Final Post

I thought I had some more things to type about, but as the two weeks since returning to the U.S. have passed, the urgency of typing about the details of the trip has faded. Instead, I have some general thoughts to share with you.

After Debbie returned home, she and I got together for coffee one morning. She referred to something that I was also feeling. After having spent two weeks in a place where "necessities" are truly "necessary", returning to the U.S. makes so many things seem trivial. So many of the things that we think we need, so many of the things that we are willing to argue about/for, so many of the things that seem so important ... are simply petty. I have seen this almost every day in my own life, and have felt it during conversations with friends over the past two weeks. Here in the U.S., a grand majority of us have luxurious homes, even if we are told by the government that we live in "poverty". We have access to more than enough food to eat. Even in the "smoggy" cities, we breathe clean air. We are surrounded by beauty, both man-made and natural.

I am sure that over the upcoming months, and hopefully years, I will continue to process my experiences in Africa and will learn more lessons about God and about the life that he has given me.

You will notice that there are now photos at the top of this page. They are just a small random sampling of the images that I took in Africa. I am in the process of putting some of my photos into a Flickr account/set. You can view all of the photos that I've uploaded to Flickr so far HERE. I haven't yet uploaded all of the photos that I intend to ... so keep checking back to that Flickr set.

You can also see some of the more select photos from my trip in my portfolio. I will upload them to that site much more selectively (from a photographer's perspective) and probably only a couple at a time. Use the following links:
Here are the photos that I have posted most recently.
Here is a place where I will eventually dump most/all of the Africa photos that I've put in my portfolio.
Here is my entire portfolio, just in case you're bored. :-)

As I said, this is my last post on this Africa blog. (I think....) From now on, if you want to keep up on what Lou Ann is doing, check out my main website: Lou Ann's Place. I keep a blog there (it's a new link, in case you bookmarked my old blog). Please keep in touch!

Hiking with a Maasai warrior and more...

Well, I am actually home now (I got in on Saturday afternoon), but I still have some more to write about. So I'll do maybe two or three more posts. So, if you're one of the people who have been following along, please keep checking back ... I'll try to be done by next week.

This post will be about our trip to the Maasai Mara for our safari. We left from a small Nairobi airport on Monday morning. Our flight to the safari included two legs and a plane change. When we arrived at the "airport" where we made our plane change, we found ourselves actually at an air strip ... a dirt landing strip, and a small "hut" that had a sign that said "Arrivals/Departures Lounge". We got our own luggage off the pile that they made behind the plane, and we carried our own luggage to be put in the hold of next plane that we boarded. I guess that they weren't worried about security. LOL! It was quite a different sort of airport experience! :-)

We arrived at the Kichua Tembo airstrip and were met by Ferdinand who would be our driver for the entire three days, including each of the four game drives that we were scheduled to take. Ferdinand was great ... he knew a lot about the animals and the land. He is not Maasai, and grew up in Mombasa (on the coast), but was a fabulous tour guide.

The drive from the air strip to the "camp" was about 40 minutes of rocky dirt road up the side of the mountain with switchbacks and cliffs and all. Ferdinand is a wonderful driver ... I was never worried about going over the edge!

The camp we stayed at is the Mara Siria Camp. Take a look at their website. It very accurately portrays your stay at their place. It is truly a luxury tent camp. You may as well be in solid structures as the tents are fabulous and huge. I will eventually post some photos so that you can see what I'm talking about. But believe me, this was not like girl scout camp! :-) The camp is located at the top of the "escarpment" ... the mountain ridge that borders the Maasai Mara game reserve. The views from the top are spectacular! Our sleeping tents even came with gorgeous verandas for sitting and looking out over the view.

When we arrived at the camp, we were greeted by "Chief" (as he told us to call him), a 20-something Maasai warrior dressed in his traditional red Maasai tunic and beads. He was to be our "host" for the duration of our stay. He originally told us that he hikes up and down the mountain every morning/evening to get to work from the small Maasai village at the base of the mountain where he has five wives and many, many cows and many, many children. After careful quizzing, we finally learned that he was about 25 years old, never married, received a solid high school education locally and then a college education at a school in Nairobi. He is a naturalist by training. When he works, he lives in the staff tents located at the top (not the bottom) of the escarpment. He has never left the country of Kenya, but has friends in Denver and wants to visit them. He is working on getting the visa for that trip, and plans to fly from Kenya to the U.S. dressed in his traditional Maasai clothing for his arrival in the Denver airport. I may need to be there to see THAT! :-)

A little aside about "Chief". Before dinner each night there is a "bonfire" and the two Maasai men who work for the camp talk about Maasai culture. Chief mentioned FGM, or female circumcision. He criticized monogamous cultures quite strongly. It was a discussion that inflamed our group a little bit. He seemed quite convinced, though, that marriages between only two people and based on love (vs. arranged marriages for financial benefit) simply do not work.

On Tuesday, after our morning game drive and then breakfast, several of us took a "hike" with Chief. It was a fabulous experience. We walked down the face of the escarpment (my thighs hurt for three solid days after that) but along the way he told us about the plants that we were seeing, and talked about the different uses of plants and trees by the Maasai people. At the bottom of the escarpment (about an hour later) we walked to the edge of the Mara River and saw (and HEARD) hippos. Apparently they cannot use the Mara River at all because of the dangers posed by the hippos and the crocodiles. Oh - and we didn't have to walk back up the escarpment ... Chief had a walkie talkie and radioed the camp to send a truck to pick us up and drive us to the top in time for lunch.

Meals at the camp are served in the open, at tables with large umbrellas to shield you from the sun. The food was absolutely delicious, and the meals were huge! The tables were situated close to the edge of the escarpment, and you could look out over the view while you ate. If you walked down a short path to the overlook area you could see the Mara River at the bottom of the mountain, as well as the small Maasai village that I mentioned when I told you about Chief. It really was an amazing view of the whole area!

Showers at the camp were also interesting. Of course, there is no running water. It is an "eco-friendly" and solar powered camp. They have somehow rigged up flushing toilets, but I know that the waste does not go into the ground. And the "sinks" in the tents funnel into a reservoir of some sort ... and you use a bucket of water that they provide to pour into the sink (it's water that you cannot drink). When you want to take a shower, you let the camp know (this is usually not a morning shower!) and three men will come outside of your tent with a bucket of hot (really hot) water and rig it up so that it comes through a shower head. The fun part is that the men with the water wait outside the tent (immediately next to where you are taking your shower) in case you run out of hot water. If you do so (it happened to me once when I was the last one of the three of us showering), you tell them, "More hot water, please!" and they run and get more water, bring it back, rig it up, and tell you to go ahead. Nothing like having a bunch of men standing next to where you're showering talking you through it. :-)

We discovered another luxury that we had at camp when we arrived back at our tents after dinner the first night. The days there are quite warm, even though it was their "winter". But the nights on the escarpment were very cool, even "cold". And, of course, there is no heat in the tents. But when we got back to our beds, we noticed "lumps" under the sheets (the beds, by the way, had been turned down and had extra blankets placed on them). The lumps turned out to be hot water bottles, wrapped in warm cloth bags. They were HOT. In fact, I slept with my hot water bottle both nights, and they were still very warm when I woke up in the morning. Talk about luxurious!

Our morning game drives were to be at 6:30, and both mornings, around 6:00, someone was sent to our tent to call out "Good morning" (in other words, "wake up!"). We were served fresh coffee/tea before setting out.

As I said, we had four game drives. One was that first afternoon (Monday), two on Tuesday, and another on Wednesday morning. The afternoon drives were from 3:00 to 6:00, the morning drives were from 6:30 to 9:00. The safari vehicle was a large jeep-like vehicle with three rows of seats and a huge open top (that could be closed in the case of rain). The second and third rows of seats could seat three people, so the vehicle could hold Ferdinand and seven tourists. There were six of us who wanted to sit in the back two rows because we could easily stand and take photos. The one person who wanted to sit in the front always wanted to sit in the front, so it worked out well for us.

Let me tell you about a commercial I heard a few days ago for Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando. They compared their "safaris" to real African safaris. They said that in Africa you're never really sure if you're going to see any animals at all, and that you might have to drive very far to see maybe just one, but at Disney, you'll definitely see animals. Let me tell you, from my limited experience of ONE African game safari ... you will not have to worry about seeing animals!!! You'll see more animals than you could even imagine. Maybe it was because The Migration was about to start ... but they said that the real volume of animals were still down in Tanzania, moving toward Kenya. Maybe it was the time of year or something ... but I can't imagine that you'd ever have trouble finding the animals in the Maasai Mara!!

First of all, seeing zebras was like seeing people at a shopping mall. They were everywhere in great number. In fact, they even came up on the escarpment at night, and we could hear them eating grass immediately outside of our tent (and, yes, I mean right next to my head!) We definitely saw LOTS of zebras.

We also saw many elephants. I know that they're endangered, and I'm sure that we were in one of the places of the world where you can see large herds. Interestingly, the animals never seemed interested in or affected by our presence. Except for one time with one adolescent male elephant. We watched a herd of female and young elephants cross the road. We were literally in the middle of their path, and they walked around us as they crossed ... in front of us and behind us. We then went on to see something else, and came back on the same road a few minutes later. Well, the herd was way off in the distance, but two adolescent males had gotten themselves separated from the herd, realized it, and wanted to catch up. Well, they were coming directly toward us (Ferdinand had stopped the truck), and I knew that they would be very close to us, so I wanted to take some close up photos as they passed. As they got closer to us, though, it started to feel like they weren't planning to adjust their route for our truck that was parked in the way. I was apparently the only one standing up with my camera. As the nearest of the two got very close, I found myself making eye contact with him, at which point he started trumpeting VERY loudly, throwing his head about (he had HUGE tusks!!) and started coming toward the truck very quickly. So, of course, I told him "Okay, okay, I'll sit down!" When my face disappeared from the top of the truck, he calmed down. Silly me, I thought that he was done with his tirade, so I stood up with my camera again to take those photos, and again he started fussing at us. And again, I told him, "Okay! I'm sitting down!!" Well, this happened another time or two (I'm not a very fast learner!) and I guess that we must never have been in any danger because Ferdinand was merely laughing at me (and laughing and laughing) but never made any attempt to move the truck. But I swear to you that elephant was right next to the front passenger window of the truck. I guess I would call it teenage bravado ... he wanted to show us how big and bad he was, but never really meant to do anything. It really became our joke ... and I'm sure that Ferdinand had good laughs with his game driver friends about me! LOL!!

By the end of the final drive we had seen the following animals: elephants, zebras, giraffes, lions, water buffalo, hippos, baboons, cheetahs, impala, dikdik, warthogs, wildebeest, several other deer-like animals, a crocodile, a hyena, mongoose, and many different types of birds, including several ostriches. We even saw a group of female lions feeding on a warthog. The only two things that I would say I was disappointed not to see were the elusive rhinoceros and the leopard. But I took well over a thousand photos just on the game drives, and always felt like I was SO close to the animals that it might just be TOO close!

Our safari was truly a fabulous experience! I have to add that I felt a bit guilty taking part in such a luxurious pleasure after having spent so much time surrounded by such poverty as we had been the previous week. I know that I have to work through those feelings, which are akin to the feelings I had about spending so much money at the shop at Amani (it was so easy for me to spend $70 dollars for a few bags and pieces of jewelry, and although I know that the money I spent goes toward their salaries, it made me feel weird to hand my credit card to a woman who I know would be doing so much differently with THAT much money!) I'll get there. God didn't will for me to live in poverty in Nairobi. I need to work on my feelings about that and turn them from guilt into something productive.

Okay, enough for this post. :-) I'll post at least one more time, if not twice. So, please keep checking. I'll try to be more timely with my next post. Take care! Kwaheri!

Some down time...

Yes, I found an internet place at the Amsterdam Schipol Airport. It's about 7:00 a.m. here, and this comm center is a peaceful place with a great upstairs view on many of the comings and goings of this huge airport. Although I'm on my way home, I have a lot more to write about from my trip, so I am rather sure that I will break down my writing into two or even three more posts. I'll let you know when I've posted the final post ... and I'll also let you know when and where I'll have photos posted. I'll hopefully be caught up on posting by the end of this week, and hopefully many of you will have seen me by then. :-)

Well, as promised, I will begin by telling you about our trip to the Maasai market. We made a very short stop at one of the Maasai markets on the very first day that we were in Nairobi (I think I mentioned that). The market moves to different locations on different days of the week. On Fridays it is located on the roof of a local shopping mall. We left Amani early on Friday (7/20) to spend a couple of hours there. It's a fascinating place and a very different way for a Westerner to make shopping purchases. I knew from my experience on Sunday that I would need to learn to barter for the prices of the things that I want to buy. I was very uncomfortable with this idea at first ... in the U.S. prices are what they are, and shopkeepers usually don't care if you don't want to pay what they're asking. When we went to the market at Ya Ya's on Sunday, Brittany (who speaks Swahili) bartered for me for the two things that I wanted to purchase (a Maasai "cloth" and a pair of sandals). Well, since the whole group wanted to shop this market (which is a bit bigger than the one at Ya Ya's), I knew that I would probably be on my own for the bartering. So I had Laura (another member of our group who has traveled extensively in Africa) practice with me. Our practice went something like this:
Lou Ann: I would like to purchase that Pashmina. How much are you asking?
Laura: One thousand shillings.
Lou Ann: That's ridiculous. I can purchase the same Pashmina over there (pointing) for two hundred shillings. (This is absolute and total lying!!)
Laura: No, no! You will buy the Pashmina from me. I will only charge you eight hundred shillings.
Lou Ann: Well, I really don't want to pay more than four hundred shillings for that Pashmina.
Laura: Five hundred. That's my final offer!
Lou Ann: Done.
And, yes, I ended up doing really well with the bartering. I even surprised myself. Okay, maybe I got ripped off ... but I thought I was pretty good at it. I pretended to walk away from vendors, or I demaded that they throw in another object for the price that I thought might be too high. I got some great deals, and some fun things. I hope to have quite an African influence in my new home in Colorado. We'll see.....

After the Maasai market closed, we were met by Betty's sister and brother-in-law and (a surprise for her) her husband, Dick. We all went down to the food court, which was high class as far as food courts go. We all got a bunch of tables pulled together and went off to order food from various places. (I had Masala Chicken from an Indian place and a delicious glass of red wine.) It was after this dinner that I had the coffee ice cream that I mentioned in a previous post. :-) It was a nice way to spend a Friday afternoon/evening.

On Saturday morning, three of us loaded ourselves into our favorite driver's "taxi" and went to a place called the "New Life Home". Please take a look at their website. Laura (my bartering coach), is an "honorary" member of our group. She has been traveling with Brittany around Africa for a month before they both met up with us in Nairobi. She's not technically working with us at Amani (although she has been seen around the Pamoja House helping out in Export!), and has spent several days this week volunteering at the New Life Home. On Saturday, Jessie and I decided to join her. New Life Home is a Christian-run orphanage. They have a special focus on HIV positive babies (who they have discovered will sometimes become HIV negative after a period of nurturing and love at the home). You can read more about that at their website. I have to say that the hour and a half we spent playing with babies at the orphanage was the most emotional time of the entire trip for me. You might know that I was adopted as an infant. God has truly blessed me with a wonderful family and many good opportunities and things in my life. I can't imagine where I would be if I hadn't been adopted. We held babies for about 45 minutes, feeding them and playing with them. Then we played with toddlers out in the yard for another 20 minutes or so. All I could think, the entire time, was ... all of these babies don't have parents. It's not like working in the church nursery where the parents will be by in a few minutes to pick up Junior. These kids all LIVE in that center. I was heartbroken. Most children that are "walkers" will shy away from new adults and look for Mommy or Daddy's face. But when you walked into the toddlers area here, the kids all saw an adult and ran to me and wrapped their little arms around my leg, not wanting to let me go.

It got a bit more intense when we went outside with the toddlers. They were all playing and running around and having a great time as only toddlers know how to do. There were a LOT of volunteers working with the kids, so most of them were playing at something. But there was a boy laying on a mat that they had set out. There were workers nearby, but he was lying on a blanket on the mat by himself, staring off into space. I asked if he can sit up, and they told me "no". I reached for his hand, and he squeezed my fingers (hard!) and held on. But his eyes were not focused, and he didn't seem to be looking at anything. I asked if I could hold him, and they told me to be very careful of his head. He is not able to hold it up. I picked him up (with help, as he was pretty big) and held him for about 15 minutes, rubbing his back. It was almost like holding a newborn. He spit up a little, he drooled a lot, and tried a little bit to lift his head. I was so overwhelmed that I just couldn't ask the workers what's wrong with him. All I know is that his name is Lance. When Laura went back later the next week, I asked her to ask about him, but by that time he had already been sent to a different home for children with special needs.

If I ever blantantly question God's sovereignty, it is because of the fact that not all children get a fair start. I know that He is sovereign. But I also know that older children and adults have control over their choices (to a certain extent). But babies don't have that freedom. I don't know that I will ever understand why babies don't all get to have the same approximate chance at life. A child like Lance will probably spend the rest of his life (however long that is) in a bed in an institution somewhere in Kenya. Why was I adopted by a wonderful family and other children, by some sort of divine appointment, won't ever have that chance? It's just not fair. It's something that I definitely still need to work through. And it will bother me for a long time.

I was completely shaken by my experience at the orphanage (I don't believe that I have ever visited one before), so when our driver showed up with the rest of our group to pick us up for the next visit, I went to the back and was rather quiet for awhile.

SOOooooo, we went next to an "Elephant Orphanage". Again, I have included a link for your reading pleasure. At this place, we were ushered down a path toward a roped off area. There, a "ranger" of sorts was talking about several very young baby elephants that were inside the area. They were playing with a soccer ball and having a great time. (I personally was having a bit of trouble enjoying listening to a ranger talk about how awful it is that they have to take in abandoned elephants after having seen a home full of abandoned and orphaned children with a worse adult to child ratio than the elephants have!) Anyway, the ranger talked for about an hour, and at one point they took away the small elephants and brought in several more adolescent ones. It was fun being so close, and we got some good photos. Little did we know that it would be NOTHING like our safari coming up a few days later!

After the elephant orphanage (which I would definitely recommend if you're going to be visiting Nairobi!) we stopped at a local "cafe" for lunch. It was a neat place, with eating areas outside and a couple of gift shops. It had a very comfortable feel, and many American foods on the menu. We found out that the place was owned and run by a woman from California. Go figure. :-)

We relaxed over lunch (I had spinach ravioli) and then made our way to the Rothschild Giraffe Center. It was a neat place, more like a petting zoo. They have many giraffes on the property and there is a raised building where visitors can collect giraffe food from a bin and reach out their hands to let the giraffes grab the food directly out of their hands. It was a bit disgusting (giraffes have LONG black tongues and lots of drool!) but fun to take photos and watch people get freaked out by the giraffes' tongues. :-) We had a lot of fun and laughed a lot. Saturday (7/21) was a good "down day".

The next day (Sunday, 7/22) we did more "home visits". This time, I was able to spend the great majority of the day with my Amani "host", Rose. I mentioned Rose in a previous post. Although she's my host, we are actually not able to spend much time together at Amani. Just lunch. My "work" at Amani has been centered around the computer at the Amani shop, and Rose works in the Export Department (in another part of the compound). Anyway, Rose met up with me at the Daystar campus and we walked to her nearby church, the Nairobi Pentacostal Church. Out of several thousand people there, I thought I was the only "mzungu" (white person) ... but saw about four more when the pastor asked for first time visitors to please stand. Anyway, the music was fun, they had several very interesting missionary reports and a young adult skit and then one of the elders gave the sermon for the morning (entitled The Diligent Christian). It was a relatively short service at a little over 1.5 hours. Some of the others from our group spent over three hours in church services that day with their hosts.

After church, Rose and I boarded a bus which took us to a matatu which took us to her neighborhood. Those matatus are quite a "trip". She does that every day to get to and from work. Talk about having good reason to complain about your commute. She gets up every morning at 5:00, leaves at 5:30, walks about 20 minutes to the matatu which takes about 30-40 minutes to the city center, to switch to another that will take her to Amani by about 6:30. Coming home, I assume that the trip lasts a bit longer and is a bit more crowded.

Rose had prepared a delicious lunch for me ... more chipati!! We also had some stew. It was a relaxing afternoon at her home (she lives with her parents). We took a little walk in her neighborhood and spent a good deal of time chatting with her mom, who is a wonderful woman and a very strong Christian. I also met her father, although only briefly.

Interestingly, before Rose's father arrived home from church, I was telling her that when I've been introducing myself to Kenyans, they always mispronounce my name, and that it must be something with the consonants that are not used in Swahili or something. When I try to tell a Kenyan my name, they almost always turn around and pronounce it as "Louie Ann". The first few times I tried to correct them, but they would nod and repeat "Louie Ann". I gave up. I am now "Louie Ann" to my Kenyan friends. Rose was educated in Europe, though, and her English is exceptional with only a slight accent (with a British edge). She didn't understand how anyone could get my name wrong and expressed a bit of disbelief. Then her father returned home. It was quite funny. I shook hands with him, and introduced myself. He then said, "Oh! Louie Ann. How nice to meet you!" Rose and I burst out laughing. I don't think he followed the joke. :-)

After a few hours of relaxing at Rose's home, we boarded the matatus and busses back to the Daystar campus where I would be meeting the rest of the members of our DC Amani group.

That night we met up with Betty's sister and brother-in-law again and had Indian food at a restaurant across the street from the guesthouse. I've enjoyed eating so many fun foods, but all of this eating out is going to do me in! I can't begin to imagine how much weight I've gained!

One more quick "funny" before I close. I've been trying to explain to you about what they call "African time". They have really needed to work with me on my "need" to be exactly on time, if not early, for everything. Well, one of the last days of the trip, we met with Mary and Joyce (two of Amani's administrators that I've mentioned previously) to debreif about our visit. We laughed about our different ideas about "time". Mary said that she often uses a quote with American friends who visit Amani: "You have the watches, we have the time." How totally appropriate! Africans seem to have all the time in the world. Westerners always seem to be looking at their watches. It really is amazing. Well, after saying that, I noticed something hiding behind the sleeve of Mary's sweater. We definitely all had a good laugh about the fact that Mary was hiding a watch in there. :-)

Lots more to tell. I think that I will probably make two more posts. The next (hopefully within the next day or two, from home!) will describe our wonderful Safari in the Maasai Mara, including a hike that a few of us took down the side of a mountain with a Maasai warrior in all of the traditional apparel. (HE wore the Maasai apparel, we didn't!)

I will look forward to seeing you all very soon!!

Nairobi and Mathare

Let me try to describe for you what being in Nairobi has been like for me. We arrived (jet lagged) and were picked up on our arrival evening around 10:30 or so. We were met by several Amani ladies and the man who works as a driver for Amani (his name is Japheth) driving the Amani "bus". We were ushered out of the airport by these women who were already treating us lovingly. We realized at that point that Kenya has a road system based on the British left-side of the road and the automobiles match. We were a bit buggy-eyed, but saw, even at that time of night, an extremely busy city with huge amounts of nutso traffic and people everywhere. One of the first things that happened to us was that we got cut off by a "matatu" (discussed later) that pulled in front of us to let off a passenger (more like the driver threw out a passenger) who then shouted at those of us who were riding in the van immediately behind that had been cut off. The only rule of the road seems to be that you drive on the left side of the road. Other than that, all bets are off. You nose into traffic, pass people on either side, even if you go on the shoulder at full speed to do so, and there don't really seem to be many traffic lights (very, very few) or any stop signs that I've seen. And I don't think that where (and that's not always everywhere) lanes are marked on the street that anyone really follows them. You kind of make as many lanes as you can possibly squeeze in. We discovered all of that the first night we were here on that drive to the guesthouse.

By the way, you can read about our Guesthouse online. It's nice enough, although very simple. It is comfortable and clean and the meals that they've served us have been excellent. We've not really had much hot water, which provides an interesting story because my room (shared with Debbie) has the warmest water of the rooms that we're all in, so we've had about eight people rotating through our shower at different times during the day to take a shower that is warmer than it would be in their own rooms. :-) The nuns tend to be stern, but what's neat is that they belong to an order that runs a children's home outside of Nairobi and I believe that the profits from the guesthouse go toward the children's home.

When we got up the next morning, Brittany arranged for the four of us (the rest would arrive Monday evening) to have a driver take us to church. Again, the driver drove a van similar to the Amani van - a 10 or 14 passenger van that is being used as a private matatu. We've used that same driver, Patrick, or Japheth for much of our travel around the city. They're good drivers for Nairobi. I certainly wouldn't be able to drive here! Anyway, on that drive, and on subsequent drives I have noticed several things about Nairobi. First of all, it seems to be a city of walls. Most buildings and homes and apartment buildings and so on are all walled in. When you drive down the street you are looking at walls on both sides of you everywhere. Most of the walls are stone or cement. Some of them have barbed wire on the top or some have cut glass shards (really!). In other places, though, the walls are made of a corrugated tin. Sometimes they are painted with advertising, sometimes they were painted with advertising somewhere else and moved in pieces and not put back together in a matching kind of way, and sometimes the corrugated metal is not decorated at all. There is a huge sense of a lack of security.

Second, there are people EVERYWHERE. People walk a LOT to where they're going. Some walk for a couple of hours to get to work every morning and again to go home in the evening. There seem to be masses of people walking the streets and crossing the streets. There don't seem to be enough places to cross most streets, or those places aren't convenient enough or something, but people will attempt to jump out in front of cars and matatus. It seems to be the law that if the person crossing the street does so in a precarious manner in front of a matatu, the matatu driver has to honk the horn as if it were a huge surprise that someone would cross the street in a haphazard manner. Wild!

Next, matatus! I don't really know how to describe them. Wikipedia calls them "shared taxis". I guess that makes sense. They're like large vans that hold a bunch of people. And they function a bit like city buses, although I think that they are run by private owners. There are specific routes that they take, with specific stops. But that's not to say that you can't just suddenly say "I'm getting off here!" and jump out (often they will merely slow down for you to jump out like that!) And many of them have TV's in the front so that you can watch "entertainment" (which usually consists of all of the latest and most pornographic hip hop music videos). The music is usually played so loudly that you can't hear yourself think. It really is like taking your life in your hands. In this photo, the man who takes the money when you get on is riding on the side. Apparently, before they passed a couple of new laws regulating the matatus, they used to overfill them with TOOOO many passengers, many of whom would be riding on the side like that. Amazing!

Finally, Nairobi has to be THE most smog-filled city that I have ever experienced. And, remember, I live outside of Washington, DC, and have even been to Los Angeles in the summer time and driven the freeways during afternoon rush hour traffic. I have an idea about smog. I don't think that Kenya has very strict emissions laws. The air is almost black (you can tell when you use a kleenex) and I'm sure that we've all breathed our share of carbon monoxide while we've been here. At the afternoon rush hour it's amazing to me ... you can barely see up the street to the next intersection. The smog is out of this world!

Before I bring this post to a close, I want to tell you about the first visit we made to the home of one of the women who works at Amani. Her name is Elizabeth. The Amani administration schedules home visits with the women once in a while. Every woman who works at Amani has a home visit eventually. For the home visits scheduled for this week, they added four of the American women from our group (we split into two groups). So four of us (myself, Sharon, Debbie and Betty) piled into the car of Joyce (mentioned in a previous post, director of Amani's holistic ministries) and drove to meet Elizabeth at her home. (By the way, Joyce was the best driver we've had here in Nairobi so far!!)

We were told ahead of time that Elizabeth lives in one of Nairobi's slums. I have done a small amount of reading about the slums in and around Nairobi. They would make the poverty in the United States look like upper middle class, I believe. If you are familiar with the slums of Nairobi, you have probably heard of Kibera, which is NOT where we went. But it might help you to read about Kibera to get an idea of what I'm talking about. Kibera is Nairobi's largest slum. Three million of Nairobi's four million residents live in one of the slums. We visited Elizabeth in Mathare, which is a smaller slum, but very similar in idea. When we arrived at the entrance to the area, Elizabeth was waiting for us at the side of the road. She refused to get in the car with us, wishing instead to walk along in front of the car to show us where we were to go. The streets were VERY narrow, and all of the "homes" were small (teeny) shacks made of the corrugated metal described above. By the time we maneuvered to the street where Elizabeth lives, we were on a very narrow road. People had come out in droves to see the mzungu (white people) in the nice car. There were people with piles of bananas or like goods sitting on the side of the roads, and the road wasn't really straight, so it was interesting driving. The most interesting part was that I could see that, after we got about 100 yards down the street, I knew that there was no where to turn the car around to leave again. Hmmm....

The streets in Mathare, by the way, were more than just narrow and haphazard. The color of the ground was black. The streets weren't paved, and the dirt in Kenya is usually red. I'll tell you more about that in a minute. There is also a deep rut down the middle of the streets with liquid flowing through it down the incline. I doubt that it's raw sewage (although you never know), but definitely run off water from the shacks which don't have any running water (latrines are located in other parts of the slum).

When we got out of the car, we were instantly surrounded by little children who wanted to say hello to us. It was like something out of a television commercial, really. I made a point to touch most of their hands. Then Elizabeth rushed us around a corner and down an alley to her home. Again, the home is made of corrugated metal. We only were shown the "living area", and saw that there was a kitchen which was blocked from view by a hanging piece of cloth, serving as a doorway. We thought that there might also be a sleeping area behind the kitchen. For a home made of corrugated metal with holes in it, she had made it very livable! On every wall were hung linens or long pieces of lace (like shower curtains) to cover up the metal. (But the little boys of the neighborhood were all pressed up against all of the holes in the walls, looking in at us and talking loudly and excitedly.) There was sitting room for at least eight on two couches and two arm chairs with little room for walking around the coffee table.

She had a friend there (Esther) to help her serve her very important guests. Before we ate, Esther came to us with a pitcher of steaming water and a basin so that we could rinse our hands. It was fabulous! We were served chapati (a sort of flatbread - to DIE for!!), a curry rice dish, a potato/veggie dish, and beef stew. The food was fabulous! We ate and ate. Talk about someone with the gift of hospitality. Elizabeth was an amazing hostess. She was absolutely delighted to have us as her guests. We all felt SO comfortable in her home, and thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and the food. I can't imagine enjoying having dinner at the home of a Beverly Hills mogul as much as I enjoyed my visit with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth's story made me so very sad, and I know that hers is representative of many of the Amani women. I won't give you all of her personal details. But imagine living a life of significant loss at every turn. I will tell you that about four years ago, while living in Mathare, Elizabeth's home was burned, along with the entire slum area. They were given enough warning to get out with their lives, and then hired thugs poured kerosene all over everything and torched the place. She lost absolutely everything, including a couple of pets (dogs and cats). As a "squatter" (her word) she had to stake a claim to her space, so she and her family stayed right there on the spot (through their fall rainy season), sleeping on sheets of metal that they dragged there. She told us that if they had left the spot, they would have lost the option of having their home there. According to Elizabeth, the government came in and built them their new homes (what we saw), making sure that the streets were wide enough to get emergency vehicles down them. (I doubt that is the case!) I think that, had it been five years ago, we wouldn't have been able to get Joyce's car into Mathare at all!

The most amazing part of the story is that Elizabeth kept telling us over and over and over again that she is SO blessed by God. She would open her arms and point to everything in her home (which, by the way, is shared by many members of her family, including two daughters, two grandchildren, and several other family members) ... and she would say, "Look at all I have! God has truly blessed me!" Well, Elizabeth, I'd have to say that God has truly blessed ME by allowing me to visit you!

When we had to say goodbye (all too soon!), we knew that Joyce would have to back her car out, and we (the four white ladies) offered to walk up the 100 yards to the area where she could get the vehicle turned around again. Elizabeth (who is very sweet and mild) immediately insisted that we get in the car immediately, that she did NOT want us walking, and that there would be too many people coming out of their homes and would crowd us. So, we got in the car and prayed as Joyce backed out (she did a GREAT job!).

It was an amazing day and a truly blessed visit to this dear lady who exudes her love for God! I don't know that I can describe to you what that day meant to my heart, and I'm sure that I will continue to think about and learn from the experience over the next several months (and years!).

I guess that I will not have the chance to talk about our visits to the Maasai market, the orphanage, the elephant orphanage, the giraffe park, or our safari in this post. But I will definitely type more as soon as I can. I'm not sure when that will be as we are working at Amani the next two days (Thursday and Friday) and will be on our flights home (most of us) on Friday evening. I have a long lay over in the airport in Amsterdam on Saturday. Maybe I will be able to find an internet place at the Schipol Airport there and update you at that point.

I hope that you are well! Thank you for your e-mails and comments. I will look forward to seeing you all when I arrive back in the U.S.!

It's Saturday!

"Hakuna mungu kama wewe
hakuna popote
Hakuna mwenye ishara kubwa
kama wewe mungu."

(There is no god like You, there is not a god anywhere like you, Lord!"
- words to a Swahili praise song that I am learning

There really hasn't been a chance to get online this week at the Amani center. In fact, I'm typing much of this post offline with the hopes of uploading it to the blog sometime during the weekend. We'll have to see.

I'm not quite sure how to describe my Amani experience to you at this point. I am having some difficulty processing all of it myself. I suppose that I will just look over the past week and try to give you an impression of some of the things that have been involved in forming our experience here in Nairobi.

Every day at Amani starts around 9:30 with a short prayer and devotion time. Only a few of the Amani women attend this. Some arrive at the center later in the day, some are engaged in tasks at their work area, and some work from home. Typically there have been anywhere from 8 to 15 Amani ladies there, as well as the eight of us from America. One of the Amani women will start with a praise song. These songs are so wonderful, and I feel so privileged to be sitting in the room to listen to the praises of these women. The melodies are somewhat different than what you hear in Western music and are very linear. The idea of rhythm seems to be much more significant than in our music, too. There is clapping along with the beat - some women clap on "one" and "three", and some clap faster or more elaborate rhythms, so there are a variety of rhythms being fit into the music all at the same time. Then some of the women create harmonies throughout the song. There seems to always be a song leader (but who that woman is always varies) because you can always hear the voice of the woman who started the song a tiny bit louder than the rest of the voices. This is so appealing to the musician in my blood. It's truly wonderful.

After the first song, there are prayer requests and praises, just like any of our American small groups might include at a gathering. They have been faithful to make sure that whatever is said during this time is translated into Swahili or into English. Many of the women speak English, in fact a lot of them speak English very well. After the group prays together, there is more singing. I have wondered these several mornings, if because of the presence of outsiders maybe the women are more reluctant to share their deeper prayer needs. I don't know that I'll ever actually find out. It is simply a wonderful time to spend together with this group of women.

Finally, before leaving the prayer time to start the day, the women greet each other. Try to picture this. Every single woman in the room greets every single other woman in the room (including all of the Americans). They give each other three kisses on alternating cheeks and then a very warm handshake, and the entire time they are saying to each other "Habari" and answering "Nzuri" (meaning "How is your news?" and "Nice"). They will then ask if you slept well and if you are well and can often go on and on with this line of questioning.

On our first day, a very dynamic woman named Jeritha (pictured here) led us on a tour of the Amani facility. Just that one short tour of the property gave me a much greater understanding of how Amani works than I had had previously. We saw the room where they keep the patterns and the fabric, where the women are given their assigned projects, where they go to do the sewing, outdoors where they make the batik materials and do the tie-dying. We also saw the office suites and their little "chapel", which is a special room that is a bit larger and is perfect for holding rows of chairs or a circle of chairs, or however else they want to set it up. The building is new, completed within the past year. It is a beautiful building, with a staircase in the middle, split levels on either side of the stairs, lots of mosaics on the walls and floors. It is wide open, having the staircase completely open to the outdoors and the rooms inside the building with huge windows. It's gorgeous. The store is in a separate building, and there is also a small café next to the store. It's a fabulous facility for the purposes that it is being utilized.

We have each been paired with an Amani "host" woman. Although we are not spending as much time as I thought with our "hosts" (or as much time as I would like), I find that my host, Rose, is a perfect match! She's a young Kenyan woman who is actually not one of the stitching ladies. She is one of the "staff" members (a "manager" of the export department), I consider them to be more administrative in nature, or the "professional" segment of the women at Amani. Anyway, Rose was born in Kenya, but her father was a diplomat and they lived in Brussels while she was aged 10 through 16. Although she was a top-notch student, the move back to Kenya threw off her educational track quite a bit, so she ended up finishing high school a couple years late and didn't quite get the college acceptance that she would have liked. But she is about 25 now, and has gotten herself on track as a student at a local Christian college called Daystar. The director of Amani is Becky Chinchen and her husband, Del, is a professor at Daystar. After Rose took a class with Del, she was able to connect with Amani and the rest is history. If you have purchased Amani products in the United States, you have directly benefited from Rose's expertise. She is well-educated, upbeat, and very cosmopolitan. We have a lot of fun chatting. Tomorrow (Sunday) I will go to church with Rose, and will then go to her home where I will meet her family. I am very much looking forward to that!

We have each been assigned little projects to work on throughout the week. We only have a couple of hours each day between our other activities to work on these projects, but we are hoping that our work will have some impact on the ladies and on the ministry of Amani. My project this week is working with the women in the shop, learning their inventory software (which was developed especially for them) and then to work with one of the waitresses from the café to teach her the software so that she will then be able to get the café purchasing and costing working through the inventory software currently used only for the shop. The woman in charge of the shop is named Simprosa (you can read about the shop and about Simprosa on the Amani website). The other two women who work in the shop are Millicent and Maggie. Each one of the three women has a unique personality and are fun to be around. Simprosa and Millicent have been attending parenting classes taught by one of the other American women in our group (Betty), so much of my time in the shop has been spent being with Maggie. She is a bundle of joy, remembers everyone's name … she will introduce herself to the customers, ask them their names, will write them down in a little notepad and then walk around talking to them and calling them by name. By the time you have been at Amani for a couple of hours, you feel like Maggie is your best friend.

The waitress from the café who I'm working with on the software is Delphine. Delphine is about 22 years old and is Rwandan, but has lived in Kenya since she was about 8 years old. She does not have a very good working sense with computers, as she has not had much opportunity to use them. She very quickly picked up the finer workings of a mouse and clicking and double clicking. We are working on some keyboarding and some keyboard shortcuts. She's a cracker-jack! She is quickly learning everything that I have shown her and doesn't ever need anything re-explained. I think that Becky would like to see Delphine go to college some day. I would have to agree that, based on what I've seen from her over the past two days, she really ought to have a higher education. I don't think that I have any clue as to what it would take to make that happen. Betty and I have also worked with several of the women (including Delphine) on a typing software program, teaching them from scratch to type. Delphine has decided that she will not be satisfied until she can achieve 100% accuracy on the typing drills. I tease her about being a perfectionist!

We have been having our lunches with our hosts most days. Eating with Rose is funny, because she doesn't seem to always appreciate the Kenyan food that is served to the women at the center. She will pick at the meals, or not eat anything. She's tiny … I guess maybe that's what it takes. :-) We've had things like beans and lentil stew. We also had something called Ugali, it's sort of corn-meal based, and it's typically eaten with the fingers (I don't think I actually realized that until after Rose had gotten me a spoon) and used to scoop up the vegetables and meat that it is served with. I have enjoyed every single new food that I have tried!

In between our work with the women on our "projects", we have spent time with different administrators from Amani's professional staff. Mary Maina is the Deputy Director of Amani, second to Becky. Mary met with us one day to talk at length about Amani's ministry and how the organization works. She allowed us an extended time of Q&A, and we really picked her brain. The next day we met with Mary Maina again, this time also with a woman named Joyce who is in charge of Amani's holistic ministries. She is sort of the pastor for the flock of Amani women. She and Mary do a lot of counseling with the women, and they conduct home visits. They really make it their goal to truly know each woman, what her needs are, and how she is growing in relationship with Christ. That was another wonderful conversation.

Finally, one afternoon, we had an extended meeting with Becky Chinchen about her role at Amani. She is a delightful American woman whose husband originally had a ministry with African Bible College in Liberia several years ago. When there was a civil war in Liberia, they literally lost everything. They ended up in Malawi for a time doing ministry there with Del's parents, and eventually Del got a job teaching at Daystar here in Nairobi. Becky was taking classes at Daystar, and one of her projects was to imagine a ministry that combines healing with solving certain social issues. She wrote about a stitching project that could minister to impoverished women in Africa while at the same time earning them income for survival. And, out of her thoughts on this project, Amani was born! Another fascinating conversation!

I have to point out that Amani treats their visitors like royalty! One of the ways they do this is by serving us drinks several times a day. They will come around and take our "orders" and the waitress (often Delphine) will always remember where we are working and exactly what we ordered and how we like it served. They will return with either a Chai tea, or a latte, or a mocha latte or a glass of water or whatever we asked for. It's better than Starbucks! Simply wonderful!

One interesting thing to point out. There have been several tremors throughout Kenya the past several days. The first was Sunday night, about 11:30. I felt it while lying in bed. I felt a tremor years ago in Buffalo, but this one was a bit stronger and lasted longer. There were several more tremors throughout the week, but I didn't notice them (although a lot of other people did). Apparently there was an earthquake in Tanzania the day before the earthquake in Japan. (??) I haven't had access to much news. But the women at Amani have been rather upset about all of the tremors. They seem rather nervous. It was explained to us that these women have all lost SO much in their lives, and the idea of an earthquake would mean that they would have to process through major loss again. It was interesting listening to them talk about the tremors and ask for prayer about the shaking of the earth.

Here are some other random things that I want to point out:

"It is all but impossible to escape American culture." – student in Kampala, heard on a video podcast that I've been following. And it's SO true! In the most unlikely places we simply cannot escape things American.

We have met some very interesting people at the meals at the guesthouse. One woman is Kenyan but is currently a professor at the University of California at Santa Clara. She was attending a conference in Botswana and stopped in Nairobi to visit her family for several days. She works specifically in women's studies and has a great interest in research dealing with how faith must be a part of solving the problems of women living in poverty around the world. She was very interested to learn more about Amani's ministry. We also met a Peruvian man who works for the United Nations in Mogadishu. He says that the situation there is getting much, much worse over the past week or two. I can't even imagine.

There are roosters in the yard immediately next to our guesthouse. The first morning we were annoyed that there were loud "cockadoodledoo's" at 5:20 a.m. But, apparently, 5:20 (which, by the way, is NOT sunrise!) isn't a fixed crowing time. They will occasionally crow at horrible hours like 2:00 a.m. or for long periods of time. Eesh!

I had trouble sleeping for the first several days that we were here. I didn't hardly sleep at all the night before I left, didn't sleep at all on the planes (hard as I tried!), and then for three nights didn't get more than an hour or two. Finally I tried some Tylenol PM and that worked. Now I'm finally sleeping through the night without help! Finally!

In Kenya, they drive on the left side of the road. It never occurred to me, but it makes a lot of sense because Kenya was a British colony. I swear that I wouldn't be able to drive that way ... it's the right of way that would totally confuse me. But, I guess I needn't worry. There also don't seem to be any rules about right of way in Nairobi! The traffic is HORRIBLE, and there are really no rules at intersections. You just pull out into the traffic going crosswise (or the opposite way if you're turning) and expect the other drivers to stop and let you through. It is occasionally terrifying!

The guesthouse is located on a small side street off of a main divided highway. There are several little "stands" selling things across the way from the guesthouse. It makes the street a bit creepy. I don't think that I would go outside the guesthouse gate by myself!

Originally we were supposed to walk to and from Amani, which is located rather close by. It is about a 20 minute walk. But I have a feeling that the way isn't extremely safe, and there are a couple in our group who don't necessarily do well walking so much, so we've been driven most of the time. We made the walk twice, though. It definitely was a touchy situation ... there are several small stands selling things like roasted corn or coal. There are some little hills to traverse, and it's not paved, nor would cars be able to fit through much of it.

You may have seen the symbol that we have on the group blog or that I have on this blog or on the Amani website. I never knew the significance. But I have found out the following: "Africa often communicates her wisdom through symbols. This African motif, Nkyinkyimiie (twistings) from the Adinkra of Ghana, is used at Amani ya Juu to symbolize how God can make the crooked road straight. Throughout the journey of life there are many hardships and difficulties. It can often seem as if life is leading nowhere, wandering from place to place. But when the God of peace is discovered He makes the road straight giving purpose and meaning to life."

I saw a Buffalo Bills sweatshirt my first night here - there is NFL stuff all over the place! So interesting!

COFFEE ice cream!! (I know, I know! Some of you are rolling your eyes!) If you read my Europe trip blog two years ago, you know of my passion for coffee flavored ice cream, and that I found the best stuff around in Europe. I just can't find good strong flavored coffee ice cream in the States! Well, at the mall after dinner on Friday evening, I sure found some fabulous coffee flavored ice cream (actually, it was Italian Gelato). FABULOUS flavor!!

I am starting to learn about "African time". I have to say that I was warned. But it's SO hard for me to KNOW that we're supposed to be somewhere and simply ignore the clock! One afternoon, we were supposed to meet with Becky Chinchen at 2:00. Well, they hadn't served lunch by 1:55 and I told Rose that I wouldn't be able to eat lunch that day because of our meeting. She laughed at me (AT me!) and reminded me that in Africa, a 2:00 meeting will often start at 2:30. Sure enough, after lunch, at about 2:30, when I went to the meeting room, I was only the second person to arrive. Haha!!

Well, since this post has gotten TOOOO long, I will close now, promising more stories later (I'm not sure when!) I will include a story about going to have lunch at the home of one of the Amani women who lives in the Nairobi slum of "Mathare", shopping at the Maasai market, visiting an orphanage, and Saturday visits to an "elephant orphanage" and to a giraffe "farm". Today is Saturday (7/21), tomorrow I will be spending the day with Rose at church and at her home, and on Monday morning we will leave for our safari. We won't be back from that until Wednesday afternoon. That might be the earliest possibility for my getting back online again. If not then, I'm not sure when. So, until then, enjoy and take care! (And Thank You (asante sana) for sticking with me here!)

We're here!!

Hello all! I finally have a few minutes at an internet place and wanted to update you. The short story is that we arrived, on time, and had very uneventful travels. Thank you for your prayers. If you want the "long version", read on. :-) FYI: I have changed the time on the posts to Nairobi's time zone. We are 7 hours ahead of East Coast time.

Jon & Debbie Noetzel picked me up for the airport on Friday afternoon. The lines for check-in and security weren't very long. We had an opportunity to eat dinner and relax a little bit before the first leg of our flight. On the flight from Dulles to Amsterdam we had seats across the aisle from each other and neither one of us had anyone in the seats next to us, so there was lots of room to stretch out and rest even more. The seats each had personal television sets (I've never flown on a plane with that before), so we were able to choose our own viewing pleasure. Of course, I made a poor choice and watched the movie "Blood Diamond". Duh! It's a movie about the exploitation of people in Sierra Leone because of the illegal diamond trading. It was a good movie, but really a bit intense and about Africa, on my way there ... just a bit more than I needed. I should have picked a comedy. :-) The one thing in that movie that will really stick with me is the way that they use young boys, brainwashing them to become cold blooded killers. So sad!

Anyway, we arrived in Amsterdam's Schipol airport on time and had a few hours to get caught up on allowing the swollen ankles to settle and to walk around the shopping area a little bit. Our flight from Schipol to Nairobi was packed. Debbie and I were seated next to each other, the two middle seats of four in the very middle of the plane. There was a man next to me who I assumed was African. The whole time we were flying I noticed that he was reading a book called "Small Arms Trade". Made me a bit nervous. But, for no reason at all. Near the end of the flight he began to talk with us. It turns out that he is Kenyan. He told us that he is a "soldier" and was returning from a conference in DC where they learned more about military administration. He was enthusiastic and very passionate as he told us about the move to unify the military organizations of countries throughout Africa. It sounds like it is tied in to the idea of the African Union that I've been hearing a lot about when I listen to the BBC World News. Wikipedia has this article on the African Union. I know that Wikipedia's accuracy can be questioned, but it is a start. Anyway, he was a very nice man to talk with, and as I said, he was very passionate and enthusiastic about the new things on the horizon for African military organizations ... and I guess I didn't need to worry about the book that he was reading. :-)

After getting our visa for our stay in Kenya and getting our luggage, we were met by Brittany (Debbie's daughter who is part of our group) and several of the ladies from Amani. They were SO excited to meet us. They kept hugging and kissing us (three kisses on alternating cheeks) and patting our hands and holding our arms. "Karibu" is swahili for welcome. It was such a wonderful way to be welcomed.

Our rooms at the guesthouse are very nice. I guess that I never thought about the fact that we would be needing mosquito nets. But, mosquito nets are there, and are recommeded. It's strange to sleep in a bed that is surrounded by such a tent, but it's oddly comforting in a way. We are served breakfast by the nuns who run the guesthouse. The order that they are from is a German order (although not all of the sisters are German in origin). They run a children's home outside of Nairobi and the guesthouse is one way to help fund the orphanage. The breakfast is very European, lots of fruit and cereal and bread as well as cold cuts and cheeses and, of course, coffee and tea. Plenty to eat!

We left from breakfast yesterday to go to church. There was a church service that started at 10:30 that we wanted to get to, but we were running a bit late, and the driver had to drive someone else to the airport, so he asked if he could take us to another church (closer by) where the service starts at 10:00. It was 10:20, and he said, "You'll only be 20 minutes late!" If you know me, you know what that did to my heart. LOL! That was my introduction to what they call "African time". (By the way, there were people arriving at the two-hour service throughout ... so we were "early" in comparison).

The service was wonderful. The music and prayer times last for about the first hour. Some of the music was familiar and some of it was new to our ears. I think that their worship pastor may write some of their praise music for them. Except for one part of one song everything (including the sermon) was in English. It was so neat to worship in a church in Nairobi!

The pastor who preached was not their senior pastor. The sermon was fabulous, and I wonder if their senior pastor is even better. Anyway, the text was from II Timothy chapter 2. He wanted to disprove the saying that "God helps those who help themselves" and he talked about three metaphors that Paul uses in the passage, the first that we are to be unashamed workmen for the Lord, second that we are to be purified vessels, and finally that we are the Lord's bond-servants. At one point, he talked about Dr. Howard Hendricks (a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary who has spoken at our church in Virginia and is oft quoted by our pastors). It was fun to hear Dr. Hendricks quoted from a pulpit in Nairobi. Made us feel very much at home.

After church, our driver met us again and took us to "Ya Ya's" which is a local mall and street market. Inside, the mall looks just like (and I mean JUST like!) any mall in middle-class America. Rather upscale, gorgeous shops of great variety. We had lunch at an Italian place (I had pizza!) ... we have yet to have Kenyan food. :-) Afterwards, we went outside to the street market held right there. It was a great market, and we'll be going to a similar one later in the week, so I didn't buy much. But I KNOW that when we hit the market later in the week, I have a lot of things that caught my eye. :-) I think that my new home in Colorado will have lots of African decorations!

We spent the rest of yesterday afternoon relaxing. We attempted to come to the internet place where I'm typing now, but missed their closing by a few minutes. Then we went to a nearby coffee shop and enjoyed lattes. (Yes, gotta have my fix!) We had dinner back at the guest house and sat up in a little lounge room there chatting until the sisters asked us to go to bed (it was 10:30 and they close everything up at that time). Just for your information, there is a gate at the entrance to the guesthouse (there isn't a "parking lot" so to speak, but there is a security guard that has to open a gate for any vehicles that want to enter the property), there is a locked door at the entrance to the building that has to be unlocked and opened by one of the nuns, there is a metal gate just outside of each room door, and each room door has a separate key. Our stuff is safer in the rooms than on our persons as we walk the streets of Nairobi!

This morning (today is Monday) we had breakfast at the guesthouse again before coming back to the internet place where I'm typing now. At breakfast this morning at the guesthouse we were joined by another guest who is a Kenyan woman but who lives in California. She is a professor at the University in Santa Clara. We had a great conversation with her ... her research has to do with women's issues and faith. She had attended a conference in Botswana and was in Kenya for two weeks visiting family. When she told us about her research and her heart for working with women, we were so excited - we told her all about Amani ya Juu. She had heard of the center and was planning to go visit. When we told her about their mission there, she realized that the ideas that drive Amani fit right into what her research is showing. That the empowerment of women around the world is best achieved through faith organizations. We plan to connect with her again throughout the week and compare notes.

All of that brings me up to date here, sitting at this internet store. And, the other women have all finished their e-mails and are waiting for me to finish up, so on that note I will go. Kwaheri! (Swahili for "goodbye").

On my way out the door!

Just a quick note this afternoon. The Noetzels will be picking me up any minute now to go to the airport. I just wanted to put a quick note up on the blog while I have my last assured Internet access for awhile. :-) The past couple of days have been full of errands and organizing and packing ... as well as spending time with friends. God is so good to me. The people He has surrounded me with are truly wonderful people. Thank you all so much for being so supportive in this trip that I'm taking to Africa as well as in my attempts at career change any my move across the country.

I will be posting when I have access to the Internet and time to do so. Feel free to leave comments (immediately below this post) or to send an e-mail. Blessings!

Water!

"Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Last year a couple friends of mine decided to take a summer road trip, similar to the large scale road trips that I've done in the past. I made a few "road trip music" CD's for them, thinking that the music might not even get played because, really, how many people actually share my eclectic tastes in music? Well, when they returned from their cross country drive, they laughed when they told me about driving their convertible through the Mojave desert in the middle of the day and how hot it was, and then the CD that I had given them brought up the song "Cool Water" (you can just hear it now ... "Coooool, clear water ... (echo) water ... (echo) water....")

Till taught by pain,
Men really know not what good water's worth;
If you had been in Turkey or in Spain,
Or with a famish'd boat's-crew had your berth,
Or in the desert heard the camel's bell,
You'd wish yourself where Truth is--in a well.
- Byron from Don Juan

A former pastor once taught that, in the Bible, water often symbolizes the Holy Spirit. I won't lecture on that topic here ... there are plenty of theologians who do a good job with that topic (and some not so good...) Instead, I want to use that idea as a launch pad.

"You could write the story of man's growth in terms of his epic concerns with water." - Bernard Frank

As I consider going into a third world area to do ministry, I recall that water is often spoken of as the most important topic in considerations effecting developing nations and nations ... that if we could get clean and sufficient quantities of water to everyone on the face of the earth, many of the world's problems would be on the way to being solved. I can't verify that statement, but it certainly makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

"When the well's dry, we know the worth of water." - Benjamin Franklin

And I have been thinking about it. It has been one of the things in the back of my mind as I have considered my move to Colorado next month. I have spent my entire life on the East Coast in areas where there has always been plenty of water. Sometimes even too much water.

"Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over." - attributed to Mark Twain

Now I want to look at water with the idea of the Holy Spirit in the back of my mind. My personal devotions lately have been from the book of Exodus. To name just a few places in Exodus where water is important ... The first plague to hit the Egyptians was when the Lord turned the Nile River into blood, in fact all of the water in the jars throughout the country was turned to blood and the people were reduced to digging holes in the ground to find water to survive ... When the Israelites were first fleeing Egypt the Lord took them toward the Red Sea and at first the water was perceived to be a barrier. But with the Egyptians in hot pursuit, God opened a path through the water, described as being like walls of water to their right and to their left. The walls of water then fell on the Egyptians, drowning every one in Pharaoh's army ... Soon thereafter, the Israelites came upon waters at a place called Marah, but the waters were bitter. The Lord had Moses use a piece of wood to miraculously sweeten the water for drinking ... and again, at Massah and Meribah, the Lord used Moses to strike a rock and bring forth water where there had been none. (And remember, the people of Israel were numbered well over a million ... thus I'm sure that no little trickle of water came out of that rock!) Just in those references, water is sustenance for daily living yet can be a barrier to travel (or escape) and was used to eliminate opposition. The Holy Spirit is my sustenance, and those without access to Him will surely die. The Holy Spirit is powerful and can block my way or open a path for me. The Holy Spirit can also crush the opposition to His purposes for my life.

"Water is a very good servant, but it is a cruel master." - C.G.D. Roberts, Adrift in America

I'm sure that I could hit many other parts of Scripture and come up with similar parallels. I won't ... because, again, I am no theologian.

"Filthy water cannot be washed." - African Proverb

But I would also like to point out some extra-Biblical examples.

When having conversations with my students about the need to drink more water, they often (VERY often!) will say, "But I don't LIKE water!" I always tell them that this only proves that they don't get enough of it.

There are many people who are "afraid of water". And rightly so, as water is extremely powerful!

Water becomes stagnant when it stops flowing. It is this stagnant water that provides optimal breeding places for creatures like mosquitos that carry diseases like malaria and dengue fever. It is also is a great incubator for bacteria and parasites and is thus very dangerous to drink.

I grew up near Niagara Falls and have been there many times in my life. During every single visit to The Falls, I have always been struck with the thought: "WOW! That is an incredible amount of water!" It is illegal to enter the rapids and go over Niagara Falls.

The source of the "Mighty Mississippi River" is a small lake in Minnesota, Lake Itasca, narrow enough that summer tourists walk across it at the channel that forms the Mississippi headwaters. Have you seen the Mississippi River farther south where its power and great width are astounding?

Water supports giant ships as large as cities that are capable of floating on the surface.

An oasis in a desert area is considered an aesthetically beautiful sight. Why?

Water is used to put out fires, great and small. Fires started in a controlled cooking fire or raging out of control wildfires.

Only 2 percent of the world's water is fresh. That means that 98 percent of the world's water is salt water that does NOT provide the sustenance that we human beings need from water in its most basic form. By the way, did you ever wonder why in the movies they make a big deal about spitting out salt water when they are dying of thirst and come upon a small stream or something? Why not just taste a tiny bit and say, "it's not good" instead of all of the drama? :-)

Many of the creatures that God made on the fifth day of creation only live in bodies of water. That's how they were designed.

Weather systems that are considered powerful and dangerous involve moving water. Consider snowstorms (yes, I grew up in Buffalo), hurricanes, and tornados all of which can eventually lead to destructive flooding.

Even if you own the land through which a river flows, you don't necessarily have the rights to do whatever you like with the water. Those who live upriver have the potential for great impact and great harm to those who live farther downriver.

Without getting into any old earth vs. new earth creation arguments, it is said that many of the great landforms of the earth, such as the Grand Canyon, were carved by years and years of water flowing over rock.

Consider the music of water. The calming sounds of the waves on a lake, the babbling of a brook, the rushing sounds of a strong river, the beating of the waves against the shores of the ocean.

"Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet." - African Proverb

As Americans I think that it is easy to forget how important water is to our daily lives. Personally, I LOVE drinking water. I try to drink several large glasses of it every day. Think also that water is the key element in our sanitation systems. Most of us take a shower every single day and also use water to wash our hands several times a day. I use water to help me swallow pills. And, really, we all know that Starbucks uses water to make our coffee (and McDonalds for the iced coffee). Who could survive without THAT?!

"Don't empty the water jar until the rain falls." - Philippine proverb

In my ABF (adult Sunday School) class last week, the teacher spoke of the summer time and our need to refresh ourselves. Water was the key to his lesson.

"Anyone who can solve the problems of water will be worthy of two Nobel prizes - one for peace and one for science." - John F. Kennedy

Our spiritual need for the Holy Spirit and the physical need for water surely do have many parallels. As I go into a land where there is great lack of both the Holy Spirit and drinkable water, I pray that God will use me to help fill needs wherever they may be. Oh, and in the meantime, get ahold of the song "Healing Rain" by Michael W. Smith and have a listen....

"All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again." - Ecclesiastes 1:7

"You visit the earth and cause it to overflow; You greatly enrich it; The stream of God is full of water; You prepare their grain, for thus You prepare the earth." - Psalm 65:9

Malaria

Hopefully this will be the last post about my immunizations. Tomorrow will be my last dose of the oral Typhoid vaccine ... and that has always come with a mild nausea, which continues to provide the tangible reminder that I mentioned in my last post.

I have also found it interesting that I ended up getting the majority of my vaccinations at a government health clinic. Originally my doctor's office gave me the name and number of a private travel clinic. But their prices were very high (and my insurance will not cover vaccinations for travel purposes). A friend pointed me out to Fairfax County's Health Department, which offers many of the immunizations that I needed ... and all for about half what I would have paid at the private clinic.

It made me stop to think why in the world the County would offer health vaccines to travelers for so much less than the private clinics. I mean, my insurance won't cover it because travel to a third world country is MY choice, and they don't want to ask for everyone to pay higher premiums because I choose to go to Africa. So, wouldn't the same thinking apply to the local government?

But, after thinking about it, it occurred to me that it is to the government's benefit to keep these diseases at a minimum here. Eventually, if there is spread of these diseases, the government will end up at a loss, either financially, or some other way. So it makes sense that they would encourage travelers to be vaccinated for the good of the community as a whole. (Note, there are no vaccinations required for travel to Kenya at this time. The vaccines that I mentioned in my previous post were "recommended" by the State Department website. And, believe me, I don't want to be at any risk whatsoever for something like Malaria or Typhoid or the like!) Now, of course I'm not sure if I have actually nailed the real reason WHY the government of Fairfax County, VA offers travel vaccinations. But that's my best guess.

If you're interested in this topic, as I am at this point, you might also be interested in reading an article about Malaria that has appeared in this month's National Geographic Magazine. It is definitely an interesting read. Be sure to click on some of the sidebar notes to the left of the article for some interesting photos and field notes by the authors. Thank you to Alex for pointing the article out to me.

Shots!!

Now that we're getting closer and closer to the trip, I have found myself wanting to write and write about what I'm thinking. And I decided that the group blog isn't the best place for me to pontificate. :-) So I have decided to start my own Africa 2007 blog.

Getting my shots was the first real big awakening that I'll be going to a part of the world that has a significantly different culture than mine. Yellow Fever and Tetanus in my left arm. Hepatitis A & B in my right arm (one needle for the two "Hep" shots). The muscle where they put the tetanus shot was sore for about three days. The typhoid and malaria are oral vaccines, the typoid is four pills taken every other day over seven days. The malaria is taken daily starting the day before we leave and then once a day every day through the trip and the whole week after returning.

Anyway, these shots have really forced me to think about the living conditions where I'll be going. The fact that so many people live in this place where there are such horrible diseases. And they don't really have such easy access to vaccinations as I do. To them it's just a matter of fact that there are so many killer viruses out there. And if there was any chance of forgetting after I got "stuck" in the arm(s), the soreness of my muscles for several days after served to refresh my memory.

One of the foremost things on my mind as I prepare for this journey is that the "American lifestyle" is so very far from reality for so many millions and millions of people in this world. I would say that we are blessed. And, we are blessed. But maybe living a life devoid of such "blessings" as easy access to quality preventative medical care (etc.) is more "blessed" in some ways ... because one is forced to depend on the Lord for so many more things.

More ponderings later this weekend....

My personal newsletter

Dated April 18, 2007

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. – Romans 5:1-2

Dear Friends,

For years it seems, I have been intrigued with Africa. I’m not sure where the intrigue started. I’m not sure what it is about Africa that has been so intriguing to me. I have watched movies like “Out of Africa” and “African Queen” literally dozens of times. I enjoy listening to African music. I always wondered why Scott Wesley Brown’s song, “Please don’t send me to Africa” was so amusing to so many people – I would wonder, “why would someone NOT want to be sent to Africa??” I have begged my friend Berhane to take me with her to visit her family in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for years. (She always tells me that we have to wait until the country is more stable!) I have even toyed with the idea of teaching at the Rift Valley Academy, a Christian boarding school in Kenya. And remember that I teach in a neighborhood middle school that is extremely ethnically diverse. I have always been drawn to the stories told by the families of our African students.

Back on December 1, 2005, my friend Debbie had a “party”. Debbie is a woman I know from the music & worship ministry at Immanuel Bible Church. We had two days before the final dress rehearsal for our annual Christmas cantatas and I couldn’t understand why she would ask us to come out on a weeknight to “buy stuff” so close to our concerts. But they live just around the corner from me, so I decided to check it out. And that’s where this story begins. :-)

You can read more about Amani’s ministry in the group's newsletter. In short, marginalized African women from different parts of the continent often find themselves in Nairobi, Kenya and come to the Amani centers to be cared for in body, mind, spirit and heart. They become part of a community of women who experience the power of God’s peace in their lives. Meanwhile, they learn job skills through participating in Amani’s sewing project. You may have seen my purse or another of my Amani products.

On that very day at my friend’s home, I knew that I wanted to participate in the Amani ministry somehow. Over the course of the past year and a half, and through several discussions with Rachel, Amani’s U.S. representative, and with Debbie, we have put together a group of women to travel to the Amani center in Nairobi in July of 2007.

My learning curve has been significant, even for the past three or four months that we’ve been discussing this trip. Although intrigued by Africa, my knowledge of the continent is slim. I have been doing quite a bit of reading, mostly biographies. The stories of genocide, war, and atrocities are heart wrenching. I made sure to see the movie The Last King of Scotland, a historical, yet fictional account of the evil reign of Idi Amin in Uganda. My fondness of African music has increased exponentially. (Especially the drum music!) I have found myself paying special attention to world news from Africa, and will often do Internet research on the regions that are central to the news stories.

I have also been doing a lot of thinking and praying about exactly what it means that these women are “marginalized”. According to Webster’s dictionary, to “marginalize” means, “to relegate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group.” This is certainly what has been happening to many groups of people on the African continent throughout modern history. The tensions between the Hutus and Tutsis come to mind, but there are many other Africans who have been marginalized. I believe whole-heartedly that Amani ya Juu is an organization that is in a position to be used by the Lord for the empowerment that only Jesus Christ can bring into a life. Each woman in turn will then participate in her own personal ministry to other African women.

There seem to be so many things that the Lord has brought together in my life to give me a heart for African ministry to women like I will meet and work with at the Amani center. Sewing is not one of my strengths. (I have been working on my first quilt for more than five years now!) Therefore, I will be helping in the office at the Amani center in Nairobi, working with the women on administrative tasks, and putting my computer and technology skills to work for them.

The Amani ministry trips are organized so that each American woman is paired with an Amani woman for the duration of the visit. All of my time at the Amani center will be spent with the woman that I am paired with. There will be a welcoming ceremony in true African style, a tour of the Amani center, and then we will work together on the office and administrative tasks that they have decided I can help with. At one point during the week I’ll visit her home and will have the opportunity to worship with her at her church. We will spend the evenings at the German guesthouse where we will be staying. It all feels so simple. But Rachel tells us that a visit from American women is so extremely encouraging to the Amani women that it will be ministry at a depth I think I might never comprehend. It is also my anticipation that I will form a long-lasting relationship with my Amani partner woman, and find that my heart has truly begun to long for that friendship.

Please pray about the possibility of joining our support team. First of all, we covet your prayers as we prepare for the trip and as we travel to Nairobi in mid-July. You can find general group prayer requests on our blog (see the link below). I have also included some personal prayer requests at the end of this letter.

Secondly, we are raising financial support for this trip as individuals and as a team. Each of us needs approximately $3,700, depending on airfare and one or two other variable costs. You may contribute to my individual support account, or you may specify that you would like to split your donation between two or more of our group members. Please see the enclosed stub for specific information on your tax-deductible donation.

You may be wondering what I mean by “our blog”. Well, if you’re not familiar with that term, a “blog” is a “web log”. It’s a sort of online journal. We have set up a blog for our trip. The link can be found below. Please bookmark it with your favorites for the next several months. There is even a link to feed to your newsreader! We have introductory information about our trip, links of interest, and will be updating it as our planning progresses. We hope to have enough Internet access while we’re in Nairobi to keep it updated regularly so that you can follow our ministry from across the globe.

As for my own personal prayer requests, I would first ask that you pray that the Lord will use me in significant ways to glorify Him and to truly minister to the hearts of the Amani women and to the Amani center, especially my Amani partner woman. Secondly, you may be aware that I am looking at making some significant changes in my life. I will be taking a leave of absence from my teaching position with the idea of beginning in a new career field. Since I’ll be leaving my job, I decided it might be a good idea to try making my new life in a different part of the country. I have always loved the beauty of God’s creation in Colorado, and would like to make Colorado Springs my new hometown. I have no idea what I will be doing for a living, where I will be living or what church family I will call home. I trust that the Lord will lead me as He wills. Please keep all of these life-changes in mind as you pray for me. I am looking forward to this Amani trip as a sort of commencement to my new life. Please pray that God would help me to balance my plans for Amani with my planning for a large-scale move.

So, visit our blog, follow some of the links, and leave us a comment. We’ll look forward to hearing from you! I would personally like to thank you for your friendship. If you are receiving this letter from me, you are someone who is special to me, and I am looking forward to connecting with you in this new venture.

On that last note, please share with me some of your own prayer requests. It would be my privilege to lift your needs up in prayer to our gracious Lord and Savior.

With much love,
Lou Ann

Group Weblog: http://dcamanisafari.blogspot.com/
My e-mail: louannaepelbacher@gmail.com


Please Don't Send Me to Africa
by Scott Wesley Brown

O Lord I'm your willing servant
You know that I have been for years
I'm here in this pew every Sunday and Wednesday
I've stained it with many a tear
I've given you years of my service
I've always given my best
And I've never asked you for anything much
So Lord I deserve this request

Chorus:
Please don't send me to Africa
I don't think I've got what it takes
I'm just a man, I'm not a tarzan
Don't like lions, or rivers, or snakes
I'll serve you here in suburbia
In my comfortable middle class life
But please don't send me out in the bush
Where the natives are restless at night

I'll see that the money is gathered
I'll see that the money is sent
I'll wash and stack the communion cups
I'll tithe 11 percent
I'll volunteer for the nursery
I'll go on the youth retreat
I'll usher, I'll deacon, I'll go door to door
Just let me keep warming this seat

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog about my trip to Africa this summer. This first post won't really say anything. :-) But I want to get the blog up and running, so I'm posting now. Come back soon for lots more information about our DC Amani Safari. In the meantime, you might want to check out our group blog.