Have you thought about....?

Rolling through Kipkenyo... Jeff greeting everybody from the back of the truck

Habari zano rafiki? (How are you, friends?) You reply, “Mzuri sana!” (Very well!)
Though I call you friends I may not know most of you…. Jeff’s blog has been hijacked. I’m the one (the white, mzungu one looking very similar, except for the long hair) with him in the picture above. I thought since I just finished spending 16 days with him in Kenya that it would be good to bring some outside perspective on what is going on there. Though Jeff and I have communicated often about life in Kenya, I still really didn’t know what he did. I didn’t know what life was like. I didn’t really have an understanding for who the children are that he sees regularly, or what he meant by tree nurseries, bore holes, and the training center. But being there gave me incredible perspective, understanding, and experience. Have you thought about going to join him?

My time there was a mix of experiences. We had times with all sorts of different people. We would walk with the kids to school in the morning (though it’s only about a 200 meter walk); and then in evening we would talk with them before bed. During the day there were plenty of cups of chai with different folks, negotiations with banana tree farm owners, visiting and praying for people in the hospital and in rural villages, more chai, bumpy rides in mid 90’s trucks and SUVs that make you praise God each time they start, trips into Eldoret (city of about 1 million) and Kabernet (city of significantly less than 1 million), hunting in the bush, more chai, basketball with the kids, motivational speaking to children at schools, strategic planning for current projects (like the tree nursery, bore hole piping, and fruit orchard) and for future projects (like Sudan), processing how to incentivize/reward the parents who are caring for the fruit orchard, more chai. Do you get the picture? Jeff’s hands , head, and heart are in many places when he’s in Africa. And those are just some of things that happened in the two weeks I was in town. The evenings would always end with chai at his adopted parent’s home (3 room – sitting room, bedroom, kitchen/bedroom). David and Prisca (with their youngest son and Jeff in the picture below) are literally Jeff’s family away from his family, and they are a wonderful couple who love him very much. Have you thought about going to join Jeff the next time he goes to Africa?

Jeff with his Kenyan family

It was such a blessing to go and be a part of Jeff’s journey in Kenya. It is so clear that the work he is doing there matters. 3 years ago there was no bore hole, no vegetable garden, no tree nursery, and no fruit orchard. In the course of that time he’s helped to raise money, and more importantly, raise belief in their ability to be self-sustaining and creative.

Most of the people who have gotten to know Jeff told me that he is now Kenyan. They fondly refer to him as one of them. That is no easy task in a place where you stand out so contrastingly from everybody else. But Jeff has made it almost impossible to not be accepted because of the way he has chosen to jump in, embrace the people there, and sought to help them maximize the tools and the gifts that they already have. And he keeps coming back. Have you thought about joining him next time he goes to Africa?

One of the things that one group of people there told us was that once you visit them one time, you have to come back at least two more times. I wonder how many people only come once? Thankfully I know someone who has been 3 times, and counting. Jeff’s ability to make a difference in Kenya is a combination of things: God’s direction and provision of opportunity, his spirit and gifts/talents, his persistent pursuit in helping these people maximize all they do, and that he keeps going back. Have you thought about joining him the next time he goes?

Do you notice a trend?

Jeff and Joshua walking to school

I haven’t even shared about how I was impacted by my time in Kenya, but know that it was immensely powerful and challenging. I’ll save my stories; so unless you go, you won’t know what it’s like. It’s worth it and I guarantee you won’t come back the same. You’ll have greater appreciation and understanding for Jeff’s work, for the Kenyan people, and for how you personally fit into that picture. Because whether you realize it or not, we are all in the same picture, inter-connected, even from thousands of miles away. Those people in Kenya (and around the world) are my brothers and sisters. And yours as well. They are dying to meet you, to learn from you, and to share with you.

With our friend Nickson, the day after our hunting excursion

Have you thought about joining Jeff in Africa?

Stop thinking about it and figure out how you can plan to go with him next summer. As you’ve witnessed from a distance – the time is now. Nothing he’s done would have happened if he had only thought about it. He took the initiative and made it happen. And with God’s grace, it happened. But it must have been INCREDIBLY AWKWARD AND DIFFICULT WHEN HE FIRST GOT THERE. After seeing it in person, you have no idea how much I admire his initiative in going and setting up the many projects. They are changing lives and empowering people for the better. Jeff has done the hard work – now you could go and ride his coattails to meeting many great people, seeing interesting places, and realizing that there is a wonderful opportunity to use some of our gifts (resources/education/knowledge) to help maximize the gifts of others around the world.

Stop thinking about joining Jeff and GO. You won’t be sorry.

Jeff and Isaac, working on the tree nursery

Some Rest for the Weary

I have to be honest - I really don't feel like writing right now, nor do I know how to organize my thoughts and experiences from the past month to relay them to you adequately.  I feel like writing this is making the phone call to that friend of yours who you haven't talked to in so long that you know the conversation will be really long and exhausting.  You want to talk to your friend, but you just don't know where to start and you don't know if you have the energy.  At any rate, here is the figurative phone call, so I hope at least a handful of you figuratively pick up the phone.  Also, let me apologize for the weird text colors.  It showed up that way and I don't have the energy right now to figure out why it is like that or how to change it. 

Greeting the children at Kamwago Primary School.  

During the past month of my absence from my blog, I have slept on 9 different beds/floors in 7 different towns/villages in two countries, and must have traveled in the neighborhood of 1,000 kilometers on rough roads in the process.  Needless to say that I am immensely enjoying the day today, which has consisted of little more than walking my little buddy, Joshua, to school in the morning, taking two meals, and going to school to collect my most recent class 3 Kiswahili exam.  I honestly don’t think I have left the room outside of those activities.  The finally consistent rains have just given me a nice excuse to do so, and have nourished the thirsty crops, rousing hope for the local farmers in the process.  So, where have I been, what have I been up to, and what have I been learning in the past month?  Let us start back at the beginning.  The day after I last wrote, I went to a village called Kamwago, which lies on the beautiful edge of the escarpment in Chepkorio, overlooking Simit and the Kerio Valley, the thumb on the hand of the Great Rift Valley.  Samuel, the man I have been here learning with and from, has his home there, and I also have another friend there, coincidentally and sometimes confusingly named Samuel (Jubilee), who graduated from the Kenya Anti-Alcohol program when I first arrived in Kenya three years ago.  I always make a point to go to Kamwago when I am in country to see Samuel’s home and greet his very old and even tougher mother, and to visit Jubilee’s family.  Seeing how well Jubilee is doing and how much of a role model and leader he has become within his community always warms my heart and inspires me.  This time, I also visited two local primary schools to speak with the children and teachers, and just walked around the whole village to greet all the curious onlookers.  Staying in a Kalenjin (one of the major tribes in Kenya) village means that plenty of mursik (sour milk aged in a charcoal-coated gourd hanging on the wall of the kitchen hut) will accompany each meal.  This was the case again last month, and I am happy to report that my gag reflex has been repressed, and I am even beginning to enjoy the treat with only minor stomach issues.  I say all these things lightheartedly, and very much enjoy all my visits to Kamwago and other villages.  I couldn’t be more thankful to all of my gracious hosts, certainly not the least of whom are Jubilee and his lovely wife.

With Samuel Jubilee and his wife outside their home in Kamwago at the conclusion of my visit with them.

The morning after returning from Kamwago, I boarded a Kampala Coach bus bound for Kampala, Uganda, to visit friends of mine there for about the next 10 days.  This was such a nice break from life here, though it didn’t end up being quite as relaxing and brainless as I had hoped.  All of my friends there work for international organizations, so I was able to talk with all of them about the work they are doing, and even tag along on a few meetings to see how they operate.  Though I only had a couple days while there to just relax as I am today, I was reminded of just how easy it is to be with Wazungu (white people) who speak and think about life very similarly to myself.  I had forgotten what it was like to interact with Americans (and Europeans) on a regular basis, and was happy to be reminded of just how much less energy it takes for me.  I am not saying the way we speak and think about life is superior in any way, nor that I dislike communicating with Africans, rather just observing how much easier it is for me personally to interact in a way that is familiar and comfortable.  Spending time with my friends in Kampala, and meeting new ones, was such a treat for me and did me a lot of good in many ways.  Many of them are scattering to new assignments or new jobs altogether around the globe, but I know we will stay in touch and meet up again sometime, somewhere.  During my time in Uganda, I also was able to go up to Gulu, where the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) had been running rampant, kidnapping children, turning some into soldiers while killing others, and burning entire villages for the better part of two decades.  The LRA has left Uganda in recent years to move into Southern Sudan and Congo, so it was great to get to go there to see how the area is rebuilding.  I was told that, at the peak, there were over 1 million people living in Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps, but that number is now down to about 20,000 and shrinking.  Although I didn’t get to go see much of the area, it is hard to go too long in the north without meeting someone who has a story to tell about when their village was invaded by the LRA and how that has affected them.  It was also great to meet the team that is heading up efforts to resettle the people and rehabilitate and reintegrate former child soldiers into their families and society at large.  It really helps put all the problems of my tough life in perspective.

Playing football with the kids at one of the primary schools in Sauri.  As you can see, I was a brick wall in the goal.

After a sleepless bus ride through the middle of the night, I arrived back in Eldoret before morning chai.  I had just enough time to take two cups while I greeted everyone back here in Ilula, unpack from Uganda and repack for the valley, and jump in the truck heading to Cheptebo.  After a solid nap, I had two good days of meetings with the two men I will be returning to South Sudan with to plan our activities there.  Once we returned to Ilula, I had two days to check in with all the staff on the progress and challenges of implementing all of our projects here before heading out for another couple days in Western Kenya.  I had made contact with the manager of the Sauri Millennium Village months ago after meeting with the program manager at Columbia University to discuss their MDP program.  The Millennium Village is essentially the collective effort of many organizations, including Columbia University, The Earth Institute, and the UNDP, to provide an on-the-ground example of how the Millennium Development Goals can be achieved.  If you don’t know what any of that stuff is, don’t worry about it; it is all just to say that it was a good opportunity for me to spend a couple days learning from the “experts” and see in action a lot of programs and projects that we don’t (yet) have the resources to pull off.  There is a lot of debate around the true success, practicality, and transferability of the Millennium Villages (there are a dozen of them throughout Sub-Saharan Africa), but I wanted to go see for myself before making any judgments.  Even if it turned out to be something I do not want to emulate, I could still learn a lot of lessons from their successes and failures.  All in all, though, I do have to say that they have a really well thought out process of community entry, implementation, scale-up, and phase-out, and a wonderfully committed and generous staff.  I can’t imagine any other organization that has the firepower they have to be able to even come close to do things the way they do, but there is a lot to be learned from each program type nonetheless.  Who am I to make this assessment, anyway?

Some of local children in Sauri pumping water from one of the many wells installed by MVP.

The day after arriving back from Sauri, my good friend, John, who has been supporting me in so many ways for the past three years, as I have tried to figure out what we are dealing with out here and how best to do so.  I have been anxiously awaiting his arrival for months, since he told me he was definitely going to be able to come.  Countless people have told me how much they want to come visit me here over the years, but John (Olinjer – I have called him this for years, so it is too weird for me to start calling him John just for the sake of this entry) is the first to actually make the trip, much to the delight of all my family here.  They have been telling me for so long that they want to meet my friends and family, so when I told them that one was finally coming, they couldn’t contain their excitement.  I think I have had to answer the kids as to when he is coming about 10 times per day since I first told them.  Olinjer also went beyond just coming to visit by raising money for the fruit tree seedlings we needed to plant the fruit tree orchards.  Because of the cost, we were working out a plan to slowly build up to having two orchards by using income from the tree nursery and garden to purchase the seedlings, but thanks to Olinjer, we now have 91 banana trees, 60 avocado trees, 56 orange trees, 8 guava trees, and 8 loquat trees planted in two different orchards.  We also have 550 passion fruit stems planted and 382 eucalyptus trees coming soon, all fenced in three different locations.  This was such a blessing to all of us, especially those who live here and will enjoy the fruits for years to come.  To see this vision I have worked on together with the staff here in Ilula for years start to come to fruition is so exciting and inspiring.  What is even more exciting is to see how the staff here has really fallen into their roles in managing and carrying out the tasks that needed to be done in order to get to this point.  As I have mentioned before, probably too often, that has been one of the main challenges for me since I arrived – just to get everyone on the same page and to have them stop seeing me as the boss of projects, who they need to report to and wait on for decisions.  I may have been the one to organize our collective dream on paper and share it with those who could help make it a reality, but it is certainly not my project.  It is their project, and they now truly understand that they are the ones who can and will make it a long term success – not me.  I know when I return here next year or in the years after, I will not recognize the lush, productive compound, which used to be producing little more than a few seasonal vegetables and tree seedlings per year, but will then be producing thousands fruits, vegetables, and seedlings to support the programs here.  Wow. 

Olinjer with some proud new owners of their very own fruit trees.

                                                                                                                    

So, since Olinjer arrived we have been pretty busy, from running around to collect tree seedlings and fencing materials, visiting two nearby communities, and taking Kiprotich, my new little brother here, now over 4 months old, on his first outing to town and his parents’ home.  We even made it back to Kapkokwon, the village that hosted me for my first bush hunting excursion.  We found out a few days before we were to go that there had been an accident involving the matatu (small private bus transport) that travels between Kapkokwon and Kabarnet, the nearest town.  As it was told to me, the matatu’s gearing and brakes didn’t engage as it was travelling down a big hill along the escarpment, leaving it coasting and unable to slow its quickly building speed.  It went off the road on one corner and rolled over many times, luckily stopping short of the edge of the escarpment, though still scattering all of the 22 passengers (the vehicle only has 11 seats, but it is standard to fit as many as possible) along the road and in the bush.  Two people died, a young mother of four children and a 2-day-old baby that had just been discharged from the hospital for its first visit to its home, and the others were held in the hospital for at least one night.  One was released the next day and 19 remained for treatment and monitoring.  By the time we arrived, 5 days after the accident, only 3 remained in the hospital, one with a broken arm and fluid in his lungs, one with a fractured pelvis, and one with a dislocated pelvis.  The first thing we did when we arrived in Kabarnet was go to the hospital to visit them and pray with them.  I am always amazed and uncomfortable at how receptive and appreciative people are when a white person shows up at times like this.  I felt the same way when we attended the funeral planning at the bereaved family and were asked to share with and encourage them.  In light of the life I have lived so far, I feel like I have nothing to offer to someone in that situation, outside of general encouragement and sorrow for their loss, but after being put in that position so many times, I have begun to feel less uncomfortable and reserved, and am pleased to know that, in some strange way, it does actually help them to feel better.

Olinjer and I with Isaac, our host in Kapkokwon, and his mother, who is even tougher than she looks.

Outside of visiting the hospital and families affected by the accident, we also went for hunting trip in a different bush than last time and visited three churches.  Again, our hunting trip was unsuccessful, this time without even a single arrow fired.  We only encountered two animals, one small antelope and one hyena, but neither cooperated with the chase team to come toward the sharp shooters.  I again was on the sharp shooter team, more because I was insistent, in my misguided need to feel like a real man, than because of actual sharp shooting skills.  We spent a few hours in the bush, continuously covering different areas in hopes that we would find all the animals that had been hiding all day.  The closest I got to an animal was when a chameleon was climbing on the small tree next to my first hiding spot.  We did also chase some monkeys along the escarpment, but hardly got close enough for a good look.  Once our testosterone returned to levels normal enough to allow us to call it a day, we stopped and had shooting competitions on some cacti, just to prove to ourselves and each other how manly we could have been if we had only had a shot at an animal.  I was later told by one of the men that we were unsuccessful because Mama Sirma, the woman of the house, blessed us with both hands, rather than just the right hand.  You live and you learn, I guess.  

The sharp shooter team. I can't remember if we were about to shoot an antelope or posing for a staged photo at this point.

Being able to go back to see everyone in Kapkokwon was such a blessing, and especially to share the experience with Olinjer.  Having him here has been so wonderful in so many ways, and it will be sad to have him leave so quickly.  Being able to experience and learn all that I have here has been incredible, but to show my world here and process it with someone who knows me so well has really been special.  I couldn’t feel more fortunate or thankful to have a friend like him supporting me so well for so long.  We travel by matatu to Nairobi on Friday, and when he flies back to the US on Sunday, I will fly with Samuel back to Juba, Sudan for the next three weeks.  While there, we are hoping to spend one to two weeks in villages throughout Yirol, the area in Lakes State we stayed in for only a couple days last visit.  There is a lot to learn from the people there, and many friends to be made.  I am even told that there is a goat waiting to be slaughtered in honor of our stay in Adior.  Outside of just spending as much time with the people in villages to learn about their plight, we will also be in Juba enough to meet with different people and get to know the work of other organizations based there.  Of course, we will also be in Freedom Square in Juba to celebrate Independence Day for South Sudan on July 9^th.  I will have more for you when I get back “home” from South Sudan on July 11^th.  My flight back to the states is on July 29^th, so I will have less than three weeks remaining here once I get back, half of which will be here with my family in Ilula, and the other half with my friend in Nairobi, Mombasa and Malindi (beaches), and one of the smaller game parks.  It is crazy to think of how little time I have remaining here before it is time to get back to reality, or at least a different reality.  Next Monday I have to try to find an internet café to register for my first term of classes at UW, which will make that coming reality feel all the more real.  For now, I need to take a bath and get to supper before they wonder what happened to me.  Thanks for figuratively picking up the figurative phone call.  I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did and will be ready for another one in a month.  Otherwise, enjoy the beginning of summer in America and be good to yourselves and those around you.