June 9th
First off, today is my birthday! Yeeaah! Okay, enough of that celebratory mood. ;-)
Today we visited a non-profit called PATH, though I don't know what it stands for, if anything. Even their website doesn't say. Either way, someone recommended that we meet with them to discuss any mutual beneficial activities or meetings or at least just to start getting to know each other. After visiting PATH we went down to a local hospital which works with PATH. I didn't write down very many details of these two encounters. The hospital was nice in trying to cater towards lower income people, but I remember now being all that impressed with PATH. It just reminded me of a some of the US over funded, under active non-profits where most money goes into bureaucracy, salaries, and nice office space. It's why you have to be careful where your money goes, if it goes to charity. We also checked out a related "youth center" which was really more of a small office space that was directed at teaching youth about AIDs and "proper" sexual things. Basically trying to teach kids about sex and condoms and how sex "causes" AIDs. Again, none of us were really impressed though I appreciate what they are attempting to do but considering all the money spent in advertising I don't know if anyone is left who doesn't know about AIDs, at least anyone who can read.
Later in the evening we did more microfinance interviews in Kathy and Cindi's apartment, this time with the Board and those who work with the microfinance group. The power went out, again, within 10 minutes of us being finished (I think), so timing was utterly perfect. It can be quite difficult to film in the dark naturally so we were all glad that we got everything we needed. At this point we ate dinner and had a candle pow wow.
Correction: We did not do microfinance interviews in Kathy and Cindi's room tonight. That was the next night. The power went off both nights though if I recall correctly. Either that or the power went off tonight, and came back on the next day just as the sun was going down while doing the interviews so the timing was perfect. I think that was it. I didn't record that information unfortunately. So this night we just had a candle pow wow in their room as a team.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Shikusa Boys Detention Center
June 8th
Wow, today was an amazing day. Baptisms, Singing, Dirty Rivers, Small Hikes, Bacon for brekky, cashews at night. Shoot, even a "white girl" was baptized, but I will get to that in a minute. Right now the focus is on the Shikusa Boys.
Today is the day where we get to be a part of the baptism of ~50 boys at the Shikusa Boys Detention Center. Now, I have been to Shikusa a couple times in the past, once for an introduction and once for a Christmas Party that the Kakamega PEFA Church Youth gave them. The status there is at present a good one, at least while recognizing that those kids are in jail and unable to leave. In prior years, before I ever visited, it was not such a pleasant place. Horrid living conditions, kids were always sick, bad food, ... Actually, it was probably as bad as what most westerners would envision an African detention camp. Like most jails throughout the world it generally encourages the youth to continue committing infractions because they know nothing else and don't learn anything while in jail - and yes, that is a very general yet condemning statement that I shan't attempt to prove. Dr. George Matimbai (I'm not sure on the spelling of his last name) came across Shikusa through his own dealings with some of the boys there in a story that I shall not relate here as it may be private and I haven't asked permission. Anyways, Dr. George visited the compound, saw the dismal conditions and decided that he needed to help them. He is now a member of their board and has been instrumental in revitalizing the compound into more of a Juvenile Re-Education Center. By Re-education I mean that most of those boys have learned few good things in their lives and while they are forced to spend 1-2 years in this compound they now have the opportunity to learn a variety of skills such as construction, sewing, upholstery, carpentry, ... Something to at least make it worthwhile to earn an honest living. In addition to the physical help they receive there, many of the staff are Christians and the boys receive spiritual assistance there as well, as such many of the boys have chosen to follow the Lord. They even pick spiritual leaders amongst themselves to lead small groups and such. It is that reason that we are here today, to baptize many of those who have committed to follow the Lord.
But first, a few pictures!
During the pre-baptism ceremony, where Richard and Simeon were preaching - talking really - to the boys about baptism and their own experiences (both having been converted while confined in a Jail!) I felt a tap on my knee and looked over to see Heather with tears in her eyes, and she told me - to my utter astonishment due to the surroundings - that she wanted to get baptized. "Today?" I whispered. With her affirmation I turned to Richard next to me (Simeon was talking) and asked if they would baptize Heather. I believe his response was "Sure, if she wants too" and then both he and Valerie looked at Heather and their faces turned from a quizzical look to an "oh, wow, umm, okay, great!" look. Not a facial expression you could fake. ;-) So after a pre-baptism talk and some worship, we all walked about 1 mile on a trail down to the river that I shall call the Shikusa river. Though in reality I guess the river didn't have a name, no one knew what to call it. I guess the locals just call it the river cause there is only one and they don't go elsewhere.
At the baptism site the water looks utterly delightful, and by delightful I mean completely dirty. They weren't sure if they wanted Heather to get baptized here or not due to the possible contamination in the water, like cow feces.
Some of the boys were really scared about going underwater, many of them don't know how to swim.
Long line of boys to enter the water with us wazungu looking on. We would towel them, anoint them and pray for them as they came out.
After all the baptism stuff was done, we hiked back to the compound and met Bishop Simeon on the way there. We gave a post-baptism service where we each presented some gifts to the boys, Heather and I presented socks to the counseling department. We then proceeded to eat a late lunch with the guards, which was quite delicious! An excellent lunch, ugali, meat, fruit, japati (fresh tortillas); very standard fare but always excellent and we were all quite pleased to see it.
Wow, today was an amazing day. Baptisms, Singing, Dirty Rivers, Small Hikes, Bacon for brekky, cashews at night. Shoot, even a "white girl" was baptized, but I will get to that in a minute. Right now the focus is on the Shikusa Boys.
Today is the day where we get to be a part of the baptism of ~50 boys at the Shikusa Boys Detention Center. Now, I have been to Shikusa a couple times in the past, once for an introduction and once for a Christmas Party that the Kakamega PEFA Church Youth gave them. The status there is at present a good one, at least while recognizing that those kids are in jail and unable to leave. In prior years, before I ever visited, it was not such a pleasant place. Horrid living conditions, kids were always sick, bad food, ... Actually, it was probably as bad as what most westerners would envision an African detention camp. Like most jails throughout the world it generally encourages the youth to continue committing infractions because they know nothing else and don't learn anything while in jail - and yes, that is a very general yet condemning statement that I shan't attempt to prove. Dr. George Matimbai (I'm not sure on the spelling of his last name) came across Shikusa through his own dealings with some of the boys there in a story that I shall not relate here as it may be private and I haven't asked permission. Anyways, Dr. George visited the compound, saw the dismal conditions and decided that he needed to help them. He is now a member of their board and has been instrumental in revitalizing the compound into more of a Juvenile Re-Education Center. By Re-education I mean that most of those boys have learned few good things in their lives and while they are forced to spend 1-2 years in this compound they now have the opportunity to learn a variety of skills such as construction, sewing, upholstery, carpentry, ... Something to at least make it worthwhile to earn an honest living. In addition to the physical help they receive there, many of the staff are Christians and the boys receive spiritual assistance there as well, as such many of the boys have chosen to follow the Lord. They even pick spiritual leaders amongst themselves to lead small groups and such. It is that reason that we are here today, to baptize many of those who have committed to follow the Lord.
But first, a few pictures!
Here we are meeting one Shikusa head, I believe his name was Joseph. A real nice, friendly gent.
The boys depicted here are constructing a house, for school as well as for use obviously.
This was great. Right next to the house that the boys were building lay a large pile of rocks that will be used at some point in the building process I assume. But crawling all over the rocks were baby goats, enjoyed the themselves quite thoroughly. As my wife would say, "Adorable!"
The above boys are working on there schooling. Essentially their goal is to be able to pass the High School / SAT equivalent tests with good scores which may allow them to enter college.
One of their sleeping houses. The boys lay out their mats at night, and clean them up in the morning. This makes for a clean sleeping arrangement, no places for rats, or bugs or whatever to hide, bite, and make the boys sick.
Here is another house that has some beds for the boys. I do not recall if they were made on the compound or offsite. I seem to remember them saying that they were welded onsite, but I don't recall seeing a welder around.
Carpentry Class!
Here is worship time with the boys, pre-baptism.
They were rocking and a jiving!
Walking down to the river
Beautiful countryside. We are carrying towels and shirts for the boys.
Praying and anointing post-baptism.
And last but not least, out of the water came the white girl!
My lovely wife Heather, or as the kenyan's say: Heatha'.
On the way home we dropped by Nakumatt for some minor dinner fixings, I bought some yogurt and cashews. We brought all our goods together into Kathy and Cindi's room for a hodgepodge of a dinner. Mango slices, someone made noodle soup on the stove, avocado, nuts, yogurt, ... like I said, a hodgepodge.
And that was a good, long day!
Sheywe House
June 8th
So we arrived at the Sheywe House last night, but didn't get to look around much besides dinner until today. So check out some of these pictures. The Sheywe House was one of the most reasonably priced hotels we stayed in. The bang for the buck was excellent. Check out these pictures. Heather and I had our own little apartment with a living space, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Granted, the living space and kitchen are joined; oh, and the kitchen stove didn't really work. I think you had to supply your own propane or something, it was odd. Richard and Valerie however had a working stove WITH propane so that was good. That took care of our cooking situation. We all had working fridges. Below is a picture from the door into the apartment of the living space and kitchen.
Just outside our building, while still within the confines of the Sheywe were these Storks. Now, I posted a little bit about these birds earlier, here. But at this location, there was a large number of these birds at all times. Just as before, these birds are HUGE! It's hard to tell the size in these pictures but when standing they have to be at least 3 feet tall. Here is a Wikipedia entry on these birds, Marabou Storks apparantly. I guess some of them can get up to 5 feet tall and weighing at 20 pounds! I don't know if we saw any that big but easily 3 to 4 feet tall on most of them.
I thought this was a funny picture. Thanks to Heather for working on trying to get this shot. A few earlier times when we saw the birds doing this she was unable to get a good picture. Try and try again! But these storks are the only birds I have ever seen to actually rock back and sit on their knees. Usually birds stand, sit in a tree or sit on the ground; but sitting on their knees? I don't recall ever seeing that. Feel free to correct me if a bird does that in the Pacific NW. Maybe flamingos at the zoo, but I don't recall seeing that.
The Sheywe, like many hotels, serves a breakfast every morning. The Sheywe has one of the better breakfasts as well, with wheatabix availalbe for cereal, milk, pineapple, bananas, and they take your order for toast, eggs and bacon. Boo yah! Eggs and bacon every morning, my kind of place. Often a local cat would be hanging around as well, hoping for some bacon scraps. Some british ladies who were staying there for a couple months (One of them helps manage the Sheywe when she's down there) fed the kitty much to her delight. All cats are referred to as Puss Puss down there. Which American's find funny for various reasons. If you want to call a cat over you do the general cat thing of rubbing your thumb and two fore fingers together, but you also call out "puss puss puss puss puss....". It's a culture thing. :-)
So we arrived at the Sheywe House last night, but didn't get to look around much besides dinner until today. So check out some of these pictures. The Sheywe House was one of the most reasonably priced hotels we stayed in. The bang for the buck was excellent. Check out these pictures. Heather and I had our own little apartment with a living space, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Granted, the living space and kitchen are joined; oh, and the kitchen stove didn't really work. I think you had to supply your own propane or something, it was odd. Richard and Valerie however had a working stove WITH propane so that was good. That took care of our cooking situation. We all had working fridges. Below is a picture from the door into the apartment of the living space and kitchen.
I thought this was a funny picture. Thanks to Heather for working on trying to get this shot. A few earlier times when we saw the birds doing this she was unable to get a good picture. Try and try again! But these storks are the only birds I have ever seen to actually rock back and sit on their knees. Usually birds stand, sit in a tree or sit on the ground; but sitting on their knees? I don't recall ever seeing that. Feel free to correct me if a bird does that in the Pacific NW. Maybe flamingos at the zoo, but I don't recall seeing that.
The Sheywe, like many hotels, serves a breakfast every morning. The Sheywe has one of the better breakfasts as well, with wheatabix availalbe for cereal, milk, pineapple, bananas, and they take your order for toast, eggs and bacon. Boo yah! Eggs and bacon every morning, my kind of place. Often a local cat would be hanging around as well, hoping for some bacon scraps. Some british ladies who were staying there for a couple months (One of them helps manage the Sheywe when she's down there) fed the kitty much to her delight. All cats are referred to as Puss Puss down there. Which American's find funny for various reasons. If you want to call a cat over you do the general cat thing of rubbing your thumb and two fore fingers together, but you also call out "puss puss puss puss puss....". It's a culture thing. :-)
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Leaving Miwani & Nancy Odwaro
June 7th
Oh my goodness. This morning I woke up around 6:30am to an amazingly large noise of birds chirping. There was so many of them it sounded akin to a heavy rainfall on a tin roof. The chirping and fluttering and more chirping. Crazy loud. Anyways, it was a good time to get up, everyone else stayed asleep or in their rooms until 7-8 so I got some nice quiet time in the front room overlooking the farm. Very pleasant, very relaxing.
Later in the morning we walked over to Karunga School, which was, in essence, personal project for some of the original farm members. They diligently worked on enhancing their library, studies, and buildings. Valerie just wanted to show us the school and the kids.
Then we packed up and headed out from Miwani. A couple years ago I spent 3 months there, this time, just a night. Next we headed back into the Kisumu "suburbs" - I'm not really sure what you'd call the non-downtown areas of a large city - towards Nancy Odwaro's House for the Olive Branch Documentary. She put together a thanksgiving feast for us! I wish I had pictures. Rice, a few meat sauces, pineapple, mango, homemade juice, bread, the table was packed!! And it was all mightily delicious.
During the documentary us boys, who didn't have a part to play at this particular time, hung around outside talking, and keeping quiet as our voices could carry. I checked out Nancy's house and plot of land. She is quite the efficient woman! It isn't a big plot of land but she had a couple cows, goats, chickens & mango trees. A worker was working on her water flow system while we were there. Most Kenyan residents who can afford it generally seem to install a series of concrete gutters to take in the heavy rains that come and dump it where they want to dump it, and take it away from the house.
I talked quite a bit with Mesh during this interlude, about his business ideas and the local response to the Chinese presence. As figured, most didn't mind the investment and all the workers. They generally kept to themselves and didn't want to socialize with the Kenyans, and so the Kenyan's let them be. Anywhoo, we talked and at one point Mesh stood to move away but as he stood I had some serious deja vu. At that moment I stopped talking and asked if we had talked about this before. The image of him in front of the van and me sitting down at Nancy's place was stuck in my mind from a prior time. I must have dreamed that conversation at some point in the past. Strongest deja vu feeling of my life and I am dead serious on that. Based on that deja vu I made a few decisions later on and we shall see where that will lead later on in life.
Anyways, we were at Nancy's for a decent number of hours. When we were done we headed to our next hotel, the Sheywe House, dumped all our goods and went to have a late dinner at the hotel restaurant. We had a great view of some amazing lighting storms in the background. The power kept going out putting us in total darkness, which while it gave good darkness for watching lighting, when you are hungry and the cooks need electricity to cook you food; well, let's just say it was about 1.5-2 hours before we were all served. Many dishes were served cold because they wouldn't bring them out as they were done. They waited until all dishes were ready. Poor Valerie, she always seemed to get the brunt of food issues on this trip. Either being served last, or served cold food, or both. Both happened to her this time, cold and served last.
Oh my goodness. This morning I woke up around 6:30am to an amazingly large noise of birds chirping. There was so many of them it sounded akin to a heavy rainfall on a tin roof. The chirping and fluttering and more chirping. Crazy loud. Anyways, it was a good time to get up, everyone else stayed asleep or in their rooms until 7-8 so I got some nice quiet time in the front room overlooking the farm. Very pleasant, very relaxing.
Later in the morning we walked over to Karunga School, which was, in essence, personal project for some of the original farm members. They diligently worked on enhancing their library, studies, and buildings. Valerie just wanted to show us the school and the kids.
Then we packed up and headed out from Miwani. A couple years ago I spent 3 months there, this time, just a night. Next we headed back into the Kisumu "suburbs" - I'm not really sure what you'd call the non-downtown areas of a large city - towards Nancy Odwaro's House for the Olive Branch Documentary. She put together a thanksgiving feast for us! I wish I had pictures. Rice, a few meat sauces, pineapple, mango, homemade juice, bread, the table was packed!! And it was all mightily delicious.
During the documentary us boys, who didn't have a part to play at this particular time, hung around outside talking, and keeping quiet as our voices could carry. I checked out Nancy's house and plot of land. She is quite the efficient woman! It isn't a big plot of land but she had a couple cows, goats, chickens & mango trees. A worker was working on her water flow system while we were there. Most Kenyan residents who can afford it generally seem to install a series of concrete gutters to take in the heavy rains that come and dump it where they want to dump it, and take it away from the house.
I talked quite a bit with Mesh during this interlude, about his business ideas and the local response to the Chinese presence. As figured, most didn't mind the investment and all the workers. They generally kept to themselves and didn't want to socialize with the Kenyans, and so the Kenyan's let them be. Anywhoo, we talked and at one point Mesh stood to move away but as he stood I had some serious deja vu. At that moment I stopped talking and asked if we had talked about this before. The image of him in front of the van and me sitting down at Nancy's place was stuck in my mind from a prior time. I must have dreamed that conversation at some point in the past. Strongest deja vu feeling of my life and I am dead serious on that. Based on that deja vu I made a few decisions later on and we shall see where that will lead later on in life.
Anyways, we were at Nancy's for a decent number of hours. When we were done we headed to our next hotel, the Sheywe House, dumped all our goods and went to have a late dinner at the hotel restaurant. We had a great view of some amazing lighting storms in the background. The power kept going out putting us in total darkness, which while it gave good darkness for watching lighting, when you are hungry and the cooks need electricity to cook you food; well, let's just say it was about 1.5-2 hours before we were all served. Many dishes were served cold because they wouldn't bring them out as they were done. They waited until all dishes were ready. Poor Valerie, she always seemed to get the brunt of food issues on this trip. Either being served last, or served cold food, or both. Both happened to her this time, cold and served last.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Miwani Farm and the Gals
June 6th
We also got to meet 3 Indian sisters who are neighbors to the Miwani farm. They live a few miles down the road toward Kisumu - in farm country all your neighbors are miles away, funny how that works. These were great gals, each had a unique testimony about coming to Christ in a very strongly Hindu environment. At least, I'm pretty sure it was Hindu, I didn't write it down nor the specific Hindu sect as there are plenty. Anyways, great testimonies that involved physical healings and spiritual manifestations. We also got to visit their house the following day, but more on that later.
One of the gals, Aran, does some computer-based work, I don't remember if it was photoshop or some form of programing. But either way, I made sure to give her links for ODesk and ELance as potential places to find some work. Hopefully she was, or is, able to find something that way.
Also funny, was the fact that I heard there was another gal staying on the farm for a bit of time. So a little bit after we arrived I turned a corner and there was a long time family friend Anneliese. Not who I was expecting so I was quite surprised. Last time I also saw her randomly at a roommates surprise birthday party - one of those "How do you know my roommate?!" crazy but fun occasions. So today was no exception as I had no idea that she was in Kenya, let alone the farm. Anneliese had been there for a few months at this point and was hoping to stay on for another few months to work with a local medical camp that was taking place, but there was some visa trouble. In retrospect as I'm writing this 2.5 months late, with God's grace and to the extend of my knowledge the visa stuff worked itself out and she was able to stay on.
We also got to meet 3 Indian sisters who are neighbors to the Miwani farm. They live a few miles down the road toward Kisumu - in farm country all your neighbors are miles away, funny how that works. These were great gals, each had a unique testimony about coming to Christ in a very strongly Hindu environment. At least, I'm pretty sure it was Hindu, I didn't write it down nor the specific Hindu sect as there are plenty. Anyways, great testimonies that involved physical healings and spiritual manifestations. We also got to visit their house the following day, but more on that later.
One of the gals, Aran, does some computer-based work, I don't remember if it was photoshop or some form of programing. But either way, I made sure to give her links for ODesk and ELance as potential places to find some work. Hopefully she was, or is, able to find something that way.
Also funny, was the fact that I heard there was another gal staying on the farm for a bit of time. So a little bit after we arrived I turned a corner and there was a long time family friend Anneliese. Not who I was expecting so I was quite surprised. Last time I also saw her randomly at a roommates surprise birthday party - one of those "How do you know my roommate?!" crazy but fun occasions. So today was no exception as I had no idea that she was in Kenya, let alone the farm. Anneliese had been there for a few months at this point and was hoping to stay on for another few months to work with a local medical camp that was taking place, but there was some visa trouble. In retrospect as I'm writing this 2.5 months late, with God's grace and to the extend of my knowledge the visa stuff worked itself out and she was able to stay on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)