Tukopamoja is another one of the phrases we heard quite often in class.  It can have two meanings depending on the context.  Tukopomoja translates to We are Together or Are We Together?  The majority of time our teacher was asking us in the form of a question Are we Together? after explaining something…probably because of the many blank looks he got from his students!  On Friday, April 8, after we finished writing an essay in Kiswahili, four of us were very happy to be done with language school!  On Thursday morning, we had our mtihani wa kwanza (first exam).  We had to read a hidithi fupi (a short story) and then answer the questions – the story was in Kiswahili and we had to write the answers in Kiswahili.  This was meant to see if we could comprehend what we read.  On Friday morning we had our mtihani wa pili (second exam).  After we arrived to class on Friday morning, we were given the subject matter of the essay with a few requirements:  everything must be written in Kiswahili and the length of it should be five hundred words!  Jacken, our teacher, wrote the following on the board:  Safari yetu ya Kenya which translates to Our Journey to Kenya.  We had to include what made us decide to come to Kenya, how did we prepare for our journey, how did we get to Kenya, what did our family and friends think of us coming to Kenya for three years and finally what will we be doing at our mission.  After writing for over two hours, Kathy was pretty sure she had over five hundred words because they filled almost both sides of the lined paper but upon counting them found that she only had around three hundred!  A lot of Kiswahili words are very long in length and truly we think those should have counted for two words instead of one!  After another hour or so of writing, Kathy was again counting the words when Jacken saw her doing this and asked what she was doing.  When she explained she didn’t have five hundred words yet, he took mercy upon us and said we were good.  Fr. Philip, another student was still working on his so were weren’t the last ones! Fr. Philip was the brainy one in our class…he had a photographic memory and could recall the meaning of many words plus he was pretty good at speaking basic sentences.  Though we are done with language school, we by no means can speak complete sentences all that well.  We have a much easier time of figuring out what is being spoken as opposed to us speaking the language.  We are pretty sure that once we are back at the mission, we will have plenty of teachers helping us to build upon what we have learned in school.  We have no problem admitting that language school has been one of the hardest things we have done in some time…it has been intense and at times you felt like you could not continue but we did and we know that from this experience we have learned a lot about ourselves as well.   

We are happy to be done with school but at the same time, there is some sadness because our hearts have been touched by the kindness of the Consolata priests, the staff at the language school and those working in the shamba (farm) and finally the other students from around the world who, like us, were striving to learn a new language whether it be English, French, Italian, Kiswahili, etc.  It has been a blessing to meet so many interesting people from different parts of the world, to hear their perspectives and learn a little about their lives and culture.  As mentioned in a previous blog, there are numerous signs posted throughout the compound.  These signs have quotes from different people and one of them comes to mind as we write this.  It is by Aristotle and states, “Educating the Mind Without Educating the Heart Is No Education at All”.  This has been a holy place in which we have grown not just in mind and expanded our hearts but we have grown spiritually as well.  For this experience, as hard as it was, we are grateful. 

We did spend most of our time studying but in the past month we were able to get out on the weekend and do some things.  A few weeks ago, the Language School organized a day of relaxation and fun at a park near Nairobi.  This day was for all the language students (approximately thirty students) and a few of the teachers.  We were taken by bus to a park called Paradise Lost.  We hiked to a cave, a waterfall, ate lunch together and took time to visit with each other away from the school setting.  Included in the cost was to either paddle a “square canoe” with room for four people or ride a horse that looked very tired!  We chose to go in the canoe and with us was Sister Dafrosa, a sweet and funny Sister from Korea who was learning English and Fr. DeJay from the Congo who was also learning English.  We didn’t capsize our canoe so it was a very good day!

Recently, we were able to take a Saturday morning and visit the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.  It is basically a nursery for rescuing, raising, and reintegrating orphaned elephants (tembo), rhinos (kifaru) and other creatures back into the wild.  Currently there are around twenty-two elephants of various ages  These elephants are all orphans and they each come with their own story.  Some have lost their mothers to human-wildlife conflict, some are victims of drought or other natural causes but a fair number of them are orphans because their mothers were killed by poachers.  These elephants are bottle fed with an infant based formula – they are fed every three hours twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  We were able to watch the feeding of these elephants and it was quite interesting…especially watching them hold their own baby bottles with their trunk!   They are a friendly animal and so we were able to be close enough to touch them.  In the photos that are found in the album, one will see that their skin appears to be a deep reddish-brown.  This is because they will pick up soil with their trunks and dust it on themselves as a type of protective barrier.  Fr. Cyrus told us this is “their beauty routine – putting on their makeup”!  The soil here has a deep reddish-brown color to it and thus why the elephants look the same color as the soil.  That same day we also went to the Giraffe Center (Kiswahili word for giraffe is twiga which seems quite appropriate!).  This is a place dedicated to educating Kenyan school children about their country’s wildlife and environment and to give visitors like us an opportunity to see this beautiful animal up close by feeding them!  We never realized the giraffe had such a long tongue and if one is not careful, you might get a head butt from one of them as well!

We also took time one Sunday afternoon to visit Sr. Inviolata whom we first met at the mission when we came in 2018.  Sr. Inviolata is here in Nairobi getting her Masters in Education.  She invited us to their compound where approximately thirteen Sisters live with some of them teaching at the kindergarten they run.  Sister told us that most of the children in the school come from the nearby slum.  The manager of the shamba (small farm) is Sr. Carol whom we also met in 2018.  She gave us a tour of the shamba showing us the crops they raise.  All work done to prepare the ground for planting is done by hand with a jembe (large hoe).  When we commented about what a hard job this was, Sr. Carol just smiled and said, “it is God’s work”.  They also have a lot of miti ya miembe (mango trees).  The mangos here are very delicious and at the end of our shamba tour, they insisted on picking some for us to eat immediately as well as some to take with us.  They had several varieties but for the smallest variety, you can eat the skin as well which we did and it didn’t taste too bad.  The most humorous part of this day was watching the Sisters pick the mangos with their home-made fruit picker.  This fruit picker was a V-shaped tree branch attached to a longer tree branch and secured together with a plastic bag.  One of the Sisters actually climbed high into the tree to get the “best” ones for us…she didn’t have a ladder either to start her trek up the tree!  Sister was hanging on branches picking fruit and tossing them to the Sisters below!  We joked with one another as we watched the Sisters wondering (as the saying goes) how many Sisters does it take to pick miembe?! 

On Monday morning, Rogers from the mission will be here to pick us up from school and take us back to the mission near Kisii. The drive is approximately 180 miles and will take around seven hours.  We will travel back through the Rift Valley and if it is a clear day, we will have spectacular views.  We are excited to be going back to the mission to work with the orphans in the various programs that are in place and to work on new projects.  We know we have much to learn but we are excited for this new phase of our journey in Kenya.  We have not posted much during school (we studied a lot!) but once we are back at the mission, we hope to post every week sharing with you the work of and life at the mission.  Until next time…Mungu Akubariki (God Bless You).



http://stjparish.com/photoalbums/kenya-4-10-22