Last Sunday we attended Mass here at Gekano though in hind-sight we should have driven to Kisii.  The Mass started 15 minutes late, the homily was 45 minutes and after communion there was another 40 minutes of announcements and more talks – total Mass time was around 2.5 hours.  Before the start of Mass, a small girl came over to Wes to shake his hand and surprisingly she wasn’t scared at all.  After she shook his hand, she raised that same hand to her face and didn’t stop looking at it even as she walked with her father to find a bench to sit on!  During the homily, there was a small boy behind Kathy who was playing with her hair which was okay but he had a cold and the sniffles.  On Monday evening, Kathy started to feel like she was getting a cold and on Tuesday, it came.  Who knows…maybe it was from the little boy or maybe it was from someone at the wedding last Friday.  Either way, Kathy didn’t care to have a cold but she got one and by Sunday it still had not gone away. 

On Monday morning, we drove to Kisii to pick out the color of the cabinets for the kitchen, laundry, bathrooms, office, etc.  Our color ideas were different than the people that were helping us but, in the end, we went with what we thought was best given the choices we had.  In the afternoon, Kathy decided to make a batch of chapati and freeze them to have handy for quick meals.  To make about around 40 of them, it usually takes 3 hours from start to finish.  Kathy likes to use them for bean quesadillas, to have with githeri (mixture of maize and beans) or use them as a wrap for sautéed onions, red and yellow peppers, scrambled eggs and shredded mozzarella cheese.  While Kathy was making the chapati, Osongo came to the door with his pockets full of loquats – so full the loquats were falling out as he came up the porch.  Wes entertained him for a while with school, making paper airplanes, etc.  At one point, Kathy could hear Osongo yelling, “mama, mama” so Kathy thought she’d better go see what Osongo wanted.  When she got to the door, Wes was laughing as Osongo had an ant in his hand and what he wanted from “mama” was for her to bring the vacuum cleaner and suck up the ant!  Kathy made the mistake of showing Osongo the vacuum cleaner when he came one day while she was vacuuming – that day he had an ant crawling on his finger so she vacuumed it up and Osongo thought that was great!  A vacuum cleaner is not a common thing here for obvious reasons but Kathy bought herself one for her 60^th birthday present to herself last year – a vacuum cleaner is a necessity for Kathy.  The only kind of vacuum cleaner they had was a Shop Vac type but it works and that is all that matters though one could use ear plugs for as loud as it is.  The Sisters next door didn’t know what it was the first time they saw Kathy cleaning the filter outside – they referred to it as a “machine” and asked what the “machine” does so Kathy showed them.  Kathy wasn’t going to bring the vacuum cleaner out to Osongo to vacuum the ant but she did bring out a fresh chapati for him and Wes.  Osonogo decided to stuff his rolled chapati in his back pocket since he was busy…eventually it got pulled out and he ate it!

On Tuesday morning Wes went out with Robert and Janet to make visits for the Heifer Program and spray a couple of the animals for ticks.  Kathy decided to lounge around the house because she didn’t feel well.  In the afternoon while Kathy was trying to take a nap because of feeling lousy, Osongo came to the porch to be entertained by Wes and so they wrote letters and numbers.  Osongo told Wes he wanted chapati but Wes told him no for a couple of reasons.  One, the chapati were frozen though Osongo would probably have really found that interesting since most people don’t have a refrigerator/freezer and the other reason being he would come back every day wanting chapati and so would all the other little ones when they found out.  When Wes finally got Osongo to leave, Osongo made the comment to Wes, Matawa mbaya which meant bad Sister.  So, Wes asked Osongo, “Kwa nini?” (Why?) to which Osongo replied, “shuka chini” which means come down.  Wes figured out that one of the Sisters next door must have seen Osongo climbing on the porch railing of the Mission house earlier in the day and told him to come down!  He is a little cutie but lately he has been using the word mbaya a lot! He is one we will definitely miss when we come home for the month of September. 

On Wednesday morning, Wes stayed back at the Mission to help with office hours.  Office hours are held as a time for when people can come and apply for the different programs the Mission offers, school fees can be paid for primary, secondary, and post-secondary students, etc.  This was Wes’s first time to write checks and he only messed up three of them which was pretty good.  We thought we were good to write checks back in June but came to find out that our names really weren’t on the account as the bank said they were.  After a few trips to the bank for this specific reason, Fr. David finally got everything straightened out and now we can both write checks if needed.  There can be no errors on the checks in the way of an extra line, scratch mark, trying to make a letter out of one you accidentally started to write such as making an S out of a B, etc.  Wes really had to concentrate on writing the date since here they write the day first followed by the month and then the year.  For example, instead of writing 8-26-23 as we would, they write 26-8-23.  We figured the best thing is to record it as 26^th August, 2023 as old habits are hard to change.  While Wes stayed back to help with office hours, Kathy went out with Lilian, Emma, and Janet to make home visits in the Nyamakoroto area for the Water with Blessings program.  We were able to finish which meant we could deliver water drums to the women who qualified.  Late Wednesday afternoon after taking Lilian and Emma back to their homes, Kathy and Wes drove to the new shamba to load up water drums.  Robert helped Wes load the drums on the Landcruiser so we could take off right after daily Mass on Thursday morning as we knew it would be a long day. 

On Thursday morning Robert and Wes headed to Enchoro in the Landcruiser while Lilian, Emma, and Kathy followed behind in the Hilux with a few more drums.  The church at Enchoro, where we were distributing the drums, is only accessible with the Hilux or Landcruiser.  We unloaded the Landcruiser and while Wes and Robert headed back to get another 16 drums from the shamba, Emma and Lilian had to sort out the women who showed up but weren’t supposed to be there including some who were never trained.  The sight of the water drums tied to the Landcruiser and being driven up the steep hill was quite noticeable to many people and probably made them curious as to what was going on…we just knew more mamas were there than there were supposed to be.  At one point, a man arrived on his pikipiki (motorcycle).  He came up to Kathy, identified himself as the administrator of that area and asked Kathy what the issues were.  Kathy told him there were no issues and explained to him our reason for being there which he was quite happy about – nothing goes unnoticed here!  After we finished distributing the 32 drums at Enchoro, Robert and Wes made another trip to the shamba to get more drums for the 17 women at Nyamakoroto who qualified.  We again had some mamas come who weren’t supposed to be there.  You want to give them all a drum because they most likely could use it but at the same time, the drum is given because of them continuing to use the filter and taking good care of it which is determined during the home visit.  Just as we did at Enchoro we explained – with Lilian as our translator – that the most valuable gift which all of them received was the water filter because it provides clean water for them and their families for many years.  They knew that and agreed with it but at the same time, they like to receive gifts especially if their friends or neighbors got one.   

On Saturday, we had Mission Saturday here at Gekano.  Sr. Theresa was not able to come so Kathy had the job of the bursar – to hand out the shillings for monthly allowance, uniforms, remedial (extra help at school), transport to a clinic to receive monthly medications for those who are HIV positive, etc.  Kathy had to write the date on every receipt and had a fair number of scratched out and re-written dates but those didn’t matter as much as a check.  Because some spaces opened up on the rosters, a fair number of new orphans and/or vulnerable children have been enrolled in the last few months which is good.  Two of the children that were enrolled were because of Water with Blessings home visits we made recently.  When Kathy observed the situation during the home visit, she encouraged the woman – not the mother of the children – to come to the Mission office and see if they would qualify for assistance and they did.  These children have a mother but she is not capable of taking care of them.  This past Saturday was their first time to come and the woman and her mother-in-law who are taking care of these children came and both were very happy to receive the stipend of 900 shillings and the 8 tins of maize to help feed this extended family.  They expressed their gratitude to the Bismarck Mission numerous times…you knew they were truly grateful for this extra help.  Since applications are still being accepted for the Heifer Program, Wes talked to the woman and encouraged her to apply.  We hope they are able to raise the Napier grass that is required and if they can, they most likely will be awarded a heifer since there are numerous members in the household who can benefit from having milk to drink – not just the two children recently enrolled in the education program. 

The day time temps have been much warmer this week (mid to upper 80’s) and we’ve only had a trace of precipitation.  It is dry here – hopefully the rains will soon come to water the maize and other crops that have been or will soon be planted and to put some water in the the cistern.  The Sisters have helped us out to put a little water in our cistern but we still only have around 2 feet or less and the borehole is again dry.  Even though we have not had storms, the power has gone out a couple of times since the students left for school break almost two weeks ago.  The Sisters started the generator one of those times for a few hours which we were grateful for.  This past Friday night around 9:45 pm, the power went out and was still out the next morning when we got up meaning we had to get ready and brush teeth, etc. by flashlight.  The power didn’t come on at all during the day so on Saturday evening around 7:30 pm the Sisters turned the generator on for two hours.  Eventually, the power came on and it was nice to wake up to power on Sunday morning.  We read in the Saturday news that the power outage affected much of the country.  Major hospitals and the main international airport in Nairobi went without power for about 5 hours.  An official stated there is a generator that serves the main airport terminal though it failed to start.  The last time we had a major outage across the country was in May which was not all that long ago. 

On Thursday night of this week (August 31), we are scheduled to leave Nairobi heading home to ND to see family and friends.  Fr. David and we will travel to Nairobi on Thursday morning after Mass.  It will take about 5-6 hours to get there and once there we will stop to pick up the mirrors and kitchen sink for the new house – the ones we couldn’t fit when we were in Nairobi at the end of July when we brought Kaleb back for his return trip to Rome.  We also plan to drive out to Consolata where we went to language school.  The carpenters there are making the kneelers, chairs, altar, podium and small table for the chapel in the new house.  Thursday will be a long day and by the time we board the plane that night we will be very tired.  Our flight is scheduled to leave Nairobi at 11:59 pm with an 8.5-hour flight to Amsterdam.  In Amsterdam we have a three-hour layover before boarding a plane for Minneapolis where we have a 5.5-hour layover, finally arriving in Williston Friday evening.  We gain eight hours on the way which is nice but that also means when we get in on Friday evening, it will be 5 am back at the Mission…hopefully we get some sleep on the plane.  It will probably take a few days to get our bearings straight. 

We plan to post a blog next weekend but will then take a break from it while we are at home.  We know our time will go fast…we are grateful to be able to be going home and seeing family and friends. 

Please keep the Mission, those we serve here and us in your prayers as we travel back home this week and know we continue to keep you in ours.  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/8-27-23