Saturdays with Sister Tina

Saturdays with Sister Tina are always an adventure and yesterday was no exception. There are about 24 churches that are connected with Ang’iya parish. Most of those churches consist of a small mud or brick building where people gather on Sunday and Father Lucas brings communion when he can. What Sister Tina and I “officially” do is meet with a different group each Saturday and teach lessons on life skills and behavior change. Unofficially we take the car off-roading through cornfields, kill black Mambas, and get ourselves into strange and sometimes sticky situations.

Let me start by explaining that Sister Tina is a 5 foot tall spitfire who can barely see over the steering wheel when she drives.  Half of the fun of youth group Saturdays with her is the ride there. Although watching her beat a Black Mamba to death wasn’t too bad either. Yesterday the car had broken down and we needed to take a taxi to the site. To sum it up, it took us over an hour to drive 15km (approximately 9 miles) we stopped the first time where the rain had washed away the road and some locals had to pile up rocks for us to make it across the ravine.  Then there was a sugarcane truck in the middle of the road and our taxi driver got out, hopped in the giant truck and drove it off the side of the road so we could pass. After that we got stuck and had to have some locals push the car out of a ditch.

 

This was followed by a landslide that washed a bunch of dirt and roots into the road, so we had to get out and manually remove the brush. Finally, the road turned into a river and we couldn’t continue by car. We then walked 30 minutes the rest of the way to reach the church. It was so muddy that Sister Tina just took her shoes off and walked barefoot half of the way.

We had a great meeting with over 40 youth members. We then made our way back to meet our taxi and start the journey back home. As we were passing through town, Sister Tina decided she needed to get her hair done. I then spent the next hour in a local salon watching a lot of braiding, weaving, and straightening going on. It made me happy to have the hair that I have where I can just wash it and go, but also amazed at the things these women could do to their hair. They can completely transform their look in a matter of hours.

On the way home the taxi driver dropped Tina at the convent first and then proceeded to the clinic where I live. In the short span of approximately 2 minutes between the convent and clinic our driver managed to ask me if I was married… Saturdays with Sister Tina are always an adventure.

 

Kenya through my mother's eyes

Describing my experiences in Kenya can sometimes leave me without words. The best feeling in the world is knowing that someone else has seen it and experienced it with me. I was so happy to welcome my parents to my life and my village and here are a few words from my mother:

 

When we returned from our very first international travel experience to Kenya, we could not put into words to summarize our experience.  Upon reflection, here are a few:

 

Amazeing.  It was amazing that we could find our way around the rural fields on a foot wide maze of dirt paths from the clinic to the secondary school 45 min away.  I couldn’t take my eyes off the path so as not to stumble on the ruts or rocks or loose gravel 

 

 Awesome.  Our safari was filled with awesome sights, from the never ending plains to the land of zebras surrounding us 360 degrees to the herd of giraffes making their way across the plains like sock puppets to the gentle mother and child elephants ripping grass up by curling it around their trunks to the wildebeest migration.

 

Unnerving.  When you are two tall white people standing alone amongst a sea of Kenyan faces waiting for your taxi driver to arrive, nothing you can do will help you blend in.

 

Uncomfortable.  When you meet a class of students and all they can do is smile and stare like you are a celebrity, all you can do is smile back and say hello. 

 

Confusing.  Although most people spoke English, the thick British accent was hard to cut through. 

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.   Not a real concept here.  We drove by a stately Christian church complex which included a school, and in the far corner of the property, a trash burning site.  

 

Genuine.   Everyone we came in contact with or met were kind and helpful and so willing to share their country with us Americans.  And they wanted to know if we were going to re-elect Obama.

We thought this would be our one and only international trip, but before the end of our stay in Kenya, we were already talking about our return.  So like the sign at the airport…