First of all, a belated Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and we hope you were able to spend time with loved ones. Though we are many miles away, we are grateful for the gift of family and friends in our lives but we do miss them and the ability to be with them especially during holidays such as Thanksgiving. To be honest, it was hard to think about Thanksgiving Day here in Kenya – back home we would have gone to Mass as a family, prepared a feast for loved ones or gone to their homes to visit, spent time together as a family, watched a football game, etc. Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in the way that we do back home though we still took time to reflect on the many gifts we have been given in our lives. One thing we didn’t miss was all the advertising that goes with the Thanksgiving holiday; here, we had no constant bombardment of Black Friday ads…how could we as we don’t watch any TV! We received numerous texts and emails wishing us a Happy Thanksgiving and wondering how we were celebrating the day and if we were having turkey! Our day was spent at a Water with Blessings training in Geta (Gay-ta) and as always it was a day of gratitude – we never tire of the amazement expressed by the women when they see the clean water coming through the filter and the gratitude they have for this gift of clean water. As for turkey or pumpkin pie – no turkey or pie! We had githeri, which is a traditional Kenyan meal comprised of maize (corn) and beans. The githeri that Kathy makes comes out of a can and doctors it up by adding sauteed onions, garlic, shredded carrots, tomato paste and some pili pili sauce (a type of hot sauce to give it a little kick) and for some extra protein will add chickpeas and/or kidney beans. Kathy also made both, mandazi and chapati since it was Thanksgiving! As for dessert, Wes and Fr. David love their Nice cookies (coconut flavored cookie) slathered with Nutella! And finally, we ate our Thanksgiving meal by candle (flashlight) as the power was out again! Though we had already finished with our meal and the dishes were done, we were grateful when the Sisters turned the generator on at 7 pm.
Last Sunday, we attended Mass at 6:30 am here at Gekano where Fr. David was the celebrant. Fr. David’s Masses always start on time but this day, it was not to be. For some reason, the girls here at the school came in with less than five minutes before Mass was to start and then there were the boys from St. Paul’s High School, located about 1.5 miles from the church. The high school has around 600-700 boys. These boys walk to church - no bus to bring them but this day they must not have started out early enough since they were late though something told us this is the way it usually is…Kenyans are almost always late. Around 6:30 am when Mass was to start, about hundred or so of the boys came through the doors and shortly after, all the rest came and it was a chaotic scene. Fr. David had no choice but to wait because it was a circus like atmosphere with everyone talking, laughing, moving the benches and trying to find a place to sit, grabbing the plastic chairs that are stacked in the back of church and lining them up along the side aisles not to mention the herd of boys that made their way up to the church balcony. After fifteen minutes of this, Fr. David started to process in from the back whether the congregation was ready or not because once this Mass was done, he still had to travel to two more outstations to say Mass. After he made the sign of the cross at the start of the Mass, there was still a lot of extracurricular activity going on so he paused and when it finally quieted down, he asked, “Tuko tayari?” which means “Are we ready?” along with a few stern words. During the Mass, the boys from St. Paul’s tried to outdo the girls from St. Theresa’s with regard to the singing so at times, the assembly of voices got a little out of tune because it was more shouting than singing, though it was the girls who would get the guys back on track between the timing and staying on key. The guys had control of the keyboard but because the church was on the backup generator (no power that morning), the keyboard must have been too much for the backup power and blew a fuse and/or killed the generator early on in the Mass which meant no working microphones or keyboard - truth be told we were somewhat grateful for no keyboard because the volume is always cranked way up as it was this day. On the other hand, the girls had control of the drum and tambourine which kept everyone’s timing in check especially with no keyboard. At the end of Mass, Fr. David asked one of the Form 4 boys to come and stand beside him in front of the altar. He asked this young man if he would show up late for his KCSE exam that he will be taking in the coming weeks and the young man said, “no”. Fr. David then proceeded to make the point to this young man, the rest of the students, and others in attendance, that if you would not show up late for your exam why would you be late for Mass. He told them they are basically saying their exam is more important than God…a poignant reminder to all of us where our priorities are when it comes to getting to Mass on time and participating. Fr. David estimated there was probably around 800 or more people in church.
Fr. David’s point about the exams hits home with those students in Standard 8 and Form 4 who will soon be taking their national exams. We have alluded to the taking of these exams and how important they are in previous blogs. This week, Students in Standard 8 (equivalent to Grade 8) will take a three-day exam called KCPE - an exam that reviews the learning that has taken place during their primary years. The score they get on this exam will be used by high schools to admit incoming freshman – the higher the score on the exam, the more likely the better the school they can be admitted to. Form 4 students (Senior in high school) will have a month of exams in December called KCSE which determine if they are eligible for college or a trade school. If one has the dream to become a lab technician, teacher, doctor, etc. but their score is not high enough, they will not be admitted to a college to study for their desired occupation. You know how important these exams are to the young people in numerous ways by what you observe and hear: a) students approaching you and asking you to pray for them as they prepare for and take their exams; b) schools, private and public, setting aside days of prayer for the students where the parents attend as well; c) on the day of prayer, the students bring their geometrical sets they will take with them into the exam room. A geometrical set is a set of mathematical instruments including a compass, ruler, divider, squares, and protractor; and d) seeing greeting cards in the stores wishing one good luck and all the best on taking their exams. It is hard to find other cards such as birthday or even a plain note card, but these cards you do find. At this time of the year, the taking of the exams is a popular topic of discussion – these exams can make or break a child’s future. As the school year for Kenyan students came to a close this week, it was interesting watching the activity here at St. Theresa’s. By 6 am on Thursday, the last day of school here at St. Theresa’s for Form 1-3 students (Freshmen through Juniors), there were cars and pikipiki drivers on the grounds waiting to take girls back to their towns and villages. Out on the grass, we could see the backpacks and other belongings waiting to be loaded in the vehicles or onto the motorcycles. On Thursday, while we were traveling to a Water with Blessings training, we passed a school that is next to a river and as we crossed the bridge and from a distance, we could see the children standing in the water washing the benches and desks! The photo album has a few pictures taken from a distance but you will get the point. Emma and Lilian were with us when we saw the children in the river and according to them, they have to get the desks cleaned before the students take their exams in the coming weeks.
On Wednesday and Thursday, we held Water with Blessings trainings with one at Mongorisi and the other in Geta (Gay-ta). Twenty-six women were trained between the two days. At the training in Mongorisi, there were seven children under the age of five and the most that have come with their mamas to a training. We have to say that for the most part, the children were very well behaved considering their age and that the training takes around 3 hours though at this training, there was one child who was a little stinker and Wes tried his best to keep him occupied. At Mongorisi, while Lilian and Emma were going through the first part of the training where they explain the principles and rules of the program, we could hear lots of chatter and laughter from the children outside so we went to see what was going on. We saw children gathered around a log that was large enough for 3-4 small children to sit on. At the front of the log was a child by the name of Tyler who was pretending he was a pikipiki (motorcycle) driver. He was really into it - he was making the sounds of the motorcycle, he was shifting his little body from side to side as if he was passing traffic, he was shouting beep beep to the imaginary traffic that was in his way, he was shifting gears, he was stopping and letting people off and telling others to get on, etc. He was so cute and such a gentleman to the little ladies when they got on for their ride. Kathy even got a ride! It was neat to watch them play together and use their imagination - they do not have store bought toys and any toys we’ve seen have been homemade. Recently, at Mission Saturday while a group of brothers were waiting their turn to receive their stipend and ration of maize, they were playing a simple game with bottle caps. We do not see children off by themselves with a phone in their hands texting or playing games which is nice to see. Children here do not have cell phones though we do see a fair number of adults having one – ones that looks like the cell phones we carried around in the 90’s but they work! As for the girls here at the school, if they have a cell phone on them, it will be confiscated at the beginning of the term since “cell phones are a distraction” per the principal.
On Friday, we took Vincliff, one of the orphans, to the eye doctor for a checkup. We have taken him a couple of times in the past and Agrapina, his grandmother, came with us as she usually does. Agrapina is a saint – she is a very cheerful, faithful and faith-filled woman in spite of the hardships in her life. When her daughter died, Agrapina took in her five children ranging in ages from 9-15 years old. She is truly a delight to be around and has a great sense of humor. After picking up Agrapina and Vincliff at their shamba, we were in the vehicle for a short time when Kathy asked Agrapina if she wanted to lead the rosary as she always does. Agrapina said, “yes” and then asked, “Kiingereza or Kiswahili?” (English or Swahili). When Kathy said, “Kiswahili”, Agrapina got a big smile on her face, took the rosary she had hanging around her neck and proceeded to begin the rosary. On the way to Kisii, we must have recited three rosaries as she would start one after the other until we got to the clinic and even once we parked, we did not leave the vehicle until we finished! As soon as we left Kisii to go back, she again started the rosary and we said a couple of them until we reached their shamba…all was good! At the clinic, once we paid the consultation fee of Ksh 1000 ($8.20), we sat and waited until they called us to a back room where the nurse had Vincliff read the eye chart and had a few other tests. So noticeable was how little privacy there was just as we’ve seen whenever we’ve taken orphans to the doctor…people sitting and waiting in the chairs had their pressures taken and questions asked of them while everyone in the room could see and hear what was happening. After doing her exam, the doctor prescribed some eye drops for Vincliff and we were then able to leave. On the way out, Kathy went to the Chemist (what a pharmacist is called here) at the eye clinic and asked for the prescription to be filled. The guy looked at the prescription and told Kathy he doesn’t have it though he has a “substitute” but, Kathy would have to go back to the doctor and ask her if the “substitute” drops would be okay. So, Kathy walked back to the other part of the clinic to get the doctor’s approval. Upon returning to the Chemist, Kathy relayed it would be okay to have the substitute to which the Chemist said, “I don’t have the substitute in stock” to which Kathy wanted to say (but didn’t), “could you have not told me that right away??” Kathy then asked where we could purchase the drops and he gave her the name of Jack’s Pharmacy. Kathy called Wes who had waited in the vehicle the entire time to see if he could find Jack’s Pharmacy on Google Maps and he was able to. It didn’t look like it would be too hard to find…we should have known better than to think that! We drove through traffic much like Kathy did last week though this week Wes didn’t get pulled over by any “county official”. We finally parked the vehicle and gave Agrapina and Vincliff some shillings to eat lunch while Kathy and Wes walked the streets looking for Jack’s Pharmacy. There were at least one to two Chemists on every street and we stopped at several of them along the way but none of them had the drops. Some of the Chemists looked decent while others were pretty dismal. During our trek, Wes asked a couple of security guard where Jack’s Pharmacy was and they each gave different directions. After walking some distance, our Google Maps showed that we were near the place but we could never see the shop. Finally, Wes saw a man in a yellow lab-type coat, who we recognized as someone who takes money for parking cars, and asked him if he knew where the place was. The man directed us to walk down the street we were at and there, tucked away in the middle of the block and under the large building, was Jack’s Pharmacy. We stopped at six different Chemists over a period of one hour before we were finally able to purchase the eyedrops for Vincliff. The total time spent between the clinic and finding a place to fill the prescription was about 4 ½ hours.
We continue to have rains though not as much (less than one inch this week) and we also continue to have power outages. We are grateful that the Form 4 girls will be here taking exams through the third week of December as we know that if the power goes out, the generator will be turned on from 4:30 am to 6 am and then again from 7-10 pm in the evening.
Finally, a shamba update: the caretaker house is in the process of being painted (just so you know that when you see the pictures, Kathy did not pick the colors!), the barn is almost done, water lines are being trenched by hand, workers continue to chip away at the stones to make the design, and finally, cement is being poured into the forms for the support columns for the Mission house. We were there when they were making the concrete and the men lifting the buckets of concrete on their shoulders and carried them to the needed areas to be poured into the columns. Again, we were amazed as we watched this process which was all done by hand. The architect did tell us they will bring in a cement mixer when they will do the two floors in the Mission house because of the amount needed and the job needing to be done in a short period of time.
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!