G.K. Chesterton says, “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.” I have certainly had many things that can be considered inconveniences and even hardships. Chesterton has reminded me yet again (I must be one slow learner) it is all in how you perceive it. August has been a busy month for me, lots of adventures and adventures in disguise as inconveniences. I have had a couple of mini-vacations and work at the factory has continued to provide all kinds of stress. Quality is still not where it needs to be and we lost 3 more team members this last month. The weavers in training are doing a great job with quality and yet they have lost 3 team members in 4 weeks. My granddaughter began crawling and walking around furniture and having all kinds of fun with her Mom and Dad. I am sure I shall never get used to missing my sons, their wives, my granddaughter and my good friends. It is the hardest part of being here and I struggle to find the adventure in this inconvenience.
I had the opportunity to visit Central Province which includes Mt. Kenya. My community counterpart. Mwengi, (he is the person who guides me through cultural situations, helps me stay connected to the community and generally keeps me out of relational troubles) and his family are from Thika and Nyeri. I attended a family reunion of sorts at his Mama’s homestead. She has a beautiful farm on a hillside and at 83, she still actively farms. Crops include about 4 different kinds of potatoes, corn, beans, coffee and various other vegetables for her family’s consumption. She sells the coffee to a large coffee exporter. It is her only cash crop. This is a Kukuo tribal area, so I got to taste some new foods and be exposed to cultural norms for that area. They are a happy group and the family embraced me very warmly. We had lots of eating, singing, dancing and praying together.
I did not get to climb Mt. Kenya since I was still recovering from bronchitis and my traveling partners never really intended to do the climb. They had a very different agenda, which turned out to be okay. I met lots of new people and saw beautiful countryside. I plan to go when my family or friends come to visit. It is a 3 day climb if anyone wants to go with me. We can camp in tents or can arrange to stay in some permanent camp sites on the mountain. The entire trail is switchbacks.
I also visited with the grandmother of Mwengi’s wife, who lives at the base of Mt. Kenya. That is her in the photo with me. She is a mother of 14, was a member of the MauMau’s and is very proud of her contribution to Kenya’s independence. She was imprisoned, beaten and raped daily. Her joints are knotted and swollen from being beaten with sticks across her hands, knees, elbows and spine. She is able to walk, but is always in pain. She is living history of the colonial times and the struggle for independence and never gets tired talking about the MauMau experience. In her 90’s she has total recall of her past life, but has trouble remembering what happened a few minutes ago!
A Peace Corps friend and I visited the island of Lamu to celebrate her birthday. It was a great vacation. We read, walked the beaches, shopped like American tourists, ate fresh seafood everyday – twice a day, got pedicures and massages and generally just kicked backed and enjoyed. And, it was pretty cheap – 5 days on the island plus travel to and from was only $300. Lamu is 99% Muslim so there is no nightlife except for one restaurant that serves alcohol and the askari club (for the policemen). They have a disco at the club on the weekends. With 15,000 inhabitants they have 46 mosques – that’s a lot. My town is half Muslim and it has only 4 or 5 mosques.
One of the “inconveniences” of Kenya is the corruption that still exists with government officials. The country has made great strides in trying to overcome this barrier to social and economic growth. However, in a two day period of time, I witnessed it 3 times. My exposure to it is usually around bribing police (askari) to pass through a check point. They grab the licenses and keys of the matatu drivers and will not give them back until they pay them a little something. For most Kenyans, the trouble goes deeper. Sometimes it affects their ability to get birth certificates, national ID cards, passports or other official documents. For truckers it may mean having to bribe weigh station officials to be allowed to pass through. It is a problem the government is working hard to overcome, but after decades of abuse, it is difficult to change the behavior in a few years.
The adventure of LifeWorks continues. We have started the assembly line, produced our first orders for Serena hotels, sent our sample lines off to the New York International Gift Show and have been working on our quality control process. The biggest hurdle is the quality. Something as simple as ironing the fabrics can involve many steps to assure we do not stretch or harm the fabric. It is my living nightmare on a daily basis. Mainly it is because our work team does not see the small imperfections and cannot understand why each quality step is so important. And, from day to day, they lapse back into doing it “their” way rather than the right way. On the upside, I have had the benefit of a Harvard MBA helping out on documentation of production process, quality process and examining cost structures. Jennifer will begin her consulting career in October with Bain and decided to spend her summer helping out an NGO in a developing country.
The Lunganya Women’s Savings and Loan Association is moving along. The women are doing the final review of the by-laws and gaining approval from each of the 100+ merry go rounds. We have developed a draft budget and excitement is pretty high to get the training going. The Weighbridge project is still floundering, but the Orphans and Vulnerable Children’s leadership team is energized around finding ways to sustain their teaching programs for pre-kindergarten children. So, we have been busy identifying needs (salaries for teachers, equipment, etc.) and trying to develop some solutions. This groups services approximately 6,000 orphans in Mariakani subdistrict (like a county). I also had the opportunity to start working with a self help group that makes beaded jewelry and help them begin to visualize how they might improve their business.
Brenda, the tailor I have been helping to grow her business, got her new sewing machine. With a minimal amount of tutoring on saving and budgeting, she was able to buy her own sewing machine, increase her revenue through consignment fabrics and taking on a couple of students to teach tailoring. She is considering finding a larger shop and wants an American pen pal very much. So if any of you are interested please email me.
Shabbon, a young man in the town, has the use of a Hulux pick up truck and has a small business transporting people and stuff around the area. He is my newest “adventure.” Budgeting and saving are the fundamentals that most Kenyans have trouble with since they live hand to mouth, literally. He is father to his own 3 children and has taken on his sister’s two sons as his own. Together we are trying to figure out if selling kerosene to the smaller villages 4 – 10 times a month will substantially increase his revenues after allowing for the cost of the kerosene, higher maintenance costs and a helper.
Samira, my friend, who I have been helping apply to colleges, was accepted at 3 schools in Kenya. She is going to start medical school in a couple of weeks. Her adventure is just beginning! Her Mama hosted a harmabe last Saturday and raised her first year’s tuition and school supplies.
I marvel at the ability of Kenyans to use the expression “it is just there” to identify a location 10 feet away or two miles away. Strangely, most people seem to understand what that means, except for me of course. Several times I have been caught in the “just there” directions and have been on a not so pleasant adventure wondering if I would ever get there. Since I have no sense of direction, I have always navigated based on landmarks and there are not many landmarks in Kenya in the rural areas. Giving directions here hardly ever includes turning left or right or specific distances. With a wave of the arm, a point of the finger and a “just there” is about as much navigation advice as I get. I have had to discipline myself to ask a lot of questions rather than take their word for it being “just there.” Even so, many times I walk around in circles or misjudge the real distance and time to get somewhere. It is an inconvenience, but it does give me time to think and “venture” into new areas.
I have been potea cabisa (completely lost) in Kenya now for one year. It is hard to believe. Life among family and friends has continued on without me, for which I am truly sad. Life here in Kenya has moved along with me, which gives me joy. And, I am pretty close to the half way mark of my service in Kenya, so the adventure is half over!
I certainly would not have been able to sustain this adventure without your continued support through prayer, cards, letters, packages, phone calls and emails. Thank you, from my heart to yours.
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