LEA TOTO Program: Kibera, Kariabongi and Dandora
Approaching Kibera........
Yesterday we were in Kibera which, located right outside of Nairobi, you may recall is one of the largest slums of the world. Kibera is hard to capture without including pictures, but I didn’t take pictures inside the slum as it did not feel respectful to the people there to have my camera as we walked through this community of horrendous poverty. In one of my earlier posts from the day before we left, I included a YouTube video that gives you much visual material.
We spent the morning getting oriented to the Lea Toto (in Kiswahili, “To raise a child”) Program run by Nyumbani. The program does outreach and home based care in Kibera and 6 other sites in the perimeter of Nairobi and offers HIV testing, counseling, medical care, nutritional support, and educational support and prevention services. We first met with the Director to discuss the mission of the program and then the members of our group either went to the clinic to see patients or went to meet with the counselor to discuss the counseling services and learn more about his role. I did the latter and learned form Daniel, the one counselor to approximately 450 clients who has a dual role in Kibera; he not only counsels, but also does all of the HIV testing. The clinic provides care to children but often the first entry into care is an adult parent who comes in for HIV testing who is then referred for follow up care to another clinic. Children get comprehensive care including ARVs (AIDS medication), treatment for secondary infections, much needed nutritional support and counseling. Nutritional support is extended to the family as is social support and counseling. Food is provided for a year during which time adult caregivers are supported as they begin to save small amounts of money that they would spend on food to put toward developing some kind of self sufficiency (micro credits). I was fascinated by the focus on prevention, social support groups, and the complexities of offering emotional support and once again by the breadth of the life saving work. When Lea Toto first began deaths were not uncommon; now they are rare occurrences.
Kibera is overwhelming. It is a maze of bumpy dirt roads and tiny dirty, muddy alleys strewn with garbage, dirty water and raw sewerage streaming between the alleys where the houses are attached to each other. The stench is strong. People live in tiny, dark, windowless, dirt houses with tin roofs and no ventilation. They have at most 2 rooms as large as an average bathroom in the USA. We did one home visit in Kibera with the community outreach worker and met a woman who takes care of multiple children including her 9 year old daughter with cerebral palsy who needs total care.
We went to 2 other Lea Toto sites today, Kariabongi and Dandora, both on the perimeter of Nairobi. The visit to Kariabongi was quite similar to Kibera in that we walked through a slum very much like Kibera. Here we did four home visits. In each case we were visiting families of HIV+ children who either had HIV+ mothers or were being cared for by a grandmother or adoptive mother. These were some of the most courageous and awe inspiring women given the adversity that they face every day and still manage to keep smiling, and express gratitude, generosity and grace. Each home had an adult caretaker and multiple children, up to 8 living in an extremely tiny space. We heard stories of many women fearful of being unable to pay their rent, often the equivalent of around $15 a month. We saw great poverty, but we also saw loving mothers who were keeping clean homes despite the filth around them and who were warmly welcoming and effusively thankful for our visits. All were caring for multiple children at least one of whom is HIV+. The home visit that affected me the most was going to see a home that had 2 caregivers—one was a grandmother and the other a 16 year old girl with a young child of her own. When we walked in, this young girl had an infant on her lap who appeared the size of a newborn. We learned however that this tiny baby was 3 months old and was an orphan who had been taken in by this 16 year old mother. The infant had been found abandoned on top of a garbage heap. This was the first time that I have faced something since I arrived here that truly overpowered me with sadness. I managed to choke out some kind words to the young mother about her generosity, but that image will never leave me.
We finished our time at Lea Toto on a more upbeat note at Dandora with a group of “Mamas” in the Vision Self Help Group. This is a group that was begun 7 years ago with the inspiration of Sister Little from the Nyumbani Children’s home to help a group of Lea Toto women develop skills and self sufficiency so that they would be able to earn some income to support their families. All of the women have HIV+ children in the Lea Toto program and most are HIV+ themselves. All were brought together to offer support to each other and were trained initially in bead making. They now sell their work and share the income and have tremendous sense of camaraderie. Many have gone on to train others in their skills, to be advocates for HIV awareness, and to become community leaders though all are still raising children of their own and many are also raising orphans. There is one widowed man who has also recently joined the group. The pride, warmth, and mutual respect are palpable when you are with them. They all shared their stories with us and expressed enormous gratitude for the opportunities which they have been given and as always we were welcomed with overflowing enthusiasm. We supported them by shopping heavily from their very fine jewelry, baskets, and other items.
All in all, our time in Lea Toto was eye-opening, heart breaking, gut wrenching, but also awe inspiring and hopeful for much more progress to be made and many more lives to be powerfully impacted in the face of HIV/AIDS.
*****PLEASE CHECK BACK TO MY PREVIOUS POST ON NYUMBANI VILLAGE – PHOTOS ARE NOW POSTED***
For the students: About your art!
Jordan Acres and Brooksville students, I want to tell you about what is happening with your art! I have completed one part of the art exchange. I brought all the prints, the “snake” books, and many of the drawings with me to Nyumbani Village when I was there over the last few days. The orphans there live in tiny, very simple, stone houses in groups of 10 with a grandmother. There houses have plain brick walls and no windows. They were very happy to have your art to hang on their walls.
Shosho looking at JA art hung in Nyumbani village home
I also brought your art to the school in the village and hung it on the walls in the classrooms. They are just starting to have art in school so their teacher was very excited that they will be able to learn from you and very impressed with the work you have done. All the children were very curious and interested in looking at what you sent for them. They did not have any supplies so the teacher and the students were really excited to have all the different kinds of supplies sent by you and donated by Blick Art Supplies. I worked with a group of students to make art work to bring back to you that will tell you about Kenya. They had never worked with paint, pastels, or watercolor pencils before and rarely get to use colored markers so they had a lot of fun and they did a really great job. Everyone told me again and again to thank you and tell you how much it meant to them that you had done this for them and what a special gift it was for them to receive your hand-made art with all the friendly greetings. I will try to insert some photos here later but now working on the computer with really slow internet in Kenya isn’t letting me do that. I’ll also have many awesome pictures to show you when I return.
Nyumbani Village orphans working on artwork to send to Maine
On Saturday I will be sharing the rest of the Jordan Acres artwork with the orphans at the Children’s Home and will be doing art projects with them. I will also share the Brooksville art with the AB group at the Children’s Home. That group is the same age as the Brooksville students and will really appreciate the work that you have done. What’s really great is that you have sent just the right amount of blanks books so that they will be able use them for their project.
I am really looking forward to doing this on Saturday. I’m sure that the kids in the Nyumbani orphanage will be just as grateful as the kids at the village for your art, your willingness to share and your caring. I will tell you more after Saturday and later I will tell you more about what life is like for the kids I have met in Kenya. It’s very different from life for kids in the U.S. and I think you would be really surprised and interested to hear about it.
Nyumbani Village: An oasis of good will and common cause
We returned from Nyumbani Village in Kitui last evening, but fatigue, slow internet access, but mostly time to process the experience so that I could even begin to do it justice, kept me from posting yesterday. I feel as though I should write a book after a three day experience there and even then it would be hard to put into words……
Kitui is almost 4 hours away from Karen and even the ride was interesting as we passed different areas through villages with markets, people herding their cattle on the side of the road, mountains with terraced gardens and saw giraffes and camels as we passed through the bush areas.
Typical roadside image
We were warmly (an understatement as is the case in all of Kenya) welcomed to the village and given an introduction and tour to start. We learned of a community dedicated to caring for about 450 AIDS orphans matched in groups of 10 with grandmothers or “shoshos” (susus? sp) who care for them in very small, simple (2 rooms, no power, very primitive “toilets”) stone houses that have been built from bricks made from the soil right there on the land. The houses are arranged in groups of 4 around a common water area and this is referred to as a cluster. The goal of this arrangement is to preserve the village life of the Kamba tribe as much as possible since most of the people come from this local tribe. All food preparation is done over an open fire outside. Contrary to my prior understanding all of the children are “double AIDS orphans” but most are not infected with the HIV virus. Many, however, were rescued from conditions in which they were not being cared for by any adult and were left to care for themselves in horrendous circumstances.
We learned that in addition to preserving the culture,that the Village is committed to sustainability in a way that is beyond anything I have ever seen (and I have been exposed to communities focused on sustainability before). They are doing organic farming, raising crops for biofuel, raising animals for milking, collecting human waste for fertilizer, (they use urine to kill termite hills and we all “contributed”), etc, etc. Literally nothing is wasted. Water is in very short supply, the rains are unreliable, but they have creatively addressed these problems. The sustainability projects are fascinating and many.
Signs at Nyumbani Village
The children go to school right in the village and are some of the most successful students in Kenya. They go to school at 6:30 AM and study until the teacher arrives at 8, have a full day of school and those who are beyond the equivalent of 5th grade return for preps, a self driven homework session in the evening at 6:30 until 8:30. Their school uniforms (required in all schools in Kenya) are made in their polytechnic program as is every piece of furniture in the village. There is a medical clinic and a counseling service and regular home visits are part of the routine assessment of children and how families (one “grandmother” caring for 10 children) are assessed.
Nyumbani Village orphans in the school yard
There’s so much more to say, but enough of the description… Our first evening, some of us did a home visit with one of the social workers. We received the most incredible welcome, first with 2 shoshos engaging us in dance and song and then the girls of the house were so excited to do a welcome performance for us—this was a traditional tribal dance and song done by 4 girls 6-11 and was wild and beautiful. They did not want us to leave and it was clear that they were all doing well, the house well maintained and there was much love and pride.
The following morning I spent doing home visits with the social worker and brought art from the Jordan Acres students. The grandmothers were so excited, welcoming, grateful…we taped the art on the walls where it adds much color to the sepia colored bricks. After visiting about 12 homes, we brought art to the schools where we showed it to the students and hung it on the walls there. The teachers were equally excited and the students were so curious and interested. Jordan Acres artists, your art now hangs in Kenya where students and others are really appreciating it. They have just begun to incorporate a creative arts program at the school so these and all the supplies were so appreciated.
Shoshos holding prints by Jordan Acres students
In the afternoon, I worked with students who are in the “Young Ambassadors Club” who were thrilled to be making art to go back to the US. They were focused on artistic posters that would tell American students about Kenya and they did a wonderful job. This is only some of the art I will be bringing back. After we finished I had the pleasure of joining a “drama” class in progress—really a high energy singing and dancing extravaganza that I captured on videotape.
On the following day we went to church, Kenyan style, an uplifting musical experience with a young priest, Father Julius, who has a sense of humor and totally engages the children who all leave school to attend in a huge migration of green uniforms from the school yard.
I then had the honor of meeting with Lilian, the counselor for all of Nyumbani Village who briefed me about four adolescent boys whom she wanted me to see. I assumed that she would be with me, but that was only true for the first boy since he didn’t speak English. So I saw him with her and then interviewed three others with my psychiatrist hat on taking into account the context of the culture and circumstances that she had shared with me. I have to say it was an amazing experience as all of these boys were very forthcoming and open with me and had incredible, tragic, heartbreaking, but in many ways resilient stories to tell. While I can’t give the details, one told me he wants to be a lawyer and an advocate as his future goal—I believe he will do that. Lilian and I then talked about interventions and I felt that I had been helpful; Lilian was effusively grateful telling me that I had made a huge difference in the lives of these four boys since they do not have access to psychiatric services and that I “must come back for a few weeks and get right to work.” She will keep me informed of their progress by e-mail and asked me “Did you ever imagine when you were training, that you would be having these clients in Kenya?”
Wandering through the village there were always happy friendly people, delightful children with broad smiles always delivering hugs with great exuberance. And the shoshos….they are hard to describe, they are the most enthusiastic women who break into dance on a moments notice, give you the special forceful but friendly three part Kamba handshake followed one of several greetings in the Kikamba language, and if you don’t have the appropriate response, they just keep laughing and greeting you until you remember which one applies! They are the hardest working women I have ever met raising 10 children in primitive conditions, tending gardens and on the side they all weave beautiful baskets which are sold for miniscule prices to help support their families. We all bought many of these.
Shosho making a basket
Elizabeth, shosho (grandmother) to Mercy, the beautiful child at the start of this post and me holding one of her baskets that I bought.
In fact, the village is filled with the hardest working people I have ever met, staff included. Staff and teachers live in the village and work incredible hours and all are devoted to the children of Nyumbani and take pride in the mission of the Village. The work itself is hard and long and it is also extremely hot, and since we lived in the village while there, I can say that the conditions are hard even with our luxury accommodations (stone toilets with no plumbing but at least we had seats, inside running water). Everything is hand washed for 10 children, all the meals are prepared over the outside fire, and children often wash their own clothes. We saw children of 5 or 6 gathering firewood. Clothing is worn and tattered, does not fit, children are without underwear (we brought lots as a donation) and shoes often don’t fit. Tom brought 20 pairs of running shoes, but those will be “communal shoes” shared for sporting events, no one child can own them. Life is very hard work and resources are scarce. There is, nonetheless, something very magical about the village, its spirit, the culture, the tradition, and the enormous sense of pride and community. I had anticipated I might feel some sadness being exposed to children who were AIDS orphans but, except for the individual interviews I did in the clinic, I felt none of that. I felt moved to tears on many occasions, but it wasn’t sadness, it was the recognition of this oasis of good will and common cause that is saving lives and that people are thriving because of it. They live simply, by our standards they live extremely sparsely, but they really celebrate life. There is much we can learn from the people of Nyumbani Village.
An amazing day….
I might say this again in days to come, but today was an amazing day in so many ways. The day began with Sunday morning mass, but this was church like I have never experienced before and you can’t possibly imagine. I am told that it is always as jubilant, and full of song and dance and spirit as today was, but today was also a special day for reasons I will describe below. The children, complete with drums and traditional African dance and music, filled the room with such beautiful harmonizing voices and rhythmic dance that everyone was clapping and moving in a way that brings me to tears once again as I write this post. From the youngest to the oldest children, all participate–if a child is young, then he or she is held and danced is the arms of an older child. The day was special because it was the birthday celebration in memory of Nyumbani’s founder Father D’Agostino….complete with birthday cake after the mass. There has also been a “summit meeting” here this week of the represnetatives of the Board from different countries who were thanked (as well as acknowledging the visitors form America). Because of this special occasion, the children also prepared entertainment after mass, also truly amazing. I did not take a still picture all day, only video on my flip video as no still pictures could capture the spirit of this.
That was one little video selection of many that I took; it will just give you a sense of one of the performances—I loved these boy dancers, they were such hams! I would love to show more on the blog, especially the beautiful singing and dancing in church, but that one took so long to upload and I can not edit any photos or videos here so I will have to wait until I get home to share more.
In the afternoon, we had the honor of attending another important event at Nyumbani Children’s Home. This was the second time in the history of the home that there was a “handing over ceremony.” This was a ceremony in which a 10 year old child, Diana, who has been at Nyumbani since a very young age and originally arrived seriously ill, was being handed over to her adoptive family, an aunt who had been located and taken her for longer and longer foster visits and was now officially adopting her. It was both a joyous and bittersweet occasion, one of a celebration of success, but also a tearful goodbye as everyone at Nyumbani, especially her cottage “mother” and Cottage C “siblings” were celebrating, but also singing a special goodbye song. It was handled beautifully with words of reassurance of visits and how they are and always will be bonded by great love in their hearts and will therefore always be together as a family “in the heart”
even if not together in person. I felt privileged to be witness to this wonderful expression of the bond between the children and the caregivers at Nyumbani and the mixture celebration and heartache that goes with the ultimate success of nurturing a child to health and then letting her go. The children of Cottage C were spoken to with such kindness and understanding about their feelings and Diana’s good fortune was celebrated amidst tears, song, joy….and more cake!
This was a day full of emotion as I participated, observed, sang, clapped, celebrated, sat with a child on my lap, or with many children clustered near me or holding my hand, many times overwhelmed with tears taking in the many stories and the incredible work of this place called Nyumbani that has truly saved the lives of all of these children that have been singing, dancing and are very much alive all around me.
Tomorrow we head to Nyumbani Village bright and early. That will be a very different experience, as the children there (and in Kibera) live quite differently than those at the Children’s Home. There will be much more to say, but no computer access (or running water or electricity…..) until we return to the Children’s Home on Wednesday. It is late here, almost midnight and time to get packing for our journey tomorrow.
In Kenya at last……..
So we are here at last! We have thus far spent an exciting and busy first day here at Nyumbani Children’s Home. After trying to catch up a little after missing a whole day’s sleep we awoke to the generous hospitality of the our Spurwing hosts, neighbors to the children’s home, and the largest breakfast I have ever seen. The day then began with spending the morning with the preschool kids at the orphanage, the St. Paul Miki School kids. There were 4 adults and 2o children and we were very busy! Although all of these children are HIV+ they are healthy an energetic. While the other adults did a craft project and played on the played on the playground , I did facepainting with all 20 of them. It was a little like working with jumping beans in a bowling alley. They were all adorable and loved having their faces painted!
The "lion"
We had lunch with the adolescent girls in their hostle and after lunch had a tour began a tour of the orphanage. Just prior to embarking on our tour we had the pleasure of meeting a woman who is actually the grandmother or “shosho” of one of the children who was brought to the Children’s Home originally for respite care and on the brink of death. She is now renourished and receiving treatment for HIV and is one of the few children here who has any known family. Her granmother walks for many miles every couple of weeks to visit her and supports herself and many of the other members of her village by selling her jewelry. It was an honor to meet her and to buy some of her jewelry which allowed her to buy transportation home.
Latia's Shosho and Sister Little at Nyumbani
During the tour we heard the story of the founding of the Children’s Home much of which I told in one of my earliest posts. We did get to tour the respite cottage where there were four young children getting respite care. All had come in from the Lea Toto Program in Kibera and are now doing very well after having been extremely malnourished.
One of the children in respite care
We met many of the children who were happy and lively and delighted to have visitors and loved to wlecome us, have their pictures taken, break inti spontaneous singing and dancing and introduce themselves with handshakes and often hugs.
Mark, hamming it up!
Well, it’s time to go sort food. There is so much more I could say but no more time for blogging!
Kwaheri!
AT LAST, we leave today………
So we leave today…….after months of preparation I can hardly believe it! This is my last post from the U.S. until we return. Needless to say I am very excited, hoping I have attended to every detail here, pretty tired from all the preparations, yet still buzzing with excited energy. There are a few questions that people have very frequently asked so I thought I would try to answer them here.
How long does it take to get to Kenya? We are flying from Boston to London and then London to Nairobi. The combined flying time is about 15 hours going over and 16 hours coming back with a 4 hour layover in London. Yes, that is a really long time!
Where will we be in Kenya? We will be in Karen, a suburb of Nairobi and the site of the Nyumbani Children’s Home; in Kitui, a town about 100 miles away from Nairobi and the site of Nyumbani village; and in Kibera, an enormous slum outside of Nairobi and the site of the Lea Toto outreach program If you would like to see what life is like in Kibera, please check out this YouTube video that was done by a volunteer from another program who spent time there and it will give you a sense.
The Masai Mara Game Preserve in southwest Kenya and Lake Nakuru will be the sites of our last 3 days in Kenya when we go on safari. If you would like to have a sense of what the safari will be like I have a found a good video on YouTube that got me pretty excited:
What will we be doing? The answer to this question is partly sprinkled throughout the blog, but I will recap some here. We are visiting all 3 sites of the Nyumbani Programs. We will do volunteer activities that have been organized for us, tour the medical clinic, go on home visits in the outreach program, mentor the counselor as I described in my previous post, do the art exchange project (I can’t wait to share the art from the Maine kids!) and organize art donations and ideas for future projects. Tom will do some running relays and other sporting activities particularly with the teenage boys. We will get more acquainted with the programs so we can learn: how we can raise awareness (and funds) for the program back at home, determine if we can facilitate addressing any of the medical needs, and figure out what comes next for us and our involvement with Nyumbani. And, of course, there is the safari for the last three days which includes a visit to a Masai village. Since I am also a photographer, the entire experience is an amazing photo opportunity and I will be taking a lot of pictures.
Because of the breadth of what I will be exposed to in Kenya, all of which I only know second-hand now, I imagine that it will be an experience filled with awe, sadness, joy, amazement, heartache, and profoundly intense emotion, some of which I will make an attempt to share.
Baadaye marafiki! (See you later my friends!) I will write next from Kenya.
Special request…….or amazing opportunity
I received an e-mail yesterday from Lloydie, our trip leader asking me for a “special request”. Lloydie is a former school teacher and guidance counselor who has made her second career out of organizing and leading educational and volunteer trips to Kenya (www.K-E-S-T.com ), specifically to the Nyumbani programs: the Nyumbani Children’s Home, the orphanage; Lea Toto, the outreach program in the Kibera slum; and Nyumbani village, the program which houses and cares for the “grandmothers’ and HIV+ “grandchildren”. Her special request went like this:
“In the village, there is an amazing lady named Lillian. She is the village counselor and one of the four social workers. Lillian is pursuing an advanced degree in counseling but has no peer anywhere nearby to work with…..She was hoping you could help her… maybe some role-playing, some counseling tips, etc. She is struggling because she is so far removed geographically from any peers in the counseling field, she has no mentor or professional to help her grow her counseling skills….You will be privy to all of the working of the village as a social community, a family unit, and an individual case study….. Will you be willing to help Lillian? She is one of the most blessed people at the village and she has given her life to serve the community.”
My response was a resounding yes, actually it was something like “Are you kidding, I would LOVE to do that! Tell Lillian it would be an honor to work with her.” My immediate thought was that it sounded more like an incredible opportunity for me and that it was really a situation in which we would both equally learn from each other. Then I began to think about the circumstances where she works. She is the counselor to many grandmothers who have lost all their children to AIDS and had to bear that grief as well as the stigma of having AIDS in the family. They had also counted on their children to able to care for them as they aged and instead they are caring for their grandchildren who are infected with the same virus that killed their children. She is also the counselor to children who have lost their parents, their siblings and to whom death has become an all too commonplace occurrence. In some instances, the grandmothers are related to grandchildren, but in many cases they and the children are in the village because neither have any family. All of the children have the common experience of being orphans infected with the HIV virus. Then my thoughts went to how much loss and sorrow she must have to deal with in her counseling and that I have never been in a situation quite like this and I have never been in this culture……and how much can I help her. So even though I have been practicing psychiatry and doing psychotherapy for 25 years, for a moment I too felt the enormity of the task and how overwhelming it must be. So I had to stop and remind myself that the fundamental human experience of loss, sorrow, fear, tragedy is the same in any culture, in any language and that I have had much experience with that in over 25 years and maybe I do have something to offer to Lillian. Still I think that Lillian and I will be teaching each other and like much of my experience to come in Kenya at Nyumbani, this one will give me as much or more than I give to it, and this “special request” really is much more of an amazing opportunity for me.
Jordan Acres artists send colorful “Jambo’s” to Kenyan orphans!
"Jambo!" Beautiful prints by JA artists
I received the art work from the Jordan Acres and I looked at it briefly a few days ago when I first got it and was thrilled with what I saw. Today I spent more time looking at every piece and all I can say is “WOW!!” All of you at Jordan Acres did an amazing job on the art work to send to the orphans in Kenya! And all the art work was organized in beautiful little books or packages tied with ribbons.
JA students art work
And what a nice surprise to get a whole box of donated art supplies. I was also touched to find tucked away in the box a group of yarn dolls made by Mia Denison–thanks for making that extra effort, Mia! There are some children who I will be visiting outside of the orphanage who are very poor and I will be very happy to take those with me as a special gift on my visits to see those children.
JA donated supplies and the little yarn dolls
I was also very surprised and impressed to see how many of the artists had learned some Swahili words. I know I had put a few in my earlier post telling you about Africa and Kenya, but there were so many more things that you learned how to say that I ever imagined I would see on your art. Just like the kids in Brooksville who are sending friendly greetings, the JA art is full of these, too.
Wow!
There are so many things I could say about this art work: It’s so colorful, there’s a wonderful mixture of different kinds of art (paintings, drawings, prints), there are books put together in really creative ways and fun ways (examples below). I love the little books that make long colorful snakes and the one that has all the faces with little mouths that open saying “Jambo.” I wish that I could include everyone’s work on the blog, but of course that’s not possible since there are so many different pieces. I have created a little gallery below with some examples from every kind of art and every group of students. I am sure that the children in Kenya will get the message reflected in the student’s art below:
Thank you JA artists and Mrs. McCormack!!
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- “Jambo!” Beautiful prints by JA artists
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- JA students art work
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- JA donated supplies and the little yarn dolls
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- Wow!
Brooksville student artists share Maine life with Nyumbani orphans
Last Friday evening I got to spend time with Bec Poole, my artist friend and also the art teacher at Brooksville Elementary School, and had the pleasure of getting the art projects that the 7th and 8th graders have made for the children of Nyumbani in Kenya. I have to say that I am thrilled with what I received! The art work is a series of fold out books with slip covers, all of which tell the story of the student artist and his or her life in Brooksville. I love that they show snow, lobsters, moose, the seasons and tell a story of living in Maine that will be shared with kids in Kenya who have no experience of these things. I also love that they are rich with friendly and warm greetings and clearly reach across the world with those feelings. An added bonus was the little blank fold out books and covers that were included and that I hopefully will be able to use with the same age kids in Kenya to bring back to Brooksville with greetings in the other direction from across the world.
Thank you to all the artists and to Bec Poole for creating the art and bringing this all together!!
PLEASE CLICK ON EACH PHOTO SO THAT YOU CAN SEE THE DETAILS OF THE ART WORK
Other Needs: The Masai women,children, AIDS prevention and beyond
I just received a flurry of e-mails form LLoydie Zaiser, our Kenya Trip leader in response to my e-mails which had questions and updates about what has been happening with our trip preparations and projects. One of her e-mails was in response to my comments about donations and was the following:
“Lynn, this is the email I sent out to plead for clothing donations for the Masai children. Check out the attached photos and see if you could resist giving. Lloydie”
I have posted one of the photos below, it IS absolutely irresistable! The children are are Maasai preschool children (whose growth has been dramatically stunted by malnutrition).
Masai children
In further following the links of this e-mail, I learned that the plea was from ED Colina whose face was familier to me from the DVD about the Nyumbani programs where he has been a longtime volunteer (26 years), but that now he has founded a group of non-profit volunteer organizations including one called “The Masai Women’s Empowerment Project (MWEP)” which is dedicated to improving the lives of the impoverished Merimbeti Masai women and children living in Athi River, Kenya. http://www.edcolinafoundation.org/foundation-projects. He describes their mission as providing meaningful interventions that respect cultural belief and historical experience, but still help to combat the incidence of hygiene-related disease, HIV/AIDS, child prostitution, pregnancy complications, hunger, poverty, and lack of education. I was struck by the how meaningful the mission is but also by the fact that this yet another inspiring example of the kind of generosity and giving that one individual can generate, so I wanted to post something about it along with that adorable picture. Since AIDs in Africa has become a female dominated disease, this foundation and its focus on women, AIDS awareness and prevention is crucial.
Sneak Preview: Thank You Jordan Acres Artists!
"Jambo Jina langu ni Holly. " Hello My name is Holly.
I’m so excited to have received some scanned examples of art that the students at Jordan Acres had made for me to take to Kenya. Mrs McCormack e-mailed me some scans that she had made of a few of their pieces and they are terrific! I will be meeting with her next week to get the actual art work but couldn’t wait to share some of what I have gotten to see already. What is particularly exciting to me is that I can tell that the students have learned something about Kenya and were really speaking to the kids in Kenya when they were creating their work. I loved seeing the Swahili words! I’m really excited to all of the actual pieces next Friday. But here are some examples for everyone to enjoy!
THANK YOU JORDAN ACRES ARTISTS!!
"Twiga's" Giraffes
Beautiful Sunrise
"Jambo!!!" Hello!!!
What a beautiful giraffe!
A new year, a new decade, a not so new idea.
It’s a new year .….and a new decade that has begun, a time for resolutions, recollections, reflections, resolve, or at least hopefully noting something about one’s life and moving into the future. My own personal resolutions which have never really been chosen by me around the coming of the New Year, but rather more created for me by life experience, those of gratitude and giving back, will hopefully be ones I will continue to stay strong and healthy enough to keep for decades to come. I am very excited to be starting this new decade with the trip to Kenya to volunteer in the Nyumbani programs and to begin this relationship with helping the AIDS orphans. It’s less than 4 weeks away and we just got our visas so it’s feeling very real! We are very lucky that we have the means to do this. But we are also lucky to have many people who are supporting us in various ways by donations to the Nyumbani programs, offers to be available to our one son who is at home (the other two kids will be at college), checking in on our house, covering my practice, etc. There is a whole network of support and interest that I never imagined we would have and both Tom and I have continued to remark on this on a regular basis.
In just planning this trip, I have already learned so much. One thing I have learned that there are a lot of kind people who are willing to be generous when the need becomes real. I actually learned this in a very personal and very touching way when I had breast cancer, so what I mean here is different. It’s that if you present a cause, like AIDS orphans , and make it real by talking about real people’s stories, and share your own enthusiasm, you don’t need to even ask people to help, they just offer. And, in the process of joining in helping, people get connected to each other in powerful ways. I have had many enlivened and touching conversations with people wanting to help, to give donations, wanting to know more about AIDS orphans. Bec Poole, the art teacher from Brooksville whose students are participating in the art exchange just wrote to me, “You can’t believe how much you have impacted our school. Everyone is talking about the project. I think the music teacher is going to do her spring concert with a theme on Kenya……… ” Well, I can’t take credit for that, I’ve never been to the school, I simply introduced the idea of the art exchange in a series of e-mail exchanges and sent along a CD about Nyumbani and the AIDS orphans in Kenya to make it real, and then she shared her enthusiam and they ran with it. She also wanted to make sure that I understood how important it was for her students that I figure out another project that they could do to stay involved and give to the kids in the orphanage. That’s an example of what happens and it’s wonderful. I just read an article in a medical journal about how volunteering keeps elderly minds sharp as shown by increased brain activity measured in certain regions on MRI’s, etc. I think people just feel more alive when they are sharing in some common cause and giving of themselves; it seems like giving, and the way it connects you with other people, is just fundamentally good for you, no matter how you measure it, no MRI’s required. This really isn’t a new idea at all, just one that’s easy to lose sight of in this busy day and age, but one that is really worth revisiting.
“The Hats” and other donations…
I haven’t posted for awhile since the busyness of the holidays took my attention and then on Christmas day I was ambushed by our golden retriever’s tail and took a nasty spill that injured me in a way that still keeps me from being able to sit down, which does not lend itself easily to computer work. This, of course, I am sure hoping will heal a lot before 15 hours of flying to Kenya. In the meantime, I have had a number of ideas for posts that I have wanted to write including an update on donations. I received a package from Blick Art Supplies as promised in response to my proposal for a donation for the art exchange project. I was delighted to get more than enough watercolors, paper and markers to complete the project in Kenya. Thank you! I know from communication with the 2 Maine art teachers that additional donations along with some from my own supplies will enable me to leave a stocked art supply closet in the orphanage. In response to inquiries about what I wanted for Christmas, I had discouraged some people from getting me presents, but rather asked that they get donations for Nyumbani. It’s impossible to completely discourage people like mothers and mothers-in-law from buying you Christmas presents, but they also bought items to donate in addition to gifts. There are preschool children at the orphanage who I wanted to include in doing some art but won’t be participarting in the actual art exchange (and with whom I will be doing some facepainting though I hear they move pretty quickly) who now have lots of crayons and colorbooks thanks to my mother. And, thanks to my mother in law, they have new clothing including some hand knit items. Speaking of hand knit items, someone recently said to me that I need to include a photo of all the handknit “chemo” hats that I referred to in an earlier post. I had intended to do that, but it was hard to fit them all in one photograph so instead I have included a video. Thank you to all my knitters: Jean, Lisa, Anne, Laurie, Katie, and more.
It’s exciting to see this accumulating collection of donations and I don’t even have the student art yet, though from what I have heard that will be very special to receive and will definitely be cause to get out the video again.
The Art Exchange: Update and THANK YOU Maine Schools
I have received e-mails from both of the art teachers involved with student art exchange updating me on how the work is coming. Sharon McCormack wrote and told me that the art would be done by the end of the week and that there is a “whole variety of art that is being offered up to you” She described a variety of wonderful projects that the students have worked on and will be finished, organized and packed away for me the end of the week. I won’t do any descriptions until I get to see them myself (like to keep it a surprise) and I will post some examples on the blog. She will be scanning some of the art work to post on her own Jordan acres website and will be sending the files to as well. She added that she was mindful of keeping the projects light so as keep room to also pack some additional supplies such as watercolor pencils and other things that I can bring. I will be happy to bring the art which I can’t wait to see, but also look forward to being able to stock an “art closet” between my donated supplies from Blick Art and the ones that Jordan Acres students have packed for me.
I also heard from Bec Poole at Brookesville Elementary School this week. In addition to describing to me the art her 7th and 8th grade students have been working on, which sounds incredible, she also described the enormous impact that viewing a DVD about Nyumbani , AIDS orphans and the conditions in the Kibera slum has had upon them. She wrote “The whole school is excited about this project”. She also asked that I keep in mind when I am in Kenya what other ways they might be involved in supporting the orphanage because that has become very important to them, with her own comment “Isn’t this exciting!” That it is! If there were anything that I could have hoped for in imagining an art exchange like this, it was that young people here would be affected by this and would develop a connection to what’s happening to kids across the world. I hoped it might happen when I returned with art and photos and video from the orphans in Kenya. I didn’t expect it would happen so soon. What a gift! I will surely find a way to keep this wonderful bond growing.
Thank you Maine students; you have already exceeded my hopes and expectations. I can’t wait to see your art work and especially I can’t wait to share it and the good will that goes with it in Kenya.
Gratitude revisited and passion discovered….a reflection
I haven’t posted for awhile since a bout with some rib pain threw me entirely off course and into a state of true fear about a cancer recurrence. Everything is fine and I only bring that up here because it caused me to reflect on many things including this trip. I realize now that in the midst of all of that worry and more—that this trip still stayed near the forefront of my mind. That in my fear as I worried about many things including the possibility of needing a course of radiation therapy (which I don’t , since I’m fine) that I was counting down how I could potentially finish that in time to still go to Kenya. And now that I’m breathing an indescribably huge sigh of relief and once again trying to get back on track, I have a truly renewed vigor for my perspective of gratitude which I feel every day. This has also made me realize how important this trip has become to me—the real reason for this reflection. I guess adversity, like my recent scare, does teach us, remind us of important things, and give us cause to reflect.
When I first started considering this trip I had a desire to do something for AIDS orphans, which I had had for many years, and I had always dreamed of visiting Africa. At first I thought that, despite this desire, the demands of the work I do at home might keep me from having enough time and energy to go and really devote myself in the way that I thought this trip deserved. Then I began to learn more about AIDS Orphans, I met with Lloydie Zaiser and experienced her infectious enthusiasm for the work at Nyumbani and viewed a powerful video about the experience of AIDS orphans that moved me to tears…. and I was on my way. Since then my awareness of the unimaginable breadth of this problem has grown and my heart has been weighted by the problem at the same time that I have been inspired by people who have devoted their whole lives to this cause. I have had to tell myself that even though the problem is so enormous and that doing anything that I could do seems inconsequential, that just doing something is a start, so as not to be overwhelmed by it. I have also learned more about AIDS, about the politics of prevention and obtaining the best drugs, about African culture, learned a little Swahili and looked at countless moving pictures and read countless stories of children who have been orphaned by AIDS or have HIV/AIDS. Many of the stories are tragic, sad, heroic, triumphant…. All of this has connected me to this country where I’ve never been, to children I have never met, to a culture I have never experienced and a desire has grown into a passion. So for the brief time when I thought that the reality of this trip might be threatened, I realized that I was going to go unless it was impossible, that I had made a commitment and was going, period. So I am reflecting on this now realizing that the process of learning more has truly bred caring more deeply and the secondary goal of wanting to tell others more about the AIDS epidemic and the plight of AIDS orphans has become much more of a determination. It’s a reminder that what you invest in and spend time getting to know better becomes what you care more about. And in this process, Africa no longer seems like some distant faraway place and the largeness of the world has somehow definitely become a little smaller for me.
For the Students: About Africa and Kenya
So that you will know a little bit more about where we will be traveling to do this volunteer work for AIDS orphans, I decided to post an entry about the country of Kenya and its people. Kenya is located in the Eastern part of Africa and in the part of the continent referred to as Sub Saharan since it is below the Sahara Desert. As you can see, part of the country is on the coast by the Indian Ocean and the country itself lies on the Equator. Although there are rainy and dry seasons, most of the time the temperature in Kenya is similar to warmest part of our summer. Nairobi, the capital city, is the largest city in East Africa and the orphanage where we will volunteering is located just outside of Nairobi in Karen. In the movie “Out of Africa” Karen Blixen moved to Kenya in 1913, to have a coffee plantation and befriend the local Kikuyu tribe; she later became a famous writer including her writing of the book which became the movie by the same title. The town of Karen is named after her.
Kenya has more than 70 different ethnic communities or tribes and 80 different dialects. Although the official language of the country is English, the national language is Swahili. Because there are so many different communities in the country the national motto is “Harambee” which is Swahili for “Let’s all pull together.” It’s likely that you are familiar with some other Swahili words if you have ever seen the Disney movie “The Lion King”. A number of swahili words were used in that movie, like “Simba” meaning “lion”, “Rafiki” meaning “friend”, and “Hakuna matata” which means “no worries.” Children are taught English in school, but most are able to speak Swahili or another tribal language. The most well known of the Kenyan tribes are the Maasai, a nomadic tribe whose cattle are highly valued. They are striking to see because they are tall, lean and dress in red “shuka” (blankets) with elaborate beads and braided hair. At the end of our trip, we will have the opportunity to visit a Maasai village. The Kikuyu are the largest tribe in Kenya and live in the area around Mount Kenya, the 2nd highest mountain in Africa.
Maasai in a famous leaping ritual
Our earliest ancestors, Homo erectus, which evolved eventually into Homa sapiens, first inhabited the area around Lake Turkana in Kenya where their fossils were first discovered by the Leaky family.
Music, with both dancing and singing, are an important part of the Kenyan culture not just for entertainment, but more importantly for ceremony and ritual. Soccer is a national pastime and the most popular sport from children to adults. However, Kenyan’s middle and long distance runners are amongst the best in the world. Most of Kenya’s top long distance runners come from one tribe, the Kalenjin, and they have been responsible for winning many gold medals for Kenya in the last decade.
One of the things that for which Kenya is most famous is its national parks and reserves where wildlife can roam free. It is there where people are able to go on safari (Swahili word for journey) to see the animals in their usual habitat. Some of the animals that one might expect to see include:
"Punda milia" zebras
"Tembo" elephants
"Simba" lion
"Twiga" giraffes
"Rhino" rhinocerous
The Maasai Mara is a national reserve that we will visit at the end of our trip and will go on safari. Between July and September each year, it is famous for being the site of the Great Wildebeest Migration. This involves about 2 million wildebeest, a half a million zebras , thousands of gazelles who migrate north from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to find new grazing land. They are followed by lions, leopards, hyenas and more, with the challenge being to cross the Mara River at the time of the highest water (full flood). I would love to return to Kenya during this time someday so that I could actually see this amazing spectacle (from an airplane!)
Beautiful Kenya countryside
All of the animal photos, the Maasai photo, and this one are from the KEST website and were taken by other people who went on similar service trips as the one we are taking and who also went on a safari and the end of their trip.
Art, Hats, Shirts and More
When we go to Kenya, we will each be bringing at least one 50 lb suitcase (aka “duffle”) full of donations—we are each allowed to bring two 50 lb suitcases with our airfare , so I suspect that we will be putting plenty of donated items in our other large suitcases as well.
Today I learned that Blick Art Materials (www.dickblick.com) approved my request for donations for the Kenyan Orphan Art Project/Maine Art Exchange! I am very grateful to Jen McCutcheon who presented my proposal and to the company for their generosity and willingness to donate the materials. So, my suitcase will also have art supplies and, of course, the art from the Maine students.
I am delighted to be “paying it forward” with many absolutely beautiful hand knit hats that were made for me when I was having chemotherapy. I almost hate to part with some of them because they are so lovely and were made with such care, but I also hope to never need them again. And in Kenya, despite what would seem like a warm climate to us, hats are worn often during the “colder” days. Since they were made for my small, then hairless head, they are perfect for children and it feels wonderful to pass them on where I know that every single one will be fully appreciated.
Tom has a rather large collection of running T-shirts from running or working at races over the years. He hopes to share these as part of his running project and is working on getting some running shoes as well. He has ideas and room for other things………
We have been thrilled that so many people who have talked with us about this trip have asked about donations. If you would like to donate, there are lists of needed items on the KEST website. There are many of the most basic things that are needed. Some are things that may just be “hanging around” our houses and no longer being used. A few are things that need to purchased, but are relatively inexpensive. The links to the lists are below:
http://www.k-e-s-t.com/pretrip/LT.pdf
http://www.k-e-s-t.com/pretrip/index3.html
Though we would love to fill many, many suitcases, we are somewhat limited with space and will have a challenge if everyone chooses the bulkiest and heaviest items. But…..we’ll figure it out. We won’t turn away any donations.
I will also surely find a way to create some art for sale (maybe cards from scans of the childrens’ artwork, next year’s photo calendar, photographs, not sure yet) ……. with proceeds going to Nyumbani. So there will be an opportunity there as well.
And finally, I wasn’t sure I would say this because it seems uncomfortably awkward to me, but then I thought I should tolerate that because this is about these kids and their tremendous need and not what makes me comfortable. So we are not asking for this as donations are usually brought in material form, but if anyone feels compelled to make a monetary donation to Nyumbani ( www.nyambani.org ) we won’t discourage that….. and it would be very easy to carry.
For The Students: World AIDs Day
Today (December 1st) is World AIDS day which is a day to stop and think about people who have the AIDS disease here and all over the world. AIDS is a disease that is caused by a virus called HIV, like chicken pox or the flu, but there is no vaccination and it is much more serious and eventually deadly if it is not treated. AIDs is passed from person to person by only very special close contact or by a mother who is infected passing it to her baby when she is pregnant or nursing. It can’t be passed by hugging or sneezing or coughing, so it can’t be prevented by good handwashing or the things you think about for not passing illnesses. We do know a lot about how to prevent and treat AIDS with medicines, but the ways of doing this are not available in the poorer parts of the world where most people who get AIDS end up dying. That is why there are so many orphans in Africa that need our help. The symbol for World AIDS day is the red ribbon so you may see them worn today and President Obama will have a huge one hanging on the front of the White House.
World AIDS Day
World AIDS Day was first established by the World Health Organization in 1988 and takes place annually on December 1st. I decided at some point that I would post an entry that would be educational about AIDS, especially the impact on children in Sub Saharan Africa and decided posting it today would be particularly fitting. The symbol for World AIDS day is the red ribbon, a large one of which hangs on the White House in Washington today. This day is a time for governments, organizations, and communities to come together and reevaluate and recommit to the needs of people with AIDs worldwide. The United States has a program, PEPFAR, the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief launched in 2003, the largest commitment ever by a single nation toward an international health initiative — a comprehensive approach to combating HIV/AIDS around the world. UNAIDS is a joint United Nations program to address the AIDS epidemic. Despite this and many other programs, the AIDS epidemic has continued to grow and millions have died.
Since the AIDS epidemic first began in 1981, over 25 million people have died of AIDS. Today over 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS and 2/3 of those people live in Sub Saharan Africa. AIDS, a disease that weakens the body’s immune system, is caused by HIV, a virus that can be transmitted sexually, through blood products, in utero and through breast milk. Although there are certain high risk groups, the overwhelming majority of transmission of the virus is through heterosexual contact. There is no cure for AIDS and unlike many other viruses, there is no vaccine for HIV. There is much known about how to prevent and treat AIDS. Averting sexual transmission involves encouraging safer sexual behavior including delayed first sex, partner reduction and condom use. The spread of HIV through drug injections can be slowed by outreach work, needle exchange and drug substitution treatment. Mother-to-child transmission can be almost eliminated through use of medication and avoidance of breastfeeding through the substitution of formula. Treatment with antiretroviral drugs (ARVS) for people who have the HIV virus can help them to stay healthy and live productively for many years. However, only a very small minority of people have access to the necessary education, prevention tools and the necessary treatment.
In 2007, 1 in 7 of the 2.9 million people who died of AIDS was a child. About 95% of the 13 million children who have been orphaned because of AIDS live in Africa. By 2010 it is expected that one third of all African children will be orphaned. As you can see, this set of facts of figures is staggering. But the numbers only begin to convey the magnitude of the problem by identifying who has died or is orphaned, without really conveying the scale of the individual suffering of child who has been orphaned because of AIDs.
Prior to becoming orphaned a child has been living with an increasingly ill parent and often has been caring for that parent. They have begun to suffer neglect and had to take over adult responsibilities like caring for siblings and contributing financially to the household. Many have had to drop out of school. They may continue to live with the surviving parent, but often that parent eventually becomes ill and dies as well. At the time of dealing with their grief over losing their parents they are also left without anyone to care for their basic needs and are burdened with the shame of the stigma that comes with having AIDS in the family.
You can see the video update on AIDS by Keven DeCock, The CDC Director for AIDS in Kenya on CNN News here: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/11/25/impact.kevin.decock.cnn
Or learn more about HIV and AIDS in Africa here: http://www.avert.org/aids-hiv-africa.htm
Why the Art Exchange Project?
When we first talked with Lloydie, our trip leader, about volunteering in Kenya, Tom and I both talked with her about what kind of volunteer activities we could do. There were outlined volunteer activities of different kinds on the itinerary, but somehow that didn’t seem personal enough or enough at all (as if anything ever could be enough.) It wasn’t until we had our 1 hour turned into 5 hour magnificent meeting at our home with her that I really “got it” that a big part of the “volunteering” was just being there and giving the children love in all the possible ways that one can do that.
Being and artist and psychiatrist, I thought of doing art with the children because I know that being freely creative is not something that they have the opportunity to do in school and also bcause I know that these children have all been tremendously traumatized. They have witnessed their parents die of AIDS; many have participated in caring for them. Having AIDS in Africa also has a tremendous stigma so many have had that burden to carry as well. They are in the orphanage because they have no adult family members to care for them. Some may have lost siblings. Before coming to the orphanage, some were rescued from horrendous impoverished conditions. Death and loss have been an integral part of their young lives. So as I thought about this trauma, I thought that art could be a free, uninhibited expression for them, without boundaries and which required no words. In that way, I thought it might be good for them.
Pictures drawn by children caring for parents with AIDS, photo used with permission from the Young Carers Project of South Africa http://www.youngcarers.netau.net/
Then I thought more about it, and looked to the example of the other kinds of art exchanges that had been done by the artists in my women’s art group, I thought that this might create an opportunity to fulfill another goal that I have for this trip—educating people here about AIDs orphans and the situation in Africa. We all live such privileged lives by comparison and my hope in sharing this work, the reason for writing this blog, is that others will become more aware of these circumstances. In particular, my hope is that children here might have a heightened awareness of a world that is much less fortunate than their own and an exposure to the concept of being “global citizens.” I began to think about the “art exchange” as a way to accomplish this in the broader sense as well as a way to simply foster a connection between two really different groups of kids who could communicate through art and really appreciate each other in that way. That’s how the art exchange project was conceived. I’m lucky that the two art teachers working with me had only enthusiasm about getting involved, offered to do more than I was asking for with participation, and that they were like minded in seeing this as an opportunity for their students to learn and grow.
Finally, I also feel that whenever I undertake any artistic endeavor that there is a connection to the support, inspiration, and something that is magically indescribable that has grown from my women’s art group. They will know what I mean and I will carry that with me to Kenya for this project. Thank you Jill, Laurie, Jen, Anita, Cheryle, Annie, Katrina, Cynthia, Blair and Bec.
Lynn Ouellette
Watoto Wote Wazuri 
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