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.