Cindy Left, Church and Simeon's House

June 12th
Church Today!  Sizable church service at the Kakamega PEFA Church.  Pastor Richard spoke about producing fruit, or as he would say, frrrrrrruit with a rolling "r" that is quite difficult to type.  During the worship part of service there was a large dancing worm that was created - people train - that all the ladies joined in.  Sadly there are no pictures of it, but it was at least 50 people long near the end. 

At the end of church service Heather and I were asked to speak to the college age youth.  Now, I thought they wanted us to join their college group for the afternoon or something so we readily agreed to that.  But, like I said above, at the end they wanted us to speak to them for 5-10 minutes.  Oi!  Not prepared!  It worked out okay though, I spoke about "Work".  The general theme was that our two hands and our mind are gifts of God that can be used to produce and bless other people with our work.

Sadly, this was also the day that Cindy left.  After church we all went back to the hotel, Cindy prepped her stuff and got a ride to the airport.  :-(  Super fun to have her along.  It's sad to see her go, and sad to know that we will be leaving not long after she leaves.

We also had a big dinner at Simeon's house.  And by big, I mean big.  A large part of his family was there which means quite a few rugrats and at least dozen adults; and then throw in a bunch of wazungu into the mix!  I had been to his house before a few years ago but I never got a good tour, so this time we got the tour.  He's done quite a bit of stuff with his "compound".  That should sustain him well for the remainder of his life.  He has rental houses on the lot, crops, and are working on making another rental house.  But because bricks are so expensive, they decided to make them themselves.  Which, while uncommon in Seattle as our ground isn't suitable for that; the ground in Kenya works pretty well.  It has a heavy iron oxide content to it which makes it a vibrant red as well.  I also enjoyed checking out their water ditches and containers around the house.  When it rains in Kakamega, it really rains!  So to prevent flooding and such many houses have ditches built into the property to guide the water how they want it.  Into large containers, off the property or into garden irrigation ditches perhaps.  Simeon's ditches had ditches around the house to bring water from off the roof to the back of the house.  His whole plot of land is on a slope with the house on the top so that helps facilitate water to bypass the house on the way down the hill.  Also to hit the crops on the way down.

At the house, Simeon showed us a "Bathroom" plan he got from someone.  They were looking at it for the church and then to charge for use of it during the week to the surrounding community.  But it was a bit large and lavish if you ask me.  Something like 15-20 toilets and sinks.  You'd have to have quite the crowd to sustain that kind of toilet system.  While I think it's a good idea, I'd prefer to see it toned down a bit to save money and make it more easily profitable.

On the way home we really piled into the van.  All us wazungu as well as a few Kenyan friends that we were dropping off.  Overall it was 15 people in a 12 seat passenger van.

And then to bed!

Weeping Rock and Barasa

June 11th
Today Richard, Valerie, and Kathy Lambert had a rather long breakfast with a member of the Kenyan parliament.  In the meantime, Heather, myself, Teresa, Mesh and Garrison went to go see what's called the "Weeping Rock".  Which you can see below from the road, and that is generally the only view I've ever had of it.  It's called the weeping rock because I was told that there is a constant stream of water coming out of the rock from the top.  From the road I've always been able to see what appears to be water falling out of it, and you can see it in the below picture. 

Weeping Rock, as seen from the Road

However, once we got close we were informed that it really only weeps during August.  So we weren't able to see it weep.  Either way, that's still pretty cool.  The rock must be porous or have a thin crack running to the ground so that when the water level gets high enough surface tension draws it up.  You can see a close up picture below and one can easily see the erosion and staining that the water has done over the years.  So now, it always looks like there is a little water coming down.  Overall it cost us about $7 to go see it, as Mesh had to pay the local ladies in the area to be allowed passage through their lands to get to the Rock.  Not a bad fee to allow strangers to pass through, plus I think Weeping Rock Tourism is one of their main sources of income.  

Weeping Rock

 After the weeping rock, we picked up everyone else at the hotel and headed to the Kakamega PEFA church.  It was great fun as I got to see Simon and Grace Barasa and their family again.  I stayed with them previously during the whole election thing in 2008.  More about that Election stuff can be read here, and a little about Simon's house and Kakamega can be read here.  Pictured below are 2 members of Simon's family, Barbara, who is their eldest daughter and Gloria, their new daughter.  I say new, but obviously she's been around for awhile; just new to me.  Belated Congratulations Simon and Grace!  Heather and I took a visit to Simon's house to see Benjamin (only son) and Kristen (niece or cousin?) as well as the new improvements to his digs.  He's added a house for rental, and is working on another one.  Having 3 houses on his property is a great investment in Kenya and should secure his finances over the next few years. 

Valerie with Barbara and Gloria Barasa

 On a side bar, we finally met and talked to some English ladies who we had seen numerous times at the hotel.  They were very sweet and took us to go see some recent puppies next door.  They were quite friendly and adorable.

English ladies, who's names I sadly have forgotten.

Puppies! 

Visits

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.

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!

 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!

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. 

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.

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.

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'. 

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. 

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.  :-)