Sunday with the Carlines

Last night, Joy was feeling quite homesick. A team that was here with us for the week left for home and she received a loving e-mail from her parents.
But God is good!! Diane Bannister and a husband and wife team of Doctors whom we met last Saturday at Acacia camp arrived unexpectedly. We spent an amazing evening with them sharing our experiences in Kenya so far. They ran 3 clinics in rural Kenya this week and saw over 400 patients. One day, they ran out of medicine at 11 a.m. Debbie had a very sick child of 6 or 7 years of age, sick with typhoid and malaria. Since there was no medicine left to treat either disease and the child would die without treatment, Debbie gave her one of the pills for malaria (Malarone) that she had brought for herself. Her husband then drove to the nearest chemist and bought all the drugs that he could, with his own money, to help the patients that they were seeing. There are not many hospitals in rural Kenya!
In between serious discussions, we laughed a lot and had a great time! We will not be crossing paths again in Kenya as Debbie and Paul leave for home next weekend. We will see Diane again at a gathering of Canadian Baptist Ministries Field Staff on the 30th.
Today is a bright, sunny day..30 degrees. We went to church with Paul and Kelly Carline and their family and spent the afternoon with them. Their eldest daughter, Katie, is attending
Tyndale University in Toronto and we had her to our home for dinner just before we left.
It was a great afternoon and we really enjoyed meeting them and their other 3 children. We learned a lot about their work with the Somali community outside of Nairobi. Paul told us that there 3 refugee camps around Danaub, a small town of 5,000. These 3 refugee camps are run by the United Nations and have a total of approximately 200,00 refugees. Because the refugee camps are run by the UN, the living conditions for the people there are better than the living conditions of the people in Eastleigh.
Off to an early start tomorrow at Eastleigh so we will have another early night... 9 p.m. What a difference when there is no television or a computer handy to keep one busy at night! We are told that we are keeping Missionary Hours!

A Day to Relax

Although it is Saturday, we were up at 7 as breakfast was at 8 a.m. There is a bell that rings 15 minutes before breakfast is served and there is usually a devotion at that time. It is a great time to be with the other guests at the Lodge.
This morning we said goodbye to a team from California who have been here for two weeks working with the HEART Foundation.
Our driver picked us up at 9 a.m. to take us to The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. It is a sanctuary for baby elephants located on the edge of Kenya National Park on the outskirts of Nairobi. (Mom, you would have loved this!) The sanctuary rears the orphaned elephants in such a way that they grow up psychologically sound so that in the fullness of time they can be returned where they rightly belong, amongst the wild elephant community of a large National Park. (taken from their brochure!) We learned a lot of information about elephants that we didn't know. The baby elephants are fed between 11 and 12 and only a rope separated them from us. The younger ones are fed first ...SMA Gold formula....and after they leave, the older ones come for their feeding. We were able to pet them. It was a great experience.
After that, we headed off to the giraffe centre. There, we could feed the giraffes and we have a couple of great pictures of Don and Joy feeding and hugging a giraffe. Some people were letting the giraffes take the food from their mouths.....BUT we opted out! We enjoyed sharing our box lunch, with James, our driver, and then it was time for the 2 hour drive home.
The chef at Heart Lodge prepares a wonderful box lunch for us each day we are absent at lunch time.
We are on the 9th day (of 12) of taking Malarone (for malaria) and have not had any reaction to it. Our friends, Sue and Bryan, who are also away, took a pill for the prevention of malaria and had a terrible reaction to it.
Love to hear from family and friends at home. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. Many times this past week we have felt the comfort and peace in knowing that people are praying for us.

Eastleigh School

After a time of prayer with Erica and Aaron, we headed back to Eastleigh. Our driver, Martin, took us there today. (Friday)
Upon arrival at the school, we had an initial meeting with 25 Somali women. These women are in 1 of 3 ESL classes that Erica and Aaron teach.
We then went and had a good introductory meeting with Jackson, the Head Master of the school. He was very appreciative of our visit and said that the teachers have been looking forward to our arrival for some time. He shared with us some of the things that he would like us to do with the teachers. Jackson then took us to the staffroom to meet his staff. The staffroom is extremely small and bare. It has two small tables at which the teachers sit at and the chairs are wooden and hard!
One of the staff took us around to introduce us to all the students in the various grades. After that, Don went to one class and Joy went to another. The teachers immediately involved us in "teaching" although in the 7th grade class it was going over last year's end of the year exam in science. The exam is on everything taught in the 3rd term and might also include some items taught in the 2nd term. It was multiple choice.
The classrooms are very bare. There is nothing on the walls and the paint is very faded. There were holes in the ceiling tiles. There is blackboard at the front and the teacher uses white chalk. The children sit on benches 2-3 on a bench depending on their size and work in notebooks.
45% of the children at the school are refugees from Somalia, 20% were from Ethiopia and 35% are Kenyans.
We ended the day in a grade 4 music class. The children sang a number of songs for us and Joy in turn taught them a couple of new songs, The Hokey Pokey, Deep and Wide" and an extended version of "If your happy and know it clap your hands". The children enjoyed these action songs.
When we return on Monday, they are going to teach us a new song and we are to teach them a new song!

Eastleigh

Today, Thursday, we were a part of two different worlds.
We had our first visit to the Eastleigh Community in the morning with Erica and Aaron. Words cannot describe what we saw. There is one paved road into the community and all of the others are dirt when dry and mud, like we haven't seen before, when wet. There are incredible pot holes everywhere. Despite having three days of warm, sunny weather, the pot holes are full of dirty water and sewage.
There is garbage everywhere and Don even saw some people sleeping on the garbage. There are some 4-5 story apartment buildings but most of the structures are made from tin or whatever the people can scrounge. There are small stalls along the streets selling everything from meat to scrap metal. People walk anywhere on the street. Despite their living conditions, many people were neatly dressed ...with clean shoes, although we don't know how they do it!
We were told to watch out for flying papers or flying bags. Apparently, it is quite common for the people to use paper or a bag to 'poo' in and then toss it out a window. Luckily, we travelled into the community in a van with the windows up and the air conditioning on.
Late in the afternoon, we attended a swimming competition where Emma Kenny was competing. Her school was a part of a swim meet at The International School of Kenya. This school is located on a beautiful campus with well constructed buildings, lush gardens, green grass, beautiful flowers and large palm trees. Most of the people there were part of the middle to upper class of Kenya....a complete contrast to the oppressed and vulnerable people we saw in Eastleigh.

Heart Lodge

On Tuesday evening, the Kenny family drove us to Heart Lodge which will be our home base for the rest of our stay in Nairobi.
Our room is very spacious, with a sitting area and a patio looking out onto the extremely well kept and luscious gardens. It is like an oasis in the middle of Nairobi.
The Kenny's joined us for dinner which was very tasty.
Heart Lodge is run by a Christian organization called "Heart" which stands for "Health Education Africa Resource Team". This organization brings volunteer teams to do prevention education and empowerment to current and future generations of African Nations through Christian Compassion and professional resources to improve physical, spiritual and emotional health. Their disease prevention education primarily focuses on HIV/AIDS. Canadian Baptist Ministries is able to use this facility, as well, to house teams when space is available.

Our Return to Nairobi

Because of the previous rains, our drive back to Nairobi was, to say the least, hairraising at times. We had to take several diversions (detours) which were very muddy and slippery. Our driver, Joshua, was amazing and kept the van from sliding off the road.

The highlight of our return trip was seeing 5 giraffes along the side of the road. Don, of course, got some wonderful closeup pictures!

On the outskirts of Nairobi we ran into heavy traffic. What should have taken 30 minutes to drive took at least 90 minutes. What should have been a two lane road often turned into 3 lanes going one way and two the other with no order! The smell of diesel fuel was unbearable at times.

We were dropped of at the Kenny's home and spent an enjoyable afternoon with them and their children, Tristan, Emma and Ava. The have a lovely home in Westlands...but it is 4 stories up with no elevator!!

We went with them to pick up Tristan and Emma from their school, Rossland Academy. It is an American Christian school where many of the children whose parents are employed by various embassies and the United Nations attend.

The Kennys also have a blog. It contains pictures and information about Eastleigh as well as wonderful information about their family and their experiences in Kenya. Their blog address is http://www.fourkennys.blogspot.com/

3 of the BIG 5

On Monday, November 10th we went on two safaris, one at 6 a.m. and one at 4 p.m. Both were remarkable. During the morning drive, heavy rains developed and very quickly the dried up creek beds and ponds became filled with water. On one occasion, our drive had to turn around because the road ahead was washed out.
On the afternoon drive we saw our first view of the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, a truly amazing sight.
We have now seen 3 of the BIG 5: lions, buffaloes and elephants.
In the afternoon, we also had the opportunity to talk with a Maasai Warrior. He was a very articulate young man around 25 years of age. We learned a lot about the customs and traditions of the Maasai people.
Back to Nairobi tomorrow.