July 2007

July 2007

Well, here it is July! We are in the throes of winter which means it is cool, in the 80’s and the rain has lessened somewhat. We now have showers instead of the monsoons. Although, last night it poured pretty good, but I was already tucked under my mosquito net reading a good book sent by a good friend. Good dreams and cool nights.

We have had several deaths in my immediate community of friends in Kenya. Death is heart managed so differently here. No tears allowed. It might make someone uncomfortable. But then, death is a daily occurrence here. Either someone you personally know or someone you know has someone they know who died. When you think that of the 30 million people living in Kenya today, there have been 10 million who died over the last ten years of AIDS and more still dying every day. Then, there are almost 100 children dying of malaria each day. This forces them to have a very different perspective on death. They do not talk about it or share their grief the same way we do. They seem to slip through the grief process in moments rather than weeks or months or even years as we sometimes do in America. Half the population is Muslim so there is no visitation. Muslims are buried the same day they die and then everyone gets on with life. The Christian community here plans the funeral around when relatives can get there and if the body has to transported back to their homestead in some other province. Often there is up to a two week delay before burial. There is no carrying in of meals to the bereaved family in Kenya. The family bears the burden of feeding and housing all the visitors. There could be as many as 20 or 30 people a day. It is financially burdensome and requires the family to seek donations for the process.

The harambe for burials is more like a stealth asking and giving process. Nothing is openly done. Harambes for school fees, weddings, building programs, or anything else that no one can afford are done with big meetings, sometimes refreshments and arm twisting as part of the giving. I sat through a harambe at church for the Women’s Guild. It extended the Sunday service by an hour and half and had a series of collection processes by groups. So the men of the church were asked to give, the elders of the church, the youth, the women, the choir, the Sunday School classes, the visitors, the members of the congregation; it went on and on. Of course, everyone present is a part of many of the identified groups, so you give multiple times. It was an expensive Sunday.

I have decided I am one spoiled American………I miss running water. I miss driving a car. I miss having money and stores and washing machines and choices of all kinds! My friends here really do not get it because they have never had it. When I was home, my son John got on the Internet and we did a quiz on how much of the world’s natural resources we use each day. In Kenyan I use so very little compared to when I was living in the US. I make do with 120 liters of water a week for everything, drinking, cooking, washing me and my clothes, cleaning, etc. At home in the US, I am sure I probably used that a day…….

Work is getting a little crazy. Since my site is a test site for East Africa, we are already working on scalability. In addition, we have the daily craziness of any start up operation of training, improving processes around quality and production, inventory management and, procurement process or lack thereof, etc. I get to influence but not make decisions and as you know, I like making decisions. So, the craziness is as much a personal struggle as the actual work.

The young man I am mentoring who is managing the production process at the factory has told me several times old women cannot be trained. What does that really mean? I have to remind him I am an old woman, at least by their standards. He has been reluctant to hire any trainees past the age of 30. Of course, we did anyway. And guess what, the older women are having a terrible time fitting into the schedules, learning the process and are very hesitant in everything they do. I believe it is from the lack of formal schooling and the language barriers. For many, their tribal language is the first language. Even their Kiswahili is not so good. And, they have never had to juggle work at home and a job

Mold is my new enemy. The raining season has caused mold to grow overnight on floors, walls and furniture. My address book and event calendar have been consumed by mold with little salvageable. Bleach continues to be my friendly cleaning tool, but sometimes I just have to laugh out loud at the speed and viciousness at which the natural elements conspire against me. You would think as few resources as I am using while here, they would show more kindness towards me.

I get asked many times about what foods I eat here. I do get a good assortment of vegetables like carrots, peas, onions and sometimes, string beans. Cabbage and greens are always available. I have started keeping cleaned chopped up veggies in my little refrigerator. On lazy nights, I simply add them to the Ramen noodles I buy in Mombasa. On nights I feel like cooking, I make mac and cheese (thank you my dear friends who continue to send me cheese packets), pasta primavera or something similar. . I have also started to eat eggs more frequently. I scramble them and make egg sandwiches or an omelet. The egg yolks are such a funny color here, more beige than yellow. For breakfast, I live on nutrition bars and oatmeal (again, thanks for all those instant packets of oatmeal) and lunch is usually some kind of fresh fruit and bread.

It is mango and avocado high season here. My sons have an expression for the Mexican restaurants they love. They say the burritos are as big as your head. It is an overstatement when they say it; but, it is not an overstatement here to say that about our avocados and some types of mangoes. It is high season for avocados and mangoes and they really, really are as big as your head! One avocado can easily feed 4 people and some types of mangoes can feed a large extended family. The small green skinned ones are eaten like candy – spilt and peeled back with chili pepper on them. Adults and children alike walk around the market eating them. It is a tasty, cheap treat, just a few shillings. .

I have a new secondary project to go with the many others that keep popping up. I am assisting the Lunganya Women’s Leadership Group in helping to start a savings and loan cooperative. It is similar, but not the same as a traditional micro-finance. It will be more affordable in terms of membership and amount of savings and shares a person or group must hold. We hope to have it up and running by the end of the year. Funding for start up has been secured through USAID via Family Health International. The SACCO will target at risk woman and eventually will be open to community. Its’ first members will be the over 400 women who make up the smaller merry go rounds that comprise the Lunganya Women’s Group.

So, I continue to keep busy. This is a good thing or my spoiled American persona would cause me more havoc than it already does. I am hoping to get a visit back home sometime late this year. I need approval from the Peace Corps, from FHI and from my son (if I can afford another visit or not!). All business in Kenya literally shuts down from December 15th through the first of the year. Even the schools close from the last week in November until the middle of January. So, there is not much that will be happening around here. And, the lives of my family keep pushing on so I really need to catch up with them.

Thanks again to all those who continue to support me through their prayers, packages, phone calls and emails. You brighten my life here more than you can ever know.

June 2007

May was a month full of smiles, frowns and tears. Our opening ceremony was cancelled. It was a big disappoint to the team and the community. The Ambassador and the two Kenyan Ministers could not attend since President Kabaki cancelled all public ceremonies as part of the national day of mourning for the victims of the Kenya Airways crash. So, we cancelled everything except the actual opening! We are three weeks into being up and operational and we have 23 women and older youth (18 -24) in training. It was smiles for the 23. I also frowned with disappointment because 3 of our trainees have already been eliminated – one for lack of a national ID card and two for being no shows. One never came and one came two days late…..

While I am back to my Kiswahili lessons, I am still not fluent enough to carry an 8 hour training session on my own. So, I hired my tutor as a translator for the work/life skills training I did with our trainees. She knows my American accent better than anyone else. The women are also forcing me to use my Kiswahili so I am smiling about that! The work/life skill training is very important for our trainees. Something as simple as coming to work every day and on time is a frequent challenge. Showing initiative and keeping focused on work is a continual struggle. The culture is such here, one woman wanted to know if she had time to go home 3 times a day and check on her family…….I frowned…….and then just had to laugh.

Speaking of family, I must give my thanks to my daughter-in-law, Darah. She not only helped me to pick out a very good pair of hiking sandals that have kept me from slip sliding away in all the mud around here, but she has kept a running blog on my grand-daughter’s weekly adventures for me. It is my best smile of the week when I get out on the web and discover an update. The words and pictures do not need translating. Gus’ smile says it all.

I am not smiling at the mud (I am just plain tired of it). My toes and feet may never come clean again. It is a good thing the sandals can be soaked in soapy water and cleaned many times during the week. And, they dry out very fast. I did smile when I walked to church in the rain one Sunday morning and found out no one else was brave or foolish enough to go out in the downpour to come to church……just me, the preacher and the song leader……we had a good laugh, a short prayer and then even we went home.

I am definitely not smiling about the indoor water situation (which is to say, I still do not have any). I was not smiling in my 3 encounters with the water department and may have to adjust my thinking to never having running water while I am here. Now, that’s a frown.

I do smile when I think about God’s plan for all this rain and the very short dry periods where the good people can go out and actually dig up their gardens and get them planted before the next torrent comes. How the seeds stay in place or how they do not rot is beyond me, but God knows. I see evidence of growing maize and beans everywhere. God’s plan for sowing and growing are definitely at work here in more ways than one.

I am not smiling at the US government who has audited my returns for 2005 but I am smiling because I do not have to deal with it. My son, Mike, has gotten stuck with sorting out the issues with a little help from his brother, Aaron. So the burden and headaches rest with them. I have had to adopt the attitude, what will be will be. God is trying to grow my ability to let go and let others pick up the slack and grow themselves in the process. Who would have thought that letting go was possible for me!

I am not smiling at my Weighbridge women’s project. They are still not operational because they cannot decide who should be hired as the two employees. They have saved their share of costs for start up and got the donated space we were praying about. It is an excellent location and I smiled the day we drew up the memorandum of understanding with the NGO who has control of the property. It is very disappointing (see Patty frown) to have the project slow down to a virtual stop while they try and agree on their next steps. Of course, they have also been distracted by planting the community garden, so I have had to lighten up a little about the whole thing. I am guessing this is another “sowing” on God’s part in my life but I am not feeling the growth…….

I had good smiling time with the geckos this month as I watched three of them play follow the leader across my walls and ceilings. I think it was a mommy gecko and two babies. The larger one took a few steps and the other two would take a few steps. It looked like a game they were playing. It went on for at least a half hour with the small ones copying momma’s moves and then waiting until she moved again. I was smiling as I watched them crawl along the ceiling and down walls, but not smiling when they got too close to me. Of course, any movement on my part scares them so badly they scurry away or freeze where they are with the hope they are invisible. I did get startled by an albino gecko about 4 inches long at my front door one morning. The gecko was very white, pinkish and appeared translucent. I wasn’t smiling then.

I did smile very big when I got malted milk balls and a puzzle from a friend back home. And I really smiled when another Peace Corps Volunteer came and helped me set up QuickBooks for the little factory. The PCV is a CPA and a retiree, like me. We had a good week together and I learned a lot about accounting I hope to be able to forget one day! But it was fun having company and sharing meal preparation and small talk in the evening.

I got lots of smiles when I made my mother-in-laws’ holiday fruit salad for one of the merry go round meetings. We did not have grapes or apples for it, but I had lots of other fruit; mangos, pineapple, bananas, avocado and even some walnuts from the Nakumatt! I made the pudding for it. Next meeting I have promised to try baking chocolate chip cookies for them if Damaris’ oven actually works. She is one of the members who has a chicken farm. She has about 100 chicks and chickens in some stage of development at all times. She has had the oven for a couple of years and has never turned it on.

Most days this month I have had times to smile, frown and even cry. This has been a very emotional month for me for a lot of reasons I still cannot even talk about. Kenyans do not like to see anyone cry. A couple of times this month I was just so sad, I could not help myself from crying right at work. The trainees were very uncomfortable and pretended not to see me. One of my devotionals for the month of May said that moods don’t change by praying about them, they change by kicking them out; making a choice to act better than we feel. I knew that, but it was a meaningful reminder. Another one was about being carefully careless with the things of this life. I like that expression, carefully careless. People and things come and go and our rock through it all is God’s love for us. I have needed those messages this month. Keep me and my family in your prayers. I am sure they are doing some crying of their own and yet I know there must be some laughter and smiles, even in our grief.

May 2007

I can hardly believe it has been about three weeks since I was in the United States hugging and cuddling my grandbaby and visiting with my family. And, yes I ate ice cream everyday and had lots of green salads and fresh brewed coffee and pizza and double chocolate brownies that Darah made (yummy). As with most vacations, the glow wears off pretty quickly when the realities of work and every day life catch us up in a whirlwind and spins us back into our “normal” lives. My trip home was definitely a gift from God and my family was like the energizer bunny, keeping me powered for the work at hand in Kenya.

And that is good, because the work is mounting each day as preparations unfold for our opening next week. The U.S. Ambassador to Kenya will be the guest speaker at the dedication ceremony. It will be a huge event with about 545 people in attendance made up of community and District leadership, and governmental representatives, including, the Kenyan Minister of Tourism. It is a lot of important people for one small factory.

While all the last minute “fluffing” up of the factory is taking place, I am still trying to finish setting up the books, establishing some processes and a personnel policy handbook. We have not hired a managing director yet, so right now I have the unenviable position of being every office position we have in the budget, including receptionist. If any of you believe corporate America has a wide, long roll of red tape, try getting decisions made when you are dealing with a very large non-government agency, coupled with the enormous paper trail required by US AID. I am still learning how to unravel the roll without getting the sticky all over my hands…….on the upside, the website did roll out and you can visit it at www.lifeworkspartnership.org

My weighbridge grocery store is also almost ready to go. The local lumberyard donated materials to build the racks and bins, a friend in the US has underwritten the start up equipment and the women have almost all their share of the cost for the inventory. Space is probably going to be donated until the group can afford to build or rent a duka in a high traffic area. The donated space is perfect to capture buyers from the weighbridge and the surrounding villages on both sides of the road. The women are feeling very proud of themselves.

The rainy season has begun. It turns out they are called the long rains because it can rain off and on all day for 3 months– torrents of rains. Rain hard enough to knock you down if you are standing out in it. Rain hard enough to wash away what little walk paths and byways we have in Mariakani. Rain hard enough to awaken long hibernating frogs and weird insects. Unfortunately, the rain is not hard enough to drive away the mosquitoes. The rain, of course, has produced more mosquitoes because of the standing water in ditches; which brings me to my love affair with my mosquito net.

My mosquito net is my protector. Some evenings I go to bed very early and curl up with a book and my trusty flashlight (a very good gift from my coworkers – no batteries required) just to escape the little bitsy biters. They are so small; they can come through the screens and do. My mosquito net also protects me from any other creepy, crawly thing that might pass through at night. Most people just let the net hang over the sides of the bed. Not me. I tuck it in all around my bed earnestly believing this process will keep any and all things off me. How surprised I am when something bites me or lands on me in the night. Usually ants are the culprit.

Those pesky ants continue to invade. Now, with the rains, there are 4 or 5 more varieties to deal with on a daily basis. The most annoying ones right now are the almost microscopic ones that bite. Some of them have taken residence up inside my laptop. Do you think spraying DOOM on my keyboard will have long term harmful effects?

The rains have made a lovely mess of our garbage, although it is hard to mess up garbage……. Garbage collection in rural Kenya is almost nonexistent. So, we pile it in heaps in the street, on grassy areas, next to homes or any where else someone wants to build a personal dump. The goats, chickens and cows eat some of it. Someone will occasionally burn a pile off, but mostly it just sits. That is until the rains come. Now it gets beat down and soggy. Even so, the high winds are still able to pick it up and blow it around. The rivers of water flowing through the town also carry it around and leave it where it may.

It seems the Kenya Posta flows slower than our teeming streets of water. A friend sent a Christmas package in November and I just got it at the end of April. It was a very nice surprise. She even sent along a hand crafted Ohio State Buckeye cowbell and some Junior Mints (or at least that is what the box said…..the mints were not in good shape….anyone remember the movie The Blob?). She also included giant size containers of hand sanitizer.

I do love the stuff, but with all your generous contributions, my house runneth over with hand sanitizer. I have enough for me for the next 18 months and have even helped out another PCV who is not as fortunate as I. So, do keep sending packages, just omit the hand sanitizer. And, keep praying for me. My son, John told me when he took me to the airport for my return flight, if I did not think this was all worth it; I should just come home for good. I have thought about that many times in the last few weeks. Worth is a relative term. It may not be worth it to me, or to him or to my grandbaby (I am missing all the “firsts” - she is sitting up now), yet I can see it is worth it to the people I am serving. And, it is a blessing to me that so many of you have chosen to be a part of this work through your prayers, support, encouragement and even those slow to arrive packages. Thank you.