Power Outs and Updates

We've been having a lot of power outs in our neighborhood this past week. For the last three days we have had at least 12 hours of no electricity a day. This isn't a terribly strange situation, sadly. It is just merely inconvenient. The most annoying bit is no hot showers, and then probably no way to communicate with friends and family over the interwebz.

With that said, we are back on the grid for the time being and I wanted you to rest assured that I have not forgotten to fill you in on what is going on.

Ian is back from his business trip a whole three days early (hooray!) and I am soaking in a slower paced week knocking some things off my to-do list while the trainees from Amani ya Juu are on break. Mind you I will still be trekking over to the office a couple days this week, but it is a little less pressure to get Amani associated things done.

As part of the the to-do list, we am near the mid to finishing stages of our newsletter and I am trying to give the newsletter and this blog a nice facelift in hopes that it will motivate us to use it even more! Here's a quick preview of my work-in-progress:
There's still a lot to do to get that to-do list ticked off.
All the best!
Baraka,
Bekah

People of Peace

During my days at Amani ya Juu i have the pleasure to get to know some of the nicest people in Kenya... or at least I think they are the nicest people in Kenya. I think I have shared before that Amani ya Juu means "Peace from Above" in kiswahili, and the people I get the privilege of seeing there are often my refuge of peace. Not just peace, but giggles and laughter and hugs and good times while getting things accomplished. I have been hanging out in the Garden cafe a lot lately, and during the slow slow slow times one of the favorite past times seems to be taking facebook pictures. One day I interrupted the cell-phone camera facebook pic session with my big 'ol SLR and promised a couple glamor shots to some of the lovely ladies in the garden. It ended up that not only ladies like getting their photos taken, but our garden keeper Jackson got in on the action too.

Palvine

Delphine and Judy

Jackson

Hilda

I had taken these a little while ago while re-doing a few product photos for the shop, and had forgotten about them until today when I was going through my files and found one more portrait I didn't remember. I had handed one of the cafe staff my camera to look at and play around with for a photo or two and Betty managed to snap a photo of me in the garden too :)


It's awesome getting to be with these people every day and have them as my teachers and co-laborers. I'm hoping to introduce you to more of them as we go along!
More from the Garden later!
B

now the eyes of my eyes are opened

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

- e.e.cummings

We just returned from our short wedding anniversary holiday to the Masai Mara. The poem i thank You God was streaming through my brain the entire time we were in the park. Don't worry- we'll be posting more pictures soon.

B

Visit Up Country

Here in Kenya when someone is going traveling elsewhere in the countryside it is referred to as 'up-country.' It does not matter if it is north or south or wherever... it is still 'up-country.' Mind you as a muzungu (loosely translated as white person) I do seem to get made fun of when referring to 'up-country' because I am not visiting my home land. Nevertheless, I will not stop using the phrase because I think it is a fun colloquialism and sometimes it is nice to be vague in where you are traveling to. Ian's recent pre-business trip was just the right occasion to pull out my new phrase and go up-country with him to see a couple friends from DC who are serving in Eldoret, Kenya.

We left Nairobi around 4am to make the bumpy (and sometimes a little scary) trip up to Eldoret. We arrived in town around 9 and stopped into a local coffee shop to get some breakfast. Sadly, the local breakfast joint was out of juice, bacon, eggs, cheese, and pretty much everything else that is on the breakfast menu, so as Ian zoomed off to a series of meetings in the greater area i sat around consuming as much tea as I could reasonably consume until our friend Dasha came to meet me.

Seeing a familiar face here is always wonderful, and this was no exception. Dasha has been spending her time in Kenya volunteering with a drop-in center for street youth who have just recently become under great attack from the government of the area. Dasha has spent a lot of her time tending to dog bites from when the police set their attack animals on these kids and then any other wounds that are a result from the brutal beatings they receive from the police regularly. Sadly I showed up on Dasha's day off, so I didn't get to meet many of her new friends, but she did show me around to some of her favorite places.
First was the Imani Workshop which is a craft workshop and vocational program for HIV/Aids patients from the local teaching hospital that has international partners.
It was great to see another vocational program where the arts are really adding to people's lives in multiple ways. I always encouraged to know that wherever our giftings lie, there is always room to use them for the good of others and especially those in vulnerable situations.

After catching lunch with Dasha's husband Nate, and Ian we explored the center of Eldoret until Ian's meetings were done. When his work day was over and we had successfully checked in at our roach filled hotel, we headed to Ian's tourist point of choice... the local creamery and cheese making factory.
I don't know how many people have heard this about Ian and me, but we have in the last 6 months or so been working to hone our cheese making abilities. After our time in South Asia left us yearning for cheese that wasn't paneer, we took some of our 'limbo' time to figure out how to make a basic mozzarella and ricotta. The rest is history, as we have been happily making some home made cheese every once and a while for fun, and this interest in cheese sparked Ian's hope to tour this independent creamery.
Our guide Nancy gave us the quick tour of the place since we had come at the end of the day when production was ending. She kindly posed for a picture with us and we told her she should show her teeth when she smiles, because her toothy grin was stunning although she wouldn't go for it on camera.
Right as we got to the part of the tour where we get to taste a number of the cheeses there was a cloud burst. Seasons are pretty predictable around Nairobi.... it is dry or wet. Period. However, up-country this is not as much the case and random downpours do occur regularly.

Rain or no rain, we were determined to sample some cheese and try some of the full-cream in house ice cream. After some sampling of delicious ice cream and probably the best blue cheese I have ever savored, the damage was done and Ian did a little 'grocery shopping.' Good reasonably priced cheese is really difficult to find here, so when opportunity in the form of the best cheese we've had in Kenya at a major discount comes your way you had better seize the day.
After the cheese-purchasing we spent some time with Nate and Dasha as they showed us around their up-country town.
It's always nice to be with people that can understand you on multiple levels. The Smiths were part of NCC in DC and are now working toward doing aid work full time. It's awesome to know you will run into great people in this line of work.

The next morning we were on the road bright and early again for more meetings for Ian. Sadly in the next town we were in there were no familiar faces to visit with, so I once again sat myself down in the local 'coffee shop' for as much tea and 'bitings' (snacks) as I could reasonably dilly-dally through without raising to much suspicion. Sadly this stretched into multiple hours and after a short exploration of the town I settled in another coffee shop for almost a play-for-play repeat of the earlier experience, except with greasy tea and stale ndazi (kind of like a doughnut). Luckily when i was drawing to the last bite of my chewy ndazi, Ian finished his meeting and we were off to lunch to eat... and let him talk on the phone for a conference call. Such is the working life it seems. He's been working hard to get things ready for an upcoming project and it has meant a lot of long phone calls and extra hours of work at home.
After lunch it was back to the road and on our way back to Nairobi. Unlike our trip there, the trip back was actually during day light and we got the chance to see some of the beautiful Rift Valley and spotted zebras and baboons along the road. Also, I could have sworn I saw a couple scenes from Lion King... seriously. Is it just me, or is that Pride Rock?!
Ian will have some long weeks ahead of him making more trips up-country to do research. He's a good sport about it and has been digging into his work and trying his best to do high quality work in sometimes very little comfort with little solid sleep. Please keep him in your prayers as he continues to travel up-country during the next month.
As always, thank you for sharing in this journey with us! We are blessed to be partners with you!
B

Equator hopping

Last week we took a trip up to Western Kenya for Ian to begin some research. While on that excursion we saw a landmark that we knew we needed to stop for!
Here we are (in the middle of nowhere... our driver thought we were nuts) standing on the Equator!

I thought just for fun I would post a pic of when we visited the Prime Meridian in London.

Thanks to our friends and family who have supported in so many ways as we criss-cross the globe! We are proud to represent you around the world :)
B

Love Has a Hem

A little quote and a pic of an Amani quilt in the making. Click to enlarge and save for a desktop back ground. Just a little summer time treat for those of you stuck in the air-conditioning staring at a screen all day :)
B

Visiting Kawangware

Wednesday I went for a home visit to Kawangware. It is one of the slums near central Nairobi where some of the ladies from Amani live.

I made the mistake of forgetting my camera, but here's a fairly recent photo of part of Kawangware.

It is a moderately developed area with various buildings mixed with tin structures. The place where Margaret and Anita live is in a concrete building. They live on the top most floor in a tiny apartment. It has a small kitchen and washroom and living/bedroom. They have a humble home, but it is tidy and well organized.

I don't know what much to say about the visit, but that it makes me proud to be part of a family of Christians. Margaret began helping her friend Phyllis when Phyllis was diagnosed or "discovered" with HIV in 2000. Margaret was diagnosed in 2007. They are good friends and spend time reading the Bible together and encouraging one another through their illness.

It was so encouraging to hear the word from Grace as she shared a devotion today at Margaret's home. She shared from Exodus 22.

21 "Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.

22 "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. 23 If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. 24 My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.

Many of the women there were single mothers or widows including one from one of the visiting mission team.
Grace shared how God cares for women who have been left alone by being widowed or have had men leave them. He loves them so much that He has put it in his law.

She also shared that she was glad about the part in this passage about the alien... or foreigner. She said she was so glad that God had made it possible for these foreigners to visit them and was thankful for the love that they have brought. She thanked God that he has loved us so much that these foreigners have love to give to the Amani ladies in Africa.

She then said something that was shocking to me. She told us that helping those in need was something that was more built in to our culture, and that in Africa it is not so and is often very difficult or does not happen. She was grateful to God that our culture has sent us to her with so much love.

This affected me in a strange way. I know there are many loving people in the USA. I know many of them both inside the church and out. I have heard from political minds on other continents how giving the American public is. I guess I have just never thought of helping those in need as being something in my culture. I think I see where this is coming from in her mind, especially in the midst of literal hand to mouth existence here for many people. Still, this shocked me to think about. I think, perhaps the Americans they meet are the people who really want to love them and help.

This hurt my heart though. Americans, in my experience, are very willing to open up and want to give to the poor internationally. The outcry after the disaster in Haiti was just a small fringe of what American private aid does. When Americans go on short term mission trips or short term relief work they throw themselves into the work and into loving the people that they meet. However, back on our own home soil we sometimes have a harder time loving the poor and pouring ourselves and our resources into them.

African widow needs dental work? no problem... here's a couple hundred dollars. Single mom in East St. Louis needs a cavity filled? Too bad... she should work harder so she can pay for it. I remember after Katrina hearing something so similar to this from someone I have respected since childhood that I was greatly taken aback.

I know this isn't the attitude among all American people, but it is enough that I find it disturbing to consider that 'helping those in need is built in to my culture.' I am also aware that being a young American who travels primarily for the sake of working in development or missions that I can be very tough on my fellow Americans... and especially American Christians. Even knowing my biases against my own people, it is hard for me to accept that compared to other cultures mine appears to have 'help those in need' somehow embedded in it.

I walked my short walk home after returning to Amani from the visit. I said hello to Joel(Jo-el) who runs a shop by the rickety bridge I cross. I have been beginning to make small informal relationships along the walk to and from work. Joel is one of the shop keepers I have met. I am often a strange sight walking along that road as I am usually to only non-African not in a vehicle. Sure there are white people and Indians in cars, but never on foot. I try to act like this is normal and go along my merry way saying hello to the many shop keepers, food vendors, and bicycle repair men I have come to recognize. I am sure they find my friendliness amusing. I however find it challenging and a constant step out of my comfort zone.

I arrived home and stopped to talk to our guard Benjamin. He has been trying teach me Kiswahili and has been a bright spot of my day from the moment we moved in. I just learned that Benjamin is half Rwandan and used to be a teacher.

I use my limited Kiswahili to ask Benjamin how he is and he tells me he is fine. I ask him about his day, and it has been very good. He asks me if I have had a lot of work today. I am home almost an hour and a half later than usual because of the home visit. I tell him that I have been visiting friends in Kawangware and he asks me if I actually went to Kawangware.
"Yes. I went to their home to visit."
"Oh! IN Kawangware?"
"Yes."
"Were you shocked at the conditions?" he asked me.
I told him I wasn't at all. "I am very much accustomed to areas like Kawangware. I really enjoyed seeing their home!"
Benjamin was impressed at this. He told me that it is such a good thing and that I visited and that it makes people in those area feel special and respected and affirmed as people. He also told me that I have a good heart and that someday when we visit him it will be very good because we will not be shocked at where he stays.

He was amazed to hear that we also had made friends in Kibera and that I have visited and plan to visit again.

I mentioned to him that there are poor in the USA as well, and even people who live on the street or in places in the middle of nowhere that have only just gotten electricity (like in some of Appalachia), but that many people refuse to realize that these things exist in my own country or they simply have no idea.

He was glad to hear that I was willing to go to these places in Kenya and meet these people. It made him very happy, I think, to know that I thought it was okay to live in places that don't look like the luxury condos that he guards every day.

I realized when I finally said goodbye to Benjamin and went up to our flat, that I have slowly been becoming comfortable with urban slums in the developing world throughout my life and that I am grateful to the community that encouraged me as a young person to open my heart to people in circumstances different to my own.

My home church in Michigan, MCRC, and my family have always been very supportive of my international travels, and our home church in DC, National Community Church, has also stood behind us as we have taken steps toward working in development. Also our Greenville College family, our friends from Christian Legal Society, and other like minded humanitarian lawyers and professionals have given us permission over and over again to live and love radically.

I am so blessed.

Without perhaps even knowing it, these communities have saved me from another type of poverty. They have rescued me from having an impoverished heart. The ability to be comfortable visiting people in different circumstances without feeling ruffled at all is due to the investment that others have made in me over the years and I am sitting in out flat in Africa feeling so very blessed to have such investors on my side.

Even if helping those in need is not something that is obvious to me in my own culture, I think it is awesome that widows in Africa can see the investment of people who have stretched me and encouraged me to live outside of the box. I cherish that the final product that these women recognize is that of love.

Thank you to all of you who have invested in Ian and me so that we can invest in the people we meet here.
B