2017 Kenya Update #10 - Bittersweet farewell

From: Kathy Macdonald

This morning we packed and said farewell to all our friends in Meru. It is surprising how much you can get done in a week and how much more you wish you could have done. There is always next time …

A short list of the work completed includes:

• Continuation of the impact study of the feeding program
• A study of the crop production at Gichunge Primary
• The documentation of the daily process for porridge production
• Updating of the staff directories for BLISS and Gichunge
• Photographing of every class at Gichunge Primary
• Completion of the use and resilience of solar lanterns at BLISS; the gifting of solar lanterns to the incoming From 1 students
• The visiting of over 50 student homes
• Two full dissections in the BLISS science lab
• Worship with the Mwanika Methodist Church congregation
• … and hundreds of new and renewed friendships

We are seeing the "other" side of Kenya for a few days on the way back to Nairobi and our flight home. It began with a visit to the Women's Cooperative Spinners & Weavers site in Nanyuki. They began with 6 women in 1977 and now over a hundred single women work there daily supporting a high school for girls as well as their own families. Kenya has hundreds of wonderful stories … we are collecting a few more before coming home.

Kwaheri (Goodbye)

Final Photo of the Team

A favorite photo from our week

2017 Kenya Update #9 - Whose dust did you collect today?

From: Kathy Macdonald

Being selected to show your home is an honor in this community.  Early this morning the entire team gathered at BLISS and we were paired with groups of about 5-6 s

tudents.  We had earlier provided a list of how far each team member felt they could walk … I suspect the list was referred to for NAMES only.

Some of the homes were far enough away that a van was required to get the team to the place where the road led off to the homes these students came from.    Once you left the road, sturdy walking shoes, a sun hat, a couple of bottles of water and a bit of luck were required as the roads narrowed to single lane paths.   Most of our "2-3 mile" walks turned into 6-8 mile treks!  My fit bit read well over 15,000 steps and 42 floors!  I can attest to the paths that went straight up and then straight down … and then straight up again.

Most of us visited 5+ homes.  Only a handful had power.  Almost all grew crops and had farm animals.  Cooking took place over a fire.  The young men slept outside of the home in small separate quarters (often a shack) with older brothers or uncles.  Once a young man is "of age" he can no longer enter the home of his mother or sisters.  The majority of us visited with students who left for school between 5:00 and 5:30 each morning in the dark.  When they get home each night, they wash their uniform and hope it will dry by morning … they have only one.  ALL of them were joyful.  ALL of them were thrilled to meet their families and see their homes.  ALL of us were humbled by the experience.

We came back exhausted and covered in the dust of a community that we care deeply about.  They have next to nothing in materials goods, but have hopes and dreams that we can only only in in wonder of.  

Below is just a small sample of those we walked with and collected the dust of today.  It was wonderful.

 

2017 Kenya Update #8 - You just never know ...

From: Kathy Macdonald

The Sunday before we departed Ann Arbor, I was handed a colorful homemade cloth bag after church. "Did I think the Kenya Team could use a few of these as gifts in Kenya?" Confession: I immediately thought of all the things we were bringing including a drum set for the BLISS band. I paused for a moment and said "sure." If nothing else, we could pack a couple of bags around the drums.

Later that afternoon, the doorbell rang and there she was with six more. Uh-oh … were these bags going to be like gerbils and I would soon be packing the drums around the bags?

By Wednesday, I had 16 that were carefully packed for the trip, still not sure what would happen to them. By mid-week, it was clear that we wanted to do something special for the teachers at Gichunge Primary … the bags!!! We would fill them with pencils and chalk for their classrooms as well as their Friday sack lunch.

Susan Baily … not sure if you could hear the squeals of delight in Ann Arbor, but the staff went nuts. The photo below does not do justice to the joy you created. We sure hope you had a good Friday … thanks to you, we did.

All in all, the sack lunches were a great success. Like last year, many of students "saved" most of their food for their families to share later. This is a student body that relies heavily on the daily porridge program … dinner isn't always there at night.

We celebrated our final day at the primary by planting trees along a ridge on the far side of the fields where they plant corn for the students. It was joyously chaotic. There were the 24 of us trying to maneuver ourselves over the freshly plowed field like a trail of army ants, about a third of the student population spontaneously nominating themselves as "helpers" thus tagging along, and then the "official" helpers carrying jugs of water and dozens of tree saplings. The Deputy Head Teacher marshaled us all into action and we were all soon covered in dirt as the samplings were dropped into holes and soil had to be packed in around them … forget the cute garden tools … this is done with your hands. Between the trek across the field (temp in the 90's) and digging in the dirt with our hands we all got back looking like survivors from the Great Dust Bowl. It was wonderful.

Things can get very turned around in Kenya … projects we think will be fabulous just sort of limp along … and then there are those so sweet surprises like the brightly colored bags that someone thought we might use, fleece scarfs made by Susan Salo and her women's group for the preschoolers (they freeze when it hits the 60's!), and the community created when everyone quits being cool and gets down in the dirt. It's a wonderful reminder that you just never know when God winks and something happens.