words that were said) but the service is different so we wanted to experience it. There is a singing and dancing processional as the priest comes in, when they bring out the Bible, and when the service ends. The songs they sing are also just much more lively and people clap and are much more energetic throughout the service. It was a good experience and I’m glad we went. It was really hot in there, today, though--the service didn’t start til 11:30 and we stood outside for about 45 minutes beforehand waiting for the service right before ours--the one we usually go to-- to end.
Two of the girls, Beth and Mercy, picked some wild greens--the Swahili word is pronounced “mchee-chee” for Lindsey and I down by the shamba and cooked them up with onions and tomatos (pronounced “nya-nyas” in the Swahili word) for us to eat with our pasta at dinner since we don’t eat the meat that went with it for dinner. It was really good! The greens are like a mix between collards and spinach.
After church I read some and actually fell asleep on the couch for quite awhile. After dinner in Baraka (grades 5-7), the girls helped Lindsey and I with our Swahili and then we all danced to music from our ipods! They tried to teach me some dance moves, but I’ll admit I’m a pretty pathetic dancer next to them…haha oh well it was fun : )
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Stone by stone...
Today I slept in pretty late--we were all really tired from yesterday even though most of the day we were just sitting in the car. I went into Karen with one of the other volunteers and bought some postcards. We met an older man who was buying a postcard for his grandkids--he has sent them one every week for the past two years that he’s been there. He works for himself and has a nonprofit called African Communities Against Malaria (http://www.acamalaria.org/). He said that even after being here for two years, he’s really only beginning to understand parts of the culture here.
Today was just a lazy day. I finished reading Unbowed (amazing book by the way!) and played a couple games of Stones with the girls. Stones is a game they play a lot. You draw a circle about the size of a large dinner plate in the dirt or on the patio. You put a pile of about 20 rocks in the circle. Each of the two players grabs on stone and the first player throws the stone up in the air, knocks 2-3 stones out of the circle and catches the stone they threw. Then they throw the stone up again and push all but one of the stones back in the circle. If the person does this successfully (without dropping the stone or not getting enough stones out of the circle or not putting the right number of stones back in the circle) then they get to go again. Otherwise, the other player gets to go. You go back and forth until someone “finishes you out” to where there is only one stone left. Then the person whose turn it is has to throw their stone up, knock the stone in the circle out, and then throw the stone up and knock the stone back in the circle, counting 1 out, 2 in, 3 out, 4 in, etc. up to 10. If the player doesn’t do it successfully, the other player gets a chance. And you go back and forth until one of you gets to 10. It’s really fun---and really hard! (Well, hard for me, anyway--the girls are a lot better than me!)
Today was just a lazy day. I finished reading Unbowed (amazing book by the way!) and played a couple games of Stones with the girls. Stones is a game they play a lot. You draw a circle about the size of a large dinner plate in the dirt or on the patio. You put a pile of about 20 rocks in the circle. Each of the two players grabs on stone and the first player throws the stone up in the air, knocks 2-3 stones out of the circle and catches the stone they threw. Then they throw the stone up again and push all but one of the stones back in the circle. If the person does this successfully (without dropping the stone or not getting enough stones out of the circle or not putting the right number of stones back in the circle) then they get to go again. Otherwise, the other player gets to go. You go back and forth until someone “finishes you out” to where there is only one stone left. Then the person whose turn it is has to throw their stone up, knock the stone in the circle out, and then throw the stone up and knock the stone back in the circle, counting 1 out, 2 in, 3 out, 4 in, etc. up to 10. If the player doesn’t do it successfully, the other player gets a chance. And you go back and forth until one of you gets to 10. It’s really fun---and really hard! (Well, hard for me, anyway--the girls are a lot better than me!)
Friday, May 29, 2009
Seek first to understand…
Today we drove to Kitui, a sustainable village run by the Nyumbani children’s home. The drive took about 4 hours, although it probably only should have taken about 3, because there had been a lot of rain near us and so right outside Nairobi the road was literally just mud. And mud + heavy traffic of trucks and buses = deep muddy ruts = slow moving. There were quite matatus that had swerved into muddy ditches and were very stuck right where they were. I suppose that’s largely a product of the crazy drivers behind the wheels of those vehicles. Interestingly, this road is the only road from Mombasa, one of the main ports in Kenya. So really, in many ways, this road was the lifeline to the country. And yet, despite its importance, the infrastructure is so weak, even here, that trucks could barely move along it.
When we got to Kitui, oh what a difference from everything I’d seen before in this country (which to be honest, has been limited). Dry only begins to describe this place. Dirt roads. Desolate land for miles upon miles. The epitome of a desert. They haven’t had decent rains for two years. And yet here was a village. And there were others, outside of the Nyumbani village, who lived here, too.
This is supposed to be a sustainable village. So how do they do that with so little? Well, they built sand dams--7 in total--that held water from what meager rains they got, which raised the water table enough in their shallow wells to provide water for irrigation and drinking. They planted beans and vegetables to eat, with the ultimate goal of being able to produce all of the food they need themselves (a goal not yet achieved, but they’re only a few years into the project). They also planted many, many trees. They have 1000 acres, and they plan to fill several hundred with trees that they can use for firewood, building, and selling. There was a little sign, which I just loved, near one of the tree groves, that said, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” : )
So who lives in this hopefully-soon-to-be-sustainable village? Well, with a similar mission as Hekima Place and Nyumbani children’s home, this village is home to children who have been orphaned by AIDS, some of whom have AIDS but most of whom do not. Instead of hiring mums to live with the children, though, this project seeks to provide for another demographic equally affected by this AIDS epidemic--grandparents (here at the village, specifically, grandmothers).
These grandparents aren’t collecting social security when they reach 65. Their social security was lost when their children--the parents of their grandchildren--were lost. Children, here, ARE your social security. But if your children--now supposed to be self-responsible, healthy adults--are ill or even gone, who will take care of you in your old age? There is no one. The elderly and the young are two very separate generations being made equally vulnerable by a disease that is affecting the generations that exist between them. So this village brings grandmothers here to live in the homes with their own grandchildren as well as with other children who do not have their grandparents here. These grandmothers must agree to, essentially, “adopt” other children into their homes and their hearts when they come to live here.
When we were touring the village, the woman showing us around starting talking to us about the “destitute” lives these children were living before they came here. To my shock and dismay, however, she was doing this with two children--one about twelve years old who surely had learned enough English in school to understand her--right by her feet. In my mind, I thought ‘How could she be so insensitive as to call them “destitute”, essentially, to their faces?!?’ I was appalled and hurt on behalf of the children. When I shared this with Lindsey, I was even more repulsed by her response that I didn’t know that it was hurtful to the children. Here I was, standing up for these kids, and Lindsey had the nerve to tell me I was the one in the wrong! I was annoyed and frustrated and upset.
But I digested it. And later, having a conversation with another one of the volunteers, I processed what she had said. I still intuitively thought that the woman should not have said that in front of the children, but I understood that, in reality, I did not KNOW that it was hurtful or that she shouldn’t say it. I didn’t KNOW that “destitute” had the same meaning and connotation in their culture as it does in mine. I didn’t KNOW that it was shameful or hurtful to talk about being poor or hopeless or “destitute” in their culture. It might be. But it might not. When I have a strong reaction like this, I shouldn’t ignore it, but I should think about it critically and use it as motivation to learn more about the culture I’m observing so that I CAN understand what is and is not culturally acceptable and right and kind. Before I, or anyone else, can pass judgment of ANY kind--even if it seems that there is an injustice occurring and that it must be stopped--we must seek to learn and understand the culture in which this act or event is occurring. Seek first to understand.
When we got to Kitui, oh what a difference from everything I’d seen before in this country (which to be honest, has been limited). Dry only begins to describe this place. Dirt roads. Desolate land for miles upon miles. The epitome of a desert. They haven’t had decent rains for two years. And yet here was a village. And there were others, outside of the Nyumbani village, who lived here, too.
This is supposed to be a sustainable village. So how do they do that with so little? Well, they built sand dams--7 in total--that held water from what meager rains they got, which raised the water table enough in their shallow wells to provide water for irrigation and drinking. They planted beans and vegetables to eat, with the ultimate goal of being able to produce all of the food they need themselves (a goal not yet achieved, but they’re only a few years into the project). They also planted many, many trees. They have 1000 acres, and they plan to fill several hundred with trees that they can use for firewood, building, and selling. There was a little sign, which I just loved, near one of the tree groves, that said, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” : )
So who lives in this hopefully-soon-to-be-sustainable village? Well, with a similar mission as Hekima Place and Nyumbani children’s home, this village is home to children who have been orphaned by AIDS, some of whom have AIDS but most of whom do not. Instead of hiring mums to live with the children, though, this project seeks to provide for another demographic equally affected by this AIDS epidemic--grandparents (here at the village, specifically, grandmothers).
These grandparents aren’t collecting social security when they reach 65. Their social security was lost when their children--the parents of their grandchildren--were lost. Children, here, ARE your social security. But if your children--now supposed to be self-responsible, healthy adults--are ill or even gone, who will take care of you in your old age? There is no one. The elderly and the young are two very separate generations being made equally vulnerable by a disease that is affecting the generations that exist between them. So this village brings grandmothers here to live in the homes with their own grandchildren as well as with other children who do not have their grandparents here. These grandmothers must agree to, essentially, “adopt” other children into their homes and their hearts when they come to live here.
When we were touring the village, the woman showing us around starting talking to us about the “destitute” lives these children were living before they came here. To my shock and dismay, however, she was doing this with two children--one about twelve years old who surely had learned enough English in school to understand her--right by her feet. In my mind, I thought ‘How could she be so insensitive as to call them “destitute”, essentially, to their faces?!?’ I was appalled and hurt on behalf of the children. When I shared this with Lindsey, I was even more repulsed by her response that I didn’t know that it was hurtful to the children. Here I was, standing up for these kids, and Lindsey had the nerve to tell me I was the one in the wrong! I was annoyed and frustrated and upset.
But I digested it. And later, having a conversation with another one of the volunteers, I processed what she had said. I still intuitively thought that the woman should not have said that in front of the children, but I understood that, in reality, I did not KNOW that it was hurtful or that she shouldn’t say it. I didn’t KNOW that “destitute” had the same meaning and connotation in their culture as it does in mine. I didn’t KNOW that it was shameful or hurtful to talk about being poor or hopeless or “destitute” in their culture. It might be. But it might not. When I have a strong reaction like this, I shouldn’t ignore it, but I should think about it critically and use it as motivation to learn more about the culture I’m observing so that I CAN understand what is and is not culturally acceptable and right and kind. Before I, or anyone else, can pass judgment of ANY kind--even if it seems that there is an injustice occurring and that it must be stopped--we must seek to learn and understand the culture in which this act or event is occurring. Seek first to understand.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Learning to rest as work...
Today, I learned to categorize rest as work…or maybe it’s categorizing work as rest…
Lindsey and I didn’t really have anything to do on the grant and we couldn’t do any filming today because it was cloudy and gray and the mums were busy making chiapatti (no idea how to spell that)--fried, flattened bread, kind of like Indian naan bread.
So we decided to go out to the road-side to get our daily mango, which we like to eat with our 10 o’clock tea. As we were leaving, we saw Mum Gladys and Irene, and asked them if they would like a mango as well, and they said they would love one! And when we saw Lisa, we asked her the same and she gave us 20 ksh to get her one as well. And when we passed through the gate, we asked the Uncle there if he would like a mango and he said he would enjoy one as well. Well at that point, we thought it would be nice if we just got one for all of the mums and Uncles. We ran into Mum Kate and Mum Gladys riding down the road in their car and we told them about the mangoes and they were very excited. And then when we were passing the man at the gate farther down the road that protects all the houses on Muteero Ridge, we started talking to him and he asked us to spell our names for him and then of course we told him we were going to get a mango and asked him if he would like one too and he said he would. So here we were, walking toward the road, and we added up and decided we would need about 20 mangoes just to be safe and make sure we had one for everyone.
Well, as luck or fate would have it, we got to the roadside and the one woman on the corner had 3 mangoes--only one of which was ripe. So we went across the road, but that man had no mangoes. And so we went across and up the main road a bit to a line of about four vendors, and they had oranges and bananas and avocadoes, but, again as luck or fate would have it, no mangoes. So, we asked ourselves, do we just buy oranges or do we ride into town to get our promised mangoes? Well, spontaneity grabbed us and we hopped a bus to town (which really is only a 5-10 minute ride anyway). Our usual supermarket was not open yet (at 10:30 in the morning…), so we went to the KPS store, which only had 9 ripe mangoes. And then we bough the remaining 10 from vendors in the parking lot. Oddly enough, the mango price went from 1 for 20ksh (~25 cents) at the street-side vendor to 9 at 30ksh a piece in the KPS store to 10 at 40ksh (~50 cents) each in the parking lot. We’re fairly certain the 40ksh had a so-called “skin-tax” added to it, as we’ve been warned many a time will happen.
It was worth it, though, because everyone enjoyed their mangoes, as did we. : )
Then, I spent the remainder of the afternoon reading Waangari Muthai’s Unbowed. This book is AMAZING, especially since I’m here in Kenya right now. She really explains a lot about Kenyan culture, tribes, and history.
First of all, I learned about “the scramble for Africa” that was formalized by the Berlin Conference in 1885, where the major European powers literally just divided up the African continent amongst themselves. She talks about the colonialism with a unique subjectivism that is not resentful or angry, but not necessarily happy or welcoming either. She seems to have accepted it as it is and understands that both good and bad have come from it and that we must move forward from where we are but still have a deep understanding of what has happened.
She says “reading and writing fascinated them [the Kenyans] and they embraced it with a passion.” Mum Kate wrote in the margins, “STILL!” There used to be a local, pre-colonial object called a glissandi--which was made from a gourd and has since been discouraged and demonized by the colonists and put away in museums in Europe--that was shaken and rattled somehow as a form education and communication.
The people who became Christianized by the missionaries and colonists were then allowed to be taught to read (the Bible, of course), and hence became known as “athomi”--the “people who read”. The British just called all of the Kenyans who refused to be Christianized and who held on to and advocated local customs “Kikuyus”. What I find interesting and revelatory about that is that the Kikuyu were only one of forty-two tribes in Kenya, but the Europeans did not see that. They saw one people--one people that was to be converted and dominated and “civilized”--and called them all “Kikuyu” because the local culture and traditions and lifestyles meant absolutely nothing to them other than as something that needed to be altered and “improved”. But Wangaari explains that the other tribal groups were as foreign to each other as the Europeans were to them.
The Protestant and Catholic churches were designated different areas of the region to convert. They discouraged traditional ways, but the African Independent Church emerged and embraced both Protestant and Catholic beliefs as well as aspects of traditional Kikuyu culture. I really want to go to a Sunday service at an African Independent Church before we leave.
(By the way, the Kikuyu are the most populous of the Kenyan tribes today and were also at the time of British colonization…many of the girls here are Kikuyu and so was Wangaari Muthai so that’s what she knows and what she writes about… and so that’s what I’m learning right now in this book...although she writes a lot about life generally in both colonial and independent Kenya.)
I learned that the first girl in a Kikuyu family becomes like the second woman of the house and joins her mother in all of her daily work as soon as she can walk. When the British came to the area, they introduced a cash income tax. Before the British, Kenyans dealt mainly in goats as a form of wealth. But now, since all the Kenyans had to pay cash and the only way they could get cash was from the British colonists who had it, the Kenyans had to go work in towns and cities or on settlers’ farms. If they went to the towns or cities, they would have to leave their families in the rural areas and could only return 1-3 times per year. The absence of men in these communities created female-headed households but also increased incidences of prostitution, absent fathers, and sexually transmitted infections--all of which are still significant challenges facing Kenyans today.
This has created a culture that did not exist before. Before, in the often polygamist societies that existed, a man would be ostracized by the community if he were to abandon his family. But now he can just run off to the “urban jungle” and there is not a strong enough community to pressure him to stay and support his family. So now, in the often female-headed households, the eldest daughter assumes the maternal role in the family so that the mother can go off to earn a living by selling second-hand clothing from her arm or doing whatever business or transaction she can to put food on the table and, if she’s lucky, put her younger children in school.
And the disintegration of the family structure will only worsen the AIDS epidemic here--where 15% of adults are already infected. The stigma is not as bad anymore, so hopefully there will be progress made. But what of the one and a half MILLION vulnerable children who have been orphaned already? And what of the children of that fifteen percent, of whom who knows how many have access to ARVs to keep them strong and healthy? And you can’t take ARVs on an empty stomach. So, somehow, that fifteen percent has to find enough money to put food in their stomachs AND to get the ARVs they need….which of course they either have to pay for the generics themselves or get a first dose of PEPFAR’s expensive, 1st-line drugs for free and never be able to afford the 2nd dose, which will probably just create an even more drug-resistant and deadly form of HIV/AIDS….just what we need.
When you start making sense of it all and putting all the pieces together, it all just ends up making even less sense, in the end, that we let this all go on. What are we doing to ourselves? And yes, I mean ourSELVES. This isn’t happening to Africans. This is all of us. We all contribute to these attitudes that destroy us, but we also all have a magnificent power in us to create attitudes that build and attitudes that heal. We just have to open our eyes, step back and not even try to fix or change anything. Just look. Just listen. Just feel. Forget what we think we know or what we know we think. Wipe the slate clean and just think about the people. The trees. The rivers. The way we make each other feel. Get down to the simplest bits of ourselves. The bits we have in common. And the bits that are different. But understand that we all value the bits inside ourselves. And we have to respect what is in our neighbor just as much as we need to respect what is in ourselves.
Lindsey and I were talking and she told me something that I believe she quoted from the Dalai Lama but I could be totally wrong on that. It doesn’t really matter who said it though, because the words are wise:
“Loving our neighbor as ourselves isn’t the goal; it’s the reality. We all love ourselves as our neighbor. The problem is, we don’t REALLY love ourselves.”
It’s been said many a time in many a way…if you want to change the world, start by changing yourself.
Lindsey and I didn’t really have anything to do on the grant and we couldn’t do any filming today because it was cloudy and gray and the mums were busy making chiapatti (no idea how to spell that)--fried, flattened bread, kind of like Indian naan bread.
So we decided to go out to the road-side to get our daily mango, which we like to eat with our 10 o’clock tea. As we were leaving, we saw Mum Gladys and Irene, and asked them if they would like a mango as well, and they said they would love one! And when we saw Lisa, we asked her the same and she gave us 20 ksh to get her one as well. And when we passed through the gate, we asked the Uncle there if he would like a mango and he said he would enjoy one as well. Well at that point, we thought it would be nice if we just got one for all of the mums and Uncles. We ran into Mum Kate and Mum Gladys riding down the road in their car and we told them about the mangoes and they were very excited. And then when we were passing the man at the gate farther down the road that protects all the houses on Muteero Ridge, we started talking to him and he asked us to spell our names for him and then of course we told him we were going to get a mango and asked him if he would like one too and he said he would. So here we were, walking toward the road, and we added up and decided we would need about 20 mangoes just to be safe and make sure we had one for everyone.
Well, as luck or fate would have it, we got to the roadside and the one woman on the corner had 3 mangoes--only one of which was ripe. So we went across the road, but that man had no mangoes. And so we went across and up the main road a bit to a line of about four vendors, and they had oranges and bananas and avocadoes, but, again as luck or fate would have it, no mangoes. So, we asked ourselves, do we just buy oranges or do we ride into town to get our promised mangoes? Well, spontaneity grabbed us and we hopped a bus to town (which really is only a 5-10 minute ride anyway). Our usual supermarket was not open yet (at 10:30 in the morning…), so we went to the KPS store, which only had 9 ripe mangoes. And then we bough the remaining 10 from vendors in the parking lot. Oddly enough, the mango price went from 1 for 20ksh (~25 cents) at the street-side vendor to 9 at 30ksh a piece in the KPS store to 10 at 40ksh (~50 cents) each in the parking lot. We’re fairly certain the 40ksh had a so-called “skin-tax” added to it, as we’ve been warned many a time will happen.
It was worth it, though, because everyone enjoyed their mangoes, as did we. : )
Then, I spent the remainder of the afternoon reading Waangari Muthai’s Unbowed. This book is AMAZING, especially since I’m here in Kenya right now. She really explains a lot about Kenyan culture, tribes, and history.
First of all, I learned about “the scramble for Africa” that was formalized by the Berlin Conference in 1885, where the major European powers literally just divided up the African continent amongst themselves. She talks about the colonialism with a unique subjectivism that is not resentful or angry, but not necessarily happy or welcoming either. She seems to have accepted it as it is and understands that both good and bad have come from it and that we must move forward from where we are but still have a deep understanding of what has happened.
She says “reading and writing fascinated them [the Kenyans] and they embraced it with a passion.” Mum Kate wrote in the margins, “STILL!” There used to be a local, pre-colonial object called a glissandi--which was made from a gourd and has since been discouraged and demonized by the colonists and put away in museums in Europe--that was shaken and rattled somehow as a form education and communication.
The people who became Christianized by the missionaries and colonists were then allowed to be taught to read (the Bible, of course), and hence became known as “athomi”--the “people who read”. The British just called all of the Kenyans who refused to be Christianized and who held on to and advocated local customs “Kikuyus”. What I find interesting and revelatory about that is that the Kikuyu were only one of forty-two tribes in Kenya, but the Europeans did not see that. They saw one people--one people that was to be converted and dominated and “civilized”--and called them all “Kikuyu” because the local culture and traditions and lifestyles meant absolutely nothing to them other than as something that needed to be altered and “improved”. But Wangaari explains that the other tribal groups were as foreign to each other as the Europeans were to them.
The Protestant and Catholic churches were designated different areas of the region to convert. They discouraged traditional ways, but the African Independent Church emerged and embraced both Protestant and Catholic beliefs as well as aspects of traditional Kikuyu culture. I really want to go to a Sunday service at an African Independent Church before we leave.
(By the way, the Kikuyu are the most populous of the Kenyan tribes today and were also at the time of British colonization…many of the girls here are Kikuyu and so was Wangaari Muthai so that’s what she knows and what she writes about… and so that’s what I’m learning right now in this book...although she writes a lot about life generally in both colonial and independent Kenya.)
I learned that the first girl in a Kikuyu family becomes like the second woman of the house and joins her mother in all of her daily work as soon as she can walk. When the British came to the area, they introduced a cash income tax. Before the British, Kenyans dealt mainly in goats as a form of wealth. But now, since all the Kenyans had to pay cash and the only way they could get cash was from the British colonists who had it, the Kenyans had to go work in towns and cities or on settlers’ farms. If they went to the towns or cities, they would have to leave their families in the rural areas and could only return 1-3 times per year. The absence of men in these communities created female-headed households but also increased incidences of prostitution, absent fathers, and sexually transmitted infections--all of which are still significant challenges facing Kenyans today.
This has created a culture that did not exist before. Before, in the often polygamist societies that existed, a man would be ostracized by the community if he were to abandon his family. But now he can just run off to the “urban jungle” and there is not a strong enough community to pressure him to stay and support his family. So now, in the often female-headed households, the eldest daughter assumes the maternal role in the family so that the mother can go off to earn a living by selling second-hand clothing from her arm or doing whatever business or transaction she can to put food on the table and, if she’s lucky, put her younger children in school.
And the disintegration of the family structure will only worsen the AIDS epidemic here--where 15% of adults are already infected. The stigma is not as bad anymore, so hopefully there will be progress made. But what of the one and a half MILLION vulnerable children who have been orphaned already? And what of the children of that fifteen percent, of whom who knows how many have access to ARVs to keep them strong and healthy? And you can’t take ARVs on an empty stomach. So, somehow, that fifteen percent has to find enough money to put food in their stomachs AND to get the ARVs they need….which of course they either have to pay for the generics themselves or get a first dose of PEPFAR’s expensive, 1st-line drugs for free and never be able to afford the 2nd dose, which will probably just create an even more drug-resistant and deadly form of HIV/AIDS….just what we need.
When you start making sense of it all and putting all the pieces together, it all just ends up making even less sense, in the end, that we let this all go on. What are we doing to ourselves? And yes, I mean ourSELVES. This isn’t happening to Africans. This is all of us. We all contribute to these attitudes that destroy us, but we also all have a magnificent power in us to create attitudes that build and attitudes that heal. We just have to open our eyes, step back and not even try to fix or change anything. Just look. Just listen. Just feel. Forget what we think we know or what we know we think. Wipe the slate clean and just think about the people. The trees. The rivers. The way we make each other feel. Get down to the simplest bits of ourselves. The bits we have in common. And the bits that are different. But understand that we all value the bits inside ourselves. And we have to respect what is in our neighbor just as much as we need to respect what is in ourselves.
Lindsey and I were talking and she told me something that I believe she quoted from the Dalai Lama but I could be totally wrong on that. It doesn’t really matter who said it though, because the words are wise:
“Loving our neighbor as ourselves isn’t the goal; it’s the reality. We all love ourselves as our neighbor. The problem is, we don’t REALLY love ourselves.”
It’s been said many a time in many a way…if you want to change the world, start by changing yourself.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Small and beautiful...
Yesterday, after dinner at Maisha house with the youngest girls and Mum Kate, which we/Lindsey filmed, we went to visit the woman who told Gladys about Hands of Hope and encouraged her to ask for support for Hekima Place. She had the scariest dogs I have EVER met. Those are attack dogs like I’ve never seen before. They would have literally eaten us alive if they were not chained to the garage doors, which shook as they barked and tried to launch at us.
Once we got to the safety of her house, we sat down with the woman in her living room, which had about four full-sized couches and three love-seats placed end to end and corner to corner. She was very friendly but didn’t seem to have any really conclusive answers to our questions about the grant application and process. We’re going to try to go the Hands of Hope office in Nairobi next week. And hopefully Genevieve will be able to get through to their office in California (because she’s absolutely wonderful and agreed to help us in this mission of ours from half-way around the world!) Hopefully we’ll make some head-way on the grant soon…
Today, though, we went on an excursion into Karen with Lisa, a permanent Canadian volunteer who works in the office at Hekima Place, and all of the volunteers.
We had to ride a matatu into the Karen town center and then get on another matatu to head out near where Karen Blixen, the author of Out of Africa, had her farm (all 6,000 of her acres!) As we were walking to the road to catch the first matatu, a neighbor driving into Karen stopped and offered us a ride! So Lindsey and Lisa and I hitched a ride with him--his name was George--and the others, who had left ahead of us, caught a matatu.
An interesting little thing that we were taught to note about the matatus is that the license plates are distributed alphabetically, starting with KAA, KAB, etc, up to KB…, with KAA being the oldest and KB being the newest cars. Well, we forgot to check on the matatu we got when we got to the Karen town center and it stalled momentarily in the middle of an intersection. It wasn’t that big of a deal though…people seemed accustomed enough to it. They got it started up again in a minute, but it definitely makes you remember to check the license plate. It’s just hard sometimes because you’re in a scramble just to get on one in the first place! …and to get a fair price, too!
We rode the matatu without any other delays to Kazuri, a local fair-trade organization and factory of hand-made ceramic beads, jewelry, and pottery. Kazuri means “small and beautiful” in Swahili--perfect for a place that creates such beautiful small artwork.
But the real beauty of Kazuri is not in its beads or its bowls, but in its contributions to the development and well-being of the surrounding community. Soon after its founding in 1975, its founder, Lady Susan Wood, realized that there were many women other than the two African women she initially employed that were in great need of work. Wanting to provide opportunities for employment to these women, who were mostly singly mothers, she has since enlarged her workforce to employ over 100 single mothers from the community. In their own words: “In the developing world of today’s Africa, the greatest contribution we can make is to create employment, especially for the disadvantaged and this remains our guiding philosophy. The result is reflected in the strength of the Kazuri family and the beauty of our products.” (www.kazuri.com)
We got to see how they process the clay and how the women mold them into the various shapes of the beads and animals and pots. We also got to see them painting them with meticulous detail. The areas in which they worked looked like excellent working conditions and the women seemed relatively happy and were able to talk among themselves as they worked.
Apparently, they get a lot of custom overseas orders… And from what I’m told, Laura Bush wore Kazuri beads to the Oscars…
After Kazuri we went to the coffee gardens of Karen Blixen. Apparently, when she went bankrupt, she had to sell off all of her land, but she also left some of it to the local people with whom she’d become friends. But of the land that was sold, it was not allowed to be sold off in less than 5 acre plots.
We rode the matatus home, stopped to get some more internet minutes, and headed home. And then I raided Mum Kate’s bookshelves, found about 20 books I want to read before I leave here (of course), and started reading Wangaari Muthai’s autobiography, Unbowed. I’m SOOOO excited about this book : )
Tutuonana.
Once we got to the safety of her house, we sat down with the woman in her living room, which had about four full-sized couches and three love-seats placed end to end and corner to corner. She was very friendly but didn’t seem to have any really conclusive answers to our questions about the grant application and process. We’re going to try to go the Hands of Hope office in Nairobi next week. And hopefully Genevieve will be able to get through to their office in California (because she’s absolutely wonderful and agreed to help us in this mission of ours from half-way around the world!) Hopefully we’ll make some head-way on the grant soon…
Today, though, we went on an excursion into Karen with Lisa, a permanent Canadian volunteer who works in the office at Hekima Place, and all of the volunteers.
We had to ride a matatu into the Karen town center and then get on another matatu to head out near where Karen Blixen, the author of Out of Africa, had her farm (all 6,000 of her acres!) As we were walking to the road to catch the first matatu, a neighbor driving into Karen stopped and offered us a ride! So Lindsey and Lisa and I hitched a ride with him--his name was George--and the others, who had left ahead of us, caught a matatu.
An interesting little thing that we were taught to note about the matatus is that the license plates are distributed alphabetically, starting with KAA, KAB, etc, up to KB…, with KAA being the oldest and KB being the newest cars. Well, we forgot to check on the matatu we got when we got to the Karen town center and it stalled momentarily in the middle of an intersection. It wasn’t that big of a deal though…people seemed accustomed enough to it. They got it started up again in a minute, but it definitely makes you remember to check the license plate. It’s just hard sometimes because you’re in a scramble just to get on one in the first place! …and to get a fair price, too!
We rode the matatu without any other delays to Kazuri, a local fair-trade organization and factory of hand-made ceramic beads, jewelry, and pottery. Kazuri means “small and beautiful” in Swahili--perfect for a place that creates such beautiful small artwork.
But the real beauty of Kazuri is not in its beads or its bowls, but in its contributions to the development and well-being of the surrounding community. Soon after its founding in 1975, its founder, Lady Susan Wood, realized that there were many women other than the two African women she initially employed that were in great need of work. Wanting to provide opportunities for employment to these women, who were mostly singly mothers, she has since enlarged her workforce to employ over 100 single mothers from the community. In their own words: “In the developing world of today’s Africa, the greatest contribution we can make is to create employment, especially for the disadvantaged and this remains our guiding philosophy. The result is reflected in the strength of the Kazuri family and the beauty of our products.” (www.kazuri.com)
We got to see how they process the clay and how the women mold them into the various shapes of the beads and animals and pots. We also got to see them painting them with meticulous detail. The areas in which they worked looked like excellent working conditions and the women seemed relatively happy and were able to talk among themselves as they worked.
Apparently, they get a lot of custom overseas orders… And from what I’m told, Laura Bush wore Kazuri beads to the Oscars…
After Kazuri we went to the coffee gardens of Karen Blixen. Apparently, when she went bankrupt, she had to sell off all of her land, but she also left some of it to the local people with whom she’d become friends. But of the land that was sold, it was not allowed to be sold off in less than 5 acre plots.
We rode the matatus home, stopped to get some more internet minutes, and headed home. And then I raided Mum Kate’s bookshelves, found about 20 books I want to read before I leave here (of course), and started reading Wangaari Muthai’s autobiography, Unbowed. I’m SOOOO excited about this book : )
Tutuonana.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Full of Thorns, But Full of Beauty…Just like Africa...
Today, I made some tweaks to the grant proposal and then Lindsey and I FINALLY got to interview Mum Kate!!! HOORAYYYY!!! (TRUST ME….this is quite a victory haha) We’ve been trying since we got here, and she finally found time in her very, very busy schedule to let us interview her for both the Hekima Place promo video and for our own documentary. I did the camera work and Lindsey did the interview. I had to adjust the settings quite a bit during the interview because the sun kept playing peek-a-boo, which made me nervous because I didn’t want to mess up the scene—but doing something was better than doing nothing. I discovered that it would be very difficult to do an interview outside if you had to be the interviewer and the camera person.
Anyway, enough shop talk (haha…) after a lovely lunch of avocado on toast and fresh mango (mmmmm), we headed out to the 10 acres of glorious land at the foot of the Ngong hills that Mum Kate hopes to purchase as a permanent home for the Hekima Place family. (“If you profess it, you will possess it” keeps being her motto.) We went out on Sunday, too, but this time we were with all the mums and two of the uncles. This area, this country, is so full of beauty and life. We stood at the end of the road and looked out over a steep, grassy valley scattered with the typically African trees that Karen Blixen describe as so distinctly ‘Africa’: “The trees had a light delicate foliage, the structure of which was different from that of the trees in Europe; it did not grown in bows or cupolas, but in horizontal layers, and the formation gave to the tall solitary trees a likeness to the palms, or a heroic and romantic air like full-rigged ships with their sails furled…”| The scene seems painted, a scene out of a movie that strikes you with the idyllic feeling that none of this land has ever been touched with anything but the most loving and gentle of hands, hands that are grateful for Mother Earth’s blessings. This is what could only be described as God’s country. It did not belong to man. Man—and woman—live with the land, they blend their purpose in life with the simplistic beauty of the earth they walk upon.
As we stood admiring the scenery, a woman trekked across the bottom of the valley with a load on her back and slowly made her way up the hill to catch a matatu so that she could go to do whatever business she had in town. Another woman guided cattle up the side of the hill, maneuvering them among a bush here or a tree there or the telephone line poles that stretched across the open land.
It makes me think: in our busy society, we tend to see people like this as living “the simple life”, and I have to wonder how “simple” it really is. What makes our lives un-simple? Is it really possible to live a “simple” life? Some people’s lives do seem simpler than others, but maybe they’re just not quite as loud as the rest of us. But what does simple even mean? Do we not all have to deal with the same struggles of human interaction and love and death and birth and loss and pain and grief and so on and so forth? Granted, some people encounter more of that than others, but is it determined by whether you live what we like to call a “simple” life as opposed to the contrasting lifestyle that is hectic and busy and filled with so-called “progress”?
Kate told us that “you’ll never hear a Kenyan complain about the weather.” Kenyans are so “in touch with nature”, she said, and so understanding and grateful for the way the world cycles. When it rains, it doesn’t matter if it forces them to change their plans because they know that somewhere there’s a big shamba (garden) that grows their food and that needs the rain. What has happened to us that we live so isolated from our surroundings that we don’t consider the well-being of everyone and everything around us, we only consider how it affects us, personally? If living the “simple” life means being considerate and less self-centered as a society and as a culture, then maybe living un-simply is, quite simply, wrong.
On the front of the “Official Nairobi Yellow Pages” there is a quote from Wangari Mathai, the Kenyan who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004: “Investing in the protection and conservation of the environment would be investing in peace.” Peace. And protecting our environment. Would we be a more peaceful people if we protected our environment? Instead of fighting over resources we can exploit from the land, what if we all worked together to protect the beauty of the earth? Ah yes, “Imagine all the people, living life this way…” (I don’t think the Beatles were the first to imagine such a world…nor will they be the last.)
Maybe the lives of people here were simpler before colonization, before wealth was measured in paper bills instead of goats and crops were grown to meet each family’s needs instead of mass-produced for gluttony and there was mutual respect between the communities and the earth, whose support they understood they needed.
Looking up at rolling hills above us, shadows darkened parts of the grassy land, while other parts were glowing with the bright, warm sunshine. I was reminded of a comment Mum Kate made that the land was “Full of thorns, but full of beauty…just like Africa.”
Indeed, life—“simple” or not—and Africa—is full of thorns but also overflowing with beauty if we only take time to protect and appreciate the beauty. And maybe we have to accept the thorns in life, too, but just try to spare each other from the wounds and the blood. But I’m finding that deciding what the wounds are and where the blood comes from, so it seems, is the greyest area of all, even when we think we have the best of intentions.
Anyway, enough shop talk (haha…) after a lovely lunch of avocado on toast and fresh mango (mmmmm), we headed out to the 10 acres of glorious land at the foot of the Ngong hills that Mum Kate hopes to purchase as a permanent home for the Hekima Place family. (“If you profess it, you will possess it” keeps being her motto.) We went out on Sunday, too, but this time we were with all the mums and two of the uncles. This area, this country, is so full of beauty and life. We stood at the end of the road and looked out over a steep, grassy valley scattered with the typically African trees that Karen Blixen describe as so distinctly ‘Africa’: “The trees had a light delicate foliage, the structure of which was different from that of the trees in Europe; it did not grown in bows or cupolas, but in horizontal layers, and the formation gave to the tall solitary trees a likeness to the palms, or a heroic and romantic air like full-rigged ships with their sails furled…”| The scene seems painted, a scene out of a movie that strikes you with the idyllic feeling that none of this land has ever been touched with anything but the most loving and gentle of hands, hands that are grateful for Mother Earth’s blessings. This is what could only be described as God’s country. It did not belong to man. Man—and woman—live with the land, they blend their purpose in life with the simplistic beauty of the earth they walk upon.
As we stood admiring the scenery, a woman trekked across the bottom of the valley with a load on her back and slowly made her way up the hill to catch a matatu so that she could go to do whatever business she had in town. Another woman guided cattle up the side of the hill, maneuvering them among a bush here or a tree there or the telephone line poles that stretched across the open land.
It makes me think: in our busy society, we tend to see people like this as living “the simple life”, and I have to wonder how “simple” it really is. What makes our lives un-simple? Is it really possible to live a “simple” life? Some people’s lives do seem simpler than others, but maybe they’re just not quite as loud as the rest of us. But what does simple even mean? Do we not all have to deal with the same struggles of human interaction and love and death and birth and loss and pain and grief and so on and so forth? Granted, some people encounter more of that than others, but is it determined by whether you live what we like to call a “simple” life as opposed to the contrasting lifestyle that is hectic and busy and filled with so-called “progress”?
Kate told us that “you’ll never hear a Kenyan complain about the weather.” Kenyans are so “in touch with nature”, she said, and so understanding and grateful for the way the world cycles. When it rains, it doesn’t matter if it forces them to change their plans because they know that somewhere there’s a big shamba (garden) that grows their food and that needs the rain. What has happened to us that we live so isolated from our surroundings that we don’t consider the well-being of everyone and everything around us, we only consider how it affects us, personally? If living the “simple” life means being considerate and less self-centered as a society and as a culture, then maybe living un-simply is, quite simply, wrong.
On the front of the “Official Nairobi Yellow Pages” there is a quote from Wangari Mathai, the Kenyan who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004: “Investing in the protection and conservation of the environment would be investing in peace.” Peace. And protecting our environment. Would we be a more peaceful people if we protected our environment? Instead of fighting over resources we can exploit from the land, what if we all worked together to protect the beauty of the earth? Ah yes, “Imagine all the people, living life this way…” (I don’t think the Beatles were the first to imagine such a world…nor will they be the last.)
Maybe the lives of people here were simpler before colonization, before wealth was measured in paper bills instead of goats and crops were grown to meet each family’s needs instead of mass-produced for gluttony and there was mutual respect between the communities and the earth, whose support they understood they needed.
Looking up at rolling hills above us, shadows darkened parts of the grassy land, while other parts were glowing with the bright, warm sunshine. I was reminded of a comment Mum Kate made that the land was “Full of thorns, but full of beauty…just like Africa.”
Indeed, life—“simple” or not—and Africa—is full of thorns but also overflowing with beauty if we only take time to protect and appreciate the beauty. And maybe we have to accept the thorns in life, too, but just try to spare each other from the wounds and the blood. But I’m finding that deciding what the wounds are and where the blood comes from, so it seems, is the greyest area of all, even when we think we have the best of intentions.
Monday, May 25, 2009
"Grow your souls"...
Today after working on the picture slideshow I went over to Tumaini and joined the rest of the volunteers who had gotten back from the school and were sitting down to watch The Constant Gardener, which Mum Kate had suggested they watch. I’d seen it before, but this time it had a much bigger impact on me, partly just from seeing it a second time but mostly because it takes place right where I am. Much of the movie takes place in the Kibera slum, the largest slum in East Africa (and maybe even all of Africa but I need to check my sources on that) which is just a few miles from where I am here in Karen. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. It’s a really moving story, even if you don’t want to do work that takes place in Africa or a developing country. It really just opens your eyes (or it did mine, anyway) to the corruption that does exist in this world. I tend to be rather naïve about people because I generally prefer to see the good in people--it’s an attitude I don’t want to lose, but I’m realizing I have to combine it with a heightened awareness of my surroundings and air of caution (I’m still working on it, but don’t worry I’ll get there). The movie also shows how one person can affect one person enough so that justice can be achieved.
Mum Kate came home towards the end of the movie and sat down and watched the rest of it with us. Afterwards, she sat with us and gave us a few words of wisdom.
Kate is a woman who has lived in an orphanage, was a nun for 20-some years, and eventually got married and lived the family life. After her husband's death, she Googled orphanages in Kenya and up popped Nyumbani orphanage in Karen, Kenya, where she went to work for two years before setting off on the adventure that became Hekima Place.
Mum Kate reminded us--no, demanded us--to grow our souls while we‘re here. It’s all fine and good for us to come to Africa and want to help these girls and learn a bit about another culture, but it can’t stop here. We are responsible, as citizens of the world, to do our part in seeking justice and in helping others. People are not dispensable, an idea that this movie fights against. This movie, she urged, cannot just be another movie to us. There is “no way in hell” (and those are her words) that this movie is fiction. Maybe the names and companies are different, but the ideas and the events are true. She told us to dig deep for the truth in this world. We all have a different idea of what truth is--”some of us are at the top of the ‘T’, some of us are at the bottom of the ‘U’, and some of us are in the middle of the ‘H’--and we just have to piece it all together. We have to sort through the lies and the corruption and the greed and the righteousness to find what is true and to find what is just. “If all the prayerful ones would seek justice and all the justice-seekers would pray, we’d have a much better world.” She also told us to “be wary of righteousness, even me”.
We also learned from Mum Kate that PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) only provides 1st line drugs and won’t provide generic brands. So while PEPFAR’s increased funding from the US government sounds great, doctors here won’t actually prescribe it because the first dose is free from PEPFAR, but the doctors know that their patients will never be able to afford the second dose. I also learned that ARVs (anti-retroviral drugs, which help prevent HIV from becoming full-blow AIDS) can have very serious side-effects, particularly on your liver and mental health. And ARVs cannot be taken on an empty stomach, which presents a serious problem for many of the poor population that’s being given free ARVs from NGOs in slums like Kibera. What often will happen is that the NGO will give a person food to eat so that when they come to get their dose of ARVs they’ll have a full stomach. But the people getting this food come from whole families who don’t have enough to eat, so they’ll selflessly share the food with their family. Unfortunately, though, when they do that, they’ll end up getting extremely sick from the ARVs--worse than if they hadn’t even taken them. It just goes to show how much depth of consideration must be given to the complex issues we face in this world.
And as hard as it is, we have to remember, in all that we do, that what works for you, might not work for your neighbor or for the person who lives half-way around the world.
Mum Kate came home towards the end of the movie and sat down and watched the rest of it with us. Afterwards, she sat with us and gave us a few words of wisdom.
Kate is a woman who has lived in an orphanage, was a nun for 20-some years, and eventually got married and lived the family life. After her husband's death, she Googled orphanages in Kenya and up popped Nyumbani orphanage in Karen, Kenya, where she went to work for two years before setting off on the adventure that became Hekima Place.
Mum Kate reminded us--no, demanded us--to grow our souls while we‘re here. It’s all fine and good for us to come to Africa and want to help these girls and learn a bit about another culture, but it can’t stop here. We are responsible, as citizens of the world, to do our part in seeking justice and in helping others. People are not dispensable, an idea that this movie fights against. This movie, she urged, cannot just be another movie to us. There is “no way in hell” (and those are her words) that this movie is fiction. Maybe the names and companies are different, but the ideas and the events are true. She told us to dig deep for the truth in this world. We all have a different idea of what truth is--”some of us are at the top of the ‘T’, some of us are at the bottom of the ‘U’, and some of us are in the middle of the ‘H’--and we just have to piece it all together. We have to sort through the lies and the corruption and the greed and the righteousness to find what is true and to find what is just. “If all the prayerful ones would seek justice and all the justice-seekers would pray, we’d have a much better world.” She also told us to “be wary of righteousness, even me”.
We also learned from Mum Kate that PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) only provides 1st line drugs and won’t provide generic brands. So while PEPFAR’s increased funding from the US government sounds great, doctors here won’t actually prescribe it because the first dose is free from PEPFAR, but the doctors know that their patients will never be able to afford the second dose. I also learned that ARVs (anti-retroviral drugs, which help prevent HIV from becoming full-blow AIDS) can have very serious side-effects, particularly on your liver and mental health. And ARVs cannot be taken on an empty stomach, which presents a serious problem for many of the poor population that’s being given free ARVs from NGOs in slums like Kibera. What often will happen is that the NGO will give a person food to eat so that when they come to get their dose of ARVs they’ll have a full stomach. But the people getting this food come from whole families who don’t have enough to eat, so they’ll selflessly share the food with their family. Unfortunately, though, when they do that, they’ll end up getting extremely sick from the ARVs--worse than if they hadn’t even taken them. It just goes to show how much depth of consideration must be given to the complex issues we face in this world.
And as hard as it is, we have to remember, in all that we do, that what works for you, might not work for your neighbor or for the person who lives half-way around the world.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
A Maasai Man Never Sells...
Today I went to the English Mass with the girls again. Afterwards, Mum Kate took us to see the land they were looking to buy. The other lands they were looking at actually fell through, but this one was MUCH bigger and a MUCH better deal so it seems to have all worked out! Mum Kate said it was by the grace of God because the man selling it was a Maasai man, and ``A Maasai man never sells.`` The land is absolutely breathtaking, set amid the rolling hills of Kenya.
Then, Lindsey, Nancy, Rebecca and I went to the Ya Ya market, a Maasai market--although Masaai people were not the only tribe represented there. Lindsey and I didn`t want to buy anything since we are going to be here for awhile and if we start buying things now we might end up spending too much. The people at this market were very aggressive. Similar to what I experienced in Ghana, even if you tell them you`re ``just looking`` or you ``didn`t bring any money, today…sorry!``, they`ll still try to get you to start bargaining a price for their necklace or basket or wood carving. You`ll make a lot of friends whose names you`ll soon forget; and while their aggressive nature can often be frustrating, the people are friendly and you have to remind yourself they`re just trying to make a living like anyone else.
Then, Lindsey, Nancy, Rebecca and I went to the Ya Ya market, a Maasai market--although Masaai people were not the only tribe represented there. Lindsey and I didn`t want to buy anything since we are going to be here for awhile and if we start buying things now we might end up spending too much. The people at this market were very aggressive. Similar to what I experienced in Ghana, even if you tell them you`re ``just looking`` or you ``didn`t bring any money, today…sorry!``, they`ll still try to get you to start bargaining a price for their necklace or basket or wood carving. You`ll make a lot of friends whose names you`ll soon forget; and while their aggressive nature can often be frustrating, the people are friendly and you have to remind yourself they`re just trying to make a living like anyone else.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
So much more than meets the eye...
Today was like a mullet. Business in the front (in the morning) and party in the back (in the afternoon). : )
In the afternoon, we played music on the roof of Baraka house, danced, and played with acryclic paint that ended up as decoration ALL over our bodies--hands, feet, legs, arms--everything that could be painted got painted. It was a blast! : )
In the morning, though, we filmed interviews with some of the girls. I asked most of the questions as the official interviewer--and discovered that I`m going to require some practice-- and Lindsey did the camera work.
Mum Kate sat with the three youngest girls and talked about their lives before they came here. Two of them had been in an orphanage for children who have HIV/AIDS because when they were originally tested, they tested positive because their mother’s antibodies were still working in them. Their parents must have either died or abandoned them when they were born, which would be how they ended up at the other orphanage. But, as with what happens with about 80% of babies who test positive now that ARVs are so widely available to pregnant women (in Kenya, at least), after about 2 years their own antibodies had fully taken over and the test accurately discovered that they were, fortunately, HIV negative. However, while that’s good news for Vigi and Flo, there’s another problem they have to deal with--they can’t stay at an orphanage for children with AIDS if they don’t have AIDS. Fortunately, though, that’s where Hekima Place became a saving grace, as a much needed home for girls who do not have HIV (although 2 of them do).
The third girl, on the other hand, had a slightly different story. Her poor mother was so distraught and depressed and hopeless that she decided to take a can of gas and poor it all over her house and set it on fire with herself in it. A neighbor looked over to see a house up in flames and this little baby laying on the doorstep. Fortunately, somehow that good neighbor got her to the right hands that brought her here, where she is growing up in a loving environment and attending school.
It’s difficult to comprehend that those sweet little faces that want you to hold them and jump with them and play stones with them have been through so much tragedy in their lives. Behind the smiles and the laughter and the dancing and singing, I have no idea what is going through their minds or what psychological bruises they’re trying to heal. And these kids could be anywhere--they could be right back at home, the land of the free and the brave. I won’t leave it at that though, because there is a horrible “epidemic” of orphans here. There are 1.5 MILLION orphans already in Kenya. In just one country, physically about one and half times the size of California and with a total population here of 30 million. That`s one out of twenty people is a child orphaned by AIDS. Just AIDS. Not by anything else. One disease, that`s highly preventable and increasingly manageable--IF you have the money and availability. Can you imagine? I`m here and I still can`t.
In the afternoon, we played music on the roof of Baraka house, danced, and played with acryclic paint that ended up as decoration ALL over our bodies--hands, feet, legs, arms--everything that could be painted got painted. It was a blast! : )
In the morning, though, we filmed interviews with some of the girls. I asked most of the questions as the official interviewer--and discovered that I`m going to require some practice-- and Lindsey did the camera work.
Mum Kate sat with the three youngest girls and talked about their lives before they came here. Two of them had been in an orphanage for children who have HIV/AIDS because when they were originally tested, they tested positive because their mother’s antibodies were still working in them. Their parents must have either died or abandoned them when they were born, which would be how they ended up at the other orphanage. But, as with what happens with about 80% of babies who test positive now that ARVs are so widely available to pregnant women (in Kenya, at least), after about 2 years their own antibodies had fully taken over and the test accurately discovered that they were, fortunately, HIV negative. However, while that’s good news for Vigi and Flo, there’s another problem they have to deal with--they can’t stay at an orphanage for children with AIDS if they don’t have AIDS. Fortunately, though, that’s where Hekima Place became a saving grace, as a much needed home for girls who do not have HIV (although 2 of them do).
The third girl, on the other hand, had a slightly different story. Her poor mother was so distraught and depressed and hopeless that she decided to take a can of gas and poor it all over her house and set it on fire with herself in it. A neighbor looked over to see a house up in flames and this little baby laying on the doorstep. Fortunately, somehow that good neighbor got her to the right hands that brought her here, where she is growing up in a loving environment and attending school.
It’s difficult to comprehend that those sweet little faces that want you to hold them and jump with them and play stones with them have been through so much tragedy in their lives. Behind the smiles and the laughter and the dancing and singing, I have no idea what is going through their minds or what psychological bruises they’re trying to heal. And these kids could be anywhere--they could be right back at home, the land of the free and the brave. I won’t leave it at that though, because there is a horrible “epidemic” of orphans here. There are 1.5 MILLION orphans already in Kenya. In just one country, physically about one and half times the size of California and with a total population here of 30 million. That`s one out of twenty people is a child orphaned by AIDS. Just AIDS. Not by anything else. One disease, that`s highly preventable and increasingly manageable--IF you have the money and availability. Can you imagine? I`m here and I still can`t.
Friday, May 22, 2009
The Board, and Visiting Nyumbani Children's Home
Today I sat in on the Hekima Place Kenyan board meeting. They were meeting to discuss which land should be pursued to purchase as a permanent home for the Hekima Place family.
The Kenyan board is currently only an advisory board, but Kate wants it to be a governing board eventually. Lindsey filmed the meeting for her so that she could show the footage to the American board to show how competent the Kenyan board is. Right now, the American board is the governing board, and Kate would like it to focus just on fundraising--which is quite a task in itself.
The Kenyan board was comprised of mostly women and two men. They were teachers, professors, lawyers, business-people, entrepreneurs, and jacks-of-all-trades. They were all Kenyan and very aware of how business and education and politics and building work in Kenya. They knew things about different types of soil that only a Kenyan would know. They knew things about how the owners of the land would act because of Kenyan and tribal traditions, which only a Kenyan would know. I realized, as Kate has said to me before, that there really is so much that a Kenyan board is capable of doing and understanding that an American board--or any foreign board--would not be able to understand. And I realized how important it is to have local knowledge and understanding no matter what you’re doing. Even something that seems cross-cultural or culturally neutral--like buying land or constructing a building--requires a lot more local considerations than I would have thought.
Also, just a note, the Kenyan board operates on “African time”, meaning that it was scheduled at 1 so that they could eat lunch and start the meeting by about 2, because that’s when they could expect everyone to actually be there. And even still, one man didn’t arrive til about 2:30. But when that’s what you expect, it doesn’t frustrate you.
I was touched by how much the members understood what Kate was doing here--they understood that she didn’t want an institutional orphanage, but that she needed to create a family for these girls. So throughout the discussion, a member would bring that up and remind the board how that was related to their decision.
Kate told the members about her meeting with the Ministry of Children, Gender, and ____ where she learned that nonprofits, government organizations, etc. will not give money to buy land. However, donors should be very willing to fund buildings on land that has already been purchased. So hopefully they can pay out of their savings for the land and then get donors and grants to construct the buildings.
Enough business.
Later that afternoon, we went to Nyumbani (which means “Home” in Swahili), a children’s home for orphans who have HIV/AIDS. Mum Kate had worked there for 2 years before she realized there were very few, if any, homes for the orphans who did not have HIV/AIDS and who would not be accepted at a place like Nyumbani and thus decided to start Hekima Place. Nyumbani is set up with a similar notion of family settings with about 12 children to each mother. Each “family” lives in a house with 2 bedrooms, a small living/eating area, and a kitchen area. Most of the children weren’t there, though, because they were either at school or off at boarding school.
I had a strange feeling while we were there, maybe because I knew that all of the children were fighting against an indomitable disease. The volunteer who toured us around the compound, introducing us to some of the children and moms and showing us the homes and the small cemetery where they used to bury children who had died before they had medicines when they were still just a hospice, told us that some of the older children resisted medication at times and struggled with depression. Most of the kids were not there--they were still at school or away at boarding school--but the youngest ones who did not attend school as well as an older child here or there were still around. From what I understand, being on ARVs is kind of like going through chemotherapy. They’re not easy on your body, particularly if you don’t eat enough. Fortunately, the kids here DO eat enough. But still, these are powerful drugs that can destroy your liver, affect your mental stability (and that’s on top of the emotionally draining feat of someone who is still a child coping with the loss of their parents and family and with having such a disease), and goodness knows what other side-effects. This isn’t a fun disease. I don’t mean to imply that anyone reading this would think otherwise, but really, what are we doing to stop it? What are YOU doing to stop it? …and really, what am I doing to stop it? One and a half million orphans in one small country about one and a half times the size of California. 30 million people and there are one and a half million orphans. I feel like I’ve written this about 20 times now but no matter how many times I say it, it doesn’t seem real. Million. One and a half. 1500 thousands.
Anyway, the structure of Nyumbani is very similar to Hekima Place, although the houses are smaller because they’re home to about 10-12 kids and one mum and there are more houses. I think they have somewhere between 100 and 150 kids there--I can’t quite recall the exact number--and of course some are away at boarding school so they aren’t there most of the year. But these kids don’t have the same relationship with extended family that Hekima Place insists their kids maintain. Kate said that many kids left Nyumbani with no sense of identity or feeling of where they belonged or where they came from because they hadn’t had contact with any relatives. So that’s why Hekima Place has regular visiting times on certain Sundays and why they insist that the girls go to visit their aunts or grandmothers or sisters or cousins when they have holidays from school. Not all the girls have family that is willing or capable of supporting them in this way, but most of them do, still, fortunately.
When we were at Nyumbani, we learned that AIDS-infected children used to not be allowed in schools here. Hekima Elementary, as a private school, was one of first to allow them to come, but when they did their enrollment dropped from the hundreds down to about 80. Father D’Agostino, the founder of Nyumbani, went to court to force the public schools to accept his and other infected children. He had called all the newspapers around the world and brought the kids in to the court room--and with the whole world watching, the Kenyan courts had no other option but to rule in his favor! There was a whole lot of praise for Father Dag, as he was fondly known, and we could see why.
The Kenyan board is currently only an advisory board, but Kate wants it to be a governing board eventually. Lindsey filmed the meeting for her so that she could show the footage to the American board to show how competent the Kenyan board is. Right now, the American board is the governing board, and Kate would like it to focus just on fundraising--which is quite a task in itself.
The Kenyan board was comprised of mostly women and two men. They were teachers, professors, lawyers, business-people, entrepreneurs, and jacks-of-all-trades. They were all Kenyan and very aware of how business and education and politics and building work in Kenya. They knew things about different types of soil that only a Kenyan would know. They knew things about how the owners of the land would act because of Kenyan and tribal traditions, which only a Kenyan would know. I realized, as Kate has said to me before, that there really is so much that a Kenyan board is capable of doing and understanding that an American board--or any foreign board--would not be able to understand. And I realized how important it is to have local knowledge and understanding no matter what you’re doing. Even something that seems cross-cultural or culturally neutral--like buying land or constructing a building--requires a lot more local considerations than I would have thought.
Also, just a note, the Kenyan board operates on “African time”, meaning that it was scheduled at 1 so that they could eat lunch and start the meeting by about 2, because that’s when they could expect everyone to actually be there. And even still, one man didn’t arrive til about 2:30. But when that’s what you expect, it doesn’t frustrate you.
I was touched by how much the members understood what Kate was doing here--they understood that she didn’t want an institutional orphanage, but that she needed to create a family for these girls. So throughout the discussion, a member would bring that up and remind the board how that was related to their decision.
Kate told the members about her meeting with the Ministry of Children, Gender, and ____ where she learned that nonprofits, government organizations, etc. will not give money to buy land. However, donors should be very willing to fund buildings on land that has already been purchased. So hopefully they can pay out of their savings for the land and then get donors and grants to construct the buildings.
Enough business.
Later that afternoon, we went to Nyumbani (which means “Home” in Swahili), a children’s home for orphans who have HIV/AIDS. Mum Kate had worked there for 2 years before she realized there were very few, if any, homes for the orphans who did not have HIV/AIDS and who would not be accepted at a place like Nyumbani and thus decided to start Hekima Place. Nyumbani is set up with a similar notion of family settings with about 12 children to each mother. Each “family” lives in a house with 2 bedrooms, a small living/eating area, and a kitchen area. Most of the children weren’t there, though, because they were either at school or off at boarding school.
I had a strange feeling while we were there, maybe because I knew that all of the children were fighting against an indomitable disease. The volunteer who toured us around the compound, introducing us to some of the children and moms and showing us the homes and the small cemetery where they used to bury children who had died before they had medicines when they were still just a hospice, told us that some of the older children resisted medication at times and struggled with depression. Most of the kids were not there--they were still at school or away at boarding school--but the youngest ones who did not attend school as well as an older child here or there were still around. From what I understand, being on ARVs is kind of like going through chemotherapy. They’re not easy on your body, particularly if you don’t eat enough. Fortunately, the kids here DO eat enough. But still, these are powerful drugs that can destroy your liver, affect your mental stability (and that’s on top of the emotionally draining feat of someone who is still a child coping with the loss of their parents and family and with having such a disease), and goodness knows what other side-effects. This isn’t a fun disease. I don’t mean to imply that anyone reading this would think otherwise, but really, what are we doing to stop it? What are YOU doing to stop it? …and really, what am I doing to stop it? One and a half million orphans in one small country about one and a half times the size of California. 30 million people and there are one and a half million orphans. I feel like I’ve written this about 20 times now but no matter how many times I say it, it doesn’t seem real. Million. One and a half. 1500 thousands.
Anyway, the structure of Nyumbani is very similar to Hekima Place, although the houses are smaller because they’re home to about 10-12 kids and one mum and there are more houses. I think they have somewhere between 100 and 150 kids there--I can’t quite recall the exact number--and of course some are away at boarding school so they aren’t there most of the year. But these kids don’t have the same relationship with extended family that Hekima Place insists their kids maintain. Kate said that many kids left Nyumbani with no sense of identity or feeling of where they belonged or where they came from because they hadn’t had contact with any relatives. So that’s why Hekima Place has regular visiting times on certain Sundays and why they insist that the girls go to visit their aunts or grandmothers or sisters or cousins when they have holidays from school. Not all the girls have family that is willing or capable of supporting them in this way, but most of them do, still, fortunately.
When we were at Nyumbani, we learned that AIDS-infected children used to not be allowed in schools here. Hekima Elementary, as a private school, was one of first to allow them to come, but when they did their enrollment dropped from the hundreds down to about 80. Father D’Agostino, the founder of Nyumbani, went to court to force the public schools to accept his and other infected children. He had called all the newspapers around the world and brought the kids in to the court room--and with the whole world watching, the Kenyan courts had no other option but to rule in his favor! There was a whole lot of praise for Father Dag, as he was fondly known, and we could see why.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Keeping the Faith
People, people, busy everywhere. Always something to talk about.
I watched the news this morning... in Kiswahili... I think they were talking about internally displaced people. And jobs.
Gladys talked to us about how there are a lot of people who are displaced in the country—many of them due to violence in recent years; others who have been displaced for quite some time for various other reasons. I recall reading that about 100,000 people were displaced just because of the violence surrounding the last Kenyan presidential election.
That violence got a lot of publicity—even in the US. Lindsey talked to a man at Hekima Education Centre (Hekima School is part of that) who said that, in his view, many of the tribal tensions—even those unrelated to the election—have been eased because people felt so much regret after what happened. About 1300 people died in the election violence, primarily Kikuyu (who had been the incumbent tribal group in power). It was as if people saw something in others that was also very alive in themselves—a hatred that dehumanized their neighbours and blinded them to what is right. I think we all tend to forget, sometimes, how even a hatred that starts out small can overwhelm us and turn us into someone we don’t even recognize and hardly would want to be. Again we see this idea of the “other” that Carl Wilkens (the only American to remain in Rwanda when the Rwandan genocide began: www.worldoutsidemyshoes.org) warns us to avoid. When we see someone as separate from us or as undesirable or as inferior (or even superior), we risk creating the very environment necessary for evil and hatred to prosper.
Anyway, I didn’t go to the school today. Lindsey and I stayed back to help work on a grant proposal for Hekima Place. They’re trying to buy property not too far away because right now they have to lease the land they’re on and rent the houses. Without ownership, everything they do to improve the property and houses—like building a borehole (well) to ensure a constant supply of safe drinking water—essentially just drains money from their pockets—and as an organization that makes investments in children’s education, health, and psychological and social well-being, the dividends don’t come back in dollar signs but in hope-filled hearts, hugs, and laughter. And really, what more could you want?
It’s fun work—maybe that gives me a strange sense of what’s “fun” in this world. But if we can help them get these grants, they’ll be able to establish a permanent home for these girls. Kate and Gladys are so busy running this place and making this a home, they hardly have time to sit down and focus on a grant proposal. This seems to happen a lot, that the people who are most qualified for some grant or award have the least amount of time to apply for it.
Right now, they have a large donor base, which puts them in the perfect position to buy new land. They’re going to have to spend $350,000 to do what they hope to do, which is to buy land and build 5 houses for 12 girls each, but they only need to find about $100,000 in grants and new donations because they have the rest saved. They’re doing things the right way, and I’m so happy to be able to help them try to gain some security in permanence.
Lindsey and I took a walk around the property to look at the shambas (gardens)—there are two and they sell tomatoes and spinach from them! We also came across the chickens and rabbits in their coops and hutches. I thought “aww, how cute!” when I saw the bunnies, and wondered aloud why they had them. Lindsey just made a face that said it all. Fortunately, we’ve been able to stay vegetarian here. Let’s just say, though, that I don’t look forward to the day they have rabbit and ugali for dinner. (I used to have pet rabbits—Middy and Lucky!) I guess ya do what ya gotta do and eat what ya gotta eat....the lentils we had for lunch though were delicious! Much better than rabbit, I’m sure ; )
After lunch, us wazungu (white people) went into Karen centre, where the Nakumatt grocery store and other shops are. We took a matatu, which is essentially a van that seats about 12 people—unless it’s rush hour and they want to fit 15 or 16, while letting the man who takes money hang half-way out of the vehicle as you zoom along the road at 40mph! I was ready to grab his arm at any time in case he started falling out, which I was convinced was going to happen!
At dinner, I learned that if a rhino starts to charge you, it will run in a straight line to wherever it saw you, so the best thing to do is move out of its line of charge and get behind the largest tree you can find. Then it might charge the tree but you’ll be fine. And if you see a hyena, lie down and play dead. Hyenas eat dead animals, but they won’t be the first to feast on you, so you should be safe—unless of course a vulture or something else decides to come take the first bite...
Mum Gladys talked to us later that night about the first girls at Hekima Place. For the first year it was basically just her and a woman who came during the day to cook. She’d wake up, get the girls ready for school, and walk all ten of them to school, with Marianne, who was in nursery, on her back. Then she’d teach a full day of school—English and Kiswahili—before walking them all back home, washing them up, sitting them down to eat the dinner the cook had made, helping them with homework, and putting them to bed. And one of the girls woke up about three times every night, so she got up three times every night, too. Meanwhile, Kate was busy trying to find the financial and structural support they would need to be able to sustain this, which I can imagine was a long and difficult process--she's still working hard to keep the generosity coming. And she's trying to make arrangements that will ensure Hekima Place's sustainability even in times of economic trouble.
Can you imagine putting all of that time and effort into caring for these girls? It would be so difficult because not only is it just simply a lot of work, even if they were your own children, but they are coming from very diverse and very difficult backgrounds. If a child acts out, you don’t know if it is because they’re acting out, just like any child does, or if they’re doing it for some other, difficult to understand, deep psychological reason. How do you find the balance between being sensitive to the child’s unique needs while also needing to have structure and the ability to parent them and teach right from wrong? These women—Gladys, Kate, and all of the mums here—are remarkable. And many of these women have children of their own, but they still are able to parent and love these girls, too. All 55 of them.
At times, Gladys and Kate have worries about this place, but they tell themselves that they’ve gotten this far and they must just have faith. Gladys said “We are just stewards”. She has faith in God that if they keep working hard, things will fall into place, because, so far, they have. : )
Well, tutuonana! (See you soon!)
I watched the news this morning... in Kiswahili... I think they were talking about internally displaced people. And jobs.
Gladys talked to us about how there are a lot of people who are displaced in the country—many of them due to violence in recent years; others who have been displaced for quite some time for various other reasons. I recall reading that about 100,000 people were displaced just because of the violence surrounding the last Kenyan presidential election.
That violence got a lot of publicity—even in the US. Lindsey talked to a man at Hekima Education Centre (Hekima School is part of that) who said that, in his view, many of the tribal tensions—even those unrelated to the election—have been eased because people felt so much regret after what happened. About 1300 people died in the election violence, primarily Kikuyu (who had been the incumbent tribal group in power). It was as if people saw something in others that was also very alive in themselves—a hatred that dehumanized their neighbours and blinded them to what is right. I think we all tend to forget, sometimes, how even a hatred that starts out small can overwhelm us and turn us into someone we don’t even recognize and hardly would want to be. Again we see this idea of the “other” that Carl Wilkens (the only American to remain in Rwanda when the Rwandan genocide began: www.worldoutsidemyshoes.org) warns us to avoid. When we see someone as separate from us or as undesirable or as inferior (or even superior), we risk creating the very environment necessary for evil and hatred to prosper.
Anyway, I didn’t go to the school today. Lindsey and I stayed back to help work on a grant proposal for Hekima Place. They’re trying to buy property not too far away because right now they have to lease the land they’re on and rent the houses. Without ownership, everything they do to improve the property and houses—like building a borehole (well) to ensure a constant supply of safe drinking water—essentially just drains money from their pockets—and as an organization that makes investments in children’s education, health, and psychological and social well-being, the dividends don’t come back in dollar signs but in hope-filled hearts, hugs, and laughter. And really, what more could you want?
It’s fun work—maybe that gives me a strange sense of what’s “fun” in this world. But if we can help them get these grants, they’ll be able to establish a permanent home for these girls. Kate and Gladys are so busy running this place and making this a home, they hardly have time to sit down and focus on a grant proposal. This seems to happen a lot, that the people who are most qualified for some grant or award have the least amount of time to apply for it.
Right now, they have a large donor base, which puts them in the perfect position to buy new land. They’re going to have to spend $350,000 to do what they hope to do, which is to buy land and build 5 houses for 12 girls each, but they only need to find about $100,000 in grants and new donations because they have the rest saved. They’re doing things the right way, and I’m so happy to be able to help them try to gain some security in permanence.
Lindsey and I took a walk around the property to look at the shambas (gardens)—there are two and they sell tomatoes and spinach from them! We also came across the chickens and rabbits in their coops and hutches. I thought “aww, how cute!” when I saw the bunnies, and wondered aloud why they had them. Lindsey just made a face that said it all. Fortunately, we’ve been able to stay vegetarian here. Let’s just say, though, that I don’t look forward to the day they have rabbit and ugali for dinner. (I used to have pet rabbits—Middy and Lucky!) I guess ya do what ya gotta do and eat what ya gotta eat....the lentils we had for lunch though were delicious! Much better than rabbit, I’m sure ; )
After lunch, us wazungu (white people) went into Karen centre, where the Nakumatt grocery store and other shops are. We took a matatu, which is essentially a van that seats about 12 people—unless it’s rush hour and they want to fit 15 or 16, while letting the man who takes money hang half-way out of the vehicle as you zoom along the road at 40mph! I was ready to grab his arm at any time in case he started falling out, which I was convinced was going to happen!
At dinner, I learned that if a rhino starts to charge you, it will run in a straight line to wherever it saw you, so the best thing to do is move out of its line of charge and get behind the largest tree you can find. Then it might charge the tree but you’ll be fine. And if you see a hyena, lie down and play dead. Hyenas eat dead animals, but they won’t be the first to feast on you, so you should be safe—unless of course a vulture or something else decides to come take the first bite...
Mum Gladys talked to us later that night about the first girls at Hekima Place. For the first year it was basically just her and a woman who came during the day to cook. She’d wake up, get the girls ready for school, and walk all ten of them to school, with Marianne, who was in nursery, on her back. Then she’d teach a full day of school—English and Kiswahili—before walking them all back home, washing them up, sitting them down to eat the dinner the cook had made, helping them with homework, and putting them to bed. And one of the girls woke up about three times every night, so she got up three times every night, too. Meanwhile, Kate was busy trying to find the financial and structural support they would need to be able to sustain this, which I can imagine was a long and difficult process--she's still working hard to keep the generosity coming. And she's trying to make arrangements that will ensure Hekima Place's sustainability even in times of economic trouble.
Can you imagine putting all of that time and effort into caring for these girls? It would be so difficult because not only is it just simply a lot of work, even if they were your own children, but they are coming from very diverse and very difficult backgrounds. If a child acts out, you don’t know if it is because they’re acting out, just like any child does, or if they’re doing it for some other, difficult to understand, deep psychological reason. How do you find the balance between being sensitive to the child’s unique needs while also needing to have structure and the ability to parent them and teach right from wrong? These women—Gladys, Kate, and all of the mums here—are remarkable. And many of these women have children of their own, but they still are able to parent and love these girls, too. All 55 of them.
At times, Gladys and Kate have worries about this place, but they tell themselves that they’ve gotten this far and they must just have faith. Gladys said “We are just stewards”. She has faith in God that if they keep working hard, things will fall into place, because, so far, they have. : )
Well, tutuonana! (See you soon!)
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Just a day...
Woke up at 5 today....long before the sun came up....my sleeping schedule is way off.
We walked to school and just did some camera work. We set up for an interview with Wycliffe, an instructor/IT guru. I learned a lot about setting up the camera. Wycliffe said that if more people in the area had an education, they'd have jobs. The jobs are there, he said--or at least they could make jobs, be entrepreneurs--but they don't have the education they need to do it. Mum Kate had told us that even people who had degrees were having to drive matatus for work--Wycliffe said it's not like that anymore though. (I don't know who knows better, though, because one of the Uncles at Hekima Place, Kenyua, used to be a teacher and is a very educated man but now he works a job for which he is clearly over-qualified...is it because he can't find another job? Maybe it pays better than other jobs...I'm not sure.)
We had tea time and talked to an English teacher, Kennedy, whom I'd met the day before. He told us he wouldn't want to work at a public school because they're too crowded. One book is typically shared among three students.
We ate ugali and skuma (greens--kind of like collards or turnip greens) with the girls in Tumaini for dinner. This is the only house you can really have a conversation that doesn't involve someone singing "Oh Mickey you're so fine!" or the tune of the macarena (two of the few songs we've played them that they actually enjoy!). Tonight we learned about the various levels of government here. Below the district level, which has elected representatives, all of the leaders are appointed by other government officials. There's a lot of gerrymandering that occurs so that the "right" people get elected too. The corruption happens everywhere...but I honestly believe it can (and is and will) be defeated everywhere. All it takes is one person to stand up. And then because of that person, one more will stand up. And then one more. Until you have a standing ovation against the corruption. That is the beauty of a nation founded on democratic principles.
I'm very excited because tomorrow Lindsey and I are going to get to work on a grant proposal to buy land for Hekima Place!
We walked to school and just did some camera work. We set up for an interview with Wycliffe, an instructor/IT guru. I learned a lot about setting up the camera. Wycliffe said that if more people in the area had an education, they'd have jobs. The jobs are there, he said--or at least they could make jobs, be entrepreneurs--but they don't have the education they need to do it. Mum Kate had told us that even people who had degrees were having to drive matatus for work--Wycliffe said it's not like that anymore though. (I don't know who knows better, though, because one of the Uncles at Hekima Place, Kenyua, used to be a teacher and is a very educated man but now he works a job for which he is clearly over-qualified...is it because he can't find another job? Maybe it pays better than other jobs...I'm not sure.)
We had tea time and talked to an English teacher, Kennedy, whom I'd met the day before. He told us he wouldn't want to work at a public school because they're too crowded. One book is typically shared among three students.
We ate ugali and skuma (greens--kind of like collards or turnip greens) with the girls in Tumaini for dinner. This is the only house you can really have a conversation that doesn't involve someone singing "Oh Mickey you're so fine!" or the tune of the macarena (two of the few songs we've played them that they actually enjoy!). Tonight we learned about the various levels of government here. Below the district level, which has elected representatives, all of the leaders are appointed by other government officials. There's a lot of gerrymandering that occurs so that the "right" people get elected too. The corruption happens everywhere...but I honestly believe it can (and is and will) be defeated everywhere. All it takes is one person to stand up. And then because of that person, one more will stand up. And then one more. Until you have a standing ovation against the corruption. That is the beauty of a nation founded on democratic principles.
I'm very excited because tomorrow Lindsey and I are going to get to work on a grant proposal to buy land for Hekima Place!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
My First Day of School
Monday, May 18
Today, I went to volunteer at Hekima School, just a 20-minute walk away. The school has nursery age through Grade 8, at which point the students take a national exam that determines which college (high school) they qualify to attend.
I was assigned to help Teacher Charity, who teaches English and French (how perfect, right?). The first class I went to with her was English for Class (grade) 4. They were learning about adjectives. There were quite a few pupils (you’re a ‘pupil’ through Class 8, then you become a ‘student’) who hadn’t done their homework from Friday, so Teacher Charity was lecturing them on that. Then she started asking individual pupils what they want to be when they grow up.
In the next two classes, I had a bit of a different experience. These were the French classes. I told Teacher Charity how much French I’ve taken, and she asked if I’d like to teach the class. She gave me the lesson plan and sat off in the back of the room. I got to conjugate verbs and explain “ ‘de’ plus ‘le’ becomes ‘du’ ” on the blackboard. It was fun : )
I went to a PE class, too, with a different teacher—Teacher Lydia. We stretched and jogged around the field, played “Teacher Says” (like Simon Says), did jumping jacks and froggy jumps, and played red-light green-light. Teacher Lydia explained to me that some of the kids are not well enough to do PE. She said some of them have been abused and that you just have to be understanding of them.
Unfortunately, not all of the schools in Kenya are probably fortunate enough to have such wonderful teachers like Teacher Charity and Teacher Lydia. Hekima School is private and class sizes never exceed 25 or 30. At the public schools, each class has around 70 pupils, meaning the teachers do more crowd control than actual teaching. Can you imagine having 60 pre-schoolers in one class with one teacher? The local public school has 700 students; Hekima School has about 200. They have the same number of teachers.
Later, we talked to Kate about Hekima Place (this is the home I’m at, not the school) as a non-profit and how it started. She had been working at Nyumbani, a home for AIDS orphans who are HIV+. She worked there for two years and soon began to see that there were many (although not to say nearly enough) resources for HIV+ orphans, but few for the 80% of orphans who are negative. So she decided to start Hekima Place.
She wants it to be a community setting, a family. She won’t give the mums job descriptions, even though they sometimes ask for them, because a mother doesn’t have a job description—she just does everything. Kate wants to avoid an environment like she saw when she was director of a nursing home, where people literally would just step over a dead body on the floor because “that’s not my job”.
Kate also said that if you wanted to start a humanitarian effort, a foreign white person would have much more support than a native Kenyan because there has been so much corruption and so much reason for distrust. People don’t even trust their own communities. How do you rebuild that trust? It takes time, I know. Where do you start, though? I wonder if this is the kind of situation where something like a deliberative forum (www.mathewscenter.org) could be really successful, just to start things off. It wouldn’t be a solution, but maybe if people started talking about why there is distrust and how important and helpful it would be if we could all trust each other more and work together, maybe there would be space to move forward along those attitudes.
Things like this take time, but time in itself doesn’t heal all wounds. People doing the right things, over time, heals wounds. But what are the “right things”?
Something to think about. Kwaheri! (Good bye!)
Today, I went to volunteer at Hekima School, just a 20-minute walk away. The school has nursery age through Grade 8, at which point the students take a national exam that determines which college (high school) they qualify to attend.
I was assigned to help Teacher Charity, who teaches English and French (how perfect, right?). The first class I went to with her was English for Class (grade) 4. They were learning about adjectives. There were quite a few pupils (you’re a ‘pupil’ through Class 8, then you become a ‘student’) who hadn’t done their homework from Friday, so Teacher Charity was lecturing them on that. Then she started asking individual pupils what they want to be when they grow up.
Isn’t that what teachers are supposed to do? Inspire children to work towards their goals, remind them that what they do now is part of the journey towards those goals? The walls in Hekima School have plaster missing in places and the books the students use aren’t brand new. But with a teacher like this, who sees it as part of her job to keep them motivated and keep them hard working—not just to pass a test but to become what they want to become in life, the fancy stuff just seems less important. This is not to say that quality teaching tools aren’t important, just that quality teachers are more important. Somehow we need to invest in the idealism of our teachers.--“A doctor.”
--“A doctor? You think doctors are lazy? No, they have to work hard. And it starts
here. If you’re a doctor, you’ll get homework from the hospital. You have
to figure out what is making your patient sick. If you don’t do your homework,
your patient will die. If you don’t work your hardest, you’ll get sued! It
starts right here. You have to do your work. You have to study. Because it all
starts here.”
In the next two classes, I had a bit of a different experience. These were the French classes. I told Teacher Charity how much French I’ve taken, and she asked if I’d like to teach the class. She gave me the lesson plan and sat off in the back of the room. I got to conjugate verbs and explain “ ‘de’ plus ‘le’ becomes ‘du’ ” on the blackboard. It was fun : )
I went to a PE class, too, with a different teacher—Teacher Lydia. We stretched and jogged around the field, played “Teacher Says” (like Simon Says), did jumping jacks and froggy jumps, and played red-light green-light. Teacher Lydia explained to me that some of the kids are not well enough to do PE. She said some of them have been abused and that you just have to be understanding of them.
Unfortunately, not all of the schools in Kenya are probably fortunate enough to have such wonderful teachers like Teacher Charity and Teacher Lydia. Hekima School is private and class sizes never exceed 25 or 30. At the public schools, each class has around 70 pupils, meaning the teachers do more crowd control than actual teaching. Can you imagine having 60 pre-schoolers in one class with one teacher? The local public school has 700 students; Hekima School has about 200. They have the same number of teachers.
Later, we talked to Kate about Hekima Place (this is the home I’m at, not the school) as a non-profit and how it started. She had been working at Nyumbani, a home for AIDS orphans who are HIV+. She worked there for two years and soon began to see that there were many (although not to say nearly enough) resources for HIV+ orphans, but few for the 80% of orphans who are negative. So she decided to start Hekima Place.
She wants it to be a community setting, a family. She won’t give the mums job descriptions, even though they sometimes ask for them, because a mother doesn’t have a job description—she just does everything. Kate wants to avoid an environment like she saw when she was director of a nursing home, where people literally would just step over a dead body on the floor because “that’s not my job”.
Kate also said that if you wanted to start a humanitarian effort, a foreign white person would have much more support than a native Kenyan because there has been so much corruption and so much reason for distrust. People don’t even trust their own communities. How do you rebuild that trust? It takes time, I know. Where do you start, though? I wonder if this is the kind of situation where something like a deliberative forum (www.mathewscenter.org) could be really successful, just to start things off. It wouldn’t be a solution, but maybe if people started talking about why there is distrust and how important and helpful it would be if we could all trust each other more and work together, maybe there would be space to move forward along those attitudes.
Things like this take time, but time in itself doesn’t heal all wounds. People doing the right things, over time, heals wounds. But what are the “right things”?
Something to think about. Kwaheri! (Good bye!)
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sunday Bliss
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Today, I woke up and walked outside to meet a scene that can only be described as gorgeous and alive. The Hekima Place compound lays around 3000 feet above sea level, neatly placed within the greenest, liveliest flowers, trees, and bushes you can imagine. I was met by a sea of hugs from Maisha house, which houses the youngest of Hekima’s girls—from 3 years old through about grade level 4. How will I ever remember all of their names? The younger girls all have shaven heads, with short black hair. They are absolutely beautiful—in body and in spirit. I also met Rafiki and Zamadi (sp?), which mean “friend” and “gift”, respectively, in Kiswahili. They are Hekima’s dogs, mud-red in color from playing in the wet Kenyan grounds. (We suspect that they’re actually white dogs, but it’s hard to say for sure!)
Sunday morning all the girls go to church. All the girls either attend the Catholic Mass or the Deliverance (Pentecostal) church. There is one girl who is Anglican, but she attends the Catholic Mass now—she used to be able to attend the Anglican Church with several other Anglican girls at Hekima, but those other girls are now off at boarding school and it’s just not practical to send her alone to the church because she is very young.
I attended the Catholic Mass this morning, which was in English. There was a Kiswahili mass following ours. The priest spoke of the need for unity within Kenya and unity with other nations. He even welcomed all of us visitors. Most of the songs were in English, but there were a few in Kiswahili as well. The girls sitting on my row laughed hysterically as I tried to sing the Kiswahili words I read from the hymnal book. I thought I did a pretty decent job. : )
When we came back from church, all the girls changed from their church clothes into their play clothes. The girls share everything, which turns out great because they end up having “new” clothes to wear each week. This is community at its best. As we waited for lunch, served at 1, we all had delicious hot sweetened tea with milk and a fresh banana for a snack and several of us played Monopoly. (They also have a Kenya-themed Monopoly game—you’ll never guess what the “Boardwalk” is…..it’s Karen (the town we’re in!) This beautiful home is such an incredible opportunity for these girls, who mostly have been orphaned from AIDS. Some may have extended family, but they are not able to adequately provide for them. A few have mothers still alive, but who perhaps are not well enough to provide for them.)
Kate has split up all of us volunteers so that we don’t all eat at one house. Lindsey and Kristie and I ate at Maisha house for lunch. We had maize and beans and potatoes. It was delicious! (And perfect for my vegetarian lifestyle.) We sat on the grass and ate and talked and laughed with the girls. We played ring around the rosie and duck duck goose and chased and tickled each other.
Later, I got out my chalk and we drew a hopscotch and the youngest girls taught me how to count in Kiswahili.
Then the ipods came out. We danced, mostly with the girls around what would be middle-school grades, but also with some of the younger girls. We didn’t have a lot of music that they liked (they wanted Beyoncé), but we had a few High School Musical songs (their favorite) and a few others. Best of all, though, we taught them the Macarena and the Cupid Shuffle! ; ) Now that was fun!
At dinner, we ate at Maisha again and had noodles and a cabbage-veggie medley. (There was minced meat, as well, but I didn’t eat that.) One of the residential mums explained to me that she worked four days and then had two days off. On her days off, she would go home to her 5-year old son, who was not far from Karen. We then all went around the tables and told about our day:
-- “My day was good because… (I went to church, I played with so-and-so, I’m having a good dinner, etc.) and that was my day! HIP HIP…”
--“HOORAY!”
After dinner, we sat and read with the girls until it was time for them to go to bed.
Kate had an orientation with us later that night. 6th, 7th, and 8th graders walk to Hekima School Monday-Friday and for half a day on Saturday. There are 9 high schoolers who go to Karen City school. Nursery through 5th grade rides off in a bus to Hekima School. I learned that every school-child in Kenya must take CRE (Christian Religious Education) courses in school.
Kate warned us to be sensitive with the girls, as they come from difficult backgrounds. Many of them have been raped, are the product of incest, or have been affected by alcoholism. (There is one boy here, who’s about 2 years old now, but he is about to be adopted by Canadian and Indian parents. He was left in a hospital for his first 3 months of life until someone asked Kate to take him.)
Kate told us not to even ask their ages because it is a sensitive issue for some because they are very old for their grades. Primary school just became universally paid for in Kenya in 2003. For girls who attended before that, some of them just didn’t do as well for various reasons so they are at different levels in school now.
Kate’s creed for the girls is “no boys, no alcohol, no ‘mary-joo-ana, as they call it’”, not even when they go home, or they will have to leave Hekima. She doesn’t want them distracted by boys until they’ve finished their University education. Boys, she tells them, will distract them from their goals and may even lead them off the path. They’ve lost two girls for this reason—they were about 15 when they came. Kate said she realized when they left that no matter how many rules you have or how much love you give them, you can’t change someone who has lived their life that way for so long already. “There is no such thing as safe sex in this country,” she told us. “People don’t use condoms. You can’t experiment with sex without dying. There are more and more 14-year old girls on the mtatus with babies on their hips.”
I’m starting to realize that there are so many things you can’t possibly understand about a culture without really experiencing it. And there are things you shouldn’t do or say that you could hardly understand that you shouldn’t do or say unless you do or say the wrong thing or have someone explicitly explain it to you.
Overall, a fun and eye-opening first full day.
Today, I woke up and walked outside to meet a scene that can only be described as gorgeous and alive. The Hekima Place compound lays around 3000 feet above sea level, neatly placed within the greenest, liveliest flowers, trees, and bushes you can imagine. I was met by a sea of hugs from Maisha house, which houses the youngest of Hekima’s girls—from 3 years old through about grade level 4. How will I ever remember all of their names? The younger girls all have shaven heads, with short black hair. They are absolutely beautiful—in body and in spirit. I also met Rafiki and Zamadi (sp?), which mean “friend” and “gift”, respectively, in Kiswahili. They are Hekima’s dogs, mud-red in color from playing in the wet Kenyan grounds. (We suspect that they’re actually white dogs, but it’s hard to say for sure!)
Sunday morning all the girls go to church. All the girls either attend the Catholic Mass or the Deliverance (Pentecostal) church. There is one girl who is Anglican, but she attends the Catholic Mass now—she used to be able to attend the Anglican Church with several other Anglican girls at Hekima, but those other girls are now off at boarding school and it’s just not practical to send her alone to the church because she is very young.
I attended the Catholic Mass this morning, which was in English. There was a Kiswahili mass following ours. The priest spoke of the need for unity within Kenya and unity with other nations. He even welcomed all of us visitors. Most of the songs were in English, but there were a few in Kiswahili as well. The girls sitting on my row laughed hysterically as I tried to sing the Kiswahili words I read from the hymnal book. I thought I did a pretty decent job. : )
When we came back from church, all the girls changed from their church clothes into their play clothes. The girls share everything, which turns out great because they end up having “new” clothes to wear each week. This is community at its best. As we waited for lunch, served at 1, we all had delicious hot sweetened tea with milk and a fresh banana for a snack and several of us played Monopoly. (They also have a Kenya-themed Monopoly game—you’ll never guess what the “Boardwalk” is…..it’s Karen (the town we’re in!) This beautiful home is such an incredible opportunity for these girls, who mostly have been orphaned from AIDS. Some may have extended family, but they are not able to adequately provide for them. A few have mothers still alive, but who perhaps are not well enough to provide for them.)
Kate has split up all of us volunteers so that we don’t all eat at one house. Lindsey and Kristie and I ate at Maisha house for lunch. We had maize and beans and potatoes. It was delicious! (And perfect for my vegetarian lifestyle.) We sat on the grass and ate and talked and laughed with the girls. We played ring around the rosie and duck duck goose and chased and tickled each other.
Later, I got out my chalk and we drew a hopscotch and the youngest girls taught me how to count in Kiswahili.
Then the ipods came out. We danced, mostly with the girls around what would be middle-school grades, but also with some of the younger girls. We didn’t have a lot of music that they liked (they wanted Beyoncé), but we had a few High School Musical songs (their favorite) and a few others. Best of all, though, we taught them the Macarena and the Cupid Shuffle! ; ) Now that was fun!
At dinner, we ate at Maisha again and had noodles and a cabbage-veggie medley. (There was minced meat, as well, but I didn’t eat that.) One of the residential mums explained to me that she worked four days and then had two days off. On her days off, she would go home to her 5-year old son, who was not far from Karen. We then all went around the tables and told about our day:
-- “My day was good because… (I went to church, I played with so-and-so, I’m having a good dinner, etc.) and that was my day! HIP HIP…”
--“HOORAY!”
After dinner, we sat and read with the girls until it was time for them to go to bed.
Kate had an orientation with us later that night. 6th, 7th, and 8th graders walk to Hekima School Monday-Friday and for half a day on Saturday. There are 9 high schoolers who go to Karen City school. Nursery through 5th grade rides off in a bus to Hekima School. I learned that every school-child in Kenya must take CRE (Christian Religious Education) courses in school.
Kate warned us to be sensitive with the girls, as they come from difficult backgrounds. Many of them have been raped, are the product of incest, or have been affected by alcoholism. (There is one boy here, who’s about 2 years old now, but he is about to be adopted by Canadian and Indian parents. He was left in a hospital for his first 3 months of life until someone asked Kate to take him.)
Kate told us not to even ask their ages because it is a sensitive issue for some because they are very old for their grades. Primary school just became universally paid for in Kenya in 2003. For girls who attended before that, some of them just didn’t do as well for various reasons so they are at different levels in school now.
Kate’s creed for the girls is “no boys, no alcohol, no ‘mary-joo-ana, as they call it’”, not even when they go home, or they will have to leave Hekima. She doesn’t want them distracted by boys until they’ve finished their University education. Boys, she tells them, will distract them from their goals and may even lead them off the path. They’ve lost two girls for this reason—they were about 15 when they came. Kate said she realized when they left that no matter how many rules you have or how much love you give them, you can’t change someone who has lived their life that way for so long already. “There is no such thing as safe sex in this country,” she told us. “People don’t use condoms. You can’t experiment with sex without dying. There are more and more 14-year old girls on the mtatus with babies on their hips.”
I’m starting to realize that there are so many things you can’t possibly understand about a culture without really experiencing it. And there are things you shouldn’t do or say that you could hardly understand that you shouldn’t do or say unless you do or say the wrong thing or have someone explicitly explain it to you.
Overall, a fun and eye-opening first full day.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
I'm here!
Today, we arrived in Kenya! When we arrived in the airport, we went through a line to get our visas and then went through to get our bags. Fortunately there were carts because I had 2 checked bags at a whopping 52.2 lbs each--one entirely filled with donations for the girls at Hekima Place. After a confusing wait in line for customs, for which we had no goods to declare, we were greeted by "Uncle" Samuel, a trusted taxi driver with a sign saying "Hekima Place" held in one hand and a friendly wave for us with the other. Another smiling face accompanied him--it was one of the other volunteers, who had just arrived yesterday but has been to Hekima Place before.
Kenyan currency is in shillings, with an exchange rate of about 76 shillings per US dollar. I took out 5000 ksh, which came out in thousands.
We had about a 45 minute drive to Hekima, which is about 15 miles from the airport. We are about a ten-minute drive from the center of Karen, which is essentially the city part of Karen.
Kristin pointed out the shopping center, where you could buy the same kinds of things you might find in a Walmart at home.
Cars zipped by us on the road, which was slightly bumpy at times, but not too bad. (I sat in the far back of the van and managed to not get sick, so it couldn't have been too bad!) The driver's seat is on the right and cars drive on the left side of the road--a prime sign of British influence. I read on the British government's website that British drivers' licenses are valid for use in Kenya. From what I can tell, the British seem to have a fairly close relationship to Kenya. It sounded like there were quite a few Brits on our flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi. Of course, the language is the surest sign of British influence. 95% of the signs I've seen thus far have been in English and all the airport workers I encountered spoke English--with a unique Kenyan accent of course.
When we got to Hekima, about 7 of the older girls--4 in 8th grade, 2 in high school, and one at the University-level (Emma)--as well as Mum Gladys and Mum Kate (the director and founder of Hekima) came to greet us. They each gave us a hug as they introduced themselves and gave us a warm welcome. After Emma hugged me, she held my hand as we all chatted and talked about what the plans are for the morning and didn't let go until the girls were about to leave.
Emma is studying Commerce, which she told me she just loves. She is on break right now but is studying for the CPA exams, which are in the middle of June!
After all the girls left, we were talking to Kate, who started explaining some of the politics of Kenya. (Mum Gladys said politics are a "bad game" in Kenya.) She said there's a lot of poverty and unemployment. Even people who have degrees are driving mtotos (taxis) because there are no jobs. She explained that there are groups of young boys who are recruited in the country to commit acts of terrorism. Particularly back at the time of the presidential elections, boys were paid enough money for dinner--about 200 shillings--for setting fire to a building. It's hard to say who played the worst cards in the election season, but mostly Kikuyu, of the predominant tribal group, were killed. Now, the President, Mwai Kibaki, is Kikuyu and the P.M. is Raila Odinga.
Kate also talked about how many people from the West tend to think the Kenyans (and Africans in general) are either stupid or lazy. But what they don't understand is that Africans are completely at the mercy of the weather. "If it doesn't rain, we don't eat," she explained.
I heard Kate on the phone talking about buying new land. She also expressed the difficulty of having an American board that doesnt understand the cultuer or environment in Kenya. There is a Kenyan board that is supposed to govern.
I'll explore that more, later, hopefully.
Kenyan currency is in shillings, with an exchange rate of about 76 shillings per US dollar. I took out 5000 ksh, which came out in thousands.
We had about a 45 minute drive to Hekima, which is about 15 miles from the airport. We are about a ten-minute drive from the center of Karen, which is essentially the city part of Karen.
Kristin pointed out the shopping center, where you could buy the same kinds of things you might find in a Walmart at home.
Cars zipped by us on the road, which was slightly bumpy at times, but not too bad. (I sat in the far back of the van and managed to not get sick, so it couldn't have been too bad!) The driver's seat is on the right and cars drive on the left side of the road--a prime sign of British influence. I read on the British government's website that British drivers' licenses are valid for use in Kenya. From what I can tell, the British seem to have a fairly close relationship to Kenya. It sounded like there were quite a few Brits on our flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi. Of course, the language is the surest sign of British influence. 95% of the signs I've seen thus far have been in English and all the airport workers I encountered spoke English--with a unique Kenyan accent of course.
When we got to Hekima, about 7 of the older girls--4 in 8th grade, 2 in high school, and one at the University-level (Emma)--as well as Mum Gladys and Mum Kate (the director and founder of Hekima) came to greet us. They each gave us a hug as they introduced themselves and gave us a warm welcome. After Emma hugged me, she held my hand as we all chatted and talked about what the plans are for the morning and didn't let go until the girls were about to leave.
Emma is studying Commerce, which she told me she just loves. She is on break right now but is studying for the CPA exams, which are in the middle of June!
After all the girls left, we were talking to Kate, who started explaining some of the politics of Kenya. (Mum Gladys said politics are a "bad game" in Kenya.) She said there's a lot of poverty and unemployment. Even people who have degrees are driving mtotos (taxis) because there are no jobs. She explained that there are groups of young boys who are recruited in the country to commit acts of terrorism. Particularly back at the time of the presidential elections, boys were paid enough money for dinner--about 200 shillings--for setting fire to a building. It's hard to say who played the worst cards in the election season, but mostly Kikuyu, of the predominant tribal group, were killed. Now, the President, Mwai Kibaki, is Kikuyu and the P.M. is Raila Odinga.
Kate also talked about how many people from the West tend to think the Kenyans (and Africans in general) are either stupid or lazy. But what they don't understand is that Africans are completely at the mercy of the weather. "If it doesn't rain, we don't eat," she explained.
I heard Kate on the phone talking about buying new land. She also expressed the difficulty of having an American board that doesnt understand the cultuer or environment in Kenya. There is a Kenyan board that is supposed to govern.
I'll explore that more, later, hopefully.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Karibu!
Karibu to my blog!
I leave tomorrow (Friday) afternoon from the Atlanta airport. We have a 3-hour layover in Amsterdam and then straight on to Nairobi!
I'll have internet access, so I'll keep you updated over the next 9 weeks on what I do and learn during my stay at Hekima Place in Karen, Kenya, which is a suburb of Nairobi. Hekima Place is a home and boarding school for 54 girls who have been orphaned because of AIDS. It was founded by Kate Fletcher, from Pittsburgh, PA, in 2005 when she saw a great need for children who have lost their parents to AIDS, particularly for girls, who have very little access to education in Kenya.
While there, Lindsey Mullen and I will be making a promotional video for Hekima Place as well as producing a 15-minute documentary film for Documenting Justice.
From www.hekimaplace.org :
I leave tomorrow (Friday) afternoon from the Atlanta airport. We have a 3-hour layover in Amsterdam and then straight on to Nairobi!
I'll have internet access, so I'll keep you updated over the next 9 weeks on what I do and learn during my stay at Hekima Place in Karen, Kenya, which is a suburb of Nairobi. Hekima Place is a home and boarding school for 54 girls who have been orphaned because of AIDS. It was founded by Kate Fletcher, from Pittsburgh, PA, in 2005 when she saw a great need for children who have lost their parents to AIDS, particularly for girls, who have very little access to education in Kenya.
While there, Lindsey Mullen and I will be making a promotional video for Hekima Place as well as producing a 15-minute documentary film for Documenting Justice.
From www.hekimaplace.org :
"Education in Kenya is not widely accessible for girls. In fact, 65% of Kenyan girls are enrolled in elementary school. Out of this 65%, only 30% are enrolled in high school. This number only gets worse when a young Kenyan girl is orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Without education, her future is likely to be out on the streets or in the slums. While there are children infected with HIV/AIDS, there are even more that are not. These children that are HIV negative are often treated as if they are due to the fact that they were orphaned by it. Due to the stigma and irrational fear that often surrounds those affected by HIV/AIDS, children orphaned by AIDS may be the first to be denied education when extended families cannot afford to educate all the children of a household. The distress and social isolation experienced by children both before and after the eventual death of their parents are strongly exacerbated by the shame, fear and rejection that often surrounds those affected by HIV/AIDS. Children who live through their parent’s pain and illness frequently suffer from depression, stress and anxiety. The early plan is to take only girl children since they are the most discriminated of all African children. Male children are given top priority for schooling and the girls must remain at home. Kate’s plan is to give these often neglected girls and opportunity for schooling. We hope that with education and some loving care, we can raise up some children for Kenya and the world who will have choices and will go on to do great good for their country and for the world.
Education in Kenya is not widely accessible for girls. In fact, 65% of Kenyan girls are enrolled in elementary school. Out of this 65%, only 30% are enrolled in high school. This number only gets worse when a young Kenyan girl is orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Without education, her future is likely to be out on the streets or in the slums. While there are children infected with HIV/AIDS, there are even more that are not. These children that are HIV negative are often treated as if they are due to the fact that they were orphaned by it. Due to the stigma and irrational fear that often surrounds those affected by HIV/AIDS, children orphaned by AIDS may be the first to be denied education when extended families cannot afford to educate all the children of a household. The distress and social isolation experienced by children both before and after the eventual death of their parents are strongly exacerbated by the shame, fear and rejection that often surrounds those affected by HIV/AIDS. Children who live through their parent’s pain and illness frequently suffer from depression, stress and anxiety. The early plan is to take only girl children since they are the most discriminated of all African children. Male children are given top priority for schooling and the girls must remain at home. Kate’s plan is to give these often neglected girls and opportunity for schooling. We hope that with education and some loving care, we can raise up some children for Kenya and the world who will have choices and will go on to do great good for their country and for the world." Talk to you soon!
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