Last Sunday, we went to Mass in Kisii as we were not sure what time Mass was at Gekano and when asking different people, we got different answers.  Since Fr. David was still on vacation, we didn’t have any insider information so we thought it best to drive to Kisii.  In the last blog, we wrote how there were no extra collections at the end of the Mass in Kisii the last time we were there but at this Mass, they made up for it – there were a total of 5 collections.  When we got back to the Mission house, we could hear the Mass here at Gekano being celebrated outside which meant sitting in the hot sun so we were glad we went to Kisii.  We decided to go for a walk once we got back and along the way met Amos who was excited to get his tom-tom.  We have to say he is one of the few little ones along with Osongo, Brighton, and Angie, that we don’t have to remind them to say thank you - Amos is saying asante (thank you) as you hand him the tom-tom.  The words tafadhali (please) and asante (thank you) are words that don’t come readily especially the word tafadhali - often it is just nipe (give me). 

On Sunday afternoon, Wes was working in the back yard making holes in pails used for Water with Blessings trainings and the little ones (Osongo, Angie, and Brighton) happen to wander into the back yard and saw Wes.  Curious to know what was going on, they stopped to see what Wes was doing.  Osongo said to Wes, “Unafanya nini?” which meant “what are you doing?”  Wes did his best to explain what he was doing but didn’t think they understood.  They do like to see and inquire about the gadgets if Wes is working with any tools…they also like to touch and want to help!  They hung around the back yard for a short time and in that time, Osongo started crying so Wes asked what happened.  Angie, the leader of the group, said, “Brighton alipiga Osongo” which meant Brighton hit Osongo.  Brighton can be a little stinker so Wes had to get after him and soon after they left. 

On Monday, Wes took another student to the eye clinic and she too, had to get spectacles just as two girls did a couple of weeks ago.  Kathy stayed back to get laundry done and a few other jobs around the house since we were leaving for Nairobi the next day.

On Tuesday after daily Mass, we left for Nairobi. Our purpose was twofold – Kathy would go to Immigration to see if her National ID Card was ready and also to pick up Fr. David as he was returning from his vacation in Germany.  Kathy didn’t have high hopes for her card being done as she had been texting the Immigration office once a week since the last trip in April and every week, she would get a text back reading “Not ready” or “Check next week”.  The last text she got back the week before read “Please come redo the finger prints” to which Kathy texted back “I did redo them - first in June of 2022 and again in January of 2023 and now you are telling me I have to come a third time to do them??”  to which Kathy got no response.  We left by 7:30 am thinking we would get to Nairobi shortly after 1 pm but it was not to be.  Once we got to the escarpment and started the climb, vehicles were descending the escarpment and a short time later, there were none which is not a good sign.  After a few miles of driving with no oncoming traffic, we came upon a long line of vehicles ahead of us and in the distance, you could see a large crane on the road.  Wes, driving like a Kenyan would do, decided to follow other vehicles that were passing the long line of trucks and cars.  But after a short distance, we came to a complete stop.  The highway we were on is a two-lane road but it turned into 4-5 lanes because people were driving in the ditches on each side of the road and on the two-lane road itself there were three lanes of cars and trucks.  Wes also decided he would be friendly and as we sat and waited for the traffic to move, he would greet truckers in Kiswahili who had their windows rolled down as well as other people that had gotten out of their vehicles to walk around and assess the situation…it is good to be friendly but when you are, you tend to get people approaching you asking for money or “take me to your country”, etc. because they see that you are a mzungu.  It takes about 20-30 minutes to get up the escarpment but this day it took us over an hour though we were grateful because Rogers has told us that when accidents happen you may have to sit there overnight in your vehicle.  As the traffic started to move, we passed a semi that was on the left side of the road and the shipping container that had been on the trailer the semi was pulling was on the right side of the road.  We got to Nairobi a little later than we had hoped but we made it safely and that was all that mattered. 

On Wednesday, we walked to Immigration and arrived shortly after 8 am.  Kathy approached the same window she has for the past year and as she started to hand her document through the window as she usually did, a man came and without asking Kathy any questions or giving any reasons for his command, told Kathy to write her phone number on a piece of paper.  Kathy started to explain why she was there but the man wasn’t listening and again told her to write her phone number down which made no sense.  The woman behind the counter paid no attention to Kathy whatsoever.  So, Kathy wrote her number down on one of the slips of paper she carries at all times which indicate she has done her finger prints before – she has two slips because she has done them twice.  The man then noticed the two pieces of paper and asked why she had two to which Kathy wanted to say “I am glad you asked”!  When she told him the whole story of doing the finger prints twice, he took her to the back room that Kathy had become very familiar with in the last year.  Sitting behind a desk was a man instead of the woman Kathy usually dealt with.  The man looked up from the computer he was working at but didn’t acknowledge Kathy.  Kathy greeted him and started to explain her situation but he didn’t say one word and proceeded to look back down at his keyboard and continued to enter data.  Not knowing what to do, Kathy just stood there for the next 4-5 minutes waiting.  Finally, he looked up and asked what the problem was.  She explained the whole story again including doing the finger prints twice as well as having received a text from his office the week before indicating she needed to redo the finger prints.  Kathy also asked him why she had to do them a third time.  Without saying anything, he took Kathy’s papers, typed in the serial number and after a few minutes called another guy over, handed him Kathy’s papers and the guy took off.  Kathy didn’t know if she was to follow him or not so she did.  He went back to the room Kathy originally started at and went through a card file…twice. The second time around, he pulled out a laminated card and Kathy could see her picture on it…she couldn’t believe it!  Finally, the card was ready.  Kathy was glad it was done but was also frustrated when she saw the issue date on the card which was April 25^th.  Kathy has been texting Immigration every week since the last week of April asking if the card was done and got the “Not ready” or “Check next week” responses not to mention the text that said the finger prints had to be redone.  Wes got his card after seven months while Kathy’s took almost a whole year.  Because we now have our ID cards, we no longer have to carry our passports with us whenever we leave the house which will be nice as the ID card is the size of a credit card…Hatua kwa hatua (step by step). 

After we left Immigration, we walked to the Kenyan Revenue Authority (KRA) office to get a KRA Pin #.  The bank in Kisii that the Mission has their account with is requiring us to have a PIN # before we can be signatories on the checking account.  Upon arriving at the KRA, we were directed to the help desk area.  We explained to the guy behind the desk that we finally have our National ID cards and were applying for our KRA Pin #.  He proceeded to explain that we didn’t need the ID cards to apply – we could have applied with our passports and that we need to apply on-line.  We proceeded to explain that we were told by KRA agents in Kisii and Nairobi we had to have an ID card before we could apply and that because we are foreigners, we had to apply in person.  He then told us to go find a seat and apply for it on our phones and so we did.  Because we are not the most tech savvy people – our sons can attest to this – it took us some time plus completing a five-page application on such a small screen was quite difficult.  At one point, Kathy went back to the guy at the help desk to clarify where on the form she was to take a picture of her ID and download it.  The guy looked at the page Kathy was currently on and he said, “it is 113”.  Kathy said she didn’t understand what he was referring to and he said, “the answer is 113”.  Kathy was puzzled and said to him, “I don’t get it”.  He looked at Kathy in disbelief and said in a firm voice, “the answer to the question is 113”!  He then pointed to a section at the bottom of the screen where there were no directions - it had two arrows one on top of the other going in opposite directions and to the right of the arrows was written 126-13?  After some time, Kathy finally got it that it was a math problem and she was to put the answer in the box with the answer being 113 as the guy was trying to tell Kathy!  Kathy apologized and started to laugh but he didn’t laugh!  Kathy then went back to Wes to tell him what they were supposed to do with those numbers and they started to giggle and couldn’t quit laughing!  We thought that the computer was trying to verify we were not robots and just wanted us to type in what we saw – again, there were no directions!  We each then finished our math problem, took a picture of our ID, downloaded it and hit the submit button…we were so proud of ourselves that we accomplished this on our phones!  Shortly after hitting the submit button, we got a message stating that we took too long to get through the different screens so we had to start over which we did.  Again, we got to the end and another message came up which told us to contact an agent so we went back to the same guy.  He looked at the message and said, “you are taking too long” which was something we already knew.  In the end, he decided to help us – probably just wanted to get rid of us - and we got our PIN numbers and he even printed them out for us!  On the way out of the building, Wes made the comment that the guy probably couldn’t wait for lunch time to tell his co-workers about the not-so-bright mzungus!  Because Kathy had taken a screen shot of the arrows and numbers, and without telling Fr. David what had transpired at the KRA office, she showed it to him and asked him what he would have done…he said he didn’t know which made us feel a whole lot better! 

On Thursday morning when leaving Nairobi to go back to the Mission house, Fr. David suggested we take a different route which we did.  We saw a part of the escarpment we have never seen before and it was very beautiful.  Along the drive we saw a lot of farm land and different crops and as we got closer to the area called Kericho, we came upon the big tea plantations owned by large companies.  Most of these tea fields are cut with a machine as opposed to a person plucking the tea by hand as we see in the area around Kisii.  The use of machines takes away work from people and it is a source of contention with the farmers.  These massive tea fields, with the various shades of green everywhere you look, a sight to see. 

On Friday we took another orphan to the doctor but this time it was for continuing pain above and below the knee.  We had taken her in April and after some rounds of medication, the problem wasn’t solved.  The doctor finally ordered some x-rays and then referred us to the orthopedic doctor which was almost a three-hour process.  A knee brace was prescribed though they didn’t have it on hand and therefore, will have to go back on Monday to have her fitted for the brace.  Lately, there have been a lot of medical issues with the orphans - the most common one being eye issues. 

On Saturday, because there was no Mission Saturday and we were gone during the week, we conducted four Water with Blessings follow ups so we didn’t get too far behind.  Two of the groups had their last follow ups and so we will deliver blankets to them at the end of this month. 

Shamba update:  they continue to work on the enclosure for the steps leading to the roof and they have started to pour cement and slope it so the water flows to the side drains. Soon the electricians will run the wires and after that, we can decide on the paint colors, tile, cupboards, etc. 

The temperatures have been pleasant though we have not been getting much rain.  In the past week, we received less than a half inch.  You can tell it is getting dry because the roads are back to being dusty.  The trade winds are also blowing.  We hardly ever experience much wind here but last Monday, it was windy enough to the point where it moved the laundry on the clothesline from one end to the other.  One of the Sisters was out hanging laundry as well and she made the comment, “Upepo mkali” which meant strong winds.  Kathy told Sister these winds were nothing compared to what we have back home most days - she was very surprised and also made the comment she wouldn’t care for that!  Trade winds are winds that reliably blow east to west just north and south of the equator and because we are not far from the equator, we experience them.  Hopefully they blow some rain in!  When it doesn’t rain, Kathy worries that we will have to go back to hauling water which isn’t all that much fun but if we have to, we will.  She reminds herself of the people who carry water from the river on a daily basis and is very grateful that we don’t have to do that. 

Please know that we keep you in our prayers and ask that you keep us, the Mission, and those we serve in yours.  Mungu Akubariki!

See photos from this week in the album section by clicking on the link below.  Note:  If unable to view the photos using the link below, you can still view them by going to St. Joseph’s Parish website and scrolling down to the section titled Kenya Mission – photo album.  The website:  www.stjparish.com




https://stjparish.com/photoalbums/kenya-6-4-23