We have had a relatively quiet couple weeks in the bush, with two week-ends of exciting events and get aways as bookends! I’ll start this posting by going back to previous week-end activities, which were quite rewarding and fun all around. On the home scene, fruits and vegetables have been in short supply because we were on holiday instead of at market last week-end. Katy, Sara, Liesl, & Tara are tackling the shopping in Voi open air and supermarket as I write so we will be eating well again soon. The food is healthy and all of us who were looking forward to the "Kasigau weight loss program" are being successful. 
It is starting to become much drier now that the rains are over; the flower in the photo blooms at the tops of its trees when it is becoming dry.Keenan has moved to the Jora banda, joining Jenny, Macaela, Molly, & Jake. In other big news there is a new cell phone tower being constructed, which in optimistic forecasts will be operational just about the time we are leaving Kasigau.
Two Saturdays ago we had a meeting for orphans and their caregivers at the community library in Bungule, organized by Jenny Mae, Macaela, Molly and Jake. The four of them have been making home visits and gathering very specific needs assessment data on the living conditions (drinking water, food supplies, sleeping and bathing arrangements, school attendance, clothing, and financial support) of children without parents, in each of the five villages around Mt. Kasigau.
There are many children in the community who have been orphaned by mining accidents, snake and animal encounters, and AIDS, with “double orphans” having lost both parents and “single orphans” having lost one parent, usually a father.
In these Saturday meeting photos Jenny & Macaela are collecting information and identifying new families to visit, and Jake is fitting a child with a pair of athletic shoes.
Jake and Molly arrived with two giant duffel bags full of new shoes, sandals, shirts, shorts, and books for distribution to the neediest of families (as identified by teachers in schools, village elders, and their survey).The meeting on Saturday was a great success, attended by at least 75 people who enjoyed lollipops, books, juice, and scones as well as giving valuable information and receiving much needed articles of clothing.
Saturday in the evening we returned to Eunice’s house for (by general consensus) the best meal we have eaten in Kasigau...well, except maybe my birthday dinner at the banda. We feasted on fresh chapati bread, rice pilau with goat meat, tomato salad, greens, ugali, and fruit. Eunice and her daughters had three of the family compound kitchens in service, and I was even allowed to help roll chapati; in the photo I’m responding to the comment that “Aren’t those chapati supposed to be round?” (You can see that mine are less than perfect compared to the perfect circles of the local cooks...but I did improve by about the 15th one.)
Jenny Mae and I distributed glass pendants, made by Kathy Peevy in Craig AK, to all the women and girls in “Eunice’s village” family compound. Here again we were apparently limited by the cultural divide, because I have since seen two of the pendants being worn by a couple of the coolest young men in the community! I’m not sure how they came to have them but am betting there was love and/or money involved.
Monday the 23rd bright and early, interns started new placements in Rukanga and Jora, the largest & noisiest, and smallest & most industrious, respectively, of the towns “around the hill”. Sara and Tara are at Jora, and Katy, Liesl, and Keenan are at Rukanga. Interns have now finished teaching valuable skills in reading, writing, and math in their second set of placements and next week we will move to Bungule, the closest village to our banda home, and our home base.
Interns are making friends and impressing people in school and out, showing clearly the power of good teaching and falling in love with Kasigau children. We are having to restrain someone, I won't say who, from kidnapping every Kenyan baby she sees.The recent placements are a relief for transportation, because the morning and afternoon drives are less than half as long for “dropping and picking” the interns at their respective schools. (To bungle we canAnother advantage for about three days was the fact that Rukanga has signal and power for using and charging our phones and computers.
But the drive and the town soon became tiresome and hot, so this week Ken and I are dividing driving between morning and evening, which has the extra advantage of leaving one extra seat in the Probox (that one front seat yesterday morning had three people in it!) So far our record is 12 people in the 5 seater, with 6 behind the back seat in the “boot”.
One day after school last week the interns visited the Rukanga basket weavers and scone bakers, to the accompaniment of much singing, ululation, and
overall good cheer. They returned with new acquaintances, orders for Rukanga Basket weaver T-shirts, and many beautiful baskets that some readers can probably anticipate receiving as gifts (from what I hear). Aside from the educational gains by Kasigau students, our visits with interns also support the local economy with payment for lodging, hiring people to drive and cook, and buying food, baskets, and the occasional almost cool soda/beer. The wages and extra purchasing power that we bring to the community also helps people buy books and uniforms for school children, upgrade their personal businesses, and save for college.
Ken and I drove two Thursdays ago to Marungu, a village between Kasigau and Maungu at the highway, to visit one of the young men we are sponsoring at college. (The interns think it is highly unreasonable to have two towns so close together with names that are so similar...Marungu and Maungu.) Those of you in our group of sponsors will recognize the name of Philip Ndurya as one of the boys we sponsored for 4 years at Moi High School. Philip is now teaching biology and Kiswahili at Marungu Secondary School during the regular school term schedule, and attending an intensive teacher training program in Mombasa during the break months of April, August, and December. (The Kenyan school year begins at the first of the year with three terms of three months and a month break between each.)
Philip is quite bright and a VERY hard worker who was always near the top of his class at Moi High School, and initially intending to become a physician. The cost of medical school was prohibitive, however, so he has decided to become a teacher, and then a master teacher, and then hopes to eventually use his salary to fund a PhD course...”and at last I will be called Doctor Ndurya!”
We are still trying to raise sponsorships for Philip’s college, as well as for Albert and Beja, the other two young men who completed Moi High School with good performance in December 2011. As anticipated we have had many, many requests for support of students in high school and college.Everyone we have supported in the past has siblings, or other children, or grandchildren, or cousins, who also need support. Our friend and teacher Faith is also attempting to continue her education as an early childhood educator, looking for sponsorship to take a degree course (like a BA) after having completed her diploma (like an AA) in ECE that Suzanne Krogh and I sponsored.
This is the most difficult part of coming to Kenya for Ken and me...making decisions on requests for support. So far this trip we have helped personally with funds for building a chicken house, repairing a matatu engine, purchasing a motorbike, and supplying flour and lard for the widow’s bakery effort. The one-time support for concrete items gives people a boost that can often lift them out of poverty to start a personal business, and also allows recipients to repay a bit with eggs, bread/scones, and transportation for the interns.
The longer term funding of education is a more difficult matter. Public education in Kenya only extends through Class 8 (middle school), and high school has increased in cost from $400/year for room, board, and tuition to closer to $500 this year. For the last few years we have had wonderful combined donations from friends and family of Ken and Kris, the original group of sponsors who initially committed to four years of support for the group of 4 boys we started at Moi High in 2006-2007. My sister Janet keeps reminding me to send out the “ask” for this year’s assistance, which I guess I am doing now, but we also seem to be reaching the limits of that level of support.
Now that we are retired, I think we either need to upscale and consider a non-profit or NGO status, or quit while we are ahead and solvent. I’m not sure I have the time and energy for the former, or the heart for the latter.
It is so difficult to meld our lives at home with the reality of life here, so any thoughts or ideas readers have for me will be much appreciated, whether or not you are already a sponsor. I know there are also many needy children, families and educational endeavors closer to home, but here a little money goes a very long way toward changing lives, by giving people a little push to break free from a subsistence lifestyle with the advantage of high school.
On to lighter subjects, we all had exciting week-end get aways. The interns went to Diani & Tiwi Beaches south of Mombasa and came back rested and refreshed from time in the sun and the water, dancing, eating different food than we have at the banda, and generally enjoying themselves as young people and young families do. Katy, Mark and the girls went to Tiwi Beach, and today I can't find the photos but will try to get them up next week. The other interns went to Diani, Kenya's premier tourist beach.
Ken and I took off for Tsavo West National Park and stayed at a banda camp overlooking the bush. We sat outside our room on Friday evening and heard lions roaring loudly and buffalo mooing for a long time, and maybe even a leopard grunting right below us. (We heard from the Masai askari that the leopard sometimes cruises through the dining room after lights out in the evening, but he was not to be seen that night.) The next morning we were told that the lions had killed a buffalo and were guarding their meal not far away. We had the fantastic experience of climbing a rock outcrop above the camp, where we sat with a young Masai who showed and told us everything we could every wonder about bush wildlife.
We saw a giraffe, the female lions with their cubs, elephants facing off with the male lion on their way to the water hole, all in one view, with narration and explanation from our impromptu guide.Tsavo West is between Amboseli and Masai Mara, both traditional Masai homelands that have been converted to national parks.
The interns also encountered Masai men working the beaches selling jewelry and escorting mzungu women, and by comparison it seems that they are more in their element in the national parks as askaris (watchmen) at the lodges and guides in the bush.
Everyone had a wonderful time away but we were all happy to be back in the bush where life is simple and people are familiar and friendly. I realized when we were visiting Philip in Marungu how much Mt. Kasigau defines and grounds us here.
Like the ocean at home, we can orient ourselves in relationship to which direction we are moving relative to the position of the mountain, how it looks in all the different villages, the way it frames each household, and what the weather is like up on top. When away from Kasigau, I find myself inadvertently looking up to see where I am and being unsettled not to see some view of Kasigau, and then scanning the horizon to see if we are close enough to our Kenyan home to see the profile of the beloved mountain.
Kris
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