This was my favorite sight of the week... a Kenyan bicyclist hitching a ride on the back of a large truck going down the highway. His wheels wobbled and he had a hard time balancing with one hand on the handlebars and the other holding onto the back of the truck. I feel certain that there is some profound wisdom to be found here - just too tired to clearly see what it is :)
It's been a fabulous first week. We are settled into our house, and our team gets along and works together great. We've reconnected with so many people and have visited some new programs that look very promising. Our days have been so full that I haven't made time to blog. A quick recap...
We left Columbus for Atlanta Friday afternoon. About the time we got ready to land in Atlanta, they closed the airport due to thunderstorms. We circled the airport until nearly out of fuel and then were diverted to Birmingham where we landed and refueled. Instead of 45 minutes, our flight to Atlanta ended up being 4 hours. Thankfully we had a 4 1/2 hour layover so we were able to make our connecting flight to Amsterdam. Our other flights were fairly uneventful (other than not being able to sleep much). We arrived in Kenya very early Sunday morning exhausted and in need of a shower. We ran a few errands, ate breakfast, settled in our house, and spent a few hours at the orphanage before crashing mid-afternoon. We all slept 14-16 hours that night!
Monday was spent unpacking and getting organized and playing with kids at the orphanage. Tuesday, we visited a number of programs: Cheshire Home for disabled girls, Dada's Nest Orphanage (they focus on babies of mothers who are in prison), and Angel's Baby Centre. Angel's was a new program for us and was pretty amazing. They have 15 babies under the age of 3 and have been open for only 2 years. Their babies are abandoned or have other horrifying stories (we met one toddler who survived an abortion attempt at 7 months gestation). So far, they have only adopted out 1 baby. I think they need to be better connected to Western countries that are interested in international adoptions - we're going to work on that. Their biggest challenge/need was medicine because babies who are abandoned are generally sickly and have not had proper medical care. One baby at the house had ricketts, another had bronchitis, and many had rashes, colds, etc... They had one who was born HIV positive but had been taking the retroviral drugs and tested negative recently. It was a great ministry and we plan to spend more time there.
Wednesday was John's birthday party at school which was a huge success. We brought Spiderman masks from the U.S. and all of the kids were thrilled with that. Kenyan birthday parties are a lot of fun with singing and prayers. And the birthday child serves everyone first before having his cake. We brought 3 cakes, potato chips, juice, and treat bags along with gifts for his teacher. He was pretty happy with the day.
Yesterday (Thursday) was spent at Jikaze which is a camp for internally displaced persons (refugees). In 2008 there was a great deal of tribal violence following an election and thousands of Kenyans were displaced violently from their homes. We have worked with these 145 families in Jikaze village since 2009 and it is wonderful to see how their situations have improved. When we first came, they were still in tents. In 2009 and 2010, our team helped build semi-permanent mud-homes, and in the years since have been involved with tree planting and other relief efforts. It was amazing to see the social businesses that have started there (greenhouses and chicken farms) through another organization - Uhuru Child. We toured the place and then were each placed in a different home to work alongside the family and hear their stories. Mainly it involved cooking lunch and washing dishes. We also ate lunch and took tea with them. Several hours later, we regrouped and were able to share our experiences.
Today part of the group returned to Angel's so spend time with the babies. Later we will do some shopping and prepare for Mississippi Day tomorrow. In the morning we are beginning our day by scaling Mount Longonot - that will be an adventure I'm sure!
The weather is always changing here - generally cool with mornings of heavy fog and mist and usually a little sun in the afternoons. We've had some problems with electricity this week. Kelvin (our tour planner) managed to surprise me by hiring Mama Joan to cook for us (she was our housekeeper in 2009 when we came for 6 weeks and we've continued to visit her on each of our trips). She is a fantastic cook and we are enjoying a mix of Kenyan and American food.
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