Watoto Wote Wazuri

I don’t often write many blog posts when I am stateside or am not heading or recently returned from Kenya, but Kenya has been very much on my mind and those of us who travel and volunteer there have been in communication about the conditions there. Now is a time that I really need to post because of the seriousness, the ‘life or death” circumstances. The pandemic hit Kenya and, as is the case here, those most affected are the people who already have health problems, don’t have access to health care, and live on the edge of financial survival. This describes the women of Tuko Pamoja, those wonderful women to whom we have become so attached and with whom we been working for many years in the joint venture to bring their beautiful crafts to a sustainable market in the United States. Those of you who have ever been to a Tuko Pamoja event here know how much we not only enthusiastically display and promote their beautiful hand crafted items, but we also celebrate them, their hard work, resiliency through incredible hardship, their warmth and generosity with us and so much more.

It has been the established practice of Tuko Pamoja to purchase Tuko Pamoja goods twice a year and bring them to the U.S. for sales in events all across the country. However, the pandemic not only hit Kenya, locked it down and jobs and income sources for many disappeared, Tuko Pamoja also got stopped in its tracks. All of our spring events were cancelled and thus the sustainable income stream which it has provided for the women in Kenya was abruptly halted. The women were left without any income from Tuko Pamoja, no way to sell their crafts in Kenya, and thus no way to have any income, and no way to even put food on the table. So instead of the usual Tuko Pamoja events, since March the goal has been to raise enough money to send to Kenya to buy and distribute enough food to keep the women (and a few men) of Tuko Pamoja  and their children alive.  In March the Tuka Pamoja Food Program began with a GoFundMe page with that purpose in mind. This is an ongoing goal and since then every month we have been able to send funds to Kenya to support well over 600 people ( adults and children) with food supplies. 

The Food Program has continued, but what began in March as a need for $4000 to feed over 600 people 2 meals a day has increased to costing $5000 to feed 600 people one meal a day. Food prices in Kenya have skyrocketed. In addition, all of our usual fall Tuko Pamoja events here in the U.S., which produce the largest sales, have had to be cancelled and the January trip to Kenya has had to be cancelled as well. And sadly we have learned that one of the women and 3 of the children have died. The title of this blog is a quote from Justus during a recent ZOOM meeting during which we discussed his experience of delivering food and interacting with the women in Kenya and plans for moving forward. He also told us that that women have pulled him aside and said that if it were not for the food he has been able to bring, they would have died. Justus is the feet on the ground in Kenya for Tuko Pamoja who buys and distributes all of the food to all of the Tuko Pamoja groups in different geographic communities, nothing short of our hero and the women’s guardian angel who is extremely devoted quite frankly incurs some real risks to keep this all going.

Presently we are still trying to raise money to send to Kenya on a monthly basis.  Many of us who have a piece of our heart there,  but won’t be able to return to Kenya in January,  have sent the funds we would have spent on the trip…and more… to keep the food program going. We have funds enough through the end of this month and part way through November and are working on raising more. Lloydie has made a Herculean effort to create an online shop of the Tuko Pamoja crafts which we have available and you can shop from them here: http://www.tuko-pamoja.com/newdesign/shop/ Please check it out….I couldn’t resist.

Anyone who wishes to help us with the effort to sustain the women of Tuko Pamoja and their families can do so by shopping from their crafts or giving a donation to the Food Program.  http://www.tuko-pamoja.com/newdesign/donate-to-food-program/

To those who have helped already, you have saved lives, and no words can really express the gratitude that we have and that which comes from across the globe. It’s a tough time for everyone, but this is a huge and definitive way to save lives, a “matter of life or death” difference that you make. At a time when so much seems wrong in the world, for me at least, it feels so important and fills my heart to do something that seems so undeniably right, escapes the daily divisiveness of life in this country and  simply focuses on compassion and humanity. 

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and 

real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, 

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this

world.

Mary Oliver

I have been home now since February 3rd, but still have Kenya very much in my mind and always in my heart. There have been many communications back and forth between Kenya and within the U.S. sharing more stories, exchanging photos and even letters, and most of all expressing longings and missing: of other travelers and volunteers, of the Kenyan people in general and our favorite Kenyans, in specific, of the beautiful singing of birds in Samburu, the gorgeous Kenyan skies, the ambient laughter and singing of children in Nyumbani Village, the lush green countryside, the way that people speak from their hearts, and on and on, even the sukumawiki, well maybe not the sukumawiki (sautéed greens served EVERY day in Kenya) all that much. But everything else, I am missing Kenya so much.

I wanted to write a dedicated blog post to the use of my donations and how much of a difference they made even though I have sprinkled a bit of writing about that through my previous posts for this year. I am so very grateful that I was able to raise almost $8000 from so many generous donors and that through them I was able to contribute to making a difference in so many lives.

In the Maasai community (PCDA) using the donations to sponsor the school lunch program has made a huge difference not only for the children there, but for the whole community. The children are healthy, thriving, learning, and growing and the worries about feeding the children have dissipated. When we first met that community they were really struggling with having access to water, establishing their school and having resources for teaching the children, having school uniforms which are required to become a government recognized, funding the school and more. They have really come a long way. A non-tangible and hard to quantify difference is the relationships which have been developed, especially with the women of PCDA who are part of Tuko Pamoja, the company which was developed to buy the goods of the women’s self help groups to help them to a develop a sustainable market and and more (www.tuko-Pamoja.com). At first we were unknown, unfamiliar white faces with no language in common and whose agenda was undoubtedly suspicious. Now we are a sisterhood, with ties that go so deep that it takes no language to communicate. I digress from the donations here, but they have been a part of the development of this over the years and it’s hard to convey how all of our hearts and souls have been affected by all of this. It is a remarkable privilege that I feel I have been given in being able to be an “ambassador” of kind and caring Americans and to experience the gratitude and love that is given in return.

Because I had such a generous outpouring of donations, I was able to dedicate the largest portion to providing sanitary pads to adolescent girls across the sites where we volunteer. This included the girls at PCDA, Nyumbani Village, and the Nyumbani Lea Toto clinics, a total of 565 girls. When I realized that we were going to be able yo do this I was thrilled because the impact of doing so is huge for these girls. These was an Academy Award winning film a couple of years ago, “End of Sentence. Period.” which took place in India, but really provided good insight into what the impact is for girls when they do not have any products for when they have their periods. Often this is also in a context of no good reproductive education, a lack of conversation about the issue, a sense of shame and missing school one week a month because of no way to deal with the physical products of menstruation. Providing those opens up a kind of freedom for those girls to not miss school, but also conversation, education and normalizing the experience. Because we purchased the pads from Freedom for Girls which packages pads with educational materials and they were given to the girls in groups, it created a social educational context. I hope that it, too, created more conversation among them and that will continue.

Finally, we were able to buy sports equipment and uniforms for the children of Nyumbani Village. The children there are excellent athletes, dancers, and musicians and they compete with other schools in all those arenas, including schools which have many more resources. Although they can be very competitive in those skills and have won competitions, having good equipment and uniforms is important for their self esteem and pride. There are no children who appreciate new sports uniforms and equipment more then the children of Nyumbani Village. They represent more than just equipment and clothing.

I also had donors who gave me donations of yarn for the baskets that Nyumbani grandmothers weave. I had the largest LL Bean duffle FULL with beautiful yarn of many colors. I could barely manage to move it with other bags it was so full, in fact, there were moments when I was tripping over that enormous, too wide, impossible to stand up duffle, that I was muttering words that didn’t sound so grateful. But I truly was and can’t wait to see the beautiful baskets that it all becomes

These are the major projects that I was able to support with my donations. Others had donations to support other projects; and we have been been able to support so many others this year and over the years through the generosity of many donors: building individual household chicken coops buying supplies for household gardens, and planting a sisal garden at Nyumbani Village, replacing the roof at the school, providing access to water, providing school supplies and supporting teacher salaries until they became government funded at PCDA, supporting the school food program at the Mutungu School are just a few.

However, what you don’t always hear about are the things that we are able to do on a smaller scale that touch individual lives, that actually can change lives in profound ways. These are the stories and human interactions which touch our hearts most deeply and are most memorable. There are so many of them, too many to share, and now over many years I can’t even remember all of the details of all of them because they are more etched in my heart and in my emotions than in my memory. However, I would like to tell a couple of them because they are so meaningful. One is from the very first trip and one from the most recent.

In our first trip, one of the things that we did was to accompany the social workers or community outreach worker on home visits to check in on families who had children who were being provided care in the Lea Toto outreach clinics in the compromised communities (aka slums) outside of Nairobi. This was my first introduction to one of these communities, specifically Kibera, the largest one, an overwhelming maze of bumpy dirt roads and tiny dirty, muddy alleys strewn with garbage, dirty water and raw sewerage streaming between the alleys where the houses are attached to each other. People live in tiny, dark, windowless, dirt houses with tin Sides and roofs and no ventilation. The roads run down hill on all sides to a central bowl, so coming from the the center of the community is always an uphill walk. Houses are tin shacks with at most 2 rooms as large as an average bathroom in the USA and despite the outside conditions they are extremely clean side. We did one home visit in Kibera with the community outreach worker and met a woman who was taking care of  multiple children including her 9 year old daughter with cerebral palsy who needed total care. We learned that to get her to her clinic visits at Lea Toto she had to carry her on her back uphill through the alleys through Kibera. She used to make a very small income through being a hairdresser from home; she could only work from home because she had to be there to take care of her daughter and feared that if she left her for any time at all she might be raped Or harmed in some way. However, all of her hairdressing equipment was now broken, she couldn’t afford to replace it and she no longer had a way to earn an income. We took inventory of what she needed, went to the local Nakuamat store and purchased it for about $35 and brought it to her. She was overwhelmed and beyond grateful and we were so powerfully moved that for the price of a very modest dinner out we could restore this woman’s ability to make an income and provide for her family. There ware a lot of tears that day, tears of being profoundly moved, tears of realizing how so little could so make such a big difference in someone’s life…. I did not realize that first year how many times I was to experience that over and over again.

This year we had the privilege of being able to make a change in the life of Jane, “the soap lady.” Every year when we drove to the Maasai community, a drive that always takes us along the same route past the beautiful Rift Valley, we passed by a woman on the side of the road. Every year she was there at a small table in a wheelchair selling soap. Every year we waved to her and she waved back with a huge smile. Since we were a van full of mostly “Mzungu’s”, white people in Swahili, passing by at the same time of the year I’m sure it was easy to spot us. Every year we waved; every year she waved back enthusiastically with a big smile. After a few years, we stopped and met her in person and Deb, in true Deb spirit, gave her a little bag of goodies, something she often creates to give to women. Sometimes the bag has lotion or sweets or other little treats, sometimes soap, but not in this case. And thus began stopping every year to see Jane on the way to or from, or both, the Maasai Community. This year, before I arrived so I was not a part of this exchange, there was stop once again with a glorious happy greeting with affection and hugging. This time Deb said to her, “So we are friends now, is there anything else we can do to help you?” After some prodding, Jane explained that her wheelchair was both in terrible shape and was too wide to get into certain parts of the place where she lived and she had needed a new wheelchair for years. It was in fact held together by a loot of wire repairs. It turns out that wheelchairs in Kenya only cost about $300. Though I arrived the next day and we went to the Maasai community one more time, there hadn’t been time to talk about this before we were on to new communities and new work. However, before most of us left, we sat and talked about Jane, who we still refer to as Jane, the soap lady. There are a lot of Janes in Kenya. Deb usually stays on a week beyond the rest of us and she and Justus could go into Nairobi and pick out a wheel chair if we all wanted to pitch in….and so we did. Often those of us who travel to Kenya carry our own personal “slush funds” for just this kind of situation and have our own students we sponsor in addition to the causes for which we gather donations. It’s very heart warming to have this kind of situation arise and to know that with a small contribution from everyone you can change a life.

Once home I was thrilled and still easily tearful from anything that moved me emotionally related to Kenya when I received an email from Deb. She and Justus had delivered the wheel chair to Jane. I opened the email in my office, was moved to tears, and thought about what a wonderful way it was to start my day. There are many ways to make a difference in the world, but in Kenya, often it doesn’t take a lot to do that.

There are countless stories we have gathered over the years, requiring anything from connecting the right people to what would be considered minimal to quite modest financial resources. They are stories of changing peoples lives in Kenya, but I am certain everyone would agree that they have changed our lives as well. They have helped to build deep connections with people in Kenya and with each other, to feel grateful for what we have, to realize that having been born in the U.S. is a lucky thing with many privileges, not entitlement, and that we feel responsible for sharing.
But most of all, we have grown more open, compassionate hearts, and have come to realize that people everywhere are much more the same than they are different. If you open your heart, especially to women and children, there is so much love that you will given, so much that will move and change you, and there’s no going back. We are the ones who have truly been given so much.

I am blogging from home now, feeling like there is still so much to say, so much to share, and selfishly trying to keep the trip alive for myself as I get pulled into the day to day demands of home life. It’s always hard to leave Nyumbani Village, but knowing that we will wind down the trip with a day and a half of being on safari tends to make that a little easier. The experience of being on safari, riding around a beautiful park on the lookout for animals to me is like child’s play. It’s part treasure hunt, part incredible excitement and for a photographer, it’s a dream. Even the drive to Samburu National Park, about 5 hours north of Nairobi was a beautiful drive once we were out of the city and could see the mountains and beautiful fields and gardens with so many different shades of green.

We arrived at the park just in time for a short evening game drive that night and were able to go out 3 times the next day. Usually you do a morning and an evening drive, right after sunrise and right before sunset. But we were all feeling inspired and chose to do a middle of the day drive as well. I have been to several reserves and parks before, but I would say that I found Samburu to be the one that is the most beautiful. I would have found driving around and taking taking landscape photos amongst the mountains to be wonderful all by itself, even without the animals.

But of course, there were the animals, and the once’s which we encountered the most were the elephants, and there were so many…

A family of elephants

When elephants eat, the fragrance of the vegetation smells so nice, like the faint smell of passion fruit.

Two sparring elephants

Different sized young ones

Suckling baby

Look how tiny the baby is compared to the adult legs.

This is a napping baby.

The baby elephant in the series below is taking a mud bath.

One of the places where we frequently saw many animals was the river that runs through the park. Because of all the rain before we came and because it rained really hard the night while we were there, by the time we left, the river looked like rapids of melted chocolate.

For the first game drive we saw mostly elephants, but as the day went on we began to see more animals. Deb, Karen, and Justus were working hard on identifying new birds. And though of interest to me too, I was absolutely taken by the scenery. So when they stopped to identify a bird I was often taking advantage of the Jeep no longer rattling and the opportunity to have a steady hand so that I could take more photos of the beautiful scenery.

In between scenery and birds there began to be giraffes in groups, singly, and popping up in all kinds of places.

A large group of giraffes walking together.

We saw gazelles , and a lot of dik diks, a warthog, but no zebras and this park is famous for the unusual Grevy zebras…..and no big cats.

After this came the absolute determination by Justus to find us a leopard. We thought we might actually end up leaving the park without seeing one, but at our last game drive for the day as we were getting close to having to go back to the camp it happened. Once spotted, it was a wild and rapid ride in the Jeep, but so worth all the bumps, rattling and even a couple of bruises. And the leopard, a regal, beautiful creature was just lounging in a tree with a little sun on its face as the sun was going down. It was a very exciting end to the last game drive of the day to be able to take in such a majestic creature.

As we got up the next morning to leave with the idea of doing a quick game drive through the park on our way out, Deb and I, who shared a tent were surprised to find these little mother and baby pairs of Vervet monkeys on the porch at the front of our tent. We had been warned to be sure to keep our tents zipped and secure because there were a lot of monkeys, but we didn’t expect to be greeted in the morning by these who seemed to be not at all afraid of us. I found them adorable, but apparently when they sneak into tents and try to steal people’s biscuits and catch them by surprise not everyone finds them as cute as I do.

The final drive through the park in the morning was not full of animals, but we did see an ostrich unlike any we had seen before. And it was still so beautiful with the mountains, the lush landscape and the fair weather clouds that frequently make up the beautiful Kenyan skies and make photographers like me happy.

This was the last hurrah before leaving this beautiful country, a wonderful way to wind down this trip with taking in its beauty and natural landscape, enjoying its animals and most of all enjoying each other’s company before most of us began our long journey home.

I will still have more to write since I want to say something about the generosity of my donors and what we were able to accomplish with the donations. I have also decided that I can’t stay away from Kenya again. I left with a full heart and telling everyone that I would see them next year. I couldn’t bear to say goodbye and I also know that staying away for three years is not something I can do again. I realized as I was leaving, really during the whole time I was there, how much Kenya is a part of me now, how a piece of the experience there is always with me, how much I carry in my heart, how much it has impacted me. So I will be back next year to the country and the people I have grown to love.

The gate to Nyumbani Village

Of anywhere in Kenya, Nyumbani Village is my favorite place to spend time. The ride through the country side to get to the Village is stunningly beautiful. With all of the unseasonably heavy  rain, everything was lush and green along the way with beautiful mountains and terraced gardens. The ride close to the Village itself was so muddy and wet that the usual road was blocked off. We ended up driving behind various herds of cows and goats which is not an unusual Kenyan experience. Nyumbani Village,  itself,  was quite beautiful and green.

I always find it overwhelming to enter through the front gate because that is the point at which I am reminded that all of the children here, all 1000 of them orphaned and rescued from dire circumstances, would likely not have survived if not for this Village. And here they are, not only surviving but thriving, lively, singing, and dancing, spirited and beautiful children

Once we had made our way through the serious mud slides, mud baths, mud holes, and treachery of the road, thanks to Justus’s trusty driving skills and all terrain Jeep, we arrived at the nearer to the heart of the Village only to be greeted by many of those lively, excited children, welcoming us back. They were also asking for “Kasyoka, Kasyoka?!” We have all been given names in Kamba, the tribe of the people living in the Village and the surrounding area, and that is Lloydie’s names. All the children were looking for her and sad to find that she wasn’t with us. There were many responses of “Pole, pole. (sorry) We will pray for her.” That was after Justus, the relentless joker tried to tell them that Valerie, one of the volunteers, who they already know and who is Afro-American was Lloydie.

There is so much I could say about Nyumbani Village, it’s richness with the culture of the Kamba tribe, the simplicity of life, the advanced sustainability model, and more… I cannot say that there is just a single characteristic that is so compelling for me. The land is beautiful, there is wonderful fresh air and lovely evenings with the most star-filled skies you will ever see, and  in the evening, after the sun goes down you can often hear the voices of children singing. In fact singing and dancing is part of everyday life for some of the youngest children to the eldest grandparents. I happen to catch a cute video of these two who spontaneously broke into dance as the sound system was being tested for the Day of Remembrance….more about that soon.

The plans for our time in the Village included a number of different projects with everyone often working different projects each day. Valerie continued her combined art and teaching with several grade levels at the Village. Karen worked on finance, savings, and business skills with the students at the Polytechnic School and with the Grandmothers (shushu’s). Deb and Justus worked on sorting and selecting from the handwoven baskets made by the grandmothers for sales through Tuko Pamoja. Because of the generosity of my donors we were able to order sanitary pads for the girls of Nyumbani Village, the Maasai Community and the Lea Toto sites. These were purchased through Freedom for Girls, an organization formed to provide them to girls from impoverished areas of Kenya.  to provide education as well as to enable not to miss school during menstruation. Each package contains a years worth of pads, an educational pamphlet and underwear. One of Megan’s projects was to work with the students in Polytechnic to introduce the process of making reusable cloth sanitary pads to trial as a possibility for the future.

              Teaching and giving out sanitary pads

Megan explains about reusable cloth sanitary pads
It’s a mystery to me why these photos keep showing up rotated. I can’t seem to solve so for the moment I’m moving on…..

My big project in the Village was to prepare the community for and organize the Day of Remembrance. This is the day that we have developed as a way to honor and remember, as a community, the departed loved ones of everyone. Over the years of doing mental health work in the Village I realized that the despite the overwhelming amount of loss their community has experienced, there is so much unresolved grief and so little spoken about the ubiquity and the enormity of the losses. Since it seemed more in keeping with the culture to deal with this through religious ceremony, ritual and song, the Day of Remembrance was developed with that in mind. So I began by speaking with the Village counselor and the priest, both of whom were new since we last held this event. I also spoke with all the children by talking to the grade school, polytechnic and high school students. Many of the older children had clear memories for attending th event in the past and seemed enthusiastic about doing so again. I also met with the shushus as a group. Then began the process of collecting all the names of lost loved ones, most importantly all of the children’s parents,  so that they could be written on luminary bags to be lit on the evening of the ceremony.

At the same time as this we held a workshop for the grandmothers, enpcouraging then to train each other on new skills, with Karen working with them on long term savings plans, and providing a special lunch. I was too busy with the Day of Remembrance to do more than stop by for lunch, but know that this was a very successful event.

The time of preparing for the Day of Remembrance is always a little anxiety provoking in trying to be sure that we have gotten all the names, will have time to get them all written on the bags and will manage to get the process and timing of lighting the candles to all come together at the right time to be lit at the end of the church service. This year was even more complicated because it had rained multiple times, unpredictably and suddenly, day and night,  since we arrived  at the Village and the luminary ceremony is usually held outside. It is incredibly beautiful to have the big circle of luminaries lighting the darkness under the starry Kenyan sky. I so wanted to have it be that way again, but given that rain was predicted and that would ruin the luminaries, I reluctantly decided to hold it inside the new church.

Preparing the luminary bags

Somehow, as it has in the past, with the help of many hands, it all came together. In addition to all of the KEST volunteers, there were visiting members from the Nyumbani Spanish and U.S. Boards and a Princeton fellow who all shared in the process of preparing  and lighting the luminaries. The timing of this event is always very special for me since it occurs on the birthday of my son who died; it was even more so this year because Isabella, who I had known but never met in person and who too has lost a son, was also there for the ceremony.  Despite the disappointment of holding the ceremony inside, it was still very beautiful. The luminaries lined all the walls of the church and were arranged in an order to allow all the children and grandparents to find those which had the names of their lost loved ones. The volunteers also chose people to honor and had their own luminaries. The ceremony opened with beautiful singing and then the reading of all the names began. Between groups of names, there was more beautiful singing. People were gathered around the luminaries with the names of those who were meaningful to them. The amount of loss in the room was profound, yet also was the sense of sharing something so powerful. With the beautiful music it was almost like being transported to a different place. It never did rain, we could have been outside,  but in the end, it was what was in the room that really mattered, and it was truly was beautiful. 

Play the video to hear the beautiful singing and see more photos below

From the Dagoretti group of Tuko Pamoja

 I cannot believe how much time has gone by since my last blog post, but I have either been too busy, too tired or too disconnected from anything, but very slow internet to make it possible to do a blog post. I’m usually much more prolific with my posts, but there just haven’t been enough hours in the day. 

We wound down meetings with our more local Tuko Pamoja women’s groups by going to Dagoretti at the end of last week. This is another impoverished area outside of Nairobi which is also a site of an outreach clinic for families of children who are HIV positive. Tribe anywhere in Kenya is always fascinating and I found these glimpses of children particularly delightful:

Because I know that that some people are new to reading the blog and some have not read it for a while I feel I should pause and just explain a few things. The Nyumbani organization has 3 different sites, the first of which was Nyumbani Children’s Home, an orphanage in Karen right outside of Nairobi and which was originally developed as a hospice to care for children with HIV and AIDS. With advances in care and treatment with antiretroviral drugs, children infected with the virus now can lead nearly normal lives and become adults and productive members of society. There is no longer a need for hospice care. All of the children at Nyumbani Children’s home are both orphans and have the HIV virus. The second site of the Nyumbani Programs in the Lea Toto outreach clinics in the impoverished areas around Nairobi (here the word we use to describe these areas would be slums, but they are more politically correctly referred to as compromised or impoverished communities in Kenya.  Here families living in poverty with HIV positive children are offered medical, nutritional and social support. It is in these areas that Women’s Self Help Goups, a common social structure in Kenya have developed to help provide support and meet the mutual financial needs that could not be developed individually. These are the groups which make up Tuko Pamoja, the socially conscious LLC which was developed in order to help these women to have a sustainable market for their goods in the U.S. The third site is Nyumbani Village, an entire village built on a thousand acres in rural Kenya solely for the purpose of meeting the housing, social, medical, and educational needs of Kenyan orphans rescued from desperate conditions after the death of both parents, most often to AIDS. I will say more about Nyumbani Village later. Our visit to Dagoretti was to meet with one of these Women’s Self Help Groups with whom we have had a multi year relationship. Once again it was to pick up their order, talk about product development, as always to share a snack, and most importantly to catch up and strengthen the bonds of friendship and our ongoing relationships. One of Deb’s former students from the Children’s Home met us there with her new baby, a little girl whose name is Demitri and middle name is Deddearmon (all one word) after Deb who has been a big support.

Karen has been very involved here and in other sites in working on budgeting, saving, developing financial skills, developing entrepreneur, and even in helping to arrange some small loans for those wishing to begin businesses.

Megan and Karen

Over the weekend, we also had a chance to reconnect with some other good friends who we have developed over the years, such as Maggie at Amani, the woman’s workshop and storefront where all the goods are made by refugee woman. And of course, we went to Kazuri beads, a wonderful workplace that employs women form the impoverished areas (slums) like Kibera, which pays them a good wage and provides on site medical and child care. We like to support these socially conscious local businesses. Here we not only support the business by shopping form their beautiful handmade clay jewelry and pottery, but also visit the workshops where we are always greeted with very spirited singing. 

The next day, we visited the Children’s Home and were able  to see the wonderful children’s faces and how they have been growing so much when we went to church with them. Going to church in Kenya in general, and at Nyumbani Children’s Home in specific, is always a very different experience than it is in the U.S.  There is always wonderful singing, drumming, incredible rhythmic tiny dancers, and a sermon directed solely toward the children. It was a quick visit to Nyumbani Children’s Home this year as we were off to Nyumbani Village 

After what seemed like an endless build-up, long travel including one flight that was very much being in a washing machine, I finally arrived. When the plane touched down Kenya, when the wheels hit the tarmac, I breathed huge sigh of relief and a few happy tears “I’m finally here.”

The plane emptied out a herd of people into the immigration which was hot as hades and it took almost 2 hours to finally have my turn at the desk to get a visa. The Immigration officer asked me how I was and I told him, “I’m hot and very tired, but that part doesn’t matter so much because I’m just so happy to be here.” That made him smile. However, one of my duffels was still in London. Since it was the gigantic one stuffed full with yarn for the grandmother’s in Nyumbani Village, I didn’t need it until next week and was actually relieved that I wasn’t going to have to manage it again with with my other 50 pounder, my heavy carry-on and another bag. During all that time at the airport Justus was waiting for me. I was overjoyed to see his face as I walked out of the airport, Justus with a huge smile and a big hug, a few actually, and then I truly felt like I was back in Kenya. So I left home at midday on Monday, the 20th and actually arrived at my lodging destination shortly after midnight on the 22nd (with the 8 hour time difference.) Then I was just too excited to sleep and so the schedule of the next day began soon after.

Not an unusual driving experience to stop for cows or goats once you are outside of the city. This is the easy driving. In the city it is crazy with big vehicles and near misses.

Most of the other travelers were here first before I arrived, so the activity and busyness had already begun. On our first day together, we actually split into 2 different groups. I went to PCDA, the Maasai community with Megan and Valerie, and Deb and Karen went to Dandora, one of the impoverished communities around Nairobi, and the sight one of the Lea Toto clinics which provides care to families with HIV+ children. There is a Self Help Group of women there, the first group formed, who I first met in 2010. Amazing, strong, beautiful women who have all endured incredible hardship. I would have loved to have seen them, and felt some real heartache about missing them. So difficult when you have to let go of one thing you long for, to do another which is equally as compelling.

Deb provided me with this little video clip of what I missed:

Our day at PCDA was quite wonderful and so moving. It began with the children and much of my charge for the day was the photography and video assignment. This is clearly a “not work” assignment for me since I love doing both. Specifically I needed to check in on the food programs and the Tuko Pamoja women of PCDA. People who gave donations will recall that I was raising funds to support a school food program. I got to see those children who look healthy and strong and much better than when we first met them.

I also documented the work that Valerie has been doing with children—teaching them about core life skills and values incorporated into art projects. They are eager learners and also quite adorable.

In the afternoon I went to the PCDA women’s workshop where the women gather to make the beaded jewelry and other crafts that are sold as part of Tuko Pamoja. They are also learning to sew on trundle sewing machines. If you didn’t have a grandmother who sewed with one of these, you may not know that they are powered entirely by pedaling the trundle and need no electricity. Megan is working with them to teach them how to sew on these machines because this is a new skill for them. Benson, our driver for the travel to PCDA also does far more than drive—he also generously fixes and oils the machines, repairs the sides of the workshop, and more. The women were actively working on sewing projects and modeling their garb when it was finished. Part of visiting the Tuko Pamoja Women is to receive and pay the for the products that will become the crafts sold at Tuko Pamoja events in the US. But the larger picture is that it is about friendship, bonding and love that has grown over the years. There is always an opportunity to hear about their lives and their hardships of the past year. Sadly we often hear about women who been or are currently sick. It seemed that this year that were more women at all of the Tuko Pamoja groups who were telling us about health issues and sickness. It is a very hard way of life that these women live and it really takes it’s toll.

Megan wanted to give the women something very special, a gift of words, but they were in English. So she had Phillip, the director of PCDA, translate the words into Maa (MAAsai language) and read them to the woman. That brought some tears because of what the words said. They then knew what the words meant when she sang the words in English. She sang these words to each of the woman individually, holding both of their hands. Getting through that, the choking up and the pushing through, that wasn’t easy, but it came from the heart and she was determined. Then there were no dry eyes in the room. The words are below:

“How could anyone ever tell you, you’re anything less than beautiful

How could anyone ever tell you, you are anything less than whole.

How could anyone fail to notice that you’re loving is a miracle.

How deeply you’re connected to my soul.”

With the Maasai women, as is most often case with all of the Women’s Self Help groups, the time together ends with a song and a prayer. The singing was beautiful, but the praying was a powerfully moving experience. They prayed together, individually, and back forth for at least 5 minutes. There was intensely powerful, spiritual emotion in the room. There was crying and near sobbing….and I was standing there with tears rolling down my face even though I didn’t understand a single word. The prayer was in Maa. It was deeply moving such that I couldn’t help but think of how these two groups of women, from across the globe, very different in so many ways, were connecting on such a deep level. It was a reminder of how, in a fundamental human way, we are really very much the same.

After all the traveling, very little sleep for the last couple of days, and the emotion of the day, I was really tired but feeling good about the day.

The following day we went to meet with the women of Kibera paper who craft those beautiful handmade cards from recycled paper. They continue to make new designs with David, the artist who also works there. Each card, by itself, is a work of art. These woman have had ongoing hardship because they lost their workspace years ago and have not been able to find affordable space to replace it. They work out of a little trailer and the space around them keeps filling up with building scraps. They used to work on the land of a school and church but since there has been an expansion, they were not able to keep their space.

At each of the groups, Deb has been handing out pictures of the women which she took the year before and the women have really enjoyed seeing them. I think that they needed a little something to pick up their spirits. These helped…..and it also helped that we all shopped heavily from cards that were already made, but not part of the order which we were picking up from them.

As usual we joined together to enjoy some chai (Kenyan style black tea with sugar) and we always bring cookies and fruit for the women. Every meeting ends with a song and prayer. And every ending has a profuse expression of gratitude to us. We remind the women that we feel like we are the lucky ones, to know them and spend time with them, and to have this kinship. I have even telling the woman that at my event to sell the Tuko Pamoja crafts that we begin with the sales, but in the middle of the time I do a presentation because I want people to get to meet them and know them through my telling about them, showing photos and expressing my admiration and affection for them. And then people leave presentation and shop again because they have a different feeling about the crafts. Their crafts are beautiful, but it is getting to know them through the eyes of those of us who have a personal connection and can describe that and how it has so moved and impacted us that makes the difference.

Now, while we are primarily working in and around Nairobi, we return each day Dimesse Sister’s retreat center. It is very simple on the inside, somewhat like a college dormitory, but on the outside it is like a beautiful botanical garden.

Before coming to Kenya, I reconnected with, via Facebook, the first high school student who I sponsored at Nyumbani Village. It would have been in 2010, ten years ago, when I first met Caroline. We made a plan to get together and she came to Dimesse Sisters to have dinner with us. What a delightful, smart and passionate women she has become. She is attending Kenyatta University and working on a nutrition degree and loves the subject matter, but also has done some wonderful volunteer work after she got a 2 year diploma in nutrition. She talked about her work with so much enthusiasm and with a lot of knowledge. All of us were so impressed with her that we wanted to make sure to have some more time with her, so we are taking her out to lunch tomorrow. That has been such sweet reunion that, up until a few months ago, I never would have thought it could be part of this trip.

Many snafus with getting my photos to the right device to use for the blog, slow internet, and more have me from blogging before tonight. We have had another full day here today, my third day here, and I could say much more about just these days. Before I end this post, I need to say that Lloydie is not on this trip with us and there a huge hole without her here. Because of illness she could not make the trip this time. Everyone is asking for her, everyone is missing her and she is so beloved that I think nearly half of Kenya is praying for her. ❤️