Walking Safari

When I was in Kenya this May, I didn't go on a tourist's safari. I didn’t ride in a Jeep with a bunch of other people, traveling across wide open plains, snapping pictures of dozens of wild African animals. I experienced that seven years ago, and though I would love to do it again sometime, this year there was neither time nor money in the budget.  

This time, I went on what I will call a walking safari. We didn't see much wildlife but we took in the peaceful beauty around us. We got to sense what Africa is really like, feel the earth beneath our feet, breathe in the clear air which has filled this space for millennium.

It was a seven hour walk there and back. I was tired beyond belief by the time we got back to our guest house. But it was that kind of tired that just makes you want to stop and sigh and be thankful for the amazing day.

 It was a beautiful day for a walk.

The animals in the distance are Maasai cattle. Our destination was that little peak in the far right corner. 

 The classic Kenyan Acacia tree. 

 Caught a few zebras

 And a few gazelle. Most of them are Thomson's gazelle, but on the right, the guy without a strip and with larger horns is a Grant's gazelle. 

 The blob in the middle of the picture is an emu. Sorry I couldn't get him in any better focus. 

 Even saw some flora. 

 There's that peak. We are getting close. 

 And we made it! Now we just have to walk all the way back. 

Home, Sweet, Saikeri

Ok, so the ride to Saikeri, crammed in the back of a Toyota pickup was tons of fun. At one point the truck just couldn’t make it up a steep, rocky hill, so we all got out to walk up.

On another hill, which wasn’t quite so long, one of the men jumped out of the truck as it inched along. He picked up a big rock on the side of the road, and whenever the truck seemed about to slip backwards, he would set the rock under one of the rear wheels.

When we arrived in Saikeri, we dropped off a few of the people on one end of town, then drove to the other end to drop off the supplies. Ok, the town is like a block long with maybe a dozen buildings on the main street.

 Most of the supplies we had brought out here in the truck were going into Phillip’s store. Here is Phillip, fresh out of high school and an entrepreneur. Out of his little shop, he sells medicine and feed for the livestock which the Maasai raise and cherish.

Phillip also works for Maggie, helping the volunteers to feel welcome at her humble home.

 The only electricity in her house came from the small solar panel on the roof, which provided enough power for a single light bulb in the living room and to charge cell phones. All the water for the house came from rain barrels under the eaves. We brought our own drinking water with us.

Just like when I was at Mosiro seven long years ago, this place felt just like home to me. I can live with a few inconveniences. I could have stayed forever.   

Oh, and the chai tea? Brewed to perfection! The flies thought so too. 

I'm riding in what?

            When I went to Kenya the first time, back in 2006, the highlight of our trip was the stay in Massailand. We worked and played for several days at Mosiro, running a medical clinic and doing health education for the Maasai who live there.

            This time in Kenya, my daughter Val and I visited a different place in Maasailand. The town was called Saikeri and the road there was as tenuous, though shorter, than the road to Mosiro. But upon arrival, just like Mosiro, I instantly knew that the trip had been worth it.

            This is how we got to Saikeri.

            We left the volunteer house around ten in the morning, took a matatu to Nakumatt Junction and then a city bus to Ngong. Ngong is a bit like Narok – very busy, with a mix of modern and Maasai. It is the last vestige of civilization before heading down out of the Ngong Hills and into the Rift Valley.

            Our ride to Saikeri, Maggie, said she would meet us at the corner in front of Barclay Bank. As if she had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, she suggested we stop at a café for chai tea and samosas.

            I’d had chai at Nakumatt Junction and had been so disappointed. It tasted like the chai which I made at home and nothing like what I remembered drinking in Kenya the last time. Now here at Ngong, I thought, finally, really chai. But it wasn’t to be; this still didn’t taste right. At least the beef samosas were good.

            After visiting and finishing our snack, Maggie directed us to the Naivas grocery store so we could get some last supplies to take with us into the Bush. Maggie left us there while she went off to run some errands.

            With our meager purchases crammed in our backpacks we waited patiently at the designed spot and soaked up the ambience of Ngong. Ok, there is no ambience in Ngong, just a lot of people and traffic, dust and noise. 

            Finally Maggie came back and took us to the vehicle we were to ride out to Saikeri. It was a two-wheel drive, compact, ancient Toyota pickup. The bed was half-full of supplies and Maggie suggested that I ride in the cab with her.

            Val naturally thought I should get the full Kenyan experience, so suggested I ride in the bed of the truck with her. That sounded fine to me. How bad could it be? I grew up riding in the back of my dad’s Chevy.

            Oh, but it got bad. First off, Maggie took off to run another errand. While we waited, people kept coming up to the truck and setting boxes and bags in the back of it. Then they would just walk off. I kept asking myself, do they know what they are doing and where this stuff is going?

            Then two older Maasai women came along and crawled into the bed of the truck. Then another hundred pounds worth of supplies were dropped in. Two more Maasai women and a Maasai girl clambered in.

            I said, “Val, maybe we better get in before they run out of room.” So we sat on the boards which were across the wheels on each side and waited some more, while more supplies and more people crowded in.

            All total, by the time we left, an hour later, there were nine people in the bed of the truck, two boys on the roof of the cab and three people in the cab, along with hundreds of pounds of boxes, bags and loaves of bread. There was no longer any room in the back of the truck, so we road on the side hanging for dear life to the thin railing running along the box.

            After being in Ngong for what had to be hours (this is why you don't wear a watch in Kenya, it just makes for more frustration), it was time to head into the Bush. Check back on Tuesday to see how that went. 

Home Away From Home

I know that I told you a little about the volunteer house where we stayed in Kenya, but I thought I should fill you in on it a bit more.

I don’t know the whole story of the house’s evolution, but I know that it has only been operational a few months. The ground floor consists of the main living space, which doubles as dining room, kitchen, TV room, and even a meeting room during the day.

The window of this room overlooks this fine yard belonging to the neighbors, where roosters live and crow each morning by four AM. (Picture taken from the roof.)

Outside the front door, someone set up a dart board, where it seemed that someone was always throwing darts.

Nothing wrong with that, except that my bedroom window is right there, to the left of where the dart board sits. (When no one is playing, they bring it in the house.)

I showed you a picture of our bedroom already. Nothing fancy. Not very big, but big enough.

We even had an attached bathroom. Too bad the fixtures weren’t connected yet, but at least it was a space to store our toiletries.

The bathroom we used was on the other end of the house. The sink was in the large storage room next to the main living space. The bathroom itself was just the toilet and shower – all in one little space. (I pulled this picture off of Izzo’s Facebook page. I don’t know why I didn’t take more pictures of my own.)

The cool place was the unfinished second floor.

And the coolest place was the roof – or at least the views from the roof.

Now you know a little of what my home away from home looked like and where Val is staying for another month and a half. 

Refuges in your own homeland

One of the groups which my daughter most wants to work with are the people living in the IDP camps outside of Nairobi.

One day while I was in Kenya we visited the IDP camp at Maai Mahu. Talk about heartbreaking. Most of these families were displaced following post-election violence in 2007. Before that they had decent homes and jobs. But when the political party which lost the presidential election challenged the results, violence broke out first in Kiberia slum and then throughout Kenya. Over a half million people were forced to leave their homes or lose their lives and when things quieted down, they had no place to return to. Their homes had either been destroyed or taken over by someone else. 

Known as IDP or Internally Displaced Persons, groups of families across the countryside made make-shift shelters, hoping it was temporary. But as the years dragged on, they realized that this was now their home. They had become refuges within their own country.

Various outside groups have come in to help them build permanent housing. But the fact remains that they still are displaced. They have little income and little chance to move on to a better life.

While Val is in Kenya for three months, she hopes to work mostly with the people in these camps, empowering the women to earn their own income, seeing to the needs of the school children, and finding ways to raise money and awareness once she returns to the States. She’ll be working closely with Gee who has a passion for the people living in the camps. 

Coincidence? I think not?

Yesterday, my friend Phyllis took me to Joyful Noise Christian music fest in Blaine, Minnesota. If you have been following the tales of my trip to Kenya last month, you may be thinking, “so what? We want to hear about Africa”. But hold on to your seats, God is bigger than that.

This festival, like Lifest, is sponsored by Compassion, International. Between two of the performers, someone got up and gave their plug for Compassion and then introduced a young man who had been a sponsored child with Compassion. Owen was from Kenya and he shared a little bit about his life.  

When he had finished speaking, the woman who introduced him said that he would be down at the Compassion tent if anyone wanted to talk to him. Phyllis poked me. “Let’s go, you have to meet him.”

We wound our way through the throng of people, blankets and camp chairs. I was immediately greeted by Owen’s warm smile when I got to his tent.

“Hi, I’m Chris,” I opened with, extending my hand. “I just got back from Kenya.”

“Where were you?” he asked, shaking my hand firmly.

“Mostly in Nairobi. We were working with a group called Marafiki.”

“Marafiki? In Dagoretti?”

“Yes…” It wasn’t possible that he knew of Izzo’s organization.

“I’m from Dagoretti. Did you work with Izzo?”

We talked for a bit, but other people wanted to meet him, so I had to move on. I texted Val in Kenya right away and she was as surprised as I was. Izzo and Gee, who also works with Marafiki, know Owen, and Gee was a Compassion child too.

 It seems like it is such a small world. And maybe it is. But I think what is more likely is that it is God’s world and He loves nothing more than bringing His children together. 

Knowing now that Gee was a Compassion child, it's easy for me to understand why he wants to pay it forward. I'll be writing more about him in the coming week.

Back Packs

I really should back up once again. Have I even ever told you anything about the volunteer organization my daughter and I worked through while we were in Kenya?

MarafikiCommunity was established around the time Val was there in 2010. Izzo, who runs the organization, initially started the group to help the people displaced by violence following the 2007 presidential election (more on that another day). From those simple beginnings, Izzo’s group has spread out in several directions, sending volunteers to schools, orphanages, hospitals and clinics as well as the IDP camps.

A few days after we visited Maggie, Oliver and the children at Agape Hope Center, Val and I were given a daunting task. Izzo asked us to get together backpacks to give to the children at Agape.

The storeroom next to Izzo’s house was filled with donated supplies and it was time to start giving them out. Val and I spent nearly two full days going through the storeroom and finding enough backpacks and pens, pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners, rulers, and notebooks to fill those backpacks. Without nearly enough room to work and no good way to get out of the sun, we muddled through and got the job done.

And then we had the immeasurable joy of giving out those backpacks.