Dig deep for the farmers

Around March last year the Turning Point management team spent quite some time praying and discussing 'stage 3' for the mums living on the Turning Point Farm. The goal has always been independence, but what should that look like?

Seeking God's vision through prayer is always a key part of any big decision at Turning Point and everyone involved in the praying got a similar sense (in their own way) of God wanting to give the mums freedom. Freedom from the hunger and poverty and stress of Kibera but also freedom from the Turning Point Farm. We and the mums feel that as long as the mums are living on the Turning Point farm they are not fully independent from Turning Point. They remain reliant on Turning Point to continue offering them rent-free land and with this proximity comes the temptation to run back to Turning Point for help at every hurdle.

From here we developed the final plan for 'stage 3': to buy each mum her own one acre of land complete with two-roomed house, kitchen, toilet and bathroom. This will not be a completely free gift but the mums will pay a small amount each year for 15 years. As the years pass ownership of the land will gradually pass from Turning Point to the mum and at the end of the 15 years the mum will have 100% ownership of the land. Land ownership would have been an impossible dream for these mums three years ago when they signed up to move to the farm.

The big issue now is how do we pay for all this land? In total it will cost £3,700 (around $6,000) to buy the land and do the necessary building for just one mum and we now have seven mums who are ready to move onto their own land later this year. In May last year I said something along the lines of '£3,700 is totally do-able, I'll raise the money for one mum myself!'. I slightly wish I hadn't said that now, but I did, so I'm launching a campaign. I call it, 'Dig deep for the Farmers' and the goal is to raise the money for (at least) one mum's land by the end of June 2011. To add to the challenge I'm aiming to raise the full amount online through Globalgiving.org.

So whoever wants to get the ball rolling, head on over to Globalgiving.org and help me out with the first donation! Also, the word needs to be spread far and wide, so please consider blogging, tweeting, or actually telling your friends in person about the mums and their opportunity for freedom. Thanks!

My walk to work

8:00 Leave my apartment, lock up and go downstairs

8:02 Greet the day guard, Naktari, as he lets me out of the gate to our compound

8:07 Reach the Adam's arcade roundabout and attempt to cross Ngong Road's morning traffic. Nearly die.

8:09 Pass by a guy dropping off his disabled friend at his begging spot in toi market, he makes sure his friend is comfortable and arranges to pick him later. I carry on past the people setting up their second-hand clothes stalls for the day.

8:12 Turn right at 'Winners Chapel' and enter the most peaceful phase of the walk along a nice shadey suburban road lined by jacaranda trees. Peek in at the nice looking bungalows behind the walls. Pass the estate where apparently one resident smuggled a leopard until the Kenya Wildlife Service came to the rescue in a daring raid.

8:15 Turn off the nice suburban road onto the dusty track towards Kibera. Pass the detention centre for street children on the left. Walk past the tall brick walls and wonder what exactly goes on in there. Slowly the surroundings change from quaint looking bungalows to cheap looking flats to shabby iron-sheet shops and the concrete block one-room houses of Fort Jesus. Start passing kids who shout 'Howareyou!' all as one word.

8:20 Reach the junction with Karanja road and pick my way through the soapy streams created by some young men washing buses and matatus. Generally right in the way of oncoming traffic. Turn right and head up the hill towards the Olymic 'stage' (bus stop).

8:23 Enter the mayhem of Olympic stage. A hord of Matatu touts offer me a lift to town, I shake my head a lot and swerve several times to miss the bus's side mirrors which come close to smacking my head. Its a bit like walking into a wall of sound, on the left is a CD shop which blares music at full volume which blends horrifically with the bass sounds pounding out of the Matatus on my right, plus the touts shouting prices and places, plus the horns beeping as they hustle through the traffic.

8:25 Cross the multicoloured bridge over the railway line covered in graffitti calling for peace and unity and to keep Kibera clean.


8:26 Pass by the sweet smell of mandazi frying then get tempted by the spicy smell of samosas lined up at a road-side kiosk. I resist the temptation but probably will give in on my way home.

8:28 Turn left and enter Kibera proper, the 'howareyou's increase exponentially. Follow the muddy track down the hill until I see my friend whose name I never learned, I just call her mama. She sells oil from a bucket right where I need to turn right down a small alleyway between houses to the Kianda project.

8:30 Reach the Kianda project where I'm greeted by Jane the cook, Mary and Benson have already launched into the morning's teaching with the kids. Here ends my walk to work.

Waka waka

Why did they ever get Shakira to remake this? The original is amazing!

Larger surface area

Larger surface area is what I wrote for every answer in GCSE science and I did quite well. This here map demonstrates that Africa is in fact quite big.
























http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2010/10/true-size-of-africa.jpg

Like.

Cool in Kinshasa. The Umbongo was clearly flowing at this shindig.

LE JOUR D'APRES / SIKU YA BAADAYE (INDEPENDANCE CHA-CHA) from BALOJI on Vimeo.

oops, i broke it

These two articles rhyme a little with my last post or at least echo some of my frustrations living in a different culture and how that can easily bring out the worst in you.

Brokenness as a bridge
Attentive to Brokennes

We had an interesting discussion in homegroup this week about how a lot of churches in the west (and probably here in Kenya too) are more about performance and good behaviour than about having honest hearts that are desperate for God and His Kingdom. Christians should be seen to be good people, you need to show that you believe in Jesus by stopping all your sin. How the heck are you meant to do that?

I like that these two articles recognise our brokenness, they do not celebrate sin but see the connections that can be made between people when we share our broken parts and the areas that need some work rather than hide them.

Culture Stress

Welcome to culture stress, the effect of living for a long time in a culture so different from the one that shaped you. I'm not talking about eating food I don't like, cultural differences go deep and being surrounded by people who live by a totally different set of rules to you can be really uncomfortable and really get you down. There are benefits and plenty of opportunities to grow but I'll come to those later, first I want to be grumpy for a while.

Cultural differences cause tension over things like how we put value on time or how we judge our own self-worth or position in society – by achievements or by status. There are several other areas of tension but I think the second is the one I'm struggling with at the moment.

When I meet someone new in Kenya, even just people I walk past in the street, in general all I am is a mzungu, I'm a white-skinned foreigner therefore I must be this, this and this, I must like this, dislike that and always do these things. Very rarely does anyone ask me questions to actually get to know me personally, they know it all already, and this ticks me off! I've learnt to see people as individuals, unique with their own style, talents, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, values and beliefs. I've been taught that putting stereotypes on people, making a pre-judgement is prejudice and even racist. This particular difference really makes me angry and really gets in the way of me building friendships with people. As soon as someone puts me in a box it really puts me off getting to know them! It shifts my focus onto selfishly trying to prove who I am and who I'm not rather than just getting to know and love this person who means no harm by their opinions of me, it is just the way they understand the world.

However, this tension has actually taught me some helpful things, in the UK, we reward achievements like good exam results, a good degree, working your way up the ladder. We especially respect people who have worked their way up from nothing because they must have worked especially hard. In Kenya, people are often respected more due to their status than what they have achieved. So a politician may achieve absolutely nothing, in fact he may rob the country of millions of shillings but in a meeting he would be treated with due respect according to his status. A pastor, a chief, an elder must be treated in a certain way. A visitor also should be treated in a certain way and with white skin I'm always seen as a visitor.

In Kenya, I find myself being treated a certain way not based on what I do. But I've been conditioned to want to work hard, to be seen to be achieving something and getting somewhere. I find it embarrassing to say I'm just a volunteer, just a glorified gap year kid really, I don't have a real job, I don't get paid, I don't stay up to all hours of the night stressing to get my work done. But in Kenya that doesn't matter and having friends who don't care about that has challenged me to consider why I feel that way. Through this I've learnt that I sometimes want to work hard to please others and even to please God and that's not right. That is not what He wants or what He requires, my worth is not found in my achievements or lack of. So, in this case culture stress has been a creative tension that has taught me good things.