More Pics 4 U 2 C

A boy on a hill

Christeena Nienhuis and us at Omwabini

A 95 year old Grandmother 

Students/Orphans at Omwabini

Mary Bunyasi, Omwabini's Project Manager and founder and us

What our kids think of Africa

The sad and the good

Greetings friends and family.

Today Tuesday July 24 had a terrible start to the day. As we were waiting for our breakfast, which was late, we had a suspicion that something was wrong. We finally went to inquire what was happening only to find out the terrible news and affirm our suspicions. Only a few hours earlier the home of Victor, Mary’s son started on fire and this home is located right in the compound of Omwabini. No one died or was seriously injured, just some minor cuts from glass and metal. We do not know all the details right now but by the grace of God someone just happened to get up for some reason and realized there was a fire. Living in the house were Victor, his wife, their son and two orphans. The older orphans and teachers had to remove windows and security bars in order to rescue some of them. They also managed to save some of the contents. Some of the house may be able to be reused, however most of it is too badly damaged to reuse.

Eventually we were able to get away and make it to the Kimilili gym.  We pumped some iron and spent a few hours on the stair climber.  Oh wait – never mind-what we really did was go to the site of the protected spring construction.  They already had dug a huge trench to start the diversion and new feed for the water. We made a gazillion trips up and down the hill bringing heavy bricks to the bottom where the spring is.  It was probably harder than going to the gym. Ken also constructed a set of stairs in the mud/dirt of the hillside immediately before the spring – which made it a lot easier to get down there! Concrete and sand and rocks were mixed to begin the foundation of the well. We should be going back there tomorrow. We also have three houses on the go and at different stages; however we can not work on any of them due to rain, or drying stage of the first layer of mud and or a death in the community where they are preparing for the funeral.

Victors house. Note the missing bars in the bed room windows on the right.

Cement crew and the bricks we were hauling

Steps made in the earth

The trench and base for the reservoirs for the protected spring. Note the current water flowing above on the left.

This and that

Today is Sunday July 22 and we have been at Omwabini for one week now. So far it has been a wonderful experience, we are having fun and we are so blessed.

We went to the same church that we went to last week. This time we listened to a guest preacher from the Congo, who preached in French while the regular pastor translated into Swahili and some members of the congregation translated into English for us. That being said, the sermon was good, it had a good visual illustration and again surprisingly had a point.

A typical day for us starts with the local roosters crowing at 4:30 AM, us “waking up” at 7 AM, having breakfast at 8 AM and we begin to go to work by 9 AM. Tea time is at 11 AM and the Chai (Swahili for tea) is made with milk instead of water and has lots of sugar in it (Kenya style). Lunch is at 2 PM. and like most meals here, it has a lot of carbs and starch. We work till about 4:30 PM and second tea time is around 5 PM. We then typically rest, play cards, write in our journals or play with the kids at Omwabini. Supper is at 8 PM and we go to bed between 9 and 10 PM with full stomachs. (We think we are gaining weight here, sadly).

Breakfast is usually French Toast with one sausage for each and if there no sausages, it includes regular toast; or we have a type of pancake(s) with a sausage for each. Lunch and supper are typically similar and include boiled kale or fried cabbage mixed with onions and tomatoes and carrots as the vegetable. Then we have noodles in some type of tomato sauce or potatoes or rice or a combination of any of them. Meat could be a small piece of “free range chicken” from the back yard or a few small pieces of chewy beef. A couple of times we had stew and rice which was well liked by all of us. All in all the food is very good and tasty. The orphans at Omwabini eat boiled kale, and Ugali (ground up boiled corn that looks like white play dough) for three meals each day. Most locals also eat the same meal as it is the only thing they can afford.

Thursday we took the Omwabini farm tractor and trailer out to manually load at least 5 yds of sand that was hauled out of the local river and 5yds of rocks from a local farm. We then manually unloaded them at the site where we will be building a protected well. We will write more about how a well and home are built in the coming days. We then went to Gladys’ house to start building her new home. The local community there is very good and active and already had the post holes dug. We helped with the posts and strapping of the walls.

Friday we went back to Gladys’ to continue working on the strapping and completing the roof. Then the mudding and mud fights began all over again; the mud walls were mostly completed, wooden doors and windows were installed and we seriously needed showers.

Saturday we got up at 4:30 AM to go for a hike and to watch the sunrise. We were lead to a rock plateau where we had a spectacular 360 degree view of the country side. This view consisted mostly of farm land and some forest as we are in the food growing belt of Kenya and for most of Africa. As the sun quickly rose above the horizon (as we are 1 degree north of the equator), we witnessed a beautiful sunrise. Not only was the sunrise so beautiful, so was the ever changing landscape appearing before us. Again we were amazed at our Lord and how complex and beautiful this earth and creation are and how blessed we are. After the sunrise we went climbing in 100ft fig trees, ventured into caves and strolled through the country side meeting many local people and saying Jambo / Hello. We also went to Omwabini to play soccer again while the girls got their hair braided by 5 to 6 “hair stylists” working on each head of hair. We held a geography lesson with some of the kids with the map of the world we took along with us and together we learned more about the Rift Valley with information we took with us.

On Monday Christeena Nienhuis from Ontario will be leaving for home after volunteering and teaching in Uganda for 7 weeks and for 5 weeks at Omwabini and we will miss her.

Beautiful sunrise

Some of the view from the rock where we watched the sunrise

One of so many businesses in Kimilili....

Kimilili taxi service

And we now have a new saying that we learned from Moses, our construction supervisor from Omwabini: “Lovely jobley” and it gets repeated many times in a day J

Picture day

Following are some pictures showing just a few of the ways that your donations have helped. (Plus a couple other pictures just for fun)

Charlene, daughter of Moses who works for Omwabini received life saving surgery.

Omwabini orphans/students received work books and other school supplies(in boxes).

Omwabini orphans received much needed food (corn/maize).

Omwabini orphans received much needed  medicine.

A destination location?

Happy and cute!

Lunch for the Canadian workers: Chicken and broth, rice, kale and ugali (maize and water cooked up).

Gladys with nine kids who lost her house to a fire 5 years ago will receive a new house.

Mud Sweat and....More mud

Here are some impressions of our day today:

4:00 am – rooster crows robustly.  4:12 am - rooster crows again.  4:27 am – rooster again.  You get the point.  What happened to the pleasant farmyard rooster who crows only once at a decent hour to wake up smiling country folk?

On the way out this morning we picked up some tin for the roof.  As that was being tied on the roof of our mini van, a motorcycle whizzes by with several 20 foot lengths of rebar tied to the back just dragging along the road.

Off to work we go, to the house we started yesterday – well – it was after 9:00 am before we got going, but whatever.  It was fun today – finishing the framing on the house, the tin roof going up, and then mud, mud and more mud.  The mud for the first and second wall layer is from the earth surrounding the house. (the third coat is a different mud that will be lighter in colour and very smooth) So – that meant a ton of hard work hauling water who knows how far to the site, using a special hoe to chop up the ground, and then the fun of stomping around in it to make a nice gooey texture.

This is gathered into soccer ball sized chunks which we brought over to the new house and dumped it in a pile inside with a satisfyingly squishy plop sound, kind of like…you get the picture.

Joseph, the father of the family, his teenage son, and for that matter all the kids we see are so strong – solid muscle and work like tanks.

Lunch break – picture 22 people packed in van meant for 12 on the way back to Omwabini.  OK – 15 of them were orphanage kids on their way back after spending time working in their farm land, but squishy nonetheless.

After a very muddy day – our feet are washed in a basin by Julius, one of Omwabini’s workers.  Sounds very Biblical, doesn’t it!

We don’t let Redempta (the woman who makes our food and helps with our laundry) do our dishes anymore.  How and where to get warm water to the kitchen sink (which only has a trickle of cold water)?  Ken stands under the shower with a pot on his head collecting warm water.  This is because the water is heated by an electric heater built right into the shower head and is our only source of warm water.

And we’re just lucky that we have a shower!! It is actually located right in the middle of the toilet stall – you just squeegee the water and soap into the drain on the floor when you are done!

How do you make a divided road here?  Just place a bunch a boulders down the middle of the road to prevent traffic from crossing over.  Sounds simple and is effective?  That’s on a good road where you could actually get out of first gear.  The rest of the roads are equally road and pot holes.

Stomping the mud with the mama from the house

Here's the house with the walls half up

Nothing like playing in mud!

Then there are the crickets.  All fine and dandy for them to be chirping merrily outside,  but they are also hiding in the wooden frames of every door and jump out of the open hole leading to the attic of the house.  Yeah for our OFF, we think we’ve chased out most of the hiding ones and stomped on them!

Meet, Greet, Work, Play

How to describe what we have seen and experienced in the last couple of days!  There is no way to explain how different everything is.  The sights and sounds have no comparison to Canada whatsoever.  The level of poverty here is unbelievable by Canadian standards, but despite this the people are full of smiles and take such joy in their relationships with each other. 

Omwabini is such an amazing organization and project!! We just can’t get over the scope of their work and how many lives have been affected by their efforts.  As we have said before, the operation is founded by Mary Bunyasi and four of her children work with her, none of them taking any pay except food and basic living expenses.  They seem to be loved and respected by so many in the community.

To further explain, Omwabini works with 8 communities in Kimilili and the general area, up to 100 km away.  With the cooperation of the community leaders, they have a team that walks through every household in the community, doing an in depth assessment.  Only the neediest families are able to be helped, and even then only with the participation of the recipients.  The recipients are also given some means to further provide for themselves – seeds, or a goat, possibly some monies for school fees if they have not been able to send their children to school. 

OK- on to our days.  Yesterday we visited many of the community projects.  We saw the difference between unprotected and protected water sources.  The unprotected sources are really just springs from the ground that flow out into an algae laden pools that animals also access for water. Up to 3000 people will draw water from a single source of water such as these which are contaminated with typhus and cholera.  The springs that Omwabini protects have a filtering system constructed many feet back into the source, and pure clean water flows from the pipe. We will be helping construct one such system before we go.

Yesterday we also met two of the families for whom we will be helping construct a new home.  One was a widow with 5 children living in a tiny airless round hut.  There was a cooking fire on one side, a couple lines strung for clothes, and one small table holding a few possessions.  At night they all sleep on the dirt with a few blankets for cover.  In this part of Kenya the boys are all circumcised around the age of 12 -14, and this is done every two years.  Once a boy is circumcised, he can no longer sleep in the same room as his family.  In a case like this where there is only one room, this widow’s oldest son has a small separate hut that he sleeps in.  Once their new home is built, it will have 2 rooms, so he is able to sleep under the same roof as his family.

The second family actually had both a father and a mother.  Though they are hard working people, trying to make ends meet by making and selling rope, their house is in shambles and the roof has gaping holes.  They have tried to hold it down with large rocks, but recently one fell through during the night and nearly landed on their small child’s head.

For everything we do and or work on, we first have to meet the family or recipient(s) ahead of time- a meet and greet.  This relationship building is a big deal here.  We have met with a local tribal chief, a district manger for the public schools and a school sponsor who sponsors many schools in the district. We have met with the head master for Omwabini and their teaching staff and two other public school principles. We have done a lot of driving all over extremely narrow bumpy dirt roads, and everywhere we go people shout and wave at us mzungu’s.  (white people).  We hear “How are you?” shouted by children everywhere –must be their first English sentence since even the tiniest kids say it!  It’s like being a rock star.  Jason figures this will never grow old – all the admiration we get.

So…today we started on one of the houses (digging the 20 holes for the support posts, finding neighbours willing to let us cut down, for a price, young eucalyptus trees for the strapping and hauling these trees for maybe a kilometre to the site).  We then did some more “meet and greet” of the people for whom we will build a protected water source.  We also played some soccer (football) with the local kids near the building site.

When we returned to Kimilili we walked over to the Omwabini orphanage where they currently have 300 children from age 2 to 20. Within a minute of pulling out the soccer ball we were surrounded by over one hundred kids.  Then we pulled out a ring Frisbee which totally thrilled them, though we’re not sure of we should do that again as they mowed down too much kale retrieving the thing.  Our evening was spent as usual having a late supper (8 PM) with Christeena and resting.

One of the families who will receive a new home

The beginnings of the first home we will build.
  Pretty basic, but a big improvement!

Hanging out at hte orphanage.  Christeena is the other mzungu that you see.

This is only a fraction of what we could write about after only two days…it is completely impossible to capture this place in so few words.  ( OK – I know you’re thinking, what do you mean A FEW – forgive the length.)  We so appreciate everyone’s prayers and support back home!

We're here!

Kimilili!!  - We’re here after all the planning, praying, and dreaming.  We arrived in Kitale here early Saturday evening, on a somewhat rickety Dash 8 (37 passenger).  OK, that was putting it mildly.  It had a great paint job…everything else was pretty decrepit.  But hey – we made it here.  The countryside here is incredibly beautiful – rolling hills, lots of trees, such nice clean air after the pollution of Nairobi  We were greeted enthusiastically by James and Victor (2 sons of Mary Bunyasi, Omwabini’s founder)  and Christeena Nienhuis – a fellow Canadian who has been at Omwabini teaching for about month. 

We met Mary and some more family members in Kitale, then off for the 45 minute or so drive to Kimilili.  The road started out smooth enough, but became incredibly bumpy and pot hole ridden, resulting in some less than settled stomachs by arrival.   

It was dark by the time we arrived – it is petty much is totally black here by 7:00 pm.  We are actually staying in Mary’s house, which is a fine house provided by a US donor.  There are 3 bedrooms for us, a bathroom, a large living room and a kitchen.   Not that we need the kitchen – we are waited on like kings and queens.  There is a couple of women (Redempta and Millicent) who bring us all our meals, do all our dishes, and I think are slightly offended that we cannot possibly eat all the food they bring us.  This house is about a 5 minute walk from the Omwabini project.

This morning (at 8:15 am) we went to an English service of a small church in Kimilili – about a 10 minute walk away.  Aside from the sound system being loud enough to break our eardrums, it was a fine service.  There was a guest preacher (not that we’d have known) who talked of the freedom brought by forgiveness.  According to Christeena it is a rare thing for an African sermon to actually have a point.

We then visited the Omwabini- home of 300 orphans.  We learned today that this project is only 9 years old, and we are so impressed with the accomplishments that have been made.  Just this January they opened their own school (our grades 1-8).  They were finding it far too costly to provides fees for the children, it was far better to have their own school and pay the teachers  Their student’s begin their day at 5:00 am with an hour of prayer and worship, then breakfast, then studies from 7:00 to 9:30 pm.  There are about 3 breaks in this day. Pretty intense!  The school is performing extremely well on government exams, which is attracting outside pupils whose parents can pay, so this helps in providing funds.  Tomorrow we will visit some the community projects run by Omwabini – the orphanage is only a part of their work. 

The orphans were so excited to see us – apparently they have been praying for us for a year.  There are so many of them!  They are divided into buildings according to age, and have a very organized schedule – there has to be!  Education is a primary goal there, so the kids past grade 8 are funded to attend secondary school 4 miles away.  Beyond that they are taught skills to try to ensure they will sustain themselves or they are funded to attend college or university.  I hear the local lab tech is a “graduate” of Omwabini’s Project.

Here's our WWII vintage plane (OK  -  slight exaggeration)

The Kitale airport.  Yup, that's it, there ain't no more.
  Notice the armed guard leaning  against the wall.

 Oh – and African bugs?  So far, the only yucky one was the monstrous cockroach on the boys’ bedroom door this morning.  Needless to say, disposal was Ken’s job.

Here's our morning friend.  It's bigger than it looks here!