April 30, 2007

Lamu teacher training

The teacher training on Lamu Island went really well. The Dalano family who work for New Life Homes there, took me in, accepted me as kin. I stayed in their 17th century, five-story home. You should see the way the homes are built on this island – they’re Arabic and British combos. You hang your laundry, talk, and dance on the rooftops here. It’s the best place to catch the ocean breeze.

The other teacher, Anne Chege, and I slept on the fourth floor overlooking the Indian Ocean. It was pretty amazing. The entire week was great. We laughed, we ate and ate and ate (Take more Janay, the journey is long…), we drank hot, hot chai on 100 degree, eighty percent humidity days. We poured sweat together. I think I’ve never experienced heat like this anywhere in the world.

We presented our teaching materials on children in crisis to a hungry crowd of Kenyan teachers who work in the arid and semi-arid region of Tana River District. Many of them have “schools under trees,” their only teaching materials being a small chalkboard propped against a tree. Imagine that! New Life Homes operates 20 schools in this region, but this is an area that we would like to develop. Many of our teachers are untrained and unpaid. We also have 6 feeding programs within this region as it is severely affected by drought patterns.

island teams

I would love to see small, culturally sensitive, specialized teams of teachers come out to this region for training on a regular basis. They want and need people to pour their knowledge and skills into them. You should’ve seen the copious notes they took, the amazing dramas they produced. The best students! There’s also a place for specialized teams for soccer (football), sports camps, vacation bible schools, etcetera.

island interruptions

Frequently during the middle of teaching, the donkeys would start braying, snorting and carrying on. Their sound I can only compare to sea lions barking in San Francisco bay – deep, throaty, obnoxious. I would just want to bust up laughing, but all of the students continued to look at me seriously, intent upon the subject that I was teaching. I’m thinking – Don’t they think this is funny? Listen to that! They didn’t. If I’d made eye contact with just one foreigner, like myself, I would’ve surely lost it. So I realize that it’s a blessing sometimes that I don’t have anyone from “home” traveling with me.

island traffic

Lamu was beautiful. The stars and moon seen like never before as the electricity all over the island was out for 3 nights straight. (No electricity also means limited to no water as the electricity pumps the water from the wells to the holding tanks to the homes.)

Anyway, we’d go for strolls in the dark of the evening with our flashlights, navigating through the narrow alleys two by two. One night, I wasn’t paying attention to oncoming “traffic” (remember there is only one car on the island) and all of a sudden my African friend cries out Eh! and pushes me to the side.

I was almost run over by a boy and his very large cow! We all started laughing. Lamu traffic.

Lamu is modernizing slowly by slowly, as they say. Along with the one car on the island, they now have a tuk-tuk, which is a mini three-wheel, tent-like vehicle that serves as an ambulance for the hospital. The slow island pace is so nice though.

island birthday

I was in Lamu for my birthday and didn't tell anyone. My birthday fell on the last day of teaching and one of our students presented us with gifts. Mine was wrapped in Happy Birthday paper and the gift was a hand-woven mat that said "God is Good". I just giggled. God knew. Sent me a gift.

Thanks to everyone who remembered my b-day and sent e-cards and gifts!

African burial

My officemate’s brother’s funeral was on April 13. Though I didn’t want to go, I went – to show my support for my friend. We went first to the morgue, located on a Kenyan University campus where students tend to the bodies. There were five different families, large groups of people waiting in stalls or corals as if waiting for a bus. But they were all waiting for the hearse to arrive with the body of their loved ones so that they could take them upcountry for burial. The sound of weeping, talking, waiting in the air.

My friend wore a scarf around her neck and used it to cover her face whenever grief overcame her.

We drove three hours northeast to a town called Machakos where my friend and her brother grew up. The entire church and community had assembled in the family’s front yard, singing and praying, awaiting his arrival since early morning. African funerals can go on for three days. They believe the funeral and burial to be an extremely important ritual to honor the dead.

They buried her brother on their shamba (land) next to where they grow vegetables. We all gathered around a five foot mound of red, red earth. This earth stains your shoes and feet, soaks into your skin almost like blood. When you wipe it off, it has discolored your skin, leaving an iodine-like stain.

It’s a strange thing, the earth here. It has its own stories to tell.

dark continent

Shoso (Grandma) Mary (my widow friend who cares for the orphans) calls Africa the dark continent and says that she felt like me (crying a lot) the first time she came to stay for an extended time.

My spirit has been deeply grieved here. I can’t pinpoint one reason really. I’m in this place of extremes – physically, spiritually, emotionally. My joy and sorrow deeper than I’ve ever experienced.

“See from His head, His hands, His feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did ever such love and sorrow meet?”
the wonderful cross

puppies
“When I planned this, did I do it lightly?”
2 Corinthians 1:7

When I planned a move to Africa, did I do it lightly? Five years of prayer and thought went into this. So why is it so, so difficult at times?

I hear parentless babies saying hi outside my door. I have barf-y clothes wrapped in plastic beneath the futon on which I sit. Baby Jennifer’s head is too heavy for her neck, so her head flops forward. She’s not strong enough (yet) because of severe malnourishment.

A white family came for a visit today. I found myself trying to “sell” the babies, make them look cute and charming. Had to stop myself from saying – Here, take one home, as if they’re puppies. They’re not puppies. They’re God’s children. His little ones. His family.

Kisumu special-needs center

I also visited our New Life Home in Kisumu on Lake Victoria where we want to build a special-needs center for children with physical and cognitive disabilities.

Shosho (Grandma) Mary went with me. Kisumu is a quiet town, a smaller city than Nairobi with less pollution, less crime, less chaos. It’s really green and lush, quite tropical near the lake. When you leave by air, you fly over Lake Victoria, the largest freshwater lake in Africa. It’s amazing to see.

Kisumu town is filled with more bicycles than cars – more so than Santa Barbara or any beach town in California! It’s cool to see. These bicycles are called boda-bodas. They have cushions with tassles on the rear for carrying passengers. You can pay like 20 cents and they taxi you around town. But Shosho and I didn’t feel like being hit by a car just then, so we opted out.

Plans for the special-needs center are coming together. Apparently there’s a waiting list of 640 identified special needs children in Kisumu, needing a place to learn, grow, and be loved. We’re hoping to provide that place.

apple carts

Missionaries Barnabas and Paul were nomadic. Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Syria… their itinerary goes on and on.

I can relate.

Being nomadic for non-nomads by birth is not the easiest though.

I catch myself having internal tantrums. Tantrums over cold showers, non-flushing toilets, air pollution, no electricity. Would these people enter the 21st century please! my head screams. Every new place has new sounds and so your sleep is stolen from you until you manage to adjust or become so exhausted that you must sleep.

I’m listening to Derek Webb sing “I hate everything but You…” I could sing that to God right now.

The nomadic life is constant movement, upsetting the neatly arranged apple cart of a life I’ve set up, then carefully rearranging in another place. Living out of a suitcase.

Shosho Mary says that I/we must “lean into” the culture instead of resisting it. Yes. Lean into...

Apple carts are made for movement, that’s why they’re made with wheels.

many hardships

“We must go through many hardships
to enter the kingdom of God,” they (Paul & Barnabas) said.
Acts 14:22

The “many hardships” Paul and Barnabas talk about are different for everyone. Near death by rock throwers and constant death threats were on their lists.

My list so shallow in comparison.

God always gives perspective in His word. My hardships are by-proxy sufferings, entering into the suffering of others…

Thanks for entering in with me.