Monday, July 27, 2009
Amani ya Juu and Nairobi
This will be another long post, but I believe it will be the last one about my trip. I am presently visiting a friend whose in-laws own a lake house in the northern-most part of Wisconsin, and access to the internet is several miles away. I’m currently typing this offline (while looking out the picture window at the gorgeous lake!) and will go to town later to upload it at an internet café there.
Some of you are not necessarily familiar with Amani ya Juu, which is Swahili for “peace from above.” The most important thing to keep in mind when thinking about Amani’s ministry is that a higher peace, from the Lord above, that only He can give, is the only peace that truly leads to healing in this world and reconciliation in our human relationships. In other words, this higher peace brings transformation in the hearts and lives of those touched by Amani.
Amani is a ministry which I have been involved with for more than three years now. Two years ago I was honored to go with a group of women from the US to visit Amani’s main center in Nairobi, Kenya for two weeks. Then, this past fall, in October of 2008, a group of Amani women brought a fashion show called Sankofa to the United States, and we were excited to host them in DC as one of the cities where the fashion show was shared. I was thrilled to have this new opportunity to visit Amani again this summer.
Amani is, officially, a “stitching project”. Women from many parts of East Africa (and beyond) find themselves in Nairobi for various reasons, having various sources of loss and grief and brokenness to work through. At Amani, women are introduced to a holistic process of healing and reconciliation with God and in other parts of their lives. Meanwhile, they are taught to sew – they learn different aspects of the production process – from tie-dying fabrics to working with the raw materials (fabrics, buttons, zippers, etc.) to patterns, cutting, and sewing to quality control to inventory to the export process to running the on-campus shop to running the on-campus café.
Their campus is an oasis of HOPE within the heart of Nairobi. There is a quiet peace and tranquility in the physical setting. And the sincerity of the joy on the women’s faces and in their greetings and in their love is amazing – and can only be from God.
The typical day at Amani starts and ends with a time of devotion and prayer. The morning prayers usually start with delightful singing and time of praise with music. Then they share prayer requests and items of thanksgiving. They translate all of this between Swahili and English. Then they have a wonderful time of greeting each other – every woman greets and welcomes each other woman. At the afternoon “chapel”, they also begin with praise in music and then there is a time of devotional sharing from one lady (they rotate who shares each day).
I suppose that I can’t stress enough how obvious it is that God’s hand is SO strong at work in this place. It is not possible for such peace and hope to exist with the same degree of transformation apart from the Lord.
The products (mainly textile based products) created at Amani are sold locally in their shop as well as in other small local venues and markets. They are also sold through volunteers in other parts of the world. In the DC area, Amani has just opened a warehouse/shop in Mt. Pleasant. If you are in DC, please check out Amani’s shop on Mt. Pleasant Ave. They have an extensive variety of the products created at Amani’s Nairobi center, and are beginning to bring in products created at Amani’s sister centers in Kigali, Rwanda and Bujumbura, Burundi.
While visiting Amani as a volunteer, you are matched with tasks that suit you. For example, I do not sew. Therefore they find other things with which I can help. :) While at Amani this past few weeks I was mainly helping with some computer training and problem solving. I was also tasked with doing some photography of the ladies and the campus. Finally, I was invited to share the devotional on Wednesday afternoon in the chapel time.
My computer tasks involved two main “projects”. The first was to figure out a way to represent the data about the raw materials in a spreadsheet. I was to work with a woman named Judy on that project. Originally we were thinking that we’d have to create a new spreadsheet and enter all of the data by hand – quantities and prices and item numbers and so on. But we worked out a way to copy the data from a pdf file. Although there was massive re-formatting of the data required, it certainly saved a LOT of typing time.
The second “project” was to work with one of the managers on her computer skills. Margaret is one of the managers in Amani’s production & distribution department. She had been resistant to learning to use a computer, but there are so many of her tasks that can be better and more efficiently completed using spreadsheets and Word documents and so on. There is a computer in the production department, and although Margaret has been excellent at keeping her records on paper, Amani needs some system that would be easily accessible and understood by anyone who needs the information without necessarily needing to go through Margaret. At first she was extremely resistant to working with me, and she told me later that she felt like she was being “punished” by having to spend time learning about a computer. But by the end of our first day working together, she was convinced that this was going to be a good thing, and had a million and one questions for me. We had a great week working together!!
As far as the photography goes, I mainly did portraits of the ladies and took shots of the ladies working. Hopefully the women who work on Amani’s website and e-newsletter and some of the electronic media will be able to use some of the photos that I took. I haven’t had a chance to really go through the images yet. When I do, I’ll post them to Flickr and I’ll let you know (here and on Facebook).
As I also said, I was also asked to give a devotional at Wednesday’s afternoon chapel. I found that to be a bit intimidating. These women at Amani have all been through things in their lives that I could never even begin to imagine. Difficult circumstances cultivate a depth in one’s personal relationship with the Lord that cannot be achieved in any other way. I am not ignorant of the comparative ease of my life in the United States, and I am not ignorant of the fact that I have had relatively few (if any) even minor “problems” in my life thus far. So what am I supposed to say, devotionally, to a group of women who could probably easily tell me MORE and BETTER about God than I could ever say. Well, after talking with one of the women there with whom I have been in close contact over the past two years, we decided that it would be okay for me to start my devotional time by making a statement to that effect. I started by talking about the fact that I have a great respect for the situations that the Lord has brought each of them through, and that I don’t presume to teach them anything, but that my prayer would be that someone would be encouraged by something that I would say.
Recently, I have been reading a book called “As We Forgive” by Catherine Claire Larsen. It is a collection of stories from survivors of the Rwandan genocide of the early 90’s, and the process of forgiveness and reconciliation that they are working through. In between each story, the author includes a few pages of her own thoughts and processing about these ideas of forgiveness and reconciliation. One of those sections was about faith, hope, and love and their place in the process of healing and forgiveness. I was especially struck by this section, so I used it as the basis for what I shared with the ladies at chapel that afternoon. And, by the way, I highly recommend the book “As We Forgive”. It is so uplifting!
I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it was to reconnect with the women at Amani. Most were the same ladies who were at Amani back in 2007 when I was there previously. Several of the women who were in DC back in October were also there. They treat me with such love and affection, and they were so excited to see me again and to talk with me. I so very much loved being there. I have to admit, though, that they did more in the way of ministering to me than I probably did in the way of ministering to them.
There was an “incident” that I want to tell you about because it is still bothering me. When a visitor comes to Amani, they can arrange a tour for them. They have a couple of the ladies, usually Zipporah, who do the tours, and they truly give you a wonderful idea of what Amani is all about, and they give you a very comprehensive view of their campus and operations.
One afternoon I was working on a laptop in the production & distribution area. This room is full of cutting tables and piles of fabrics and raw materials. There is always a lot of activity there, as the women who do the sewing begin and end each project in that room. There are two women who are “managers” there, Margaret and Elizabeth. Both of these women are probably in their 50’s, have grown children and grandchildren. The rest of the women truly look up to them and treat them with great respect. Keep in mind, also, that the women who are at Amani are all African. My white face was usually the only one in the room. So get the picture in your mind: a flurry of activity in the room, women doing all sorts of cutting, measuring, folding, etc., and Margaret and Elizabeth sitting respectively at the desktop computer and at the file folders keeping track of what projects each of the women is working on. And Lou Ann sitting off to the side working on a small laptop computer.
At one point that afternoon, Zipporah walked in with a woman to whom she was giving a tour. The woman was dressed extremely well (and very Western), and based on her jewelry, excellent hair style, perfect makeup, and the accessories on her cell phone (which was permanently attached to her ear) I guessed that she was somewhat wealthy. My guess is that she was of some Middle Eastern descent.
As she and Zipporah walked into the production and distribution room, she was half-listening to what Zipporah was saying, half-listening to someone on her cell phone (and answering) and was sort of looking around at what was going on in the room. When she finished with her phone call, she looked around the room again, looked at each of the women in the room, looked at me a second time, and then decided to introduce herself to me. She explained that she owns a shop at a local mall (the Village Market, for those of you familiar with Nairobi) and that she’s considering selling some of Amani’s products on consignment.
I was rather appalled. That she would assume that I was the person to whom she should speak about this threw me off. It should have been obvious to any observer that Elizabeth and Margaret were the women in charge there. Why did this lady find the one white face in the room and assume that I’m the person for her request? I didn’t really say anything to her (I was too shocked!), and one of the Amani ladies stepped in and continued the conversation with her. After she left the room, I looked at Elizabeth, and asked if she was thinking the same thing I was. She said “yes”, but the subject was dropped.
I continue to be plagued by this. At one point, while being driven through the city, we noticed that much of the advertising on billboards and signs featured white people or very fair skinned black people. This was in very sharp contrast to the people who actually walked the streets. At the Village Market, I noticed that the people working behind the counters and serving the food at the food court were all African, but that the people who were the clientele were fair skinned, mostly white, and mostly speaking English.
In short, I truly believe that we have more to overcome in this world than merely the poverty in Third World countries. The entire world has some basic thinking and basic assumptions to change. So, the real question is: how do I do my share as an agent of this change? I fully intend to work on the answer to that question.
Well, besides this little incident, and the whole “getting home too late” thing that I talked about in my previous post, my time spent at Amani was purely delightful. I was SO happy to meet a new director, Pat – who I quickly felt a sister-hood with. I ended up having lunch every day with a different Amani lady and had some of the best conversations that I could have imagined with them. I have renewed some relationships with some of the women I hadn’t heard from for the past two years. I grew closer to some of the women with whom I interacted in 2007 and again when they were in DC for the Sankofa fashion show last fall. I feel like I accomplished a lot with the computers and with Margaret and Judy. And I think that I got some nice photos of the women that can be used for the website and electronic communications.
Finally, a little bit more about my non-Amani activities and about Nairobi in general. I already pointed out that the first few days in Nairobi I wasn’t necessarily expected to be working at Amani, so I familiarized myself with the matatus, and also made plans to meet up with friends for lunch on Saturday. Well, there was some confusion about the place to meet the friends, so I missed the lunch the first Saturday, but we rescheduled for the following Saturday and had a lovely lunch. I also had the opportunity to meet up with a fellow photographer from my online photo community (www.photo.net) and his girlfriend (who happens to be an American living temporarily in Nairobi).
The first Sunday that we were there, Nina signed us up for a small “tour” that some of the people from her conference were taking. We met the bus very early in the morning and were taken to a small park on the outskirts of Nairobi – called “Nairobi National Park” – where they keep large game and you can do a small “safari”. That was a lot of fun! We went from there to a Maasai market and to a spot where you can overlook the skyline of the city of Nairobi, and we even went out to the spot above Limuru where you can overlook the northernmost end of the Great Rift Valley. It was a gorgeous day, weather-wise, and we had a lovely time.
The following Sunday, Nina & I met up with Charisa, the daughter of Becky who was the founder of Amani. She took us to a local church, walking distance from the Brackenhurst, but completely Kenyan. We were the only three non-African faces in the congregation. The service was a couple of hours long with lots of amazing music, a sermon given in Swahili but translated into English, and a time of testimonies. After church, Charisa took us to their beautiful home (on the other side of the hill from the Brackenhurst) and served us a delicious lunch.
As far as some thoughts about Nairobi in general, I must point out that both of my visits to Nairobi have been quite emotionally exhausting for me. As much as I love spending time at Amani, my observations of the poverty that exists as a way of life for so many of the people who live in the city have overwhelmed me. I don’t think that it’s possible to explain to an American what existence in a Third World country is like. What exists as “poverty” in the United States is probably about the same level as what would be considered “middle class” in a place like Nairobi. I can’t begin to consider what can be done to “solve” the problem of world poverty. It doesn’t mean that I won’t be involved in efforts to do so. But the task seems SO monumental that I am at a loss as to my place in the big picture. For now, working with Amani and supporting other like-minded organizations is a start. I will always be praying about other ways in which God can use me in His big picture and in His plan to combat poverty.
Well, I’ll give you a break at this point. Check back in a few weeks. Hopefully I’ll have a link to my Flickr photos posted. Thanks for keeping up with my travels! :)
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