The project has been closed since the holiday clubs so I’ve not had anything interesting to report for a while unless you are interested in figuring out how Microsoft Access works. Dull. But yesterday we took Benedictor, Relina and Syombua back to Daraja Academy secondary school up near Mount Kenya. It’s AMAZING! God is so flippin good, this school is ace.
The campus was built by some Americans who originally brought poor kids from the wrong side of the tracks, much like Ryan in the OC, to Kenya to sort their lives out. They made a film about it called ‘The Boys of Baraka’ which looks really interesting. Anyway, this means that the campus was built to a standard that American kids could deal with which means it is super nice.
The school we take the kids to for summer camps is a big step up from Kibera for the kids but to the UK team it feels like slumming it. It’s fairly basic, clean enough but not exactly comfortable. Daraja is beautiful, there’s a fireplace in the dining room that wouldn’t look out of place in a safari lodge, there is a lounge connected to the dorms with comfy sofas, there’s a library filled with new and interesting books.
The environment is stunning, it’s in the bush close to Mount Kenya and elephants, zebra and giraffe all roam about. I also noticed several squirrels, haven’t seen a good squirrel in a while. We walked down to the river which is filled with water from the snow on Mount Kenya, we played about a bit and Relina learnt how to skim stones. In Kibera the ‘rivers’ are just streams of sewage, you wouldn’t want to skim stones on that for fear of what the splashback could contain, plus you would have to bounce the stones around the rubbish floating in the sludge. Finally the girls are living in the environment they deserve, being told that they are amazing, getting a great education, there’s all sorts of empowerment going on. Maybe these girls might actually make it out of the slum.
God is so amazing, the couple who set up the school are not Christians, I don’t know if they have ever prayed about their school, but I wonder how many prayers are being and will be answered through them, their work and all their staff. I’m thanking God so much for them. God works in all things for the good of those who love Him.
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Karibu tena
I arrived back in Kenya at the beginning of April and my first few days involved cutting out frogs and other things for craft activities for the easter holiday clubs. I didn’t quite factor in the fact that usually there is a team of nine of us preparing for holiday camps in the summer and that’s why it only takes an afternoon to prepare everything. It seems to take a lot longer when it is only one person, I didn’t think of that when I turned down Jo’s help. Luckily I enlisted some help from some unsuspecting friends who thought they were just coming over to watch movies.
So last week was a full on week of easter clubs, usually we spread it over two weeks and just do it in the mornings but for some reason we did it all in one week doing full days which was absolutely knackering. It was a shame for the older kids who came in the afternoons because we were all flagging by that time so they didn’t have quite as much fun as the little ones who came in the morning.
What was cool though was the helpers I had to run the club. Jo and Jon weren’t around so firstly a volunteer called Jackie, a Kenyan who comes to our church came to help which was brilliant. She has a lot of experience of working with kids in the refugee camps on the Somali border, Pastor Shadrack was sick all week so she offered to help Pastor David with some of the teaching which she did excellently. She is much more interactive with the kids than our two Pastor’s style. The kids engage a bit more that way so hopefully David got some tips from her, he was certainly very impressed.
Equally exciting was having Hussein help with the leading, Hussein has been one of the TP kids for ages and has now started secondary school so is getting a bit old to come to clubs. I put him in charge of drama as he has such a flair for it himself, he did a great job and took all sorts of initiative stepping up and asking to sort out other bits and bobs. It was really cool to see him step up, he had a bit of a hard time in the afternoons with the older kids complaining because they are mostly his friends and were convinced he was rigging the points, which he was not, he is a man of integrity and he stood his ground really well.
The project is closed now for Easter holidays until the start of May so I’m doing joyful office things when there is power and when there is not, I nap.
So last week was a full on week of easter clubs, usually we spread it over two weeks and just do it in the mornings but for some reason we did it all in one week doing full days which was absolutely knackering. It was a shame for the older kids who came in the afternoons because we were all flagging by that time so they didn’t have quite as much fun as the little ones who came in the morning.
What was cool though was the helpers I had to run the club. Jo and Jon weren’t around so firstly a volunteer called Jackie, a Kenyan who comes to our church came to help which was brilliant. She has a lot of experience of working with kids in the refugee camps on the Somali border, Pastor Shadrack was sick all week so she offered to help Pastor David with some of the teaching which she did excellently. She is much more interactive with the kids than our two Pastor’s style. The kids engage a bit more that way so hopefully David got some tips from her, he was certainly very impressed.
Equally exciting was having Hussein help with the leading, Hussein has been one of the TP kids for ages and has now started secondary school so is getting a bit old to come to clubs. I put him in charge of drama as he has such a flair for it himself, he did a great job and took all sorts of initiative stepping up and asking to sort out other bits and bobs. It was really cool to see him step up, he had a bit of a hard time in the afternoons with the older kids complaining because they are mostly his friends and were convinced he was rigging the points, which he was not, he is a man of integrity and he stood his ground really well.
The project is closed now for Easter holidays until the start of May so I’m doing joyful office things when there is power and when there is not, I nap.
Friday, 13 March 2009
Black Gold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DePOBjunXU
I'm back in the UK at the moment and trying not to get the reverse culture shock rage against greed feeling, I'm mostly succeeding but watching movies like this doesn't help! If you like coffee or people I really recommend this film about the coffee trade (use the link above to watch the trailer on youtube), I warn you it may make you want to hit some people but this guy Tadesse Meskela is a legend, I want to be him. There is an awesome scene in the film where a load of farmers in one of the co-operatives decide to spend the profits from their fairtrade coffee on building a school for their area, they don't quite have enough to pay for it so they decide they will put extra money in from their own pockets and they all cheer... Ah if only these guys ran the WTO... I've added a cheeky gadget to my blog too, it calculates how much of the money we spend on coffee goes to the farmers. Its really easy to buy fairtrade coffee and bananas and chocolate these days so just do it.
I'm back in the UK at the moment and trying not to get the reverse culture shock rage against greed feeling, I'm mostly succeeding but watching movies like this doesn't help! If you like coffee or people I really recommend this film about the coffee trade (use the link above to watch the trailer on youtube), I warn you it may make you want to hit some people but this guy Tadesse Meskela is a legend, I want to be him. There is an awesome scene in the film where a load of farmers in one of the co-operatives decide to spend the profits from their fairtrade coffee on building a school for their area, they don't quite have enough to pay for it so they decide they will put extra money in from their own pockets and they all cheer... Ah if only these guys ran the WTO... I've added a cheeky gadget to my blog too, it calculates how much of the money we spend on coffee goes to the farmers. Its really easy to buy fairtrade coffee and bananas and chocolate these days so just do it.
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
The good, the bad and the ugali
Unfortunatly last week was not all fun and games for a couple of reasons. A while ago I asked you to pray for Agnes who was sick. She seemed to get better but on sunday she was taken back to hospital and on monday night she died from a heart condition she has had since she was born. She was maybe three.
They live just outside the project so I pass by everyday, I saw her mum veronica on tuesday looking very sad so she told me what was wrong. She has a lot on her plate at the moment as her oldest daughter Petronila has just had a baby of her own, she is 14. Veronica's mum has come to stay with her for a few days to help out.
I had no idea what to do, talking to others in Kibera about it they said 'It's the way it is', not making light of the situation but used to the reality of 'high infant mortality rates'. Veronica cried a bit and we prayed together, her other daughter Angry Peanut was as cheerful as ever not really understanding whats going on, she was able to cheer up her mum trying to style my hair with a stick she found. God is in the slums with a grieving mother and her daughter who became a mum way too early.
Another hard day was Thursday when we went to the farm, the good was planning when to plant things ready for the next group of mums to move up to the farm hopefully later this year and deciding who gets to keep which cows. One of the baby cows is called the mzungu cow because it has a pink nose while all the others have black noses.
The bad was we have decided to send two of the mums back to Kibera, we have given them so many chances to start working but I guess farming just isn’t for them. It is a very hard decision to send people back to Kibera, especially their kids who love it at the farm and it’s not their fault their mums don’t want to work. However, we will continue to help them, their kids will rejoin the project in Kibera, we will help them find somewhere to live and settle back in Kibera and they will be able to join the microfinance scheme which didn’t exist before they moved up to the farm. I hope they will see this as grace continuing towards them just in a different way but they probably won’t! I've been told that one of them was fairly happy with the decision so thats good.
Once we had sorted out all these things one of the mums came to us very upset about how the other mamas were treating her. It seems there are all sorts of allegations, accusations and lies flying around. People are very messy. They really haven’t figured how to live together as a community. I don’t know how much Turning Point can do to help them with that, a lot of it is up to them. Thankfully God doesn’t mind mess, Jesus put up with all sorts of messy relationships, He hung out with Judas for three years even though He knew he would stuff up royally. His disciples seemed to argue quite a bit but in the end they became this awesome (but still pretty messy) community that rocked the world. So please pray for the mums, God can do something.
They live just outside the project so I pass by everyday, I saw her mum veronica on tuesday looking very sad so she told me what was wrong. She has a lot on her plate at the moment as her oldest daughter Petronila has just had a baby of her own, she is 14. Veronica's mum has come to stay with her for a few days to help out.
I had no idea what to do, talking to others in Kibera about it they said 'It's the way it is', not making light of the situation but used to the reality of 'high infant mortality rates'. Veronica cried a bit and we prayed together, her other daughter Angry Peanut was as cheerful as ever not really understanding whats going on, she was able to cheer up her mum trying to style my hair with a stick she found. God is in the slums with a grieving mother and her daughter who became a mum way too early.
Another hard day was Thursday when we went to the farm, the good was planning when to plant things ready for the next group of mums to move up to the farm hopefully later this year and deciding who gets to keep which cows. One of the baby cows is called the mzungu cow because it has a pink nose while all the others have black noses.
The bad was we have decided to send two of the mums back to Kibera, we have given them so many chances to start working but I guess farming just isn’t for them. It is a very hard decision to send people back to Kibera, especially their kids who love it at the farm and it’s not their fault their mums don’t want to work. However, we will continue to help them, their kids will rejoin the project in Kibera, we will help them find somewhere to live and settle back in Kibera and they will be able to join the microfinance scheme which didn’t exist before they moved up to the farm. I hope they will see this as grace continuing towards them just in a different way but they probably won’t! I've been told that one of them was fairly happy with the decision so thats good.
Once we had sorted out all these things one of the mums came to us very upset about how the other mamas were treating her. It seems there are all sorts of allegations, accusations and lies flying around. People are very messy. They really haven’t figured how to live together as a community. I don’t know how much Turning Point can do to help them with that, a lot of it is up to them. Thankfully God doesn’t mind mess, Jesus put up with all sorts of messy relationships, He hung out with Judas for three years even though He knew he would stuff up royally. His disciples seemed to argue quite a bit but in the end they became this awesome (but still pretty messy) community that rocked the world. So please pray for the mums, God can do something.
Back in the game Bwana!
Well getting mugged seemed to get all sorts of comments. Not all helpful! This week has been fairly exciting too but for better reasons although I have been picking up all sorts of card-game related injuries. This week we have mostly been playing snap. We couldn't be bothered with nice rules like whoever puts their hand down first keeps the cards, no no, when someone called snap an all out war began and you had to fight for as many cards as you could get. If you didn't get any cards, no worries, you just wait till the next war and fight your way back in the game... We broke a chair. Don't tell anyone.
Mostly I've been playing with Relina and Benedictor who start secondary school next week so they will be moving to Nanyuki. I'm going to miss them so much, they are so jokes. All this week when I arrive Benedictor just turns to me with a serious face 'Emlee? cards?'
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
I predict a riot
On Sunday I went with a friend to watch some Kenyan football. Nairobi City stars took on the AFC Leopards at the World Hope stadium. I can’t share with you the final score because the game never actually ended (although NCS were 1-0 up). The fence that surrounds the pitch was broken down by some over excited fans who stormed the pitch and the whole thing descended into a riot. Plastic chairs were flying through the air and the police got their sticks out.
Up until that point the crowd had been fairly rowdy but well natured although there were all sorts of drugs going on and a lot of changaa being handed round so a large proportion of the crowd were off their faces. A fair few people had tried to nick my phone from my pocket in the crowd but it was easy enough to stick my hand in my pocket to protect it and shove an elbow in the belly of whoever it was. But when it all kicked off no one cared what they were doing so maybe six guys surrounded me and went for my pockets, they were all grabbing away until they realised they had taken everything then they left me alone. So I survived my first mugging! It took a while for the gates to be opened for us all to get out and we had to make a fairly speedy exit but we escaped onto a no.46 matatu and all was well.
It was a little scary but I learnt some helpful lessons and being mugged is nowhere near as scary as it sounds so we were praising God that we could walk away laughing about the excitement and nothing too nasty happened. Parents, I don’t mean to freak you out but I’m enjoying having an exciting story to tell!
Up until that point the crowd had been fairly rowdy but well natured although there were all sorts of drugs going on and a lot of changaa being handed round so a large proportion of the crowd were off their faces. A fair few people had tried to nick my phone from my pocket in the crowd but it was easy enough to stick my hand in my pocket to protect it and shove an elbow in the belly of whoever it was. But when it all kicked off no one cared what they were doing so maybe six guys surrounded me and went for my pockets, they were all grabbing away until they realised they had taken everything then they left me alone. So I survived my first mugging! It took a while for the gates to be opened for us all to get out and we had to make a fairly speedy exit but we escaped onto a no.46 matatu and all was well.
It was a little scary but I learnt some helpful lessons and being mugged is nowhere near as scary as it sounds so we were praising God that we could walk away laughing about the excitement and nothing too nasty happened. Parents, I don’t mean to freak you out but I’m enjoying having an exciting story to tell!
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