Hello! Fine.

Ping Pong Project =)

2008-03-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

We have been working on building a ping pong table for the kids and we finally completed it before we left for the marathon. It was a really fun project and the kids jumped on the chance to play as soon as the finishing touches were completed. Maybe we'll fit in a tournament before we leave. Here are some pictures taken along the way...

Ping Pong!

2008-03-06T11:52:00.000-08:00

Race morning. Alarm at 4:45. (Sidenote here: I roomed with Karicho, and one cool thing is that he closes every single day by gathering for a few minutes with his roommates to pray, and then does the same immediately after waking each morning.) So on waking on race morning, as on the other mornings in Tanzania, I got to spend a few minutes praying with a guy who just amazes me over and over with the kind of person he is. After that, the others (Em, Titus, Douglas, Waiganjo, Gititi, Eunice, and our visiting photographer Jessica) joined us for a breakfast of bananas and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We left the hotel by about 5:35, only 5 minutes after our targeted departure time, but then waited a few minutes at the hotel next door for our friend Genevive from Nigeria, who, lest I forget to mention it later on, ended up getting second in the half marathon. So that put us in a bit of a squeeze on making it to the race in time for the start. We jammed on the 3-4 km walk over to the stadium and made it there just in time for me to make my traditional desperation bathroom run. And then the race started.

I don’t know what gets into people at the start of a 42 km race, but there are always a ton of people who think they are going to win it in the first 500 meters. Of course, when you are racing with a lot of East Africans, there are also always a bunch of people who start like they are running a 1500 meter race and then just go ahead and continue at that pace for 2 more hours. Titus turned out to be one of these people. He was amazing. He did this race on 5 weeks of training off of a calf muscle injury, and he finished in 2:25, good enough for 17th place. Now that time doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but that’s because I haven’t yet begun my rant about how diabolical this course was. One way of putting it is that four years ago in San Diego, I ran a 3:10 in my only other marathon. On this course I ran 3:26, and I am a much better runner (thanks in large part to Titus) now than I was then. Another way of putting it is that Karicho ran a 1:51 in the 30-km race in Nairobi (think 3 x 37-minute 10k, or on pace for a 2:37 marathon) on what was not a flat course, and he ran 3:08 here. Or still another way of putting it is that there was a freaking BRUTAL AND UNRELENTING 12.5 KM HILL that gained more than a thousand feet of elevation from kilometers 19 – 31.5, and that the temperature at the start of the race was hot enough that I was already sweating through my shirt after only a kilometer!

So, given what I just said, Titus ran amazing, and though the rest of our times didn’t look very impressive, I think we can’t be too disappointed. It would have been really easy to quit on that course with the hill as long as it was and coming where it did in the race, and believe me I thought about quitting a lot. As it was, though, we all put in great efforts. Douglas and Karicho finished before me, so I didn’t get to see their states of delirium after the race, but for my own part, after I finished, I became completely helpless for about an hour. Titus insisted on making me stay on my feet for 10 minutes or so, and for me to do this, he and Karicho had to support me because every time they let go I would lose my balance and fall into a random stranger. When Titus finally let me lay down, I ended up laying such that the sun was in my eyes, but I just wasn’t strong enough to change my position. I literally couldn't move. It was one of those times where you feel so terrible that you are convinced that there will actually be no future. Only this pain. And you wonder how in the heck you were actually running while in this condition just a few minutes before. And then you start thinking about the people you know who are still out there on the course, and you just hope they are okay... But with time the misery subsided and I was able to get up and find some more water and wait for Em to finish, and then watch her go through the same thing I had just gone through.

So… all of this before noon! Quite a morning! After we had all walked/taxied back to the hotel, Em asked Titus how he felt, and he said, in all seriousness and without meaning to boast, that he thought he was ready to do another marathon. Great, Titus, thanks. Then he started getting a kick out of how completely incapacitated everyone else was. He jokingly asked Karicho and me if we “would be in a position to do a bit of jogging”, but we took the question seriously because it was exactly the kind of question he would ask. Then at dinner, I asked Douglas how he was feeling, and at my question Titus just started to lose it laughing, doubling over in his chair and unable to control himself. Apparently Douglas had been unable to go down the stairs when they were walking to dinner, so he had to turn around and go down backwards. Then he lost it laughing again when he saw me get up from my chair after dinner and try to walk.

Okay, I think that’s all for the marathon. The next day was 12 hours of stiff, sore legs in shuttles and matatus again, but the smiling faces in the lighted windows at Tumaini lifted our tired spirits.

The coaches and Claire and Lara (who founded and manage Hope Runs) really want to make it possible for the kids here to do another marathon to reward them for all the hard work they did in vain for this one (see post of two days ago for the story), so they have decided to try to arrange for them to race in the Mombasa International Marathon on 18 May. We really really really hope this works out for them!!

Mt Kili Marathon Part 2

2008-03-05T11:42:00.000-08:00

… Continuing from yesterday…

A sleepy two-hour trip landed us in Nairobi, where we grabbed some tea for breakfast and then boarded a shuttle that would take us across the Kenya-Tanzania border and ultimately to Kilimanjaro. Frustrating story at the border: visas for American citizens traveling into Tanzania already cost a steep $100. We didn’t have American money with us, so we pulled out 7000 Kenyan schillings, figuring that since the exchange rate was hovering around 68 ksh to the dollar, we would be covered. The guy at the window told us we needed to pay him 8000 ksh, so we asked him what exchange rate they were using to calculate that. When we asked that question, he wouldn’t answer, but just became angry and started raising his voice at us and telling us that if we wanted to argue we should just go back across into Kenya and get US money. I don’t like to be suspicious of people, but I think there is a decent chance that the guy pocketed 1000 ksh out of that deal.

Southern Kenya and northern Tanzania were a lot different from Nyeri topographically. The hills are much more gentle – just barely steep enough to make for a brutal marathon. Also, this region is at lower elevation (~3000 ft instead of ~6000), so it is a lot hotter and a lot drier. We never saw a drop of water during our time in Tanzania save for about 5 minutes of light rain one afternoon. Other than that and the tap, not a puddle, not a creek, nothing. It looks like a much less hospitable place to live than central Kenya. Just the same, we did see a lot of people – mostly either nomadic Masai dressed in traditional clothing and jewelry and herding their animals or else tiny villages with mud huts.

So, we rolled into Moshi with stiff legs at around 3:00 in the afternoon, 12 hours after departing from Nyeri, and after some delicious Indian food from the Indian-Italian restaurant (yeah, weird combo, eh?) across the road, slept hard.

The next day, Saturday, we awoke and looked out the window to find out why the race we were about to do was called the Kilimanjaro Marathon. Moshi literally sits at the foot of the mountain. It is really amazing – it looms over the town, its top 16,000 feet above the streets where we would be running.

Around mid-morning went to register for the marathon, and this scene was of course a zoo. We were comforted to find that there were going to be quite a few other wazungu racing, which meant that we wouldn’t be the last finishers. We also got several requests from random kids to pay for them to register for the 5K fun run. We said yes to a couple of them, and then the floodgates opened, and we ended up registering 26 kids for the race. At about 80 cents a piece, this seemed like a great use of money. We hope that they actually raced. Also, as usual, one kid got screwed because another kid claimed his race number. This was a bummer, but there just wasn’t much we could do.

Okay, that’s a lot of boring details. Stay posted to hear about the actual race tomorrow…

Mt Kili Marathon Part One

2008-03-03T23:38:00.000-08:00

We know we have been MIA on the blog scene over the past couple of months so in our last days here we hope to play a lil catch up. To start things off...I'll fill you in on our Tanzanian marathon adventure:

We walked (or rather staggered) through the gate into Tumaini last night around 11p.m. and were welcomed by lighted windows filled with smiling faces and waving hands. The kids all crowded around their windows in their dorm rooms to wave and shout down questions about our trip. After an exhausting 11-hour bus ride including a sketchy trek through nairobi at 9pm at night - this was the best welcome ever! It felt really good to be home...

3 Days and 20 Hours Earlier - We jump onto the matatu at 3am Friday morning with two kids, two coaches, a manager and one talented and beautiful videographer. YUP, just TWO freakin kids. Let me just say that our plans for the marathon got royally douched on. it was a real big fat bummer! the manager was not able (after jumping through many hoops) to get border passes for the kids, SO that meant that out of the 20+ kids that trained with us for four months on many grueling long runs, we were only able to get two of them passes into Tanzania. You can imagine our heart break and discouragement. Plus, ALL of the girls were not able to come so I was extra bummed out! poop on a stinkin cracker! Thankfully, the kids had a more balanced and mature perspective on the whole disaster [side note - i realized that unfortunately that was probably due to the fact that they are more used to things not working out and being let down...which totally sucks that we were contributing to that theme in their life...that was probably killing me the most]. They were obviously discouraged but handled the news with incredible grace and understanding.

The whole thing was hanging by a thread but we decided to not pull the plug completely and continue on as planned with the two kids that were able to get passes. Most of this was because both were Form Four leavers (graduated high schoolers - ie. last chance for this opportunity) and one was James Karicho (a faithful, committed, and freakin fast runner who basically acts as captain and has been putting his whole heart into training for the marathon).

With that in mind, we decided to go for it and boarded the early morning matatu with heavy hearts, tense pre-marathon nerves, and tired eyelids.

To Be Continued...

Goodbye! Fine.

2008-02-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

The time has come for me to leave Kenya. It's ahead of my scheduled April departure, since I'm now needed back in the States for my sister's upcoming wedding. Because of the suddenness, I haven't had time yet to really appreciate what leaving means, and as I've begun saying goodbyes to those students who will be at school tomorrow when I leave, I'm awash with emotion. During the six months out of the last year (however non-consecutively) that I've spent living with the kids here, my average attitude towards them was probably some mixture of exasperation and bewilderment. The endless knocks on the door, the sly maneuvering to wheedle any variety of things from us, the interminable and insufferable church services... I suppose that complaining about such things internally has masked the more gradual and quieter growth of what, I notice with surprise, can only be called love! I never thought I'd struggle to fight back tears when saying goodnight to an 8-year-old, or that a poorly-spelled note slipped under the door, insisting that "sualy we will miss you very much," could drop me into a similar tailspin.

I guess the last few weeks here have been too busy for me to notice such things--a recording project I started with some of the songwriters here has blossomed into something greater than expected, and accordingly ate up most of my waking moments--but that topic deserves its own post (I'll supply it when I'm back in Terra Ignomino). Then there were the two final events of our House Competitions (you know, the ones between Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris), which had to be bumped up to accommodate my early absence--this weekend's grand finale was an awesome headache of uncoordinated mayhem! Finally, as we're nearing Marathon Day (less than a week away), we've been hitting the dirt and loading up on running mileage. Yesterday morning's long run was 26km, with about 2300 feet of elevation gain. On Friday, as many of the race-ready kids as we can fit into a van will be heading to Moshi, Tanzania for the Kilimanjaro marathon. Since I'll be back in California on that day, I'll be running the Napa Valley race instead--which will be an easy, downhill, cakewalk of a marathon in comparison.

I did have a strange moment on Saturday, when we took all of Tumaini to the nearby Ruring'u stadium. It has the distinction of being the place where many of the Kenyan refugees in this region are camping out. It also has a track (which is why we wanted to be there). Thirdly, it is close to Huruma, Tumaini's sister orphanage. When we went to Huruma for lunch in the middle of our track and field competitions, and as I watched some of the younger Tumaini kids greet with wide-eyed astonishment a swing-set and a slide for the first time, I was struck by the dream-like sensation that these were my kids encountering something new. And when little Faith and Gladys tentatively started playing (in that wordless though infinitely nuanced fashion children have) with some of the Hurumans, I felt my breath catch as I waited to see if they would get along and play nice. Perhaps most unsettling to my young, all-too-bachelor self was the sense of responsibility I experienced in it all. If Faith had fallen off the slide, or if Gladys had sucker-punched a Huruman (which she might very well have done), I know I would have been involved in an instant. Does this mean I will be a good parent? No. But maybe it means I won't be a horrible one!

In one way or another, it's thoughts like these that come into my head now that I'm about to leave. I'm already missing the dusty red of the walk to town, the brilliant gleam of the high-angle equatorial sun on the plants in the shamba in the mornings, and the exhilaration of cresting a tortuous hill on a long run and being greeted by the overpowering sight of Mt Kenya's majestic cone and its three glacier-covered peaks. But the withdrawal pains will come most strongly with memories of faces--from Rhoda's crazed hilarity to Mary's doe-eyed wonderment to Grace's far-seeing thoughtfulness to Stacy's always-ready half-smile... and yes, even Edwin's post-Christmas-cow-killing grin! The only question is, how long can I stay away?

Right now, there's no answer to that question, and life has a way of leading us down all kinds of different paths. But I know that, sooner or later, I'll end up here in Nyeri again. I hope it won't be too long--but even if it is, I know that the relationships I've gained--brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins--will still be here. But for the time being, this is my last entry from Kenya. I hope you've enjoyed my third of the blog as much as I've enjoyed writing it--and I hope Michael and Emilee keep the stories coming until they leave in a few weeks. I know that I for one will be looking eagerly for them as soon as I conclude my long two days of travel!

As they say in Swahili, Karibu Tena!

Time Trials?

2008-02-13T11:39:00.000-08:00

It's been a shameful while since we've written, but the kids have been keeping us busy. We're now in the last few weeks of training before our marathon in Tanzania, and so running has taken its toll! For my part, I've also been working with several of the kids to produce and record some songs they have written, before I leave Kenya at the end of this month (making the trip home for my sister's wedding)!

Between the running and the music, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to film a short video, set to music by Mary (a student here at Tumaini). The subject of the video is 'time trials'--the 7k or 10k timed runs that Coach Titus has us do every few weeks to get a feel for how the kids are improving.

On this particular day, as you will see, the time trials were not universally understood and respected, whether by the kids or by nature itself--but that doesn't stop everyone from having a good time.

Enjoy! And let me know what you think of this glimpse into our daily afternoon routine. (Apologies for YouTube, whose compression ruins the audio and whose watermark obscures some subtitles).

Still Alive, Computers Working, Despite Grudges

2008-01-24T11:45:00.000-08:00

Apologies are no doubt owed for this relatively long radio silence. It has been due, thankfully, to our own busyness here and not because any of Kenya's troubles have reached us at Nyeri. It is deeply saddening to read the news of what is going on in other parts of the country, and hear accounts of the pain firsthand (there are over 100 refugees living not 3 kilometers away in a local sports field). At the same time, we are grateful that we have been able to continue our work mostly unaffected, and that the kids haven't been subject to anything outside of what's on the TV.

In truth, life has been good here the last few weeks since I returned to Kenya, with our biggest hardships comprised of woes like finding the grocery store less than fully stocked, and slightly higher gas prices.

The computer classes at Tumaini have likewise continued, and I have the good fortune to be even at this moment looking at a blackboard with the remnants of what appears to be a lecture on "Computer Security". The chalk on the board haphazardly forms a list, ostensibly of the various facets of "Computer Security". They are (strictly mirroring punctuation and emphasis):

Environmental Threats
Clumsiness
Stabilizers
~~Terror~~ists Attacks
grudges

Hmm. Apparently, 'Environmental Threats' are the most ominous bad guys in the world of computer security. And I can see that; maybe it's not obvious that computers should be kept out of the rain. But what are 'Stabilizers'? And why do they threaten my PC? "No! Don't bring that Stabilizer in here!"

The best, though, is clearly 'grudges'. You never know when your computer's security might be compromised by a grudge. And multiple grudges working in concert? Forget it, your RAM is hosed.

You might also be glad to know that from what I've overheard, the classes on word processing are just as helpful to the student.

Tumaini Football Cup

2008-01-16T12:41:00.000-08:00

Football Cup

Most afternoons after their five o’clock tea, you can find the secondary boys out at the field playing football. A bunch of the guys regularly go out to play pick-up at the primary school adjacent to Tumaini. They have even competed in tournaments against local teams around Nyeri whenever they can find a sponsor to organize a tournament. There was a tournament organized for December that fell through because their sponsor lost his local election (and thus lost his interest in supporting the local football tournament). So, with the help of a few of the boys, I decided to organize and sponsor a tournament for them.

So within the span of a couple of weeks, we put together and organized Tumaini’s 2008 Football Cup, which was held this past weekend. I had the dual responsibility of sponsor/organizer and center mid for the Tumaini Classics. Despite a last minute field change, a small stint of rain, and a few typical tournament tiffs between competing teams, the whole thing turned out to be a success and lots of fun for the boys.

The tournament included six local teams competing in one round of group play with two teams from each group qualifying for semi-final playoff matches. The first match was scheduled for 9am on Saturday morning but due to typical Kenyan unpunctuality, we started just after 10. Eight games later and just before sunset, we wrapped up the first day of the tournament and left the championship and consolation games for the following day to be played in the local stadium.

Our Tumaini squad had an impressive showing. We battled it out in the competitive group matches against teams, Trench and Gatitu, and came out as the Group A champions by goal differential. However, we lost a hard fought semi-final to land us in the consolation match. The final was comprised of Micha and St. Mary’s and despite pre-game conflict over complaints of “corruption” on the part of Micha (they were accused of bringing in ringers for the championship match), the last game of the tournament went smoothly and was decided on an intense penalty kick shootout. Micha FC came out on top as the tournament champs and received their prize money of ksh.1000 and a new Nike ball (compliments of Stanford soccer ☺).

Another highlight of the weekend was the timely arrival of the donated jerseys for Tumaini delivered by Jonathan just before kick-off of our first match. Through the organizational efforts of Dianna Heeb, MVLA soccer club and St. Simon’s sent a duffle bag full of jerseys, goalie gloves, and warm-ups with Jonathan on his return flight back to Kenya. This surprise delivery resulted in many smiles and made for a very “smart” looking Tumaini squad.

Playing Santa

2008-01-01T13:12:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM KENYA!

We have many stories and pictures from Christmas activities that we will post soon...to start it off, here are some pictures from our 4am secret mission.

Since we knew the journals would be a belated Christmas present, we decided to put together something small to surprise the kids with on Christmas morning. We printed out the portraits of the kids that we took for the journals, glued psalm 139 on the back of them, and packaged them with ribbon. We were up late getting them finished so the kids could have a Christmas morning surprise! It was a ton of fun...hope you enjoy looking at the pictures!

Christmas Morning

Football practice

2007-12-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from a spontaneous football practice with the primary boys. It was a ton of fun! Thanks to everyone that donated cleats and socks. They loved them!

Football training

A Haircut

2007-12-22T12:12:00.000-08:00

Not going to write a lot here; it's mainly the pictures. I got a haircut tonight. It wasn't til I saw it lying on the ground that I realized how much hair I had. Everyone here (both boys and girls) is required to keep their hair buzzed all the time, so they have haircutting sessions probably three times per week on average. The haircuts are given by one of the secondary students with some buzzers in the carport. This afternoon it was Charles that was acting as barber, which was nice, because he is very trustworthy with everything, including other people's hair. After I was done, Emilee started giving a haircut to little Rhoda, but just a few minutes after she had started cutting, the power went out, and Rhoda was left with a half-shaved head, hehe - if there is anyone who could handle something like that, it would be Rhoda. Okay, here are the pictures:

A Haircut

An American Interlude

2007-12-21T22:35:00.001-08:00

While Michael and Emilee eat the Christmas Cow on December 25, I'll be with some family in Camp Verde, AZ. The kids were disappointed when they heard I was going home for Christmas, and I don't blame them--in fact, I'm sad to miss the celebrations at Tumaini myself! A good number of the kids also thought I was purposefully abandoning them in favor of a 'White Christmas', and it was hard to convince them otherwise.

In actual fact, this is a sort of landmark Christmas for our family, since for the first time ever we have opted to forego all gift-giving and holiday money-spending, and instead are traveling to Arizona to fix up my aunt and uncle's house, which has happened to be in a bit of a sad state. I'm certainly a bit self-conscious about how 'self-righteous' this tactic can come across to people (I know I've thought that about those people who go work in soup kitchens on Christmas). Therefore, I am in no way passing judgment on those who do partake in The Rush this year. Still, there's a genuine satisfaction in the idea as well, and indeed, my family can't go anywhere without having a bit of fun, so we're also planning a 2-day hike down and up the Grand Canyon. I haven't been there for probably 15 years, so I'm excited to camp in the wintry desert location.

But all this was hard to explain to the kids, until I got a clue from Cucu Kariuki and decided to start telling people I was going to a 'harambe'--a sort of Kenyan festival held by friends or relatives of people who are in need, in order to raise money and supplies for them. It's not the same, of course, but it's close enough, and it did the trick: as soon as I mentioned 'harambe', they understood the need to go home. Still, had it been any other year, I would have loved to stay at Tumaini, and I envy Michael's and Emilee's opportunity to share Christmas with the kids.

Well, after a long 42 hours of travel, I arrived back in San Francisco last night. What surprised me most was how unsurprising it was to be back in the States. After my previous 2-month stint in Kenya, the mass of development, the showers, the clean running water, etc..., all caught me rather off guard. It took almost a full week to shake the feeling that something was very wrong somewhere. This time, everything just seems like, well, what it is. I suppose this state of affairs is neither good nor bad, but I found it interesting.

Now, I'm killing the hour or two I have left before our midnight departure to the Grand Canyon. (On family road trips, we like to leave in the 2nd watch of the night, when traffic is at a minimum--and this practice holds a lot of nostalgia for me). I've taken my fill of fast internet and hot showers (though finding high-protein vegetarian food has proved more difficult than in Kenya), and will now leave the blogging to those who are actually remaining in Kenya, until I return in early January. Happy Christmas! (And perhaps more appropriate for this particular day: Happy Winter Solstice!)

Munchies

2007-12-18T00:38:00.000-08:00

Many have asked how life is going here in Kenya and there are so many emotions, thoughts, and feelings to this experience so far that I decided to consolidate them into what I am calling munchies…

Simplicity - From walking everywhere to cooking all meals from scratch (mainly with garden vegetables) to practicing daily rhythms of discipline with Lipps and Tbone to just having fewer distractions...life here is typified by simplicity which I love!

Adorable! - These kids are seriously too cute for words! Some of them are harder to love than others but some I honestly want to just steal away when I leave. They emit so much joy, energy, laughter, and cuteness that it is often too much to capture. (There cuteness is like an epic landscape of mountains that you just can't contain in a picture...cheesy metaphor but true) One of my favorite things is running alongside the little ones as they grip your hand. (Michael talked about this in an earlier blog) Following a run with little Edwin during the first few weeks we were here, I wrote a poem that I may post later (if I work up the courage).

Eye-opening - It is not the stark reality of the poverty that is surprising this time (I was expecting that aspect more because of experiences on previous trips) but it is the little realty checks that hit you each day of how different life is here from what I experienced growing up. This is where I have too many thoughts to put into words right now (most of them pop up randomly as we're walking to town or running through the neighborhood) but all I can say is I know this experience will leave me with a very deep imprint.

Filling - This word translates to many areas including the belly. We are constantly cooking and each dinner takes at least two hours from start to finish but the meals have been so yummy! Each meal is a different experiment from Jonathan's Mennonite cookbook ("Less is More") and I have loved getting more into cooking! (Banana bread just came out of the oven! :) Not only is my tummy getting filled but I'm loving the time that we have here to read...I have been filled and nourished most recently by Melissa Fay Greene's "There is no me without you." and Scandrette's "Soul Grafitti." (I highly recommend both!) Along with these personal reads, each morning we make breakfast together and one person reads aloud while the other two cook. It's one of my favorite parts of the day! We are also making our way through NT's big fatty which has been really packed and filling in it's own way.

Sick - Unfortunately from the moment I arrived, I have been hit with one thing after the next, allergy to cold to infection to mysterious eye problem and now to another cold. It has been really frustrating but will hopefully pass soon thanks to many drugs and the help of Dr. ONeil. (Props and thanks to him! :)

Blessed - So many kids here have stories of abuse, death, abandonment and hardship. It reminds me to be thankful for the blessings I've received in the way of loving family and friends. It is amazing to realize how many gifts and blessings I take for granted each day. I have also felt incredibly blessed by the relationships, conversations and faith that I have witnessed in some of the older Tumaini kids.

There are many more words that I could use to describe this experience but I'll let you munch on these for now.

"You're Cheating Me!"

2007-12-18T00:32:00.001-08:00

Here is a snapshot from Saturday that I wanted to add to Tbone’s post. There were two awesomely hilarious moments one right after the other…

During one of the races, a car drove by occupied by two Asians. This is a rare sight in Nyeri, Kenya (more so than the occasional Mzungu sighting). Little Edwin immediately rushed across the road to me and said, "Emilee, do you know them? They are the same as you? Chinese." (Every Asian to them is Chinese by the way) This was followed by at least five other kids asking similar questions. This was funny in and of itself but then I got into a conversation with some as I was trying to explain my ethnicity...

"No, I don’t know them and I'm Korean not Chinese. I'm half Korean and…half Kenyan!" This got the response of many excited giggles and shouts of "No! Mzungu!"

Then one little one said, "You're cheating me!" This is a statement we have gotten before from others when we are joking with them but the hilarity arises from the fact that the statement comes out pronounced as "you're shitting me!" Similar to the monkey nuts story (see Jonathan's blog below), the blind innocence of what they are saying makes the whole experience that much cuter and funnier. Imagine yourself surrounded by a group of little ones saying, "You're shitting me! You’re shitting me!" in high pitched squeals.

It was awesome.

Who Will Kill the Christmas Cow?

2007-12-17T10:08:00.000-08:00

Here at Tumaini, the kids have three meals: Githeri (beans and maize), Rice and Beans, and Ugali (beans and a maize polenta). Githeri is eaten for every lunch and quite a few dinners, whereas rice and beans and ugali are served less frequently. Given this monotony, it's easy to explain the mounting excitement that accompanies the approach to Christmas here. You see, on Christmas, the children have told us, "we will eat cow!" This is one of the two days per year where they are allowed to eat meat (and because of or in spite of this many profess meat to be their favorite meal).

In addition to the cow, incidentally, several of the rabbits kept here for breeding are purportedly going to be eaten. And, since the rabbits are named (of course) after us and others of the volunteers who have stayed at Tumaini, many of the children take great delight in telling us that on Christmas, "we will eat Michael and Emilee!" And then they laugh diabolically. (Jonathan the rabbit will not be eaten at Christmas; At first I was glad, but then they told me that he has already been "eaten by dogs," because "he rotted and died.")

Anyway, the three of us were sitting around last night, and wondered where they typically get the cow that they eat for Christmas. Then we realized they probably just kill one of the cows they keep on site. After discussing, agricultural newbs that we are, the horror involved in slaughtering an animal like that, and talking ignorantly about what method would be used, the question finally arose, Who will kill the Christmas cow?

It's definitely going to be Edwin.

Edwin, after killing last year's Christmas Cow

Field Day: 5k

2007-12-16T02:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had our second installment of “house competitions”. (Recall previous posts about House Tigris, House Euphrates, and House Nile, with teams divided according to age and gender into such names as “Eleven Tigers”, “Invincible United”, “Winner”, and “Cheetah”.)

This time the competition was a 5k running race. Fortunately for us, this was quite a bit lower maintenance than football, as it did not require construction of new facilities or oversight of 18 games. It still required some work, but this time it wasn’t as much, and we had the help of Titus, so we weren’t completely drained at the end of the day. So rather than tell a whole bunch of details about the race, I’ll just tell two little stories.

Story 1: The first race of the day was for the Primary 1-4 students, or “the little ones”, as some of them refer to themselves. (Quoting little Edwin, on most days that we run: “Will you be running with the little ones today?” [And if the answer is yes, then one of us gets the joy of holding his hand for the entire run, which has a cuteness that I think will never grow old.]) They were doing a course that was about 1.5 kilometers, but of course when Jonathan blew the start whistle, almost every single kid started out in a drop-dead sprint. I was going to run with them to play sweeper and make sure no one got left behind or lost, but 50 yards down the road, little 8-year-old Jimmy tripped on someone’s foot and went face down onto the dirt, hard. Then several people behind him actually stepped on him as they ran past. He rose back up to his feet in full sobs, with one knee and one elbow bleeding. Between sobs, he said that he wanted to keep going, so he got up and we followed the others. But after going for about 10 minutes, I realized that we had taken a wrong turn, and by this time, the emotional and physical fatigue had set in for Jimmy, so we turned around and started walking home, with the occasional tear rolling down his cheek. When we got back to the start, we found little Mary also crying, having taken a similar spill right as she crossed the finish line. We went back to our room to dress the wounds, and 30 minutes, 15 band-aids, and 4 biscuits (cookies) later, they seemed to be doing a lot better. It made us all very happy that these two were both on Team Lioness of Jonathan’s House Nile, which won the Primary 1-4 competition, and were therefore awarded a pack of Bubblicious at the end of the day.

Story 2: Actually the second “story” is just a recap of a conversation that determined the outcome of the Secondary Boys’ race. (Here is some information that will help to put he conversation in context: Eleven Tigers is for Jonathan’s House Nile; Invincible United is part of my House Euphrates. Christopher Ewoi is the fastest runner here at Tumaini, and is part of Eleven Tigers.)

Me (to Jonathan, sitting inside our apartment at lunch): “Ewoi told me that he isn’t going to run today because he’s tired.”
Jonathan: “What?!!!”
Jonathan (getting up and going to the door after hearing Ewoi’s voice outside): “Ewoi! Come over here!... What’s this about you not racing today?”
Ewoi: “I’m so tired. I don’t think I can race today”
Jonathan: “Eleven Tigers needs you! You have to race!”
Ewoi: “I’m so tired.”
Sammy (of Invincible United, overhearing their conversation, and perfectly aware of the humor in what he is saying): “Ewoi, it’s okay. If you feel tired then you shouldn’t run.”
Ewoi (in a tone reminiscent of Markus Rogan): “Sammy, just because you said that, I’m going to race.”

(If you’re wondering about the outcome of Ewoi’s decision, well, he won by almost 2 minutes: 17:52 over 5.1 hilly kilometers of rocky, ankle-turning ground, or 5:38 per mile. For reference, I ran well and did 20:05. Ewoi is getting really fast!)

Here are some pictures of the day’s activities. Joseph Waiganjo (Form 4 leaver and really nice guy) took my camera and was the photographer for the day:

Tumaini 5k!

A Bonafide Downpour

2007-12-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

I actually feel a little bit bad for posting something that will push Jonathan's hilarious Monkey Nuts down the page, so if you haven't yet seen Monkey Nuts, then please be so kind as to scroll down and look at those, I mean that, first, because this post will not be nearly as entertaining...

When it rains here in Nyeri, it isn't like anything we are used to on the West Coast of the USA. Sometimes you're not sure whether it is raining or you're underwater and there are bubbles rising upward; such is the ratio of air to water. And the raindrops are humongous, not to mention warmer than I am used to! Emilee and I went for a run a couple days ago, and when the first raindrops started falling about 15 minutes from home, I commented that I enjoy running in the rain. God tried to call my bluff about 1 minute later! Of course I smoothly sidestepped his call by clarifying that I do not necessarily like running in the mud. But the truth is that I did enjoy those last 14 minutes more than almost any other 14 minutes of running in my life (one exception being the first run I did here with the kids, a description of which I've been wanting to post for a long time). Weather like that sort of makes you stop worrying about other stuff and just appreciate it. It boosts your adrenaline, heightens all your senses, and makes your whole body come alive from inside to out.

Here are a few pictures I took from right outside our front door during a downpour last week - it had been sunny that morning and I put my shoes outside to dry:

A Bonafide Downpour

Monkey Nuts

2007-12-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

Waking up on Sunday morning in time for church is often difficult. I confess (all too readily, perhaps) that the church services here aren't what I particularly crave in the way of spiritual edification. The music that sets my teeth decidedly on edge (insanely overblown speakers, off-key saccharine synth jams pumping from the electronic keyboard, etc...) has already been mentioned, for example. Of course, they do some things here in Riamukurwe Parish that are a breath of fresh air. Women from the community, not even trained 'ministers', regularly preach. 'Presentations', or songs performed by any member of the congregation, take up a large portion of the service, and it's nice to see such involvement appreciated (even if, to my classically-trained ears, those moments have a definite Purgatorial feel).

But, "Church" is another entry, deserving of a title different than "Monkey Nuts," which you may be wondering about. The story I want to tell happened a few weeks ago, and it was in fact during one of those Sundays where Eunice, the Manager (heroine of so many of my blogs, it seems), was delivering the Word of God. As everyone who preaches seems to think, the Word of God by itself can be a bit boring, and so it's good to spice the message up with illustrations and anecdotes.

As Michael, Emilee, and I were sitting three-quarters of the way to the back of the small church, Eunice began to tell a story about certain farmers in another part of Africa, ostensibly to support a point she was making. I was only half-listening, expecting this story to follow the general pattern, that is, to have no link at all to anything that has been said so far. I think I was right. But anyway, the story went something like this:

These farmers produce, as a cash crop, a certain variety of nuts which sell well in other regions. But, as it happens, a local species of monkey is driven wild with pleasure when eating these treats, and so they do all they can to steal them from the farmers. The farmers, being humans and therefore more ingenious than the monkeys, devised a way to trap the monkeys and save their crops: they would take some nuts and put them into a large clay pot with a very narrow mouth. The monkeys would smell the food, rush to the pots, and insert a little simian hand, grasping the nuts. Of course, their fistful of treasure then makes their paws too big to remove from the pot without first letting go of the prize. Unwilling to do this, the monkeys are forced to stay with one hand in the trap, until the farmers can come at leisure and kill them.

So far, so good. I thought it was a worthy story (in fact, one I'd heard about in 5th grade through science class, and liked). I could see where Eunice was going with it too--the nuts are analogous like those things we foolishly hold on to that are going to bring us to ruin. Therefore, we shouldn't be like those monkeys (in our spiritual lives), clinging to pleasures that will only bring death.

But while I was thinking these things, Eunice made her conclusion in some unexpected words: "The Lord wants you to release your monkey nuts!"

I snickered, and looked around thinking everyone else must be too. But all the Kenyans were staring straight ahead, some simply nodding in agreement. Eunice went on, excited by her point. And then she said it again, with feeling: "The LORD wants you to release your monkey nuts!"

I realized at once I was in trouble. The Lord wants me to release my monkey nuts? Ha. Ha ha ha. Monkey nuts! Though I don't laugh at every dirty double entendre I hear, the context, the complete lack of intention, was too much. The corners of my mouth began to quiver, and soon I found myself smiling uncontrollably. A Kenyan to my left looked at me, and I looked down, hiding my face. Then the laughing began: those stomach shakes that I refused to let move up to the throat. "If only I can avoid looking at Michael and Emilee," I thought, "I'll be OK."

But Eunice was not on my side. Really worked up now, she got a bit more personal, and asked the congregation a question, leaning forward from the pulpit and talking in a suddenly low, serious voice: "What nuts are you holding on to?" she said with a penetrating gaze.

And that was it. A stifled guffaw inadvertently escaped my lips, and I ducked behind the pew in front of me, pretending to be reading a Bible. Then I heard movement from Emilee beside me, and saw that she too was trying to keep from breaking out in laughter. I couldn't see Michael, and that was probably what saved us all from total humiliation. But, that feeling came that we all know, when it's one of those times where it's completely inappropriate to laugh, but two people think something is funny, and the mere fact that they know the other thinks it's funny too makes it impossible to get a grip.

Remembering that I'd read about such situations, I tried a folk remedy and started pinching myself. The pain didn't help. And so I stayed bowed forward for a full minute, until I thought the storm had passed, and the lashings of laughter subsided. Eunice had moved on, and we were in the clear. That is, until she came to her grand finale, and in full-throated Kenyan fashion made her pronouncement: "It is not a surprise that some of us will burn in Eternal Hellfire because we are holding on to monkey nuts!"

So true, Eunice, so true.

Needless to say, a lot of people were wondering what was going on with the Wazungu, though no comments were made. I tried to make it look like I had been crying (and I was...), moved by the sermon--but it wasn't that kind of sermon. Anyway, it's these little cultural or linguistic differences, and other random hilarities, that keep life here exciting. Like tonight, while playing Pictionary with the Form 4 Leavers (the secondary school graduates), when the phrase to draw was, appropriately, "Baby Jesus". One team's artist chose to signify the stick-figure infant's holy status by drawing a manger, and streaks of light shining gloriously around Jesus' body. The other team's artist chose a more realistic tack, and decided instead to draw the little newborn, not just as Baby Jesus, but as "Extremely Well-Endowed Baby Jesus If You Know What I Mean". Everyone in the room had a good laugh for about 10 minutes. Oh, and in case you were wondering: the streaks of shining glorious light turned out to be a better symbol--our team won.

Nyeri Half Marathon

2007-12-11T10:35:00.001-08:00

On Saturday, roughly 80 kids from here at Tumaini competed in a road race only 4 kilometers from here in the town of Nyeri. About 20 of us competed in the half marathon (21k), and the other 60 competed in a 3k children’s race.

I won’t go too far into the details of the mess that was registering for the race. Theoretically, the kids who were entered should have known that they were entered, because the ones who were entered were the ones who had told Coach Titus that they wanted to race. But just the same, the night before the race, there was a sea of chaos outside our door with every kid 12 years old and younger wanting to know if their name was on our printout of entrants. One little 9-year-old, Edwin, literally jumped 3 feet in the air in excitement when I told him he was racing. It was one of the most unashamed expressions of joy that I have ever seen, and it was incredibly cute. (The whole scene with the kids wondering whether they were entered actually made me somewhat sad, because I think a large factor in it was that many of them are so used to being let down that they hardly even dare to hope for someone to follow through on their promises any more, let alone to expect it.)

So, to the race... The race was supposed to start at 8:00 AM, and Titus had warned us that "Kenyans are not very punctual, so it might start late. Maybe at 10 minutes after 8." I don't know if we mis-heard him, and he actually said "maybe at 10", or if he was just way off! Indeed, the race was supposed to start at 8:00, but apparently that meant the race organizers started setting up for the race at 8:00.

So, after we had gathered 80 kids at the front gate of the home at 6:45 in the morning and walked them into town to arrive at 7:30 for check-in, we just had to sit and wait til about 8:30, when people came and started putting putting up signs from the sponsors and everything. At 9:30, we finally were able to start checking in and picking up our t-shirts. At 10:00, with about half the kids checked in, they ran out of t-shirts and race numbers. While someone was going to find extra shirts and numbers, we heard a buzz that the 3k race was about to start. Titus went to ask them to please not start the race until everyone had been given their number, and succeeded. (As an aside, Titus is awesome. I don't know what we would ever do without him. He is also, I think, the best coach I have ever met in any sport. He is a very well-integrated person and is excellent with the kids, striking a healthy balance of strictness and gentleness, of being their advocate and a disciplinarian.)

Eventually, at 10:45, the 21k race started. Titus told me that the course was "not too hilly", but this was a statement that I had heard from him before and have since learned to regard as utterly meaningless. Had we started at 8:00, we would have had nice cool running weather, but as it was, we had a blazing sun that made the 80-degree air feel much hotter than it was. Anyway, these are my excuses for my very ugly time of 1:33 - almost 6 minutes slower than I did in my only other half marathon 4 years ago. (For those of you who are curious about how my running is improving, I'll say that I was pretty disappointed at first at the apparent lack of improvement in spite of all the training, but after thinking about how much hillier and hotter this was than my other race, it's almost impossible to compare the two.)

Some of the other 21k runners from Tumaini did really well! Jonathan wasn't able to race because of Achilles tendon pain, but Karicho improved his time by 11 minutes from 6 weeks ago on a much flatter, cooler course in Nairobi, from 1:35 to 1:24. And Ewoi improved his time from 1:30 in Nairobi to 1:20 here. Believe it or not, Emilee finished at almost the exact same time as Ewoi! Unfortunately, this was because she and Ruth, the Tumaini girl she was running with, missed a poorly marked turn and cut about 6 kilometers out of the course =). After seeing the race organization, I can't say I'm surprised about this - I actually missed the same turn and ran about about a minute extra, and wouldn't have even known to turn back if I hadn't seen several others also backtracking.

Now, the funny thing about running in a race in Kenya is this: I'm not a great runner, but I'm faster than most people I see running in the USA. If I enter a race, I would say I usually finish in the top 20 percentile or so. Here, not so AT ALL! I finished in position number 167. Karicho (9 minutes faster than me) was number 157. Ewoi (13 minutes faster) was number 133. I finished right as they were starting the awards ceremony. I doubt there were more than 20 people who finished behind me. That means I was roughly in the bottom 10 percentile. And this wasn't a national championship or anything - it was the Nyeri Half Marathon - maybe the equivalent of the Menlo Park Turkey Trot.

Another highlight for the Tumaini / Hope Runs people was that in the kids' 3k race, 12-year-old James Lukine took second place. (He actually got nipped out as he slowed down crossing the finish line and otherwise would have won - a good lesson.) I was surprised that he was the top runner, because there were two other Tumaini kids who I thought were faster, but they finished in 10th and 15th places, respectively. But I should have known better, because Lukine more than anyone else here has one of those strides that is just poetry in motion - absolutely beautiful to watch!

A couple other things that I found interesting during the race were: 1) The road was not closed to traffic, meaning that you had to watch out for matatus travelling way too fast and deal with the occasional lungful of unfiltered diesel exhaust (I have since concluded that the organizers' decision to not close the road to traffic had to do with the fact that most runners here are assumed to be able to run at the same speed as traffic.) 2) Without a single exception, every time that I came up from behind a male racer and began to overtake him, he would look and see that it was a white guy and put in a little kick to get ahead of me again - he would repeat this until he would either start walking or slow to a crawl of a run and I would go by him for good. 3) Catherine N'Dereba, the former world record holder in the marathon, was there watching and handing out awards. Titus went to primary school with her and knows her quite well, so he introduced both Jonathan and Emilee to her, though I missed meeting her. Jonathan and Emilee said she was very nice.

After the race, the whole Tumaini herd walked back home. Em and I crashed on the sofas for the rest of the afternoon, Jonathan did some work, and the kids went into the dining hall and watched Rambo 4 or something like that.

Well, this was a long post, and if you made it this far, then thanks for reading!

Field Day: Kandanda

2007-12-05T03:40:00.002-08:00

Some of you readers may recall Jonathan’s post from a few weeks back, "Tumaini Is the New Hogwarts". He wrote about how we had divided Tumaini into the “houses” with the names “Tigris”, “Euphrates”, and “Nile”, and would be having sporting competitions divided along the lines of these houses during the remainder of our time here.

Well, on Saturday, we had our first day of competition. We figured we should start out with a game that the kids understand and love. And, as far as I know, outside of the USA and Canada, where kids’ hearts are stolen by basketball, baseball, American football, or hockey, the first love of every child everywhere in the world is football. Not American football, but football as in futbol, or soccer, or, in Kiswahili, kandanda.

Prior to the day of competition, we took each house and divided it into six teams according to age and gender. Each team had between 7 and 10 students. We told each team to select a name for itself, and they came up with some pretty good ones. The three youngest teams dubbed themselves “Lion”, “Lioness”, and “Cheetah”; some other highlights were “Castle”, “Winner”, “Santos Corporation”, “Dark Angels”, “Super Eagle”, “Eleven Tigers” (there were only 9 on that team, but you need 11 for a full football team, so they said they were “trusting God to provide the remaining two”), and my personal favorite, from my own House Euphrates, “Invincible United” (which, unfortunately, turned out to be quite vincible).

Each age group played a round robin, meaning that there needed to be 3 games in each age group, across 6 age groups, for a total of 18 games. This meant that we needed to turn the one football full-size football field at the primary school next door into two half-size fields in order to fit all the games in one day. It also meant that a lot of grass had to be cut… without a lawnmower.

Fortunately, we had Christopher Ewoi (see previous post, "Tumaini Lives, Part 1"), who assured us that he could handle the construction of some new goals out of wood and nails. He oversaw a group of kids who found straight and sturdy tree branches, stripped them smooth with a machete, nailed them together, and planted them in holes in the ground. The goals were really strong, as evidenced by the way they handled some hard crossbar shots! (Unfortunately, it was mostly secondary boys working on the goals, and they built the first field right in the middle of their existing playing field, figuring that they would play on that one and leave the girls to play on a little tiny one off to the side. We had to make them move the goals to correct this, which was very difficult, since we now had football goals up and footballs floating around, and shooting footballs through the football goals proved to be more interesting to most of the kids than doing more work to prepare the field. In the end, for this same reason, we never really got the grass adequately cut on the second field, and it turned out to be a little bit more difficult to play on, but I never heard any complaints about this.) Ewoi brought out bags of sawdust on the morning of competition and marked the sidelines, goal-boxes, etc. We named the fields “Manchester” and “Milan”.

The competition turned out to be a blast! Nearly all the students were out at the fields all day, from 10 am til 6:30 pm. Each house got a different color headband to wear as a uniform (See pictures; Tigris wore green, Euphrates white, and Nile grey.) If students were not playing, they were usually cheering for other teams from their house. There was a lot of celebration and a little sulking. We got a lot of help from many of the older students for things like reffing games, acting as line judges, timing, video-taping, and most importantly, herding the young ones when it was time for them to play. One of my favorite things was watching the girls play, because it was clear that they were enjoying being welcomed as being on equal footing with the boys. Many of the girls teams had a lot of team spirit, doing cheers before their games and requesting team photos afterward.

The day left us very tired, and as if to punctuate it, we were greeted with a power outage just a few minutes after we returned to our apartment and began to prepare dinner. But it was super fun, and we are definitely looking forward to our future sporting days. I’m not sure how we’re going to manage it when we get to a sport that the students have never played, like Ultimate Frisbee, and will not have the advantage of being able to ask the older students to oversee the younger ones, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out somehow.

Here is a link to a photo album with a few shots from the day:

Football Field Day

Idiosyncracies of Kenyan English, Part 1

2007-12-02T05:04:00.000-08:00

The two national languages here in Kenya are English and Kiswahili. However, from what we have seen, it is unusual for people to speak either of these languages as a first language (this may not be the case in Nairobi or other large cities). Most people speak their tribal dialect as a first language (in this region, the most common dialect is Kukuyu), Kiswahili as their second, and English as their third. I have been asked several times what my mother tongue is, and people are surprised to hear that English is the first language for almost everyone who grows up in the USA. So most people's English is quite good, but they speak it differently from the way we do in the USA. Just as the British and Australians speak their versions of the language that seem comical to Americans (and vice versa, I'm sure), so do the Kenyans. Here are a few of the highlights we have noticed so far. I'm afraid that a written description will never do justice to the cuteness of a young child saying any of these things, but if you want to get as close to the full effect as possible, then please imagine everything below being spoken in an adorable young voice with a Kenyan accent.

• “Me too” = “Even me…” As in: “Even me, I have bingo!" (pronounced “beego!”) Actually, this doesn’t even have to be “me too” – it can simply be used to draw attention to oneself at the start of a sentence – basically, “Even me, I…” instead of just plain “I…”

• “He” or “She” = “This one…”, especially when referring to one’s friends. As in: “This one likes to eat ugali,” or “This one has cut his finger.” This is actually said by adults and kids alike, and I have found myself adopting the expression readily. The manager, Eunice, might tell us: “By the way, this one is very smart,” or “Oh yes, this one, he likes to cause trouble.”

• “May I please have…” = “Give me a…” or “Help me with a…” Different expressions must be considered polite here, because even the sweetest, most polite and gentle kids ask for things in this blunt way. As in, “Give me marbles” or “Help me with tape.”

• Coach speaking, when stretching after a run, “Exercise, commence!”

• Coach speaking, when stretching after a run, “To your maximum.”

• Coach speaking, when stretching after a run, some Kiswahili word that sounds to my untrained ears like "Marijuana!” - I'm sure that when I finally learn the word, it will be something that makes a lot more sense in the context than its English homophone.

• Coach speaking, when nearing the end of a run, “Finishing spirit”

• “Spoil the air”, followed by "hahahahaha, hahahahaha, hahahahaha" = you guessed it. As in, “This one likes to spoil the air. Hahahahaha, hahahahaha, hahahahaha!” or “Even me, help me with a fan. Rhoda has spoiled the air. Hahahahaha, hahahahaha, hahahahaha!” It's good to know that some things are universally funny.

Nakuru

2007-11-30T11:27:00.000-08:00

I tried to post this short little blog and photo album exactly two weeks ago. I had everything written and all the photos uploaded (which took about 2 hours), and all I had to do was hit “post”, but right then the internet conked out. After wrestling with it for another 30 minutes, I figured, oh well, I’ll just post it in the morning. Well… it turns out that that night was the start of the Great Internet Outage. So I’m posting it now…

What is now three thursdays ago, we took a trip to the town of Nakuru, which is about a 150 km drive to the west from Nyeri. Nakuru is located in the Great Rift Valley, which runs from Mozambique in southern Africa all the way up to Syria in southwest Asia. We literally got to look out over the valley from its edge, about 1500 feet above the valley floor (see pictures, link below). Aside from that, we enjoyed a long car ride with Eunice, the talkative and very bright manager here at Tumaini (who is 57 years old and looks 40), visited Lake Nakuru National Park, where there are buffalo, monkeys, and thousands of flamingos (see picture), played jump rope with a bunch of kids in the middle of a little neighborhood street (see pictures), and stopped at a roadside market to buy potatoes.

Here is a small photo album of the trip.

Nakuru and Rift Valley

A Kenyan Thanksgiving

2007-11-29T00:31:00.000-08:00

Devoid of family and the typical Turkey Day yumminess (stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, and even the bird itself), it was obviously an unusual Thanksgiving Day celebration for us here in Kenya. However, we decided to share our national holiday with some members of our new Tumaini family. After our own Thanksgiving “feast” of vegetable curry, we had the Form Four students over to share our O So Traditional Pilgrim-like Platter of…banana bread (believe it or not, the local market does not have pumpkin pie ingredients in stock :).

Jonathan opened by sharing the Thanksgiving story with them and I ended the party with a silly game but the best part of the night was spent going around the circle sharing what we were thankful for in the past year. The kids took it rather seriously and we heard responses such as “I am thankful to God to be alive.” This could be taken as a cop-out if shared around the table with our families back home but here it represented an honest sense of gratitude for life in a place where death is more of an accepted reality rather than an unexpected disaster (we’ve already experienced one death in the local community, a husband of an elder in the church). It was a special moment to get a small peak into their life and heart through this Thanksgiving tradition.

To say the least, it was an abnormal day of Thanksgiving but it was full of fun and laughter. Plus, for at least one year of our lives, we dodged the post Turkey Day “I can’t believe I ate so much!” food coma. ☺

[Our experience without Internet communication for the past 11 days has left us with a greater awareness of our separation from loved ones. We are extremely thankful for all of you and hope that everyone had blessed Thanksgivings full of love, gratitude and yumminess]

The Great Internet Outage of 2007

2007-11-28T06:54:00.001-08:00

A few Fridays ago, when the always-sketchy Internet here at Tumaini began hiccuping, we didn't think much of it. It was normal. Almost two weeks later, we know better.

The first few days, we attributed the lack of Internet to environmental causes, like the weather. Or perhaps the guy who holds the data tubes together had fallen asleep. When we run out of water for strange amounts of time, I wonder the same thing.

Then, we began to ask the computer room teacher, Ann, what was going on. She asked us if we'd seen "those wires in the street." I thought for a moment--yes, running earlier that day, I'd seen some wire coiled up in the street. "The problem is those ones," she said. Apparently, that was the phone line for the area. And yeah, that would be a problem.

In what seems to be typical Kenyan fashion, every day we asked Ann whether she'd spoken with the communications company and if they were going to fix it, she said, "Yes, they're coming tomorrow to fix it." 'Tomorrow' kept one day ahead of us, however, and so Thanksgiving passed without e-mail contact.

We took bets on when the Internet would be back. We were all wrong! I began to worry--all my online projects might have suddenly failed and I wouldn't even know.

Finally, all the 'tomorrows' coalesced into 'today', and a Telkom employee came to fiddle with something this morning. The Internet works again! I can catch up on more days' worth of e-mail than I've had to in over 10 years. We can write blogs again--and stay tuned, because a lot of great stuff has happened in the past few weeks. Apologies for our absence!

Like water and electricity, the Internet has truly come into its own as a utility...

Hongera! Party for Form 4 Graduates

2007-11-14T11:12:00.000-08:00

So it turns out that we got to Tumaini right as the Form 4 students (this means seniors in high school) were in the middle of their final exams. Having just walked into the middle of this without any exposure to everything that has led up to it, I think it has been hard for us (or for me, anyway) to get an understanding for how important these exams are. The setting when we first arrived here had these students in the middle of the exams, so there is a natural tendency for us to consider this situation to be the norm. But it is anything but the norm! These exams are once-in-a-lifetime, and they are a huge deal! They're like your SATs, GPA, and college applications combined into one. They basically determine where you can go to college and what you can study once you get there. They go on for 3 weeks, and they test basically everything you have learned over the course of your entire education.

(As an aside, having these exams didn't stop people like Karicho, Joseph, Merciline, or a few others from being genuinely welcoming to us or genuinely caring for the younger kids at the home here. Karicho would even take time several nights each week to help younger secondary students with their studies - this kid is a gem... I can't begin to say enough.)

Anyway, the Form 4s completed their exams today, and we thought it would be fun to throw a little party for them. So we did, and it was a ton of fun! Emilee made apple bread and Jonathan made biscuits, and we went and got 22 bottles of Coca-Cola from the store across the road. They were either very polite or they actually liked our food! (I think it was the latter - I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty dang good.)

We played two games at the party, in which we learned that Kenyans not only set the standard for distance running but also for... giggling. The first game was one where we went around a circle and made everyone say their name and then tell us something interesting about the person to their right. We got everything from "To my right is Mary and she is short", to "To my right is Reginah and she is a loyal friend". The second game was charades. They ate this one right up. One girl told me afterward that she wants to make it "her new hobby". The only disappointment was when Stephen drew Shakira and didn't shake his hips around.

But seriously, it was a great night, and this seems to be a pretty neat group of kids. We will be hanging out with them weekly throughout our time here and getting to know them better. Below is a picture from the party. Oh yeah, and "Hongera!" means "Congratulations!".

Tumaini Lives, Part I

2007-11-13T00:53:00.000-08:00

"I used to look after some cows," the conversation began. Christopher, about 17 years old, had just seated himself on our couch and was twirling our massage stick in absentminded circles as he began to talk in a rambling way about his childhood. We hadn't asked any particular question; he seemed glad to sit and felt like talking, so he talked.

Christopher shared easily, with obvious confidence in himself, and with an even didactic air, knowing that what he was saying would be interesting and maybe shocking to us: pampered visitors from a posh and indolent country, who count even the most insignificant inconveniences as severe trials.

An hour later, after listening to the disconnected but always fascinating anecdotes, we were left, as you'd expect, with nothing to say. Apart from our periodic courteous mumblings of attention and empathy, Christopher had carried the conversation entirely by himself. Of course, we never heard another word about the cows.

Instead, we learned about the tribal wars between the Turkana and Samburu in Christopher's earlier years, how he had seen it break out, and the lives he had seen it claim. He told us of finding high school students dead in the thorn bushes, after being given guns by the local clan leaders--gifts for being in their final year--and asked to kill the enemy. He told us that when they searched the bodies (a practice he took for granted), they often found graded papers, returned that day by the teacher, and perhaps on their way home to be shown to parents.

He told us of the helicopter he saw shot down ("killed"), how it crumpled "like paper" and burned, with nothing to salvage. The men who shot it down, he said, had killed so many people they no longer thought it would be a bad thing to do. Then he looked at each of us and explained sadly, "Some times you can do so many wrong things that after a while your conscience doesn't know it's wrong anymore."

I agreed, realizing he knew a lot more about it than I did.

Interspersed with other random anecdotes (some, thankfully, much more lighthearted), we learned why Christopher had last cried almost 10 years ago, at the death of his grandfather. He had seen so many people die, that he said, "I can feel sadness in the heart, but it will never make it to my eyes." He agreed, however, that it is good to be sad.

All the while, Christopher's attitude and body language bespoke an unworried and unhurried mind. Every story of trial long-past was followed by one of thanksgiving. He prayed to go to secondary school, and, after his parents could no longer take care of him and he found himself admitted to Tumaini, he did. In another year he'll graduate. He prayed fervently that one day he would be able to play a drum set, and the church recently purchased one. Christopher now plays it every Sunday, untutored, but with natural ability.

His childhood was, we would say, defined by poverty and death. But simply because he's able to go to school, and can play a drum set that he doesn't even own, Christopher thinks God must love him. Christopher knows and feels God's love, in those simple gifts.

(Oh, how that shames me and my arrogant doubting! A churlish fool in such a cloud of blessing as I have been placed!)

But even words of thanksgiving don't stop him from telling yet more stories. And so shame is pushed aside as I struggle to parse Christopher's Kenyan English. We listen with surprise as he tells us that his father is accustomed to walking from Nyeri to Nairobi (a distance of about 150km) whenever business requires. Why pay the equivalent of a few dollars for a bus ride when you can walk for two days?

Apparently, it's a family skill Christopher's father wanted to pass on: when Christopher was in junior high, his dad woke him up one day and asked the boy to accompany him to Karatina and back (about 85km total). We asked Christopher why they went. He doesn't know, but he has a guess: "He just wanted to see how well I could walk." Not surprisingly, Christopher is now one of Tumaini's best marathoners.

Tumaini is such a wonderful place, we often forget that each of the 175 children here have stories much more like Christopher's than like our own. It is good to be reminded of that, when we have the capacity to hear it.

Tumaini is the New Hogwarts

2007-11-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

Mere days after arriving here at Tumaini, Emilee, Michael and myself have found ourselves thrust into (somewhat dubious) positions of 'authority' as 'leaders' of the Three Houses of Tumaini.

I don't know where Eunice, the manager, got the idea to split the children into 'Houses', and I'm pretty sure it wasn't from Harry Potter. At any rate, she thought it best to have three houses (rather than four)--one for each of us volunteers to manage.

The point behind splitting up into Houses is still a bit vague. As far as I can tell, it's only going to be officially relevant during certain competitive athletic events we're responsible for organizing. Still, for myself, I hope the House mentality takes deeper root in the every aspect of Tumaini life. I want different colored t-shirts (you know, like the scarves in Harry Potter), a good-natured (but seriously-taken), constant battle between Houses for no apparent reason, and mythical importance attached to the House namesakes.

I'm not sure why I want this (especially since I think nationalism, tribalism, and any other 'ism' that divides people arbitrarily are patently absurd). Perhaps it derives from childhood in Papua New Guinea, when our school would have sports days where we were divided into teams--Pirates, Vikings, and Lions--and I was a Viking. (We had red shirts).

Eunice, predictably, required that the House names be Biblical in some way. That ruined plans for "Cheetah/Lion/Leopard" and such cool totemic trios with obvious mascots. In the end, eschewing ideas like "House Mishpah" or "House Hezekiah" (because who knows when the home will admit a child named Hezekiah?), we settled on 3 of the great rivers mentioned, at least in passing, in the Bible: the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile.

In a sophisticated process involving the numbers 1-3 and a pen, we divided all the children up into these three Houses, and each picked our river. Emilee went for the catty Tigris, Michael the erudite Euphrates, and for myself: the all-powerful, monstrous, hypnotic, Nile! I win, at least in length, I think.

But now, we have to figure out what exactly what any of this means, besides getting a million knocks on our door every day which betoken the sudden appearance of unhappy children wanting to know if they can be in their friend's House.

Going on Outside Right Before I Came up to the Computer Lab!

2007-11-10T03:26:00.000-08:00

What in tarnation is going on in this huddle of girls?

ohhhhhhh, I see:

Storytime!

2007-11-09T11:52:00.000-08:00

These pictures are from our first Storytime with the Primary school students. Reading after school with the little ones is one of the activities we've started...it has been way too much fun!

Storytime

A Gift From Grace

2007-11-09T11:08:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I sat down with a girl named Grace who I've connected with a lot since we've been here. She is a beautiful, smart girl who loves to sing. As she was sharing her story with me, she shared a poem that she found a few years ago and started singing a song to me. The words nearly made me cry. This same girl also told me of her hopes of getting an education to stop child labor. I was blown away by her heart and clear conviction. It was an interaction that left me with many thoughts that I'm still sorting out. I've written the lyrics of the song and poem below...

Song:
My mother died when I was young,
My father did the same,
She laid her arms upon my chest
And taught me how to pray.

So now my mother has gone to rest
In Land of pureless joy
I wonder if she thinks of me
A poor little orphan girl

Listen I was only two years old
I will never forget the kiss of Love
She gave to me
I sometimes feel

Poem:
I was a child full of joy,
I was a child full of glory
I was a child full of hope
But what happened?

It was a time a united family
Yesterday my mother went away
Today my brother cried
Tomorrow my father will be buried
Because of what? because of AIDS

AIDS that kill without mercy
AIDS that kill without mind
Which left me an orphan child
Who will feed me, who will give me somewhere to sleep?
Who will help me? Who will tell me the truth?
Do not leave me alone I am a child like you.

Our New Home

2007-11-06T04:09:00.000-08:00

Here are some of our first snapshots of our life here in Kenya! There will be many more to come...

Tumaini

Welcome to Hello! Fine.

2007-11-05T04:12:00.001-08:00

In Swahili, Kenya's lingua franca, one of the standard greetings is the question "Hujambo?" This is a contraction of the phrase, "Huna jambo?", meaning literally, "You don't have any problems, do you?" The standard reply is "Sijambo!" -- "I don't have any problems!". Most people shorten both of these even further, such that the exchange is more like: "Jambo?" ... "Jambo!".

Anyway, when Kenyan children learn English, they obviously learn (paralleling Swahili) that the standard greeting is a question-and-answer: "How are you?"--to which the reply is "Fine." Here's how we know:

Just as any language-learners would do, the children seem to take any greeting we give them as this (standard) one, of "How are you?" The other greeting "Hello" seems to have been assimilated into it, such that, almost every time we greet a child with a warm "Hello!", we get back a cheerful "Yes, fine!"

This is very funny.

"Hello!"
"Fine."

Of course, it is just one of the many idiosyncrasies of the place we are calling home for almost 6 months--the Tumaini Children's Home, outside of Nyeri, Kenya. Apart from us 3 white Americans (and all caucasians are classed as Wazungu, or "Europeans"), the orphanage is home to about 200 children, who have been admitted for a number of reasons (the primary one being the death of parents due to AIDS), and a small handful of staff.

I (Jonathan) spent a few months here earlier this year during the formation of Hope Runs, an NGO started by some friends. Hope Runs uses running training to educate the children and provide them with opportunity, while raising global awareness of issues surrounding orphans and vulnerable children.

The three of us (Emilee, Michael, and myself) decided to come to Tumaini for a while, to keep these programs going, to start various others, and primarily to be friends to those here, while at the same time living as an extension of the intentional Christian community of which we are a part (located in Palo Alto, California).

Over the next few months, we hope to take turns writing little windows into what's happening here, from cultural notes to (hopefully funny) stories, and also to share some photos. So stay tuned! Because "Hello! Fine." is just the beginning of the conversation. The rest, we're sure, will be just as nonsensical!