Just checking in……
The Women’s Workshop and so much more…..
Group photo from the Women’s Workshop
So much has happened since I last posted! I have had to rely on photos and stories from the others for much of this post and was so disappointed to have missed out on so much. I was really sick for three days (high fever, headache and GI disturbance) so had to stay back completely for 2 days and one day when I tried to make the trip I spent most of the time like this:
No fun to be sick and miss everything!
I want to say however that I have never in all my prior trips to Kenya been sick before and I think I did my own self in by temporary stupidity with how I processed a grapefruit for eating, so don’t be discouraged by coming to Kenya by my experience.
On Friday we went to Kazuri Beads, stopped at lunchtime at the Elephant Orphanage, and then moved on to Kibera Paper for another Tuko Pamoja Event. The trip to Kazuri Beads had a threefold purpose: to confirm the plans for participating the Women’s Workshop; to learn about and tour an example of a very socially responsible, community and family focused business; and to do some “socially responsible” and delightful shopping from their beautiful collection of bead items. Kazuri beads has been in existence for decades, employs and busses to the location 100’s of women from the Kibera slums, and provides on site child care and medical care. The women get higher wages than at most businesses and are treated extremely well. The newbies got a full tour and the retreads spent time in the two largest workshop areas handing out sweets and enjoying the joyous experience of an extremely warm welcome with song and dance.
Workers at Kazuri Beads
The “monkey feeder” at Kazuri Beads
The longest employed woman at Kazuri Beads has worked there for FORTY years! And in case you are wondering, Kazuri means “small and beautiful” a perfect description of all their beads.
From 11AM to noon each day, visitors are welcome at the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage where the rescued baby elephants cared for there are brought out for feeding. Most of the elephants have lost their mothers to death by poachers in pursuit of ivory. The young elephants are rescued, nursed (really, with giant baby bottles and formula!) and fed, and then later released back to the wild. For all of us it is an opportunity to see prime wildlife conservation in action as well as to have the heart melting experience of truly being up close and personal with these adorable babies.
Baby elephants AND warthogs at the Elephant Orphanage
Following “lunch with the elephants” we set off to Kibera Paper to have the Tuko Pamoja meeting and to see this business on the edge of the Kibera slums which employs over 20 women and a couple of men from Kibera and who make beautiful cards, each a handmade work of art, on homemade paper recycled from paper discarded by businesses. As in each of the prior sites we had the TP meeting reporting the year’s success and giving out scarves and bonuses. Last year, not only were the women given individual bonuses, but each TP group was also given a 5000 ksh bonus to start a bank account. We learned that the group made a commitment to growing their bank accounts by each women contributing 100 ksh ( about $1.10) per month such that their account is now over 2900 ksh! As n all the other sites I filmed a demonstration of products made– the beginning to end process of making the paper and creating a card which involves so much work! And, all the volunteers were able to learn how to make paper and help in making cards. This is a wonderful group of warm women to be amongst, they welcome us heartily and it is always so hard to leave! Kibera paper is located at a church where they rent space and beside a school so we always get to enjoy the children when they come out for recess.
Making cards at Kibera Paper
Some little Kibera school “monkeys”
The following day was a packed one, which I sadly missed completely, but was dazzled by reports and stories later. New volunteers spent the day at the Children’s Home in various activities with the children in their cottages and outside, and Judy and Valerie also returned to their much-needed counseling roles. Visiting the children in their cottages and playing with them outside serves several purposes: providing enrichment lessons, some one on one attention, a lot of physical affection, a much-needed break for the cottage Mommas…..and, of course, good fun all around.
Kristen and th children at NCH
Jon with the children at NCH
At dinner we all were treated to some very heartwarming and FUNNY stories by Jon about his time with the children; Jon is the quintessential story-teller, complete with animated voices, humor and endless anecdotes so you can just imagine how much fun the children had with him. Irma and Megan also had fun in their cottages and Judy and Valerie had some intense counseling experiences. Also while at NCH, Kristen continued the process of giving out the scrubs to all the medical and respite workers who were thrilled to receive them.
Giving out the scrubs
While the others were at the Children’s Home, Lloydie and Deb were at the Third Annual Women’s Workshop. When they returned at the end of the day and told me the story of how amazing the day was, I was teary for being sad to have missed it, for being touched by how much the women were engaged and learned, and laughing in tears for a near food mishap (a midday report that all the food was “spoiled” and we still don’t know what that meant since it was fine.) The workshop was different this year. Two people from all of the Tuko Pamoja groups attended and went to three successful business sites to learn from their success. First in the morning they met at Dimesse Sisters for mandazis and chai and then headed off to Kazuri Beads. There they toured, but also learned valuable lessons from the manager about the importance of quality control and from the staff in the retail shop about displaying items and customer service. They ALL asked lots of questions. When Lloydie was reporting about this she said very excitedly, “It was as if I had scripted it to emphasize everything we have been trying to teach!”
Workshop participants at Kazuri Beads
Following the time at Kazuri Beads, the group travelled to the Power Women’s workshop in Kibera and were very inquisitive and mesmerized by seeing this successful business which grew from another self-help group that began in very similar way to all the other Tuko Pamoja groups. Evelyne, who is the president, and also a TP board member, described the history of the group, challenges and successes, and also gave a tour of their shop, beauty salon, and day care center. The women enthusiastically asked many questions and were very inspired.
At the Power Women’s Shop
The final destination was Amani Ya Jou, where Maggie, also one of the Tuko Pamoja board members, is employed. She also gave the story of the group, a cooperative of women refugees, all with horrendous hardships, who were “rescued” by their experiences of being trained there and of being together. One of the messages that she emphasized was that if you have “something inside of you” (difficult or good) you should never hold back, you should always share; that can only help others and help you. Talk about a message that was perfectly delivered! Following the tour and talk at Amani everyone sat down for lunch there. It was an “American lunch” of tomato soup, grilled cheeses and more, typically on the menu at the Amani Cafe and enjoyed by all.
Time at Amani
Time at Amani
Lunch at Amani
Following lunch it was time for the women to give feedback, get certificates, and get goody bags. I am told by Lloydie and Deb that they were “blown away” by the women’s feedback and cried, even sobbed through some of this. Jacqueline from Dandora stood up with both hands to her forehead and exclaimed, “From this day forward, I am changed!” She went on to talk about how she learned she could be a much better leader for her group, could be much more vigilant about quality control and how she felt that the group needed to display their products differently. One after one, the women gave feedback which echoed that and more, and went FAR beyond the expectations of the day!
The workshop wound down with the giving of certificates and goody bags ( basic food items like flour, sugar, lard, etc) and the women oohed and aahed at each item pulled from the bags.
Giving goody bags and certificates
The day ended with a group photo and, as all events end in Kenya, with a prayer and a song, actually several of both. Most especially however, it ended with the powerful sense of the smallness of the world, the way in which we are all connected as human beings, and the true spirit of Tuko Pamoja, “We are together!”
Group photo of Women’s Workshop
Many more adventures
A very handsome boy at the Maasai school
The days have been very busy as we have continued to meet with the self help groups involved in Tuko Pamoja in Dagoretti, Kawangare, and in the Maasai community. Our involvement and deepening connection to the Maasai community has evolved over time; not only do we meet with the women’s self-help group there, but we are also more and more integrated in the community. We were there on Tuesday and Thursday and although I sadly had to stay behind on Thursday because I was sick, I got an excellent good report about how the day went and people took pictures for me.
Always when we arrive at the Maasai school, the children are so excited to see us. They stand outside the classroom, having to be held back by their teachers because of their excitement. I can recall that our first year there, some of the children were a little frightened of us, being a whole group of white people, but that has changed and they are enthusiastically welcoming all around. We always have a division of labor with some volunteers teaching in the lower grades and this time others delivering backpacks to the upper grades to the children who didn’t get them last year. My job is always being the official photographer, a very lucky assignment since I just love to take pictures of their faces.
Children listening to stories
In the classroom
Lots of sweet faces
Among the activities done with the children are enrichment lessons focusing on telling stories or making crafts. This time the story was one that created a lot of opportunity for reading with drama and singing so a fun time was had by all. The older children were very excited to get new backpacks since they had never had them before. In each backpack was a letter from a child in the states so the children were writing letters in return.
Teaching in the classroom
Getting backpacks and writing letters
When we first began coming to the Maasai community they had just built their school and it was a pretty primitive structure. Now they have a much better building, and their teachers have done the required training allowing the school to become government certified. You may recall that last year we helped to fund the certification courses for the teachers. Now having completed this training, their teaching salaries are paid by the government rather than having to be paid by the community which was a huge struggle. We were surprised when we arrived this time to find government workers in the beginning phase of installing electricity in the school. So in just the few years that we have been going to that community a lot of progress has been made.
After the teaching in the classrooms and distributing new backpacks, we had the opportunity for just good fun with the children. This included distributing bubbles and a very spirited game of red light green light which they absolutely loved.
Giving out bubbles
Everyone including the teachers took part in blowing bubbles
Red light, green light!
It was then lunchtime for them and time for us to meet with their Mommas–the women of Tuko Pamoja. However, new volunteers got to spend time in their homes helping them to do chores, talking together and holding babies of many varieties.
Judy holding a baby goat
Traditional Maasai home-made of sticks and cow dung
Lloydie, Deb and I sat down with Philip, the Director of PCDA, to go over the donations that we had brought. We were once again able to fund the school lunch program, to fund filling the water cisterns (thank you Marie!) and much more such as painting the women’s workshop. We then held the meeting with the Tuko Pamoja women to go over the sales of the past year. A few years ago, when we first began going to the Maasai community of PCDA, the women were very stand-offish, perhaps not trusting our intentions, but that has completely changed. Now we are so warmly greeted with hugs all around. Because the sales through Tuko Pamoja have gone well over the last year, we were able to give each woman a bonus which met with much enthusiasm. And then we all shopped from their current items, providing them with additional sales and I filmed the process of making a beaded bracelet. We closed down the day at PCDA with a plan to return on Thursday to paint their workshop and as Philip described it, “the women want to make you a party.”
Samples of the Maasai women’s work including Kristen modeling traditional wedding garb
On Wednesday, we traveled to two different sites where women’s self-help group participate in Tuko Pamoja and based at the Lea Toto clinics in the slums of Nairobi. At both of these sites the new volunteers were involved with the work of the clinic and meeting with community health workers to learn more about what the programs offer to families of HIV+ children living in the slums, and learning more about the medical and social aspects of living with HIV. Judy and Valerie provided some additional counseling to several of the clinic clients.
Sister Little who originally founded the first self-help group.
Samples of the crafts
Learning from the community health workers
Faces and places of Tuko Pamoja
We held the annual Tuko Pamoja meeting with each of the self-groups, in both Kawangare and Dagoretti with the Dagoretti group being new to Tuko Pamoja in the past year. Since we launched Tuko Pamoja in 2012, because it has been such a success that has become known to all of the self-help groups in Lea Toto, other groups want to become a part of it and we have added two new groups to make a total of eight. What I mean by success is that we are able to purchase the women’s crafts upfront at fair market value to sell in the US thus remarkably increasing their sales and allowing them to feed their families and to keep their children in school. Any extra profit comes back to the women in bonuses which they are overjoyed to receive. All of the women have incredible stories, many are themselves HIV+, and many are raising foster children in addition to their own children—all in extremely small and tight living quarters. In addition to giving the women bonuses, we collect scarves through the year and are able to give each woman a scarf and this time I was able to give each group that works with beads, a sizable donation of beads which elicited a lot of cheering and gratitude.(Thank you Jean and Rick!) As Tuko Pamoja has grown, Nyumbani has hired a director for the self-help groups and created two additional jobs for working with the self-help groups. We were remaking on our return drive home that not only has this been a great help to the women in so many ways, but the sparking of three new jobs has been a side benefit which we not have imagined when we initially set out to start this project. I have to give Lloydie so much credit for having the vision to create Tuko Pamoja. At both Dagoretti and Kawangare, like the other sites, I filmed demonstration videos, one of making a beaded bowl and one of paper beads.
Along the Rift Valley
The return to PCDA on Thursday was both hard work and a lot of fun. The drive to and from is through beautiful countryside along the Rift Valley and an annual stop for a group photo. I was very sad to miss it because I was too sick, but got a great report and lots of photos provided by the other volunteers. The biggest goal of the day was to paint the women’s workshop. Both of our visits to PCDA surprisingly have been blessed this year with a moderate heat and a very good breeze. This made painting with oil based paint in the sun much more tolerable. My job was to paint a sign for the shop which included the Tuko Pamoja logo, and because I wasn’t able to be there, the sign was returned here with just the background painted so I can hopefully work on it this weekend.
Painting the workshop
More painting
The workshop painted beautifully!
Most of the volunteers painted side by side with the Maasai women, but Deb and Valerie worked with them to help prepare a festive meal. It is a tradition in Kenya when you really want to honor your guests that you sacrifice a goat and cook it for them. I wasn’t exactly disappointed to miss the goat, but I enjoyed hearing about the festivities and how much the women wanted to do something for us. They also gave all of the women volunteers a new leso.
Preparing the food
I will close this blog post with a very sweet story. Every year when we drive out to the Maasai community we travel the same roads. Every year we also see the same woman sitting in a wheelchair by the side of the road selling soap. Every year we wave to her and blow her kisses and she exuberantly waves back clearly recognizing us. We call her “the soap lady” since we’ve never know her name. This year we decided that we would stop and meet her and give her a little gift of a scarf and a goodie bag. I’m so sorry that I missed this, but was very touched to hear the story. Deb and Lloydie got out of the car gave her the gift and she was, as you can see in the picture, completely overwhelmed to tears with this small act of kindness. We now know her name is Jane and are once again reminded how little it takes to make a difference in someone’s day.
The “soap lady”
Overwhelmed by this small act of kindness
We Are All One Family
Time with the children at Nyumbani Childen’s Home
It has been an incredibly full two days since my last post. It often very difficult to find words that truly convey the experience of being here in Kenya. Every day, many times day, there are so many things that touch our hearts so deeply that we are moved to tears again and again. The last two days have certainly been no exception.
I want to give people a glimpse at the Dimesse Sister’s Retreat Center where we stay for a week as well as to introduce the volunteers. The interior lodging at Dimesse is very simple, but the exterior grounds are extremely beautiful, like being in the middle of our own private botanical garden when much of the world nearby is som ugh different. If there is time in the morning before we depart I like to take a brief walk and take it all in.
Dimesse Retreat grounds
We all meet together in the morning before we depart which is a time for reuniting with Justus, talking about plans for the day, and often sharing some fun moments or stories from the day before. We also meet up with Charles, a former child of Nyumbani Village who is in college and doing an internship with KEST.
KEST group: Kristen, Irma Jon, Deb, Lloyde, Valerie, Judy, Megan and the KEST intern, Charles
We returned to Nyumbani Children’s Home on Sunday and began the day by going to church with the children and staff. The mass is a jubilant, joyous, singing, dancing and clapping experience when the volunteers, staff, cottage parents and most especially the children come together. The children were dressed in their “Sunday best” with the girls in skirts and dresses and fancy shoes, often with something sparkling in quite unique combinations, and the boys in ties, vests, and dress up clothes. All except the babies came, with the younger ones sitting in the front and the littlest on people’s laps, perhaps yours if you are a lucky volunteer. It’s always very interactive with priest speaking to the children, drawing them in with questions, and teaching them a valuable lesson. The children form a beautiful choir accompanied by drums and instruments and there are young dancers for every song. You will get a sense of the adorable young girls with the gift of rhythm from this video clip.
At the end of the mass, Protus Lumiti, the Director, always goes up to the front and thanks EVERYONE (the singers, choir, drummers, speakers….) each followed by a hefty round of applause with musical accompaniment. The volunteers always are thanked and this time we were all called to front along with Lloydie and we were introduced including the number of years we have been coming. As Lloydie talked about the return volunteers and why we come back, she explained that being here in Kenya, being with the children, has so opened our hearts and changed our lives such that, by the end, many of us stood there in tears.
After the church service, we had an opportunity to have tea with Sister Mary and the staff which was also a time to catch up on what’s happening within the Children’s Home, the successes and the challenges. We then all went off to various activities. Judy and Valerie continued their group counseling and will return next weekend to do some individual counseling. We also visited the cottages where the children live, each retread and newbie volunteer together with an assigned cottage. We were able to see the children in their homes and speak with the cottage parents. Judy and I were in Cottage E visiting the children, but also talking with Mom Jane who has been working as a house parent for 15 years. She has raised four children of her own and now she is raising a second family of fourteen. It is opportunity for us to interact and provide the house parents with support and to learn about them. The children are happy and spirited, but also very well behaved, affectionate with each other and very responsible in doing chores such as cleaning up after the tea and snack, without even being asked.
We were also able to visit children in the Respite Program. The children cared for there are children referred from the Lea Toto clinics providing outreach care to children with HIV. They come to Respite Care because they are too ill to be cared for in their families and require inpatient care. The most frequent reason for admission is malnutrition and the children come for intensive nutritional intervention. Most return to their families in the slums, but some who are too sick, become residents of Nyumbani Village.
Children of the Nyumbani Respite Program
By the end of the day at the Children’s Home, we were all dragging, feeling the effects of jet lag, too little sleep, and two days full of emotion. We returned to Dimesse Sister’s retreat long enough to freshen up, take a brief walk, or organize donations and then set off on the evening plans. We had a planned dinner out as an entire group with our guests being Lucy and her friend Anne from Kenyatta Univrsity. Some of us have a very special relationship to Lucy who grew up in Nyumbani Village in the same “family” as Charles. Lucy is a very delightful young woman whom we got to know at Nyumbani Village as she helped with the Memory Book project and in other ways. She was a very good student, scored high on the national exams, was assured acceptance at the university, but had no way to fund her attendance. With belief in her capabilities and affection for her as a person, and with Lloydie’s assistance, we formed “Team Lucy”, a group of five women (Deb, Karen, Carla, Marguerita and me) who committed to financing Lucy through 4 years at the university. Although Lucy feels very fortunate, we all feel honored to support her and that we are having a wonderful and heart warming experience doing so because she is a very special young woman. We keep in touch through the year and Deb, Lloydie and I were thrilled to have her and her friend Anne join the KEST group for dinner. We enjoyed talking with both of them about their future plans and goals and we were very surprised and extremely touched when Lucy brought out a bag of gifts for “Team Lucy.” In each gift was a tee shirt from Kenyatta University, a photo, and the sweetest, most heartfelt note of gratitude. This brought tears to some of us, which completely overflowed as we turned the shirts over to find “We Are One Family” on the back. At that point even the KEST travelers, who didn’t even know Lucy prior to that night, were in tears.
Lucy with Lloydie, Deb, and me.
We are One family…..
The entire dinner was a fun time with sharing, humor and much more, but the experience with Lucy was moving in a way that I can’t possibly describe. So we all went to bed very tired, but happy and full from the day, hardly believing that it was only our second day in Kenya!
Today we moved on to different plans at a different site, but since every day in Kenya is rich and full with a yet another amazing experience, this day was no exception. Today we began the series of Lea Toto Clinic visits and Tuko Pamoja “business meetings” with the women’s self-help groups. We traveled to Dandora, one of the slum areas of Nairobi, with Tuko Pamoja Board members (Lloydie, Deb and Lynn) meeting with the women of the self-help group and the others meeting with the clinic staff and going on home visits.
When we arrived, as is always the case, we were greeted with high spirited singing, dancing and hugging to welcome us. This group, the Vision Self Help Group, was the first Lea Toto self help group established and the one with which we have the longest history. All of the women care for HIV+ children, both biological and foster, many live with HIV themselves, and all craft to support their families. These are inspiring, amazing, and persevering women whose strength and grace has overwhelmed me since I first met them in 2010. We shared with them the success of the last year in selling their products, many of the lovely and poignant comments left in the guest book by people in the States who have attended Tuko Pamoja events. We also had the pleasure of handing out bonuses because of the success of sales of the past year. The women are always overwhelmingly grateful and not shy about expressing that.
Deb meeting with some of the Vison Self Help Group
One of the other goals of our meeting, and at each Tuko Pamoja meeting to come, was to do video of a demonstration of making one of the products. I had the pleasure of doing that with Margaret who demonstrated how to make a spiral bead bracelet.
At the end of our time there all of the volunteers were able to shop heartily from the women’s crafts. It wasn’t until our usual dinner time debriefing that I heard about the experiences of the new volunteers who did home visits with Lea Toto staff and volunteer community health workers. The purpose of home visits is to do outreach to families who have an HIV+ child receiving care at the clinic. Hearing about their experiences brought me back to my very first visit to Kenya when I did my first home visits. They talked about the extreme poverty and terrible conditions that they saw as they passed through the alleys of Dandora where they found trash and streams of raw sewage. However inside the tiny tin houses, the size of a small bathroom in the States, lived families of many members in miniature living quarters were kept extremely clean. They were welcomed with grace and gratitude and the people shared openly their situations and struggles. Judy told us of visiting household, with a grandmother who has cared for her three grandchildren for many years since her daughter died. The oldest, an adolescent girl, is HIV+ and doing well on ARV treatment, despite the enormous challenges of living in severe poverty.
Home visting in Dandora
They talked about the hardships, but also the blessings in life, and shared humor and mutal family experiences. Then while the volunteers were engaged in talking with the grandaughter, her grandmother, in act of gratitude, and with severely limited resources, slipped out and returned having bought each vistor a bottle of soda, a real treat in Kenya. This is the Kenyan way that we have experienced again and again: having very little, but still being grateful, gracious, and wanting to share with others. We often feel that we are the ones being given to in so many ways, that the world becomes smaller although we have traveled long from halfway across the globe and that we are indeed all one family.
We are in Kenya and thrilled to be here!
The KEST group has arrived after a LONG journey from home. The traveling wasn’t without a hitch because we had quite a turbulent flight and when we arrived at the airport there were a few issues with our VOLUMINOUS luggage filled to the brims with donations. We are truly a sight and a subject of much curiosity at the airport! However many of us were delighted beyond words and with joyful tears to be reunited and working together again and to see Justus with his good spirit, great smile, and big hugs there to greet us at the airport.
Taking the airport by storm!
Some of this year’s volunteers–you will see them all over the course of this trip.Valerie, Judy, Irma, Kristen and Deb
We finally made it to our lodging at Dimesse Sisters retreat at 2:30 AM–a very tired, but happy crew thrilled to be back in Kenya or to be here for the first time. We are a group of nine this year, our fearless leader LLoydie, four repeat travelers known as the retreads (Deb, Kristen, Valerie and me) and four new to KEST, also known as the newbies (Judy, Irma, Megan and Jon.) After a few or a couple (or less) hours of sleep the KEST group met Justus to head out for the day. However, before that, we spent some time with Justus with a special presentation.
JUSTUS!
Justus is now working directly with KEST as the Assistant Trip Director, doing many different things including lots of legwork, driving arrangements, organizing events along with Lloydie and providing the best Kenyan hospitality. Jon later in the day said that you hear Justus’s smile and that was very aptly put. So Justus was presented with his new KEST business cards, lots of praise and appreciation, and a number of gifts from back home including new sunglasses sent by Karen Geiling. He was very humble and so touched by this acknowledgement and appreciation.
Then we were off to spend the day at Nyumbani Children’s Home with our first stop there being a meeting Sister Mary Owens, the Executive Director of Nyumbani. This is always a wonderful way to start our time at all the Nyumbani Programs because Sister Mary gives us the latest updates on all the programs, the most current knowledge about treating children with HIV, and new program developments. My weary sleep-deprived brain was trying to keep up with reporting all the details but it was less than reliable when it came to writing this post. We talked about many different issues including the effect on development for children who have HIV, the impact of the medications and the unfortunate risk for developing drug resistance, the challenge of fostering self-reliance for children who grow up in the shelter of the Numbani programs and the fact that rate of new infections HIV is now beginning to decline (although the numbers of people living with HIV is ever
Deb and the children
increasing.) particularly interesting to me was that prevention of transmitting HIV to infants born to HIV+ mothers is very effective with proper prophylactic medication. It is not however widely available to all the population in Kenya.
Nyumbani Executive Director, Sister Mary Owens
Equipped with a wealth of information about HIV and all the programs (I am always impressed by Sister Mary’s range of knowledge) , the new volunteers had a tour of Nyumbani Children’s Home including the very advanced HIV testing lab, and we set out to work (and play) with the children and the staff.
There is always a lot of excitement, many enthusiastic greetings, and much hugging when the children see that we have arrived. Now that this is my fifth trip to Nyumbani it is s wonderful to see how the children have changed so much overreach year, to be able to have a conversation with that child who was a baby in my lap a few years ago or even with one who is finishing high school.
Hugs from Lloydie and Deb
The faces of the children
Playing at Nyumbani Children’s Home
More fun and faces.
Being around the children, who are enthusiastically invested in play time on Saturday is really a joyful experience. Much of the time they look like energetic happy playing children. This is an adorable, giggling video of the children looking at the photos on Deb’s camera–a must watch!
Hair, our hair, always attracts a lot of attention from the children and is a curiosity that they loke to get their hands on. Deb had quite a number of children wanting to touch her locks with curiosity, but the BEST was their fascination with Jon’s beard and the way they like Ed home to Santa Claus complete with the children saying “Ho Ho ho! And Merry Christmas!” Check out the video of the children admiring his beard–it really will make you smile!
Hair at Nyumbani Children’s Home
In addition to talking to, playing and providing our hair to the children, we were involved with other activities. Valerie and Judy were long-awaited to me with the adolescents in a group counseling role. Although I am heavily invested in mental health issues at Nyumbani Village, they were snatched up by the staff at the Children’s home to provide some much-needed counseling and a forum for talking about issues that they otherwise may not have an opportunity to address. They will meet with them again tomorrow. The other volunteered got acquainted and visited with the children in their assigned cottages. We all got to eat lunch with the A/B boys (adolescents) and the silver lining to the kenyan teachers strike was that some of the boys who are away at boarding school or college were home at Nyumbani. This created a very. Ice opportunity for us to reconnect with wonderful and lively conversation at Lunch. I got to concerns with Thomas with whom I had spent time with prior to going to boarding school and it was great to reconnect with him and so many others.
Serendipitously I had an opportunity to meet with Bernard and Edwin who are two Nyumbani alumni successfully out in the world and employed. We talked about the challenges for the children in becoming self- reliant and employed after they leave the Children’s. Both of them are successfully working to de sol a self-help group. for alumni. So far there are 7 members, they have opened a bank account and they have received the government certificate. After 6 months of saving some money into the bank account earned by doing “casual or temporary labor” they will be eligible for a government loan to help them develop businesses. Bernard was very excited with what they are doing with the encouragement of Nyumabani. It was align ant statement when he said that even if some of them are employed they can’t be happy unless their brothers also have a job and will work toward the goal of everyone being steadily employed and perhaps beginning their own businesses. This will be one way of helping to address the transition from the shelter of Nyumbani to becoming self-sufficient.
Meeting with Bernard about the COGRI self-help,group for Nyumbani alumni.
Everyone had a packed, full day despite all of our weary and sleep deprived brains and everyone returned smiling, happy and ready to get some sleep, but only after a lot of sharing about our days and the children after our dinner. Although I am staying up much too late to write this post, I wanted to do it because there is so much to talk about at the end of a day. We will return there tomorrow for activities , more counseling, visiting with the children in our assigned cottages and so much more.
Excitement, generosity and THANKS!
This is the 100th post in my blog! I thought that I would do this post from Kenya, but instead I am posting it in the days before departure. This is the final weekend before we leave, when the final donations are being gathered and tallied and we are all scurrying around trying to pack enormous amounts of donations into duffles weighing as close to 50 lbs as possible. Since there are 9 volunteers on this trip, each of whom brings four 50 lb duffles (plus a suitcase and personal item) we will take the airport by storm with our massive collection of baggage. Each of us will have at least 3 full duffles of donations which allows ups to bring a tremendous amount of socks, underwear, shoes, clothing and so much more with us. It was all the emails back and forth, the heroic packing stories, and the conversations about donations that made me decide to write this post. We are all so excited about what we are bringing to share with the orphans of Nyumbani, the families of the Maasai community and the women crafters of Tuko Pamoja and about some new projects involving even more people. Here are some samples of the many emails:
“I just got a donation of 15 lbs of beads and 12 lb of yarns! The Tuko Pamoja Mommas will be so excited!”
Beading with hands and feet
“I am out of control with excitement! The village has given the sisal project 15 acres!” We have funding to plant at least five.
Kristen, who is a nurse who volunteered 3 years ago, and has been saving, planning and longing ever since to go back to Kenya, pursued getting scrubs for all the medical personnel at Nyumbani. “She thought to reach out to her fellow workers for donations of gently used scrubs. Then she decided to do better than that, for these well-deserving health workers in Kenya. She contacted the owner, Christopher, of the uniform company/store where she and her co-workers buy their work clothes. She asked me for advice of how many sets of scrubs to request. I tallied up all of the clinical officers at Lea Toto (8); the CO, nurse and lab technician at the village (3); and the 2 nurses and 2 Respite Care workers at the Children’s Home (4) for a total of 15 medical care professional in greatest need. I advised her to shoot for the stars and make her request for 15 scrub sets. Christopher donated two brand new sets for each!”
“so I’ve been in my office since 7am today…what have I done? Looked at Kenya pics, checked the Nairobi news, recounted multiple stories to my office partner, laughing and crying at the same time. I don’t think I can wait a day longer….”
“Very excited about a new project underway for Tuko Pamoja. I have just contacted the Kawangware Street Children and Youth Project….. These children make paper bags out of recycled materials, (like) the bags at Kazuri Beads, one and the same! The sisal handles are outsourced to single mommas living in Kawangware. Go to http://www.africabags.com to learn more. Check out the photo of bags to see the Kazuri one they already make! Tuko Pamoja is buying 100 bags and giving them to Kibera Paper to paint the TP logo on… more branding! It is my hope that we can visit the Kawangware Visions Center and see the operation and meet some of the children and help the Kibera Paper mommas paint the logos on the bags. How cool would this be?!”
“Just received an email from a friend that said: “Judy, you can stop by any time today. I will be waiting for you with money and underwear. You must be excited.” Now that’s an email I never thought I would get!!!”
“This is what I have to pack into 19 – 50lb duffels. Wish me luck! Thanks Woods Academy for your overly successful underpants, clothing and shoe drive. Kenya or bust, literally!”
Oh my!
And there’s so much more…
“I have a donor who will completely cover filling the water cisterns at PCDA! ($2200)
“Aren’t these stories reconfirming your faith in humankind?”
Yes, they are and that’s why I decided to post this blog now. Too often we can see what is wrong with the world, but just as easily we can see what is right and good. We have all of these donations and more. Collectively we have funding for the sisal garden project, filling both the water cisterns and funding the lunch program at PCDA, a sponsor for the Tuko Pamoja Women’s workshop, clothing and shoes for hundreds and a hefty response to the needs at all the sites where we volunteer.
I have been writing thank you cards to all my donors and found myself again and again writing that we could not do all that we are able to accomplish without the support and generosity of people who give us donations. Every donation of every size is a contribution that is so appreciated by us, but even much more so by the recipients there, the men,women and children of Kenya, who have tremendous gratitude for everything. Please know that there will be smiling and singing children, dancing grandparents, crying with gratitude Mommas of Tuko Pamoja, all of whom will be touched by the generosity from across the globe. This is why I decided to write this as my 100th post, to say thank you to everyone for making all of this good will possible and for truly changing so many lives.
“There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.” Dalai Lama
“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” Nelson Mandela
Returning to Kenya in Just Eleven Days!
I am returning to Kenya for my annual volunteer trip in just 11 days. The last year has been personally a very difficult one laden with grief, but the return to this beautiful country and these warm and gracious people truly lifts my spirits. I am also so very excited to be once again in the company of my good friends and fellow volunteers and the new travelers who will join us. The eastern members got together at my annual Tuko Pamoja event in the fall and excitement was running high.
The east coast travelers: Kristen, Lloydie, Judy, me and Valerie
Kristen is returning with her wonderful smile!
Yes, excitement was running high..
Lloydie and one of the boys from her cottage at the Children’s Home
Deb with a child at the Children’s Home
I am looking forward to meeting the new travelers, to reuniting with Deb and Lloydie for our fifth trip together, and so excited to have Judy, my friend and colleague, joining us for the first time! We will miss Karen and Jen so much, but will await the news of the arrival of Jen’s baby while we are in Kenya. There are so many people in Kenya who I am excited to see, but most especially at the top of the list is Justus, our trusty driver with Kenyan nerves of steel, our reliable guide sherpa and protector, and most of all our dear friend.
Justus looking at photos with the children near Kibera Paper
Justus our good friend, guide, driver and more with Kristen
As is always the case, we have a full agenda, many projects to do, places to go and people to see. For part of the first weekend, we will spend some time at Nyumbani Children’s Home. Going to Kenya year after year it’s wonderful to see how these children, all orphans who are HIV+ continue to grow and thrive.
One of the most popular fun activities at Nyumbani Children’s Home
Valeris joined in the face painting last year
We will also visit each of the Tuko Pamoja sites and have a business meeting and a wonderful dancing and singing visit with all of the Mommas at each of the Tuko Pamoja sites to which we can drive from Karen outside of Nairobi. This is when we will review the success of Tuko Pamoja over the past year, especially sales in the U.S., place orders for the next year, give bonuses, look at new crafts etc. We have a long history with the women in these groups much affection and a powerful bond from years of working together, sharing our lives including successes and hardships. Here is a little gathering of video clips to give you a peek at what the time is like.
We will visit the Tuko Pamoja groups in the slums around Nairobi as well as the Maasai community of PCDA. There we not only visit with the Mommas, but also bring donations of support for the school and the community including the lunch program, supporting access to water and much more. We also do enrichment programs with their gorgeous children who are all lively and eager learners. I have some of my best time filling the role of the official photographer there taking many photos of their beautiful faces.
Maasai children of PCDA
Maasai children of PCDA
PCDA Maasai Women
On the second weekend, on Saturday, we will host the third Annual Workshop for Women, when women of each of the Tuko Pamoja groups come together to improve their business skills, marketing and product development, increase their pride and improve their sense of personal wellbeing. Two years ago, when we held the first workshop, it became one of my all time favorite days in Kenya. The gathering together of diverse groups of women from within Kenya, together with us from across the globe united in a common cause was powerfully moving. When we all sang together, hand in hand, gathered in a circle in beautiful harmony at the end of the day it was magical. I get teary when I think about it now and I remember looking across the circle to Deb and we both had tears streaming down our faces. Be ready to be moved new volunteers!
Tuko Pamoja Women”s Workshop group photo
After we spend some more time with those beautiful children at Nyumbani Children’s Home we will head off to start our second full week by traveling to Nyumbani Village, about four hours away from Nairobi. There it is will be much hotter and very different than the time that we have spent near Nairobi. In the Village, where 100 grandparents raise 1000 AIDS orphans, life is more rustic and in keeping with traditional Kamba culture. During the day the children are at school in their school uniforms and many groups of them will pass by and greet us to and from on their way. Though they will be quite enthusiastic, these are nothing like the greetings we get from the shoshos or grandmothers who walk down the paths in the Village and will be singing and dancing as they greet us with the special three part Kamba handshake. They will teach this and some greetings in Kamba to the new volunteers with boundless enthusiasm and ALWAYS break into dance at the sight of us. In the evening, the children will be out gathering kindling, climbing trees, playing together, and as night falls we will be under the starriest sky you can imagine.
Nyumbani Village
Nyumbani Village children in the school yard
Many happy beautiful faces at Nyumbani Village
Some fun loving boys at the Village
We have many projects planned in the Village which is a place steeped in culture and rustic living, but very advanced in farming and sustainability projects. The grandmothers have a tradition of making beautiful baskets and are the final group of Tuko Pamoja women whom we will visit. As the sale of their baskets is their sole income, and the Village is very focused on sustainability, one of our projects this year will be to support (with the generosity of our donors) and participate in the planting of 5 acres of sisal, the main fiber of their baskets. Then the grandmothers will be able to harvest and grow their own rather than having to purchase it and the Village will be another step closer to full sustainability. I won’t personally be planting as I spend most of my time volunteering in the counseling center, but other members of the group will be planting sisal and doing a whole lot more.
Traditional Basket weaving at Nyumbani Village
As part of my psychiatric volunteer work, I will consult to the two counsellors in Nyumbani Village on their most challenging clients and continue to address the issues of grief and loss in the Village. This will include the first Day of Remembrance, a luminary ceremony dedicated to acknowledging family members lost to AIDS for the children, grandparents and staff of Nyumbani Village. This will also be a legacy to the memory of my son Brendan and to the lost children of other mothers I know. We have packed 1500 luminaries to travel to Village, one for each child, grandparent and staff. Having a remembrance ceremony and lighting all of them in the evening as we all sing under the skies will be a moving and beautiful scene which I cannot fully imagine ahead of time. That will take place on our final evening in the Village which will be on my son Brendan’s birthday, a wonderful way to honor his memory.
With Lilian, the Village counselor
Nyumbani Village as night falls
There is so much more I could say about the Village because it is one of the most special and magical places on earth, but I will save that for posting when I’m there. After we wind down our week at the Village we will have a couple of days of fun and hopefully a little more rest as we head off on safari with Justus as our guide to end our trip. Stay tuned to hear many stories that will touch your heart and many new photos when I blog contemporaneously from Kenya where my first post there will be the 100th post in my blog!
My all time favorite photo taken on safari
TUKO PAMOJA’S SPIRITED FALL SEASON
First slide of the presentation
I want to dedicate this blog post to my mother who passed away far to soon this summer and was an amazing woman in her own right. She is the one who taught me at an early age that all people are created equally and deserve to be treated with respect and kindness regardless of race, disability or other ways of being different from me. She was also a “Momma” with strength, resilience, and grace who was my best teacher about generosity, compassion and love.
My Mom
The busy fall season of Tuko Pamoja has begun with home parties, markets and bazaars scheduled in many places! This is when we take all of the beautiful crafts that the Kenyan women of Tuko Pamoja have made to sell on the road. Equally as important as selling their wares is telling their stories–that these are amazing mothers and grandmothers who live in poverty, raise their own children and many others, have suffered enormous hardship, but still live their lives with grace, resilience, and strength.
Yesterday was the day for my Tuko Pamoja event–the third annual such event which was hosted at the Frontier Cafe, whose staff, especially Emily, provide us with wonderful support and whose philosophy supports the kind of work that we do. When I looked at the perpetual African Wisdom Calendar for the day, this what I found:
So appropriate!
Perfect wisdom for the day which turned out to be a very successful one. Lloydie, Bill and Sidey arrived from Maryland toting hundreds of pounds of ware for my event and another one scheduled in Hanover Vermont today. As Tuko Pamoja has grown it has been much more to manage so kudos to Sidey for organizing, coding, branding, and creating a masterful warehouse in Lloydie’s basement.
Sidey at the checkout
Only a portion of the hundreds of pounds
We had a wonderful display and so much inventory to capture people’s interest, both those who came by invitation and those arriving to have a meal at the Frontier who were interested and even enamored with the crafts we had to offer and the story behind them. The Frontier is a wonderful place to host this since they also have a theater where I can do a presentation, along with Lloydie and her boundless enthusiasm. My presentation was focused on telling the story of how Tuko Pamoja came to be, “introducing” the women and giving people a feeling of why we do this work–because we love the mothers and grandmothers, and the children they are raising. People can see that buying their crafts helps them to survive in poverty, but also to thrive with pride. My presentation was the story, but also the heart of Tuko Pamoja and the difference you can make in peoples lives, and them in yours. I always enjoy presenting this, but the experience has so touched me (and the others involved) that I never get through it without getting choked up and shedding tears. I have come to expect that…
Sign provided by The Frontier who included us the calendar of events on their website.
Baskets from Nyumbani Village
A small section of our display of crafts.
Lloydie telling two impromptu shoppers about the women and the crafts.
A young shopper admiring the children’s section
My two college roommates, Sue and Chris, who came from out of state to support us and become happy shoppers (many thanks)
We had a very successful day, a captive audience for the presentation, wonderful inquisitive and supportive shoppers and had sales that significantly exceeded last year’s event. The Kenyan women of Tuko Pamoja will once again be thrilled with the reception of their crafts and the comments to them in the guest book as they were in this video clip:
One of the additional, quite wonderful experiences of the day is an opportunity to reunite with past volunteers who live near enough to attend, with whom you can’t help but have a powerful bond. And since three of us who live in Maine will be going on this year’s trip it was an early opportunity for people to share excitement over dinner about planning the trip. I was thrilled to see Kristen who volunteered on the 2011 trip and and even more thrilled to know that both she and her partner Jon will be part of the travel group this year.
Spirited discussion with Kristen about getting to travel together again.
I am delighted to have two other people from Maine who are enthusiastic about going on this year’s trip Judy, a first time traveler, and Valerie who is returning for her second year. Since both work in the mental health field, Lloydie is already planning their placements in our Kenya sites so they can share their professional expertise.
Five of the Kenya volunteer group for this year–already bonding over the common cause. (Kristen, Lloydie, Judy, me and Valerie)
We depart in mid January to spend another amazing, touching, life-changing time in Kenya with the women of Tuko Pamoja and all of the children of Nyumbani. We all ate dinner together with family members at the Frontier after the work of the day was done, and excitement about the upcoming trip was hard to be contained and, of course, shouldn’t be. The countdown to departure begins…
Grief, Loss, and Remembrance in Kenya
From my prior blog posts I am sure that it is clear that losses, especially of loved ones, are many in Kenya. This is the tragic reality of the AIDS pandemic as well as the effect of other diseases and the toll that poverty takes on the life span. The death of loved ones is all too common place here. The acknowledgement of grief and loss is discouraged, but much needed so that children can mourn, carry their parents in their hearts and maintain a connection with them and the love they shared. This is why we proposed a Day of Remembrance, to honor their grief, but mostly to support and honor their ongoing connection to those who have been lost. We have talked about this in the past, but this year it has become a real plan. Lilian wanted me to talk with “all of the village so they all can feel your warmth and everyone will be helped” and so I along with Valerie did that, opening the door for this day of remembrance, a healing ritual, which was met with so much enthusiasm.
I know that many people reading this post will know that my 22 year old son Brendan died just a month and a half ago and that I departed for Kenya, my travels planned some time ago, heartbroken, but with the hope that being with good friends with whom I have volunteered in Kenya through the past years and with gracious and loving people of Kenya might uplift my spirit. I have received a great deal of love and support from my friends and fellow volunteers, and am grateful to them for their encouragement, about making this trip, while on the trip working together, and sharing my grief as we had a a special ritual on my son’s birthday which was on January 29th during our time in Nyumbani Village.
Our ritual honoring Brendan on his birthday
I also feel that I have been wrapped in love by the Kenyan people. Our Tuko Pamoja Mommas have extended their hearts and hands with impassioned expressions sharing my sorrow and expressing condolences. Every group expressed this to me; every one touched me in some profound way. With most of our groups we gathered in a circle sharing what has happened in our lives over the last year since we last met. Everyone already knew about my son, everyone said “pole sana”, very sorry, in Swahili and had far too many had much more to say by sharing their own experiences of losing their own children. There are some women’s words that I will never forget. One woman at the Vision Self Help group in Dandora spoke with such passion in Swahili that I was crying only understanding a few words, but feeling her compassion as she expressed her sorrow with intense words and hand gestures. What she said to me, when translated, was a more elaborate version of this: “When you are a farmer, you tend and nurture your garden. You wait for things to grow and when they are ready, you pick the very best. God is like a farmer and he has a plan, and when it’s time, he too picks the best. With your son, he had a plan, he picked the best.” I think everyone was in tears by the end of her speech. I had a special card all signed by the women of Kibera paper, many hugs and words of compassion from all the Lea Toto groups, from Philip and the Women of PCDA and from the village grandmothers. Lilian, the village counselor, also wrote me a letter which she read to me. She said the letter came to her while she was in church listening to the priest talk about forgiveness and felt as though the letter was “from my son” and it was written that way. It was so poignant, about forgiveness of the tragedy of his death, forgiveness of myself for being unable to save him, and about my love as a mother and my son’s love for me. It was a beautiful gift. So when I say I have been wrapped in love by the Kenyan people, I truly mean that.
As I have talked with all of Nyumbani village about grief and loss, I shared that I had recently lost my son. In addition to the many expressions of sorrow, the acknowledgement connected us in a different way. I could tell they listened a little differently after I told them about Brendan. There were moments that it was very difficult and I was at first a bit shaken by the idea that Lilian proposed that I do all this work with the children and grandparents on grief and loss, expecting it would be far too hard. However, it was an amazing experience despite the emotional challenge. So we are planning a Day of Remembrance for next year. We will light up the Village in the evening with hundreds of luminaries and bring everyone to the center to sing. It will be a beautiful ritual under the incredible Kenya starry sky, sending stars back up to the heavens with all the luminaries. The children in the Village sing beautifully; I have previously had the opportunity share that magical, spiritual experience of their beautiful voices under the starry sky. This Day of Remembrance is planned for January 29th of next year during our time in Nyumbani Village, on the birthday on my two sons, Brendan and Ryan, and in honor of my son Brendan. This will be a legacy to him as I carry him in my heart back to Kenya once more.
Your Donations!
Maasai children with new backpacks
I am writing this post to let you know how your generous contributions enabled us to help the people of Kenya. Backpacks were sponsored at Tuko Pamoja events throughout the country and by individual donations at $5 per backpack. This enabled us to bring 470 new backpacks to children who needed them in the Maasai community! the Nyumbani community and other places. This made a lot of children happy. I was personally present when backpacks from all three children of the Taylor family of Brunswick , ME (Conrad, Spencer, and Jacqueline) were presented to 3rd graders at Nyumbani Village! We also brought many many pounds of both new and used clothing to several places but most especially Nyumbani village where they will be so appreciated. A special thank you to the Coulter family for the very needed underwear and socks!
The donations of yarn from my donors and from donors to all the volunteers will make many colorful baskets and made a room full of grandmothers sing and dance!
We have continued the sponsorship of the lunch program at PCDA providing a midday meal to all the Maasai children attending school there. In addition we made a contribution to the 2 non-government teachers who have devoted themselves to the school and live in the community so that they can get the proper training to get government certification and be salaried by the government. This will improve the quality of education and fund them by the government. I also left funding of 70,000 ksh to given to the Masaai self help group as soon as their group bank account has been successfully open so that they can build a workshop to provide some shelter for them to craft their products together.
Maasai women artisans of Tuko Pamoja
With monetary donations from my donors and my $1000 prize money from the Schwartz Center I was able to give a 316,000 ksh donation to Nyumbani Village toward helping to buy “farm kits” which will enable each family to grow a sustainable garden to have their own fruits and vegetables and improve independent food production in the village. That is $3672!
Nyumbani Village–final days and saying goodbye
- Wonderful smiles from two Village children
It has been a very busy, wonderful, magical week in Nyumbani Village. We have accomplished an incredible amount and we have enjoyed the unique and magical experience of being here once again. Each morning we head out and enjoy the cooler air which has settled in over night knowing that by midday it will be oppressively hot in the bright sun. It’s a beautiful walk down to the old guest house where we have our breakfast through paths of red Kenyan soil and beautiful trees with the sounds of so many birds singing. You never know what you will encounter as you walk through the village–being heartily greeted by hip shaking grandmas, with hearty handshakes and Kikamba phrases, giggling children who love to have heir picture taken or a beautiful scene like this one provided by Mother Nature.
Beautiful Black Capped Heron on the top of a tree
The busy start to the week continued as Deb interviewed more of the grandparents capturing their histories and life stories for the Memory Book which will be a record of each family history to be handed down to the children. Since all of the children are orphans and the grandparents hold the histories for the families including the children’s parents, this is priceless information to pass on to the children. Because there are 100 grandparents (7 grandfathers and 93 grandmothers) it is a large and ongoing project that will hopefully be completed by next year. Deb presented the memory book to the grandparents when we had our Tuko Pamoja meeting with them amidst lots of clapping and cheering.
Presenting the Memory book
Karen worked with both the staff and the grandparents on financial issues. She met with the group of grandparents to discuss basic finances and to assess their capabilities and needs. In addition, she met at a local community meeting of Financial services Administration which is a rural banking cooperative which prodives both banking services and financial education. Not only is money scarce amount the populations with whom me work but there are also cultural influences which markedly change the ways of managing money which need to be taken into account when working on promoting budgeting and saving.
Lloydie has been developing a sister School Program with the third, fourth and fifth graders at Woods Academy in Maryland. Fifth graders of the school and those at Nyumbani Village exchanged photographs and interviews with their grandmothers. fourth graders exchanged reports about the stars of the U.S. And counties in Kenya. Third graders prepared a video of a play with singing and dancing and the third graders at NV presented cultural singing and dancing and recitations which were videotaped for exchange and also made jump ropes out of sisal as gifts. Lloydie presented new backpacks to all of the third, fourth, and fifth graders which were sponsored by the children at Woods Academy and contained letters from those students. Nyumbani Village children wrote return letters in response those which were enclosed in their backpacks.
A new backpack
Valerie rolling up sisal jump ropes
New backpacks
Letter from NV child
Letter from NV child
Letter from NV child
I continued to work with Lilian to provide psychiatric evaluations in her office. Once we met with the Susu’s (grandmothers) at the beginning of the week, a number of them came to see me Valerie and me for individual sessions in the office. We continued to meet with all of the Lawson High School and the polytechnic school students to discuss grief and loss as well as to answer any questions that they might have related to the topic. These are some of the questions we received:
The older children had the opportunity to write their questions down, but before that, we talked and they shared about the grief that they all have in common about being orphans. The Kenyan culture does not promote the acknowledgement of grief and teaches children (and adults) that they must have strength and not cry. This has been a concern for Lilian for the children and the grandparents as she sees the effects of unresolved grief and PTSD. We had remarkable discussions with the children and adolescents and when we explained the possibility of having a special ritual of resemblance there was uniform acceptance and enthusiasm. I will say more about this in a later post. Valerie and I also met with the teaching staff and Home Care (social work staff) to talk about stress and burn out. The latter carry large case loads being responsible for five clusters each–a cluster us comprised of four houses, each with ten children and a grandparent. The social work staff are really the people who attend to managing the families and all family and social issues. They also go on rescues to bring new children into the Village, most often rescued from extreme conditions in which there are child headed houses after which both parents have died and children have been barely able to survive. Theses circumstances can themselves be traumatic for the staff.
Children were rescued from this home
And this one
On our last full day in the village we also met with all the grandmothers and the few grandfathers to do an update on Tuko pamoja. Since very few of them speak any English at all we did not do as detailed a meeting as we have done with the other Tuko Pmoja groups. We had been seeing them and greeting them through out our time in the Village. They are a very colorful buch with lively enthusiasm who teach EVERYONE who comes to the village the appropriate KiKamba greetings which are complete with handshake and gestures. Getting them all assembled in a hall, with each having time to greet to us all, and the worst sense of time in Kenya (where everything takes place later than scheduled) is always a task unto itself. There’s always lots of bursts of singing and dancing before things can settle, but they did. We talked to them about the growth in the success in selling baskets and Karen had a special surprise for them. We had also all collected a LOT of yarn which was donated for them to use on their baskets which are made of wool, sisal, banana leaves and other natural materials. We discussed some quality control issues and color issues that would increase the sales success and they were all quite receptive. Karen’s surprise was that a group of knitters who gather in a store Near her hometown in N.H. had gotten together and knit over 100 scarves to present to the grandmothers. Although the village is hot this time of year it is chilly when the long rains come so they will really appreciate these. And the grandfathers were given hats.
Karen presenting a scarf
Hugging a scarf recipient
Grandfathers with their new hats
Or old AND new!
Instead of a cash bonus, because we wanted to give something to all the grandparents in the village and not everyone makes baskets, everyone was presented with a new leso.
Colors of lesos
Lloydie presenting new leso
Valerie presenting a new leso
On our last evening in the village we were invited to a concert and dance in cluster one where you can find ome of the best musicians and dancers in the village. We crowded in one of the houses and had an amazing show.
Valerie, Karen, and Deb enjoying the show
The performance was amazing, but in very low light. I hope that I can edit the video I recorded to bring something to the blog for you to view later as it was so much to watch! It was a great way to spend our last evening in the village. As we were walking back to our lodging under the beautiful, most starry Kenyan sky, with now a very pleasant breeze, encountering children coming home from Lawson high school on the dark (they do homework at school until 9PM), and other people still out strolling, it was magical to hear voices shout out to out from the houses dark in the dark, “Have safe journey, we will miss you so much! Or God bless you!” There no real words that can describe this.
So we had to depart bright and early the next morning and were so delighted to reunite with Justus our friend and driver. before departing we left all our food, snacks and other things they might enjoy with the volunteers who were still left–a friendly gesture which is always well appreciated. Off to safari, but first enjoy some of the wonderful faces of Nyumbani Village!
Me and my friends Luro and carol
Mutanu
Primary school children
Playing a game on the school ground
Loving Valerie’s hair
Nyumbani Village: the first few days
Nyumbani Village at Dusk
We arrived in Nyumbani Village Sunday evening after a ride through some beautiful countryside if mountains, terraced gardens and luscious red Kenyan soil. Along the way we spotted some zebras, gazelles and graceful giraffes feeding from tall Acacia trees as well as many mango trees heavy with ripe mangos.
Country side photo taken from the van
We had heard a rumor that we might be housed in different quarters at the Village this time and that was confirmed once we arrived and actually found them after driving around the Village in the dark and getting slightly lost as we made our way to there. The Village is developing an Ecotourism program to highlight their remarkable sustainability program and we got take advantage of this by staying in the new Guest House still under construction. This Guest House has running water, an ecotoilet with an actual seat and generator driven evening power–it’s like a five star hotel compared to what we are used to in the Village! We have teased Valerie for whom this is her first time visiting the Village, that she is totally missing out on the authentic Village experience by staying here and should spend at least one night in the old quarters with no power, no water, a pit toilet, etc. She is not convinced.
Nyumbani Village
NV grandmothers
The group heading out for the day
The group heading out for the day
It was wonderful to wake up the next morning to the familiar sites of Nyumbani Village–the red soil, beautiful trees and gardens and all the familiar friendly faces offering us enthusiastic greetings. We do many different things in the Village to offer volunteer services. We bring MANY duffels of donations of clothing, medical supplies, and this year many bags of yarns for the grandmothers to use to make their baskets. Volunteers are also working on a memory book with a history of each grandparent to preserve their family story and includes a picture of each. This year Karen is doing a special training session with the grandmothers on finances and we are of course having a Tuko Pamoja meeting with them. Much of my work, and Valerie has joined me for much of this (she is a child psychiatrist who has been wonderful to have along) has been working the counseling center or doing the work of counseling in other settings here in the village. There are two counselors here, Simon and Lilian–up until last year there was only Lilian for many years for all the staff, 1000 children, 100 grandparents and the surrounding community. When I come to the Village, Lilian has a very ambitious packed schedule for me and this year was no different!
My first patient arrived on a motorcycle
Monday my work began with seeing people from the community as well as village children whom Lilian had identified as needing psychiatric treatment. My first patient arrived on a motorcycle–a women riding between two men. One marvelous thing was a woman from the community who returned with her 21- year old son who has autism and who had violent outbursts and was very difficult to manage when I last saw him. I recommended a modest amount of medication to help with that and she returned to say thank you and that he was doing much better. He was among a number of children and young adults I evaluated in a community in which there was no concept for or understanding of autism. The problems I will encounter especially from the community are always a surprise and very interesting and challenging. I saw one women from the community who was severely ill–in the U.S. She would be hospitalized, but that is not possible here–so we are pursuing getting her some medication as well. Lilian told me that I was to see “the whole village” when we spoke before I arrived and I thought she was joking but as it turned out she was not! She had surveyed the various groups in the village and set up a schedule for me to meet with all the grandparents, primary school and high school children in groups to talk about grief and loss–most certainly an issue hitting very close to home for me. She also set up time for me to meet with all the staff in the Home Care Department (social workers) and all of the teachers in the different schools to talk about stress management and burnout. Interspersed between these appointments were individual sessions with children staff and grandparents. The stories of hardship here are hard to bear. One grandmother asked me “how do I have the courage to face the things that caused my grief?” She went on to tell me about hoe her daughter was to be married to a man in am marriage arranged by her own husband and the father of the man she was to marry. When her daughter refused she was beaten to death by the grandmother’husband oldest son and a mob of people they gathered.the issues were complex and heartbreaking and she was in the Village raising this daughters 2 children. Valerie worked with me and I was especially glad to have her along when Lilian kept offering people the opportunity for individual sessions! One of the major psychological issues in the village for grandparents and children is the serial loss of loved ones. All of the grandparents have lost children to AIDS, all of the children have lost both parents to AIDS; most have lost multiple other loved ones. The frequency of losses, as well as the Kenyan culture encouraging people to “be strong”, to not cry, and to move on discourages grieving and acknowledgement of losses. Amongst the all the groups we talked about the possibility of having an evening of remembrance—song, luminaries and ritual, to remember loved ones. This was met with uniform agreement and enthusiasm and the suggestion “since you have introduced us to this idea you must do it with us”. So next year we will have a very special Evening of Remembrance in the Village.
Group Meeting with the grandparents
Group meeting with some of the primary school
Nyumbani children at the drinking spout–sometimes you just have to cool off your feet!
I also was able to see Albanus the young man whom I met two years ago with a serious psychotic illness who came in with his father. He had recently run out of medication but I was able to take care of that and he still looked like he was doing reasonably well. He and his father are always profusely grateful,when they come in and this time had prearranged with Lilian that I come with all my fellow volunteers to their home for dinner in the evening. They so clearly wanted to share a meal and welcome us to their home so we all piled into the car belonging to the priest who serves the Village and the surrounding area and drove through gorgeous country side to their home. We were greeted so warmly by the whole family including his parents and his 3 brothers and served a wonderful meal outside under a beautiful Kenyan starry sky.
On the drive to Albanus’s home
Lloydie and I with Albanus and his family
There will be more to come about Nyumbani village, this is a most magical place. In the meantime please enjoy some of the faces of the children we encounter on our way back to the Guest house out gathering wood or just playing in the evening.
Two NV girls
A group of NV children
Sweet face
Sweet face with Deb’s hand
The Second Annual Women’s Workshop
The Second Annual Women’s Workshop for our Tuko Pamoja women was a great success, and a powerful, magical experience! The women arrived in the morning excited, dressed very “smart” as they would say in Kenya and smiling broadly. There were a lot of hugging, cheering, happy greetings and “I missed you” even though we had seen most of the women with in the last few days. The workshop opened with chai (Kenyan tea) and mandazis (Kenyan fired dough or doughnuts) and opening remarks with a prayer and a poem I had written as a tribute to Kenyan women after my first trip here. I have previously included it in the blog and I can’t get through reading it without getting totally choked but did get through and the women loved hearing it again. We talked about the theme of the workshop as gaining independence and our goals for the day:
Workshop goals
helping us out for the day were 4 young adults who grew up in Nyumbani village who have a long history of connection to KEST and to Lloydie. One of them is Lucy! who a group of 5 of us, we call ourselves “team Lucy” have joined together to sponsor Lucy’s education at the university in Nairobi. They are a wonderful group of young people who are siblings and cousins.
After setting the agenda the groups set off to attend the individual sessions of the workshop. The finance session was done by Karen (a financial planner for the U.S board by discussing budgeting and finance. One of the goals is to make sure each group and each individual woman has a bank account and the concept of budgeting. Her Kenyan board counterpart was out of the country but she got some help from Valerie too. Lloydie and Maggie ( who is a manager at Amani, a store and factory employing African women refugees) did a workshop on marketing. Simon and Evelyn’s form the Kenyan Board accompanied Deb for the session on product design and quality control. Finally I did a session on building self esteem, personal well being and relaxation techniques. My Kenyan counterpart, Lilian, the counselor at Nyumbani Village could not be there because the international Nyumbani board members were visiting Nyumbani Village. The workshop attendees form each group of women (Kibera paper, PCDA, the grandmothers from Nyumbani Village , and from the three Lea Toto Self help groups) rotated through each session.
Marketing session
Deb with Kibera paper women in product design session
Karen in the finance session
Village Grandmothers in Personal Wellbeing
Between the sessions we had a very lovely lunch prepared by the Dimesse sisters staff and all the women ate very heartily. There was also an opportunity to look at each other crafts and to mingle, share ideas, and for us to shop yet again from their crafts as we obtained permission from Dimesse sisters to have the women set up a market for the people who were staying at the retreat center.
Karen and I doing a little more shopping
Lunch time
At the close of the day everyone rejoined for closing remarks all around. The feedback was marvelous about how much they had all learned, wonderful additional suggestions, and of course profuse appreciation. We also had the handing of certificates and gift bags from the Tuko Pamoja board. The gift bags contained maize flour, lard, tea, and sugar–staples of everyday Kenyan life. Deb had also prepared luxury gift bags containing soap lotion tissues and a wash cloth. Between these and the certificates there was a very joyous celebration at the end of the day. The final closing was a prayer amazing singing, beautiful, harmonious and heavenly singing that truly conveyed the message of Tuko Pamoja, we are together, as everyone joined in, in held hands, harmonized and sang out in unified voices and many of us were moved to tears once again.
I will come back later when in the right technology circumstance and load a video of the singing, so check back so that you can glimpse this experience!
The Board
Certicate!
This is the best!
Giving gift bags
a day with the PCDA Maasai Community
Our view of the Great Rift Valley
Looking down into the Rift
Flying over the Great Rift Valley
We spent a wonderful and productive day today with the children and Mommas of the Maasai community of PCDA. The drive took us away from Nairobi through Kisserian and on the border of the Great Rift Valley and beautiful countryside. It was not unusual to encounter herds of cows or goats, groups of donkeys in the streets of the nearby towns, lumbering through the street market, crossing the road or sometimes even blocking the road as we headed to our destination of the Maasai community. What was remarkable was the huge change we encountered when we got there. Just a year ago there was a small tin school house with dirt floors and only two classrooms, but now through the help of grant from an organization called Child’s Life in Ireland, the community has a brand new, much larger, upgraded school. This has enabled them to register as a community government school which provides them with support in the form of a principal and two government paid teachers. The two teachers who were at the school previously continue to teach there an live in the community and but are trying to get certified so that they can become government funded. They currently have only small income so getting such education is a huge challenge for them, but they are very dedicated to the school and getting certified would not only improve their standard of living but also improve the standing of the school.
New Olepropil primary school
The children know us well now from prior visits, so we were greeted with great enthusiasm as soon as we approached the school in our van. These children are so adorable and are very enthusiastic learners. We spent time singing with them, playing educational games and distributing their new backpacks. I always get assigned the role of photographer which is just fine with me. Taking pictures of beautiful, spirited is a pleasure for me. Their new backpacks were sponsored by a Montisouri pre school in MD so each had a “letter” from the student who sponsored it and contained crayons or colored pencils. The children were VERY excited to receive them and worked diligently on return “letters” to their young sponsors.
In their classroom
Many adorable faces
when you are happy and you know it….”
Playing a game to remember objects
Hiding their eyes while objects get taken away
Loving the new back pack
Drawing for his backpack sponsor
We always do some kind of outside play with the children which is a mixture of laughs and giggles, enthusiasm and really great athletisism. In the past they have beat the KEST group in so car for two years in a row. But this year the handing out of backpacks took some extra time and the KWST team was spared the humiliating of being beaten by a group of preschoolers! Instead we handed out bubbles for them to play with on the school ground and those were a huge hit!
Bubbles!
Before departing from the school so that we could meet with the Tuko Pamoja Maasai Mommas, we did some group photos of the children proudly wearing their backpacks. There many thank you’s as they headed off to get porridge in the new kitchen all toting their different lunch bowls.
Maasai children wearing their backpacks
Backpacks!
Next we headed off to visit the Maasai Mommas self help group for Tuko Pamoja to meet with them about the success of the past year, give bonuses, and talk about continuing to grow in the future. The women were well prepared for us to purchase their goods for the next round of sales. They had some exciting new products including some beautiful beaded leather dog collars. I don’t have a picture of them, but my dog will have one!We had also heard from philip, the Director of PCDA that the women really need and would love a shelter for meeting and working together. They bead in the very hot sun with a little blotchy shade provided by one acacia tree and when the long rains come they get poured on and have no way to stay sheltered. All of the other TP groups have a sheltered area.i had enough donor money designated for whatever I thought was a worthy cause so I was able to pledge a modest amount that would be enough to build a shelter as soon as they open a group bank account. We also support year round porridge for the children, helping them it have the necessary school supplies and their required school uniforms. The women were very excited about the shelter. As we did at our other TP site visits we talked about our upcoming Workshop for Women on the following say, who will be attending and that we have added the opportunity for them to have a sales are for guests coming in and out of the Dimesse Sisters retreat. As we always do, we ended with spirited singing and dancing and a prayer as is the ritual in Kenya for beginning and ending any gathering.
the Women’s workshop was an amazing experience of all the women’s group learning, sharing ideas, looking at each other’s products and was a great success,
a true reminder if the mission and spirit of Tuko Pamoja, “we are together” that touched our hearts and had us all in tears for being moved by the experience before the
day was over. Check back to see some video clips of the Maasai children singing and stay tuned to hear more about the workshop.
Hugs for the bonus!
Group photo with Tuko Pamoja Maasai women
Visiting with the Mommas of Tuko Pamoja
Woman from Kibera. Paper and her daughter
Our first week in Kenya has been structured around doing site visits with the women with whom we collaborate through Tuko Pamoja. On Monday we were in Kangame, on Tuesday we went to Dagoretti and on Wednesday to Dandora to visit the women’s self help groups associated with the Lea Toto clinics at each site. The first four site visits have been with self help groups whose members all live in the slums around Nairobi in very compromised conditions. Poverty is an everyday challenge. I first met the women of Dandora, the Vision Self Help Group in 2010 and was so moved and inspired by the way in which they shared their stories of incredible stories–about being HIV+, having HIV+ children, extreme poverty, struggles with illness, yet were also community activists about HIV, community health workers doing outreach to other families with HIV+ children and raising many orphans. They were candid, passionate, and had such warmth that they have a special place in my heart. They are also the longest running self help group begun about 15 years ago by a Nyumbani nun! Sister Little (she is little and feisty!) she brought in someone to train them on beadwork and they quote her as saying “If you need money, don’t sleep.” In other works, make your crafts and she would find a way to sell them.
Group photo at Dagoretti
A bonus for Simon Wasike, administrator for the Lea Toto self help groups
Florence from Dandora and her daughter
Fingers and toes braiding beads
We have had similar meetings at each site, sharing the success of Tuko Pamoja, the growth of the product sales, and how we are marketing their goods. We share with them that people buying their crafts are given a little insert telling about the women, Tuko Pamoja, and showing a picture from the group that makes the craft. The women are thrilled to know that people in America want to hear their stories and appreciate their crafts and art. We often hear words like “miracle” and “blessing” and gratitude flows abundantly. These women are truly touched by comments written to them in our event guest book as if they can’t quite believe it. We have not finished all the interviews and photos that allow us to feature each woman and story on one page of the site book, so we have also been finishing these. This is an opportunity to have a one on one conversation and a more powerful connection with each woman. When we ask the women about their greatest challenge, the overriding answer by far is that poverty is their greatest challenge–the inability to be able to get money for rent, school fees or even food for their children or themselves. They pay testimony to the fact that Tuko Pamoja has helped, but life is still very difficult. So continuing to grow Tuko Pamoja is a powerful mission.These women live incredibly hard lives, work very hard, yet still are kind, warm, generous and very supportive of each other and of us. When we announce that they are getting a bonus that just bring the house down. In fact, at Dandora we had women in tears, one of whom had been called to take her son out of school because she couldn’t pay his school fees and now she was able to do so.
Tears of joy for the bonus at Dandora
Many hugs!
On Thursday we went to Kibera to visit our Mommas of Kibera Paper who make gorgeous cards from handmade paper. I also have a special place in my heart for this group because Deb and I have done art exchange projects with them and have so enjoyed this collaboration. They are also a group with incredible heart and gorgeous singing voices to which we get treated every time. They do their work in space that they rent at a school in Kibera and are located right next door to the school where the children come out to play. They are absolutely adorable children in red school uniforms who love to have their pictures taken and whom we recognize as growing a little taller each year. New visitors to Kibera paper always have the opportunity to make cards and paper so Valerie spent time doing that with Leah! a fine teacher. As at all the sites, we had a wonderful visit, exuberant enthusiasm about the growth of sales and purchases and overwhelming emotion in response to bonuses. This is a heart warming, heart filling experience with these women. It’s hard to describe the warmth, affection, and love that they pour out for us, their American sisters.
Today we are off to PCDA, pastoral community Development Alliance, the Maasai community, another group of women who craft and are part of Tuko Pamoja. We have a big surprise for them….
Valerie and Leah
Outfitted in Kibera paper work kangas
Beautiful baby of Kibera Paper Momma
Karen doing an interview at Kibera paper
Group photo at Kibera Paper
Justus looking at photos with enthusiastic children
Beautiful face!
So cute!
Playing in the school yard beside Kibera Paper
Returning to Kenya……heavy hearted
In front of the Great Rift Valley
We are returning to Kenya in just five days in what I know will turn out to be another amazing trip filled with beautiful country, welcoming and gracious people, poignant moments, and abundant opportunities to give…and to receive. But I have struggled with how to write this post since my entries have always been devoted to being an authentic representation of the experience and I have poured my heart into them. I therefore cannot write this or any post about the trip without acknowledging the death of my son Brendan just three weeks ago. My heart is so heavy with sadness and missing him, with the tragedy of his sudden departure, that I cannot be genuine about any other experience without acknowledging this. I recall last year at this time him telling me that he did not want me to worry about him while Iwas away in Kenya and that he was making decisions with that in mind. He knew my passion for the work and the people there and wanted to me to continue that. And so I will go In spite of this tragedy in my life. Many people have helped out to ease the burden of my grief and the tasks of work and my practice that needed to be attended to before I could even consider departing. I am blessed with wonderful family, colleagues, and friends who have pitched in to make this possible for me. And many people have, as in years past, donated generously to help our friends in Kenya.
So as I depart in just a few days, I know that my fellow volunteers, all my dear friends, will share my sorrow, will hold me up, make me laugh, cry with me and carry me along when I need to be carried. And the many friends whom I have in Kenya, some of whom have reached out to me already will share my grief as we work together. With the hardships of living in Kenya and the AIDS pandemic, many there know grief like mine of losing children and I now know theirs far better than I ever imagined. So I will still depart knowing that every kindness I extend, every tear I cry, every song I sing or dance , and every hug I give will be with my son in my heart because I carry him with me to Kenya and everywhere…..
“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart) i am never without it(anywhere i go you go…..” e.e. cummings
My son Brendan
My three children, Ryan, Katie and Brendan
Over 4 Years and 21,000 Blog Hits Later: Time for Reflection
Children of Nyumbani Village
I began writing this blog in 2009 when I began planning my first trip to Kenya–in some ways it feels like just yesterday, but in many ways it feels like long ago because going to Kenya has become such a big part of my life and the Kenyan people inhabit such a huge place in my heart. The number of days I spend in Kenya each year is not so many; but the number of times I go back there in my mind, the times I feel a deep pang in my heart or a tear in my eye for the ways the experience has moved me, those times are so frequent and far beyond what I ever would have imagined. I cannot look at one of these little smiling faces–the faces of surviving and thriving AIDS orphans–with whom I have talked, played, sang, danced and more–without being moved. It first began about the children, AIDS orphans, of which there are so many in Sub-Saharan Africa, and therefore the title of the blog, zuri watoto wote, all the beautiful children in Swahili, but it has become so much more…… This experience has changed my view of the world, the way I live in it, but most of all it has given me a fuller and more open heart than I had four years ago. It may seem like a strange irony, but everyone else who volunteers, now all of us friends deeply bonded to each other by this common experience, will say the same; we are the ones who have been given an amazing gift.
Kenyan countryside on the way to Nyumbani Village
The Great Rift Valley: Kenya is a beautiful country!
As I look back over these past few years, I cannot believe that I only met Lloydie Zaiser, (who I call my “soul sister” because of our heartfelt bond) of KEST (Kenya Educational and Service Trips) four years ago and that we planned the first trip around our kitchen table as she stopped to talk with us on her way through Maine. A brief stop turned into a many hour conversation packed with moving stories, dinner, and I was ready to pack my bags.
Lloydie and one of the women of Tuko Pamoja
Jen and one of the women of Tuko Pamoja
Since then, under the auspices of KEST with Lloydie and Jen Geiling organizing the details of each volunteer trip so much has evolved and been accomplished. While I have gone on the volunteer trip in the winter, there have also been volunteer trips mostly focused on college and high school students in the summers. In the past four years, far more than a hundred volunteers have gone to work in the programs of Nyumbani–the Children’s home housing 100 AIDS orphans who have HIV, Nyumbani Village where 100 grandparents are raising 1000 children orphaned AIDS, and the Lea Toto clinics of the impoverished communities around Nairobi where families of children with HIV can receive outreach care. Numerous TONS of donations including clothing, medical supplies, office supplies, equipment, scooters, toys, have been brought by the volunteers to the Nyumbani programs (thank you British Airways for those special baggage wavers!)
“Nyumbani” means home
Deb with children at Nyumbani Children’s Home
Nyumbani Village
Karen–one mzungu in a sea of Nyumbani children
The chicken coop that KEST helped to build
Nyumbani Village feet
KEST has done many enrichment programs for the Children of Nyumbani including after-school clubs… the Young Ambassadors Program of Nyumbani Village in partnership with the Children’s Culture Connection and the Environmental Awareness Club. In 2010, the Nyumbani Village Memory Book project began in order to to record the histories of all of the grandparents living in the village and create a book for each home. History of the land, a summary of the village departments, and artwork from the children will also be included in the book which will be completed this year. I am proud and happy to say that I have done several art exchange programs with schools in Maine and those coupled with this blog have been my way and my hope of fostering a connection across distant cultures and introducing the concept of global citizenship, especially to youth here who are far more advantaged in life.
Young Ambassadors
Basket weaving grandmothers of Nyumbani Village
Weaving a beautiful basket
In 2011 KEST also began working with 2 additional communities: First, the Pastoral Care Development Alliance–a collaboration of Maasai communities that have established educational programs and income generating projects to increase development opportunities for their communities and second, Tulitha Kum, a children’s orphanage about four hours north of Nairobi in Nyuhururu, Kenya. which like the Nyumbani Children’s Home, serves HIV+ orphaned children.
PCDA school children
Art exchange at PCDA
Maasai women’s crafts
With the back drop of the Rift Valley
Also in 2011, the seeds were first sown for what would become Tuko Pamoja, a socially conscious LLC collaborating with 6 groups of impoverished Kenyan women artisans to develop a sustainable market for their handmade crafts by introducing their crafts in the U.S. and providing them with the tools and training to become self-sufficient. These women now have a predictable and sustainable income which enables them to feed their children, pay their school fees, and are joined in the spirit of Tuko Pamoja “We are together” in Swahili. We are all joined in that spirit for those of us who work with these women have a deep kinship with them, a bond and affection; they ARE our sisters and living halfway across the world doesn’t seem so far away at all any more. And when we all sing and dance together, especially when we all gather in a big circle, the voices are many, but they seem like one. Tuko Pamoja is in its second year and will have its second Annual Workshop for Women when we are in Kenya. All of the U.S. Board members agreed when we met in September that this workshop was, despite the many memorable and amazing days that we have spent in Kenya, the most magical of all.
Tuko Pamoja group photo in Dandora
Personal well being session of the Women’s Workshop
I could go on about the home visits done in Lea Toto, the work in the sustainability program or in the polytechnic program at Nyumbani Village, or many more things that have been accomplished- they are too many to recount. As for me, some of my most incredible days have been spent at Nyumbani Village assisting Lilian who used to be the sole counselor for the staff, 100 grandparents, 1000 children and surrounding community. Fortunately there is an additional counselor there now, but no psychiatric services in rural Kenya other than what I have been able to offer on my annual trips. I have to say however that Lilian and I as a team have changed some lives–from finding a way to treat a psychotic young man with medication that made him well again to changing the course of a young man’s life who kept running away from the Village. Not all the stories are life changing, but the role of listening, explaining, understanding and educating people about illnesses like autism which have never been explained, offering up knowledge and compassion that they have never received, is beyond words. I will return to the clinic to do this again in January.
Father of one of the teens I treated in the clinic with Lloydie
In Lilian’s Coulseling office at Nyumbani Village
Lilian and me
I have been writing about much of the growth of accomplishment, but not as much about the growth of the heart that comes with this experience. I’m sure that any of my fellow volunteers will agree that Kenya seeps into your pores and takes up residence in your heart. The Kenyan people have a way of communicating that is very genuine–they express affection, gratitude, love in far more open and graceful ways than come easily to those of us who live in this country. They live with so very little, often on the edge of survival, yet are grateful for what they have, effusively grateful for anything given to them, and take nothing for granted. They embrace us with a genuine warmth and expose their hearts in profound ways so that we are often moved to tears, not by the tragedy that exists as there is much of that, but by the ways in which people are willing to share their vulnerability in sadness, joy, gratitude, grief, all of it. And when they are joyous, they don’t hold back, they sing and dance like its heaven on earth!
Justus our good friend, guide, driver, with Kristen
Fun at Kibera Paper
Hear for yourself!
Joyful singing at Kibera paper, an example of everyday experience in Kenya!
If you received this by email, click the link below for the wonderful video of singing and dancing at Kibera Paper:
Tuko Pamoja–The Vision Ahead
The Tuko Pamoja (“We are together” in Swahili) Board descended on Rockville, MD on September 19th for 4 days of a board meeting, retreat, reunion, and time filled with inspiration, brainstorming, synergistic energy, tears and laughter, and even cheering and dancing. When this group of five women get together with all of our passion for Kenya and the women of Tuko Pamoja, our joy of working with them, and ideas start flying fast about future plans, it seems as though the building should rumble or glow a little!
I flew in from Maine to be greeted at the airport by Jen and Karen and amidst all the hugs and excitement of being together again, we hadn’t even moved from the spot where I landed before Karen and I were both in tears overwhelmed with that feeling that we get when we feel the passion of this work together and the emotional connection which brings us back to our sisters across the globe. We had a full few days ahead complete with color coded itinerary and agenda prepared by Jen and Lloydie, and a lot to accomplish ( but also a couple of “field trips” included on the agenda….if we “got all our work done.”)
We met at Lloydie”s house where there’s never a feeling of being too far from Kenya with all of the Kenya decorations, Tuko Pamoja ware, and ever mounting duffels filled with donations for the next trip.
Jen and Karen making what would become 100’s of tags
Snacks and tags for merchandise
Before we got down to the full agenda we had a chance to visit and see that Jen had been working on a new SKU tagging system for the Tuko Pamoja merchandise with which we would all become very familiar. Thanks to Jen we now have a much better system for check out and cataloguing the Kenyan Women’s crafts.
We worked on many different issues during our meeting, but began with a review of the past year. Tuko Pamoja began a little over a year ago as a socially conscious LLC dedicated to collaborating with marginalized Kenyan Women artisans to help them create a sustainable market for the sale of they goods in the U.S. It had been a successful year with increasing the purchase of their goods by 50%, increasing the number of scheduled sales events, selling close to 90% of the inventory, and hosting that amazing 1st Annual Women’s workshop when we were in Kenya last January. Almost every woman artisan at all six sites has been interviewed and photographed to create individual bios of the women. While we want to sell their goods, we also want people to have a chance to know them–they are each amazing women with strength, grace, resilience and talent who all have remarkable life stories. We want people who buy their goods to have a chance to feel the connection with them. Each site has a book of bios of the women artisans and we have these to share with people who attend our sales events. We know from comments like this in the event guest book that sharing the women”s stories, photos, and bios does give people a sense of connection with these women whom we have come to know and love.
Comment written in TP party guest book
A bio and photo for each woman
But now it was time to look ahead, to fine tune some of the business plan, and to rework our plans to more clearly reflect the ultimate goal of having women artisans groups eventually graduate from Tuko Pamoja and become independent. And so we reworked our mission statement:
“To collaborate with marginalized Kenyan women”s artisans groups toward the goal of creating sustainable income and independence.”
We want to convey the concept of developing independence and our ultimate hope that each of these six groups of artisans will, through our collaboration and training, develop the skills and self confidence to become independent, and become alumni and mentors to other groups who enter Tuko Pamoja. So how will this happen? This is what we spent a lot time and energy–and excitement–working on. We will need the collaboration and input of our Kenyan Board members and their diverse talents and a clear vision with milestones and goals to be reached over the next five years. This is what we focused on for our second Annual Women’s Workshop to be held in Kenya on January 25, 2014. We talked about measuring success and how we know if the women are getting what they need to develop independence. This is when is was extremely helpful to have Karen, who is a financial planner and business owner, focusing us on the details of planning. While the planning was detailed beyond what I wish to report here, woven throughout was a great deal of heart, a deep connection to our sisters in Kenya, a passion to be helpful and profound kindred spirit with all of them.
Shared amongst us were many stories and reminiscences of times in Kenya, the times that most deeply touched our hearts and keep us so passionate about this work. There were moments of laughter, and joy and even some of deep sadness when we recalled our most overwhelming times in Kenya when we each felt flooded by the despair of seeing such hardship. We had to stop the planning for a while and simply process these experiences and support each other as we have all been there— overwhelmed for a brief time faced with the enormity of the poverty, disease, hardship, only to find our bearings again—the bearings that lead you to remember that if you look at the whole larger picture you can become immobilized with despair, but if you focus on the people right in front of you, then you can make a difference, you can change someone’s life…… and in the process change your own.
While we don’t know precisely how to measure the success of Tuko Pamoja and are working on that, what we do know is that the number of women’s self-help groups has more than doubled since Tuko Pamoja began working with the self-help groups formed in the Lea Toto clinic of the slums. We know that the grandmothers who weave the baskets at Nyumbani Village are now earning enough income through basket sales to be able to save a little and need bank accounts. And something else which is hard to measure, but undeniably present from working with the women over several yearsbefore Tuko Pamoja, is the look of hope on their faces and the lightening of their spirits. That is something you can just see and feel.
Deb and Lloydie on our “field trip” beside a most appropriate sculpture
Some of our most pleasurable planning time was spent on what special things we can do for the women when we return to Kenya. We decided to come up with a motto to print on a business card for them, something that they can keep close at hand and heart to remind then of Tuko Pamoja and that “we are together” in this venture and remain connected even when we are not there. Our motto became:
Tuko Pamoja
We are strong and beautiful
We are growing and learning
We are together……always
However, before our time together was done, not only was it a motto, but also a cheer and song, also accompanied by Kamba dance moves that we can’t wait to share with the women, especially those limber jointed dancing grannies of Nyumbani Village!
The herd of beaded animals in our inventory
Displaying new items of Tuko Pamoja
Sharing ideas…
and more ideas..
and more.
The Tuko Pamoja Board
In addition to all the planning for Tuko Pamoja, we also reviewed our trip itinerary for travel to Kenya in January. Although Lloydie says that no one is allowed to get exhausted on this trip (hmm, right, Lloydie?) and that the itinerary is less packed, we still have a lot to accomplish. In addition to all of the Tuko Pamoja site visits and the workshops, we will spend time at Nyumbani Village working on multiple other projects and I will spend a good part of my time there consulting with the Village counselors as I have done in the past. We have some wonderful fundraising projects for people to support which I will write about in a future post. As we all were getting into the excitement of the trip, we decided to call our friend Justus, our driver, guide and protector extroadinaire in Kenya. It was so wonderful to hear his voice and laugh, but this is when we first heard of the terrorist attack on the mall as this was unfolding as we were on the phone. Although excited about our trip and feeling exhilarated by being together, this news left us all heavy-hearted and deeply saddened for our friends in Kenya. Since some people have asked me whether this will deter our travel plans, I will answer that question here. We are very cautious about safety when we travel, we don’t go to places like the Westgate mall, we spend most of our time in rural Kenya or in the slum areas and very little time in more populated areas like Nairobi where we just past through. So no, we are not deterred and will be cautious, but remained determined to carry on this work with more passion.
The last event of our time together was a cocktail party to welcome the Executive Director on Nyumbani, Sr. Mary Owens to the Washington D.C. area where the annual fundraising gala would take place the following weekend. It was a nice opportunity to chat with her, hear updates from Nyumbani and update her on the plans for Tuko Pamoja. I have to give an enormous amount of credit to Lloydie and Jen who have worked diligently on Tuko Pamoja event planning, site books, collating interviews and doing much of the stateside leg work of Tuko Pamoja. We all hated to depart the next day, but all felt like we had accomplished a great deal and could feel the mounting excitement of planning for another trip to Kenya in January, a trip filled with many things to accomplish, but most of all with lots of experiences to touch and overflow our hearts as always happens in our time together there.
“Dressed up” for the evening
Tuko Pamoja group photo in Dandora–see you soon!
My words about the women of Kenya after my first trip–I didn’t realize just how true they would really prove to be be ….,
Tribute to the Women of Kenya
Oh women of Kenya,
do you know how beautiful you are?
With your dark eyes holding your
stories of such sorrow and despair
your shining faces still able to smile so lovely
despite hardship beyond imagination
Oh women of Kenya
do you know how strong you are?
To carry your sick children on your backs
for miles through the alleys of Kibera
to raise the children of a nation through
sickness and poverty with such love
Oh women of Kenya
do you know how powerful you are?
You are the true backbone of your country
the bricks and the mortar of your people,
the keepers of the culture and traditions
the past and the future
Oh women of Kenya
do you know how glorious you are?
you dance and sing with a lively spirit
that could fill the heavens
that suspends all time and lifts all hearts
with infectious joy
Oh women of Kenya
do you know how truly amazing you are?
You moved me in a way I could not have imagined
found places in my heart I never knew existed
A piece of me is there in Kenya with you
I am but a deep breath away and in my mind’s eye
I am remembering just how beautiful you are!
Update….and early countdown to Kenya!
Aaah, Kenya!
It has been oh so, very too long since I have posted, but that doesn’t mean that Kenya hasn’t been on my mind and in my heart. Life here gets so busy and I am often buried in the endless administrative tasks of practicing medicine, which I so dislike, such that I can’t find time to do these things that I so like, such as blogging about Kenya, the Children of Nyumbani, the wonderful Kenyan people who we have come to know and love, and the work of the KEST volunteers. As has been true for a number of years now, this summer was marked by a migration of KEST volunteers to Kenya led by our extraordinarily energetic, big-hearted, extremely friendly and loquacious leader Lloydie Zaiser (really, I think everyone in Kenya knows her and probably most of the staff on British Airways…) Lloydie kept me well supplied with updates of the trip from the volunteers keeping me envious of all those who were there, sad to be missing out, but lucky to live the trip vicariously. And she recently posted photos, taken by all travelers, so I just had to blog about some of the summer trip experience and include their photos. I know that it won’t be until Lloydie and I sit down together that I will hear all the stories, the ones that will move me to tears; she has told me that there are many. Of course, there always are…..
Making projects at Nyumbani Children’s Home
More projects
Smiles at Nyumbani Children’s Home
This time the volunteer group included Lloydie’s daughter Meagan, who some of the Nyumbani children were always asking about every time we arrived, and her co-teacher Nancy, as well as Stephanie, Bailey, Sarah, Ashton and Adriana. I wish I could have been there to see the children’s excitement when Meagan arrived! The group spent the first weekend at Nyumbani Children’s Home doing crafts with the younger children and teaching yoga and mindfulness to the older children. Since most of the volunteers were new to the Children’s Home and to Nyumbani, the trip began with a meeting with the Executive Director, Sister Mary, who is quite an amazing person, and who who can always give a very thoughtful overview of the whole organization and the current issues and problems which they are facing in caring for AIDs orphans and HIV+ children. After a busy and, what I am sure was an eye-opening and touching weekend at the Children’s Home, the group was off to Nyumbani Village, quite a change from being outside of Nairobi, but not hot like it is there in January. I was even more envious of the group as I thought of them heading to the Village and knowing that Justus was driving them. He is our most wonderful driver and dear friend, who keeps us safe, has a wonderful broad smile and is aways in a good mood–I don’t know how you can spend all those hours driving in Kenya, in Nairobi traffic, on roads with potholes half the size of your car and always be so happy, I would be scared to death! But he never stops smiling!
Justus and his family–can’t wait to have dinner with all of you in January!
Sho sho gets a new lasso
Village girls and KEST volunteers
The group was quite busy in the Village–but that goes without saying as all KEST trips have a very packed agenda. They worked hard at many of the usual activities such as sorting the 450 lbs of donations which they brought, working in the sustainability program sorting seeds, mulching,etc., interviewing the grandparents for the memory book, facilitating the Young Ambassadors Club and more. An extra special item on the agenda this time, however, was working on the formation of a sister school program between the Hot Courses Primary School in Kenya and the Woods Academy in Bethesda where Megan and Nancy are teachers. In addition, KEST delivered 435 packages to the adolescent girls that were on the top of the priority list. Girls had been missing school due to lack of feminine supplies and they delivered undergarments and a year’s supply of sanitary napkins to each girl in need.
Hot Courses Primary School
Delivering supplies to adolescent girls at Nyumbani Village
In addition to the volunteer activities, they were treated to all of the magic of the Village–the sho sho’s dancing, the children singing and dancing including a special private performance in one of the clusters, Joseph playing his homemade instruments, and the simple beauty of the Kamba culture.
Joseph and his homemade guitar
People are always sad to leave the village; Stephanie and Bailey wrote about it this way: “Today we woke up to the usual crowing of the roosters outside of our windows, but awoke with a bit more hop in our step. Though sad to leave the people in the village, everyone was eager to return to the comforts of showers, toilet seats, and normal beds that awaited us in Karen. By 9 o’clock Justus pulled into the village, on time as always, and we packed the van to the brim with our bags and newly acquired baskets that we purchased from the village grandmothers.”
Always hard to say goodbye…
Lots of baskets!
Lloydie saying goodbye to John, the Village cook and best mandazi maker
Never know what you’ll see leaving on the Village road..
Following the week at Nyumbani Village, the group spent the weekend at The Children’s Home and then the subsequent week at the Lea Toto sites, Kibera paper and at PCDA. They learned about the programs offered at Lea Toto providing outreach support to the families with children with HIV who live in the impoverished communities surrounding Nairobi. This also gave them the opportunity to meet the women crafters of the self-help groups involved with Tuko Pamoja while Lloydie worked on going over and eventually picking up all of the orders for the fall events coming up (November 9th for those of you who live in my area.)
Meeting with the Vision Self Help Group
Lloydie “modeling” the ware
Tuko Pamoja–We are together!
They also went to the Maasai Community, PCDA, where they did some enrichment projects with the children and met with that self-help group and met the women of Kibera paper. Between visiting all these sites, the volunteers were able to participate in all the Nyumbani programs as well as PCDA and Kibera Paper, and the preparation for the ongoing work of selling the crafts of the women in the U.S. and sustaining their market was accomplished.
PCDA children
Summer 2013 KEST volunteers
A tough group…
I will have much more to update about Tuko Pamoja as we move forward with a lot of planning. The U.S. Board is meeting in September…and I’m sure we will end up with even bigger plans once we all start brainstorming together. The summer 2013 KEST group ended their travel with a Safari although Lloydie stayed on in Kenya to finish up Tuko Pamoja business. So I will share a few of their safari photos in closing. Lloydie is promising that the Adults Only trip in January this year will have a little leisure time built-in because we were all so exhausted last year with all that we packed in for Tuko Pamoja and so much more. So we have a two-day safari planned and I’m really excited about that. I did tease her and say that she couldn’t take it out of my sleep allotment because I already use that for blogging! So we have lots to do before we leave:
- Tuko Pamoja U.S. Board meeting/Retreat in September
- Many Tuko Pamoja Fall events
- Planning the Women’s Workshop in Kenya
- Gathering Donations
and exponentially more when we get there….and I can’t wait! We depart in 186 days!
Mother and baby…
So cute!
She’s a beauty!
……because you can’t ever see too many elephants!
Mother and youngster–tall beauties
Beautiful Kenya!
Lynn Ouellette
Watoto Wote Wazuri 
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