Signs of Christmas

It has been a bit of a challenge to remember that Christmas is approaching.... given the lack of visual clues here in Nairobi. There are no lights decorating people's homes, very few Christmas items advertised in stores. And of course there is no snow (or cool temperatures even).

The closest thing to a real tree that looks like Christmas would be our neighbour's cedar.

But Santa has found his way to Africa -- there is a dancing Santa at the nearby Village Market; he sings "Yellow Rose of Texas" every time I walk by. There are also Santa billboards advertising Coca Cola and a local bank.

Max and Simon did particpate in a beautiful school Christmas concert. Max was a wise man (along with classmates Alex and Zite) and Simon sang in the chorale (along with classmates Sam and Josh).

The Kenyan people celebrate Christmas by ensuring that there will be food (including meat) on the table and that no neighbour will go hungry. A special Christmas treat is to eat chapatis -- but the high price of flour this year may make that an impossibility for some. They do not exchange presents or put up a Christmas tree. There is no money for luxuries like these. Children may receive a new piece of clothing or new shoes for the school year beginning in January.
The teachers at Rosslyn have a tradition of blessing the Kenyan support workers with a "gift bag" containing food items (flour, rice, oil, sugar, soap). The Kenyan workers are very grateful for this.

Clean Water

As Lisa wrote earlier in the fall, clean water is a precious commodity here in Kenya. I was reminded of this again today as I read in the newspaper that the water for our section of the city is scheduled to be turned off from Tuesday morning at 6:00am until Wednesday at 6:00pm and again it will be turned off from Friday at 6pm until Sunday morning.

The school has a bore hole (a well) which we can pump almost enough water to keep the school going for a few days as we have big water tanks on site that we fill during the night. For those of us who live on the school campus we hardly notice the water shortage. All the big houses nearby also have large water tanks that are kept filled.

However, this is not the case for the Kenyan people. Living in a 10' x 12' room, four to six people do not have running water; they either collect rain water to drink or carry water to their homes. Many of our Kenyan support staff who do not live on campus, take home large bottles of water when they leave at night.

Although I would like to be able to help all our Kenyan friends we realize that it is not possible. However, I know that we can help some. One of the projects I have been working on is to provide easier access to safe drinking water. I was able to purchase double water filters (as shown) for $100. This gives the Kenyan staff living on campus easier access. We now have a set on the east and west sides of the campus and they are being used daily.

The Eastleigh Pottery Studio produces a ceramic filter for individual houses. It filters out 99% of harmful bacteria and dirt. Each filter sells for 1000 Kenyan shillings (KSH) which is $16. We have bought several of them to give as gifts and hope to purchase many more as we can afford them. One family told us that they thought they would not own a water filter in their lifetime (because of the cost). They prayed that their young child would one day be able to purchase a filter; that child now loves to fill the top part of the filter with dirty water and watch it drip through clean and clear.

Unfortunately, the son of another Kenyan family we know was given some `bad`water a few weeks ago and developed typhoid. The medical bill for the doctor and his medicine was 4000 KSH which his parents could not afford. We have since given them a water filter and they are truly grateful.

Here are some pictures of these pottery filters. The full pottery ones are more expensive (1700 KSH) than the ones with a plastic base but both have the same ceramic filter which has been tested by the Departments of Health in the U.S. and in Kenya.

I will never again take for granted the blessing of having safe water to drink. Sometimes it is only when we do not have something that we realize its importance.

state of the art

Max and Simon participated in another swim meet on the weekend. This one was at the new Kasarani Aquatic Stadium.

The Moi International Sports Centre was built in 1987 on the outskirts of Nairobi. The Centre has a 60,000 seat football (soccer) stadium, a 5000 seat gymnasium, and the Aquatic Stadium.

These modern facilities provide a unique toilet experience. It took me a few minutes to figure out where to put my feet! And I am still not sure which way to face....... This style of toilet is very common in public washrooms (men and women's).The Moi Stadium hosts the local Kenya National Football (soccer) Team, called the Harambee Stars. The team has never qualified for the FIFA World Cup. In fact, in 2006 FIFA suspended Kenya from international football (soccer) play for corruption in its Football Federation (government interference). The FIFA World Cup Soccer is played every 4 years and is next scheduled for June 2010 in South Africa.

Cultural Richness

This academic year Rosslyn Academy has students from 40 countries. Each year the school celebrates this diversity with a Cultural Richness Festival. Students wear traditional clothing, bring traditional foods for an International Feast, and share dance, music, and stories from their country.

Under each flag students presented posters and information about their home country. Simon and Max got African braids and flags painted on their faces. Max and his classmates made Korean origami “quilts”. There were also performances of Ukrainian dance, Korean dance, a guest clarinetist from Korea, and international choirs.


Simon’s class prepared maps of their home countries – made from cakes and cookies.

Inequity

Last night we attended our church Christmas Banquet at the Windsor Golf and Country Club. The 18 hole golf course is the best in Kenya and was just voted “2009 Undiscovered Golf Destination of the Year”. In fact many residents of Nairobi do not know that such place exists. The hotel is Victorian style with 5-star amenities and costs 6000 shillings per person per night ($100 each person). Culinary opportunities are available on the terrace, in the fine dining room, or at the poolside café. The pool and grounds are beautiful. It is absolute luxury!

Today we drove on a road very near the Windsor golf club and got a glimpse of the Mathare slum. This is home to over 600,000 people in an area no bigger than Bible Hill Nova Scotia. Families live in one room shacks with no electricity, no running water, no light, no ventilation, and no waste disposal. 6000 shillings would be a great monthly salary. With “complete unemployment” Mathare Valley has been called the worst and most dangerous of Nairobi’s slums. Tim plans to visit the slum in December.

In a 24 hour period we saw the best and the worst that Nairobi has to offer. The disparity between rich and poor is easy to see here; we are confronted with this incredible inequity on a daily basis.

Street Vendors

The streets of Nairobi are lined with vendors. This is Lucy and her daughter Marylyn, selling carved birds. Marylyn comes to work with her mom every day.


Merchants selling all sorts of products set up a little shop on the side of the road and sell to cars passing by. We have purchased a few items this way : flowers, fruit, vegetables, clay plant pots. I also have my eye on a beautiful wrought iron bed. These are not just a place to purchase an item – many of the goods are made right there on the roadside. It is quite remarkable to see several men building furniture in this “open air” factory.

Just a couple of minutes from campus there is a young woman named Miriam who has a produce stand. Every morning (except Sunday) she travels from her home to the downtown Hawkers Market. There, she barters with the hundreds of vendors and walks away with a cart load of fruits and vegetables. She hires someone to push her cart the 10 km to her stand. Then she unloads her items and prepares to sell for the day. My friend, Jane, and I make a couple of trips to see Miriam each week to purchase apples, oranges, broccoli, cilantro, lettuce, pomello, carrots, watermelon, mangoes.

Some vendors will even come into the middle of the street between the cars stuck in traffic. We have never purchased from one of the “middle of the street” vendors. They sell things like puppies, bandannas, metal art, raffia mobiles, phone cards, helicopters, kittens, and bunnies.

Food again

No, it is not Easter Egg colouring time! Every week I buy eggs from a local farmer. Eggs are much cheaper than meat so we are getting our protein from eggs now. But before I make quiche or omelette or scramble the eggs, I need to clean them. First I wash off all the feathers, mud, and straw and then I soak them in potassium permanganate. This process of disinfecting is necessary with all fruits, vegetables, and farm products. Everything takes longer here -- especially anything to do with meal preparation.

Occasionally we splurge and go out to a restaurant. We have to be careful how food is prepared there also! One of our favourite places is a collection of Indian take out stands in a parking lot a few minutes from here. It is called Diamon Plaza and we went there on Saturday night with our friends the DesRoches and the McGavrins. We ate bhujiya, chicken tikka curry, Naan bread.

Swimming competition

Rosslyn Academy has a very strong athletic program which gives children at all ages an opportunity to compete in a variety of sports. Max and Simon have been participating in soccer intramurals and track and field intramurals. They also both made the swim team and practice twice a week in the pool on campus.

Simon had a stellar start to his season by advancing to triple AAA level of competition (only three Rosslyn students attained that level of success). Both boys have shown remarkable improvement in stroke execution, flip turns and breathing techniques. Today they took part in another meet and we are so proud of their performance! It was very exciting!Simon placed first in 50m backstroke and first in 50m freestyle. He placed third in 50m breast stroke.
Max placed first in 50m backstroke and third in 50m freestyle.

The boys were also chosen to swim the 200m freestyle relay. It was fun to see them both swim on the same relay team. They placed second and lost to an older, more experienced team of boys. Above are (left to right) Max, Joshua, Simon, and Hunter just after their race.

Surprises!

Tim and Lisa attended the Global Leadership Summit this week. This is an annual event in North America, hosted by the Willow Creek Association in Chicago. Willow Creek believes that the best leaders are passionate about their own leadership development. Every year some of the world’s best leaders share their insights at the Summit.

We were disappointed not to attend the Summit in August in North America and then very surprised to see that there was a Summit here in Nairobi! This week’s program was the DVD of this summer’s speakers : Gary Haugen (founder of International Justice Mission), Brad Anderson (CEO of Best Buy), Catherine Rohr (CEO of Prison Entrepreneurship Program), TD Jakes (pastor of a church of 30,000 people).We were even more surprised to have Bill Hybels speaking IN PERSON. We have been reading Hybel’s books on leadership for years (Courageous Leadership, Holy Discontent, Axiom). It was an unexpected pleasure to meet him in the flesh! Many Kenyans wondered why we wanted our picture taken with him…..

Bill Hybel’s closing comments were to commend the courageous leaders here in Kenya. He remarked that it takes more skill to lead here among the corruption, poverty, disease. It was a very touching moment to have one of the world’s greatest leaders humbly express his gratitude for how community leaders in Kenya are changing their world.

Obama Day!

Yesterday’s U.S. Presidential election is having an impact here. Before the election there was concern that if Obama did not win there would be rioting in Kenya. The President made public announcements yesterday that there would be severe consequences for any violence. Kenyans were reminded that this is an American Election NOT A Kenyan Election.

Obama’s family is originally from Kenya. His father grew up in a small town called Kisumu (about 5 hours from Nairobi). Because of this, many Kenyan people feel a connection to the rest of the world through him. At 7:00 a.m. this morning, when it was announced that Obama won the election, there was a collective sigh of relief that Kenya had avoided riots and also a feeling of pride that this new leader had humble beginnings here in Africa.

Shortly after Obama's win was announced, Kenya’s President Kibaki said “This is a momentous day not only in the history of the United States of America, but also for us in Kenya. The victory of Senator Obama is our own victory because of his roots here in Kenya. As a country, we are full of pride for his success.” Kibaki declared tomorrow, Thursday November 5, a national holiday! Kenya’s Vice President also said many Americans would now wish to visit country of the father of their new President.

Rosslyn Academy has chosen to honour that holiday and, therefore, Tim, Max, and Simon will have NO SCHOOL tomorrow!This is Simon’s class on today's field trip to Nakumatt (like WalMart African style). The class has been learning about money in Math and this was a hands on learning opportunity.

On Safari Day 2

We crossed over and then drove along the equator to Sweetwaters tented camp where we stayed for the second night of our safari. The camp sits in the middle of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. It is a privately owned game reserve that has very knowledgeable Park Rangers who live on site. The reserve is also home of the Chimpanzee Sanctuary established by Jane Goodall.

This site has a watering hole to watch animals come and go. Shortly after we arrived a family of giraffe came to drink. It is quite a sight to see a tall giraffe bend down on its knees to drink. There was also an abundance of warthogs with baby warthogs in tow. We watched the water hole from the deck of our “tent”.



We took a couple of “game drives” around the 90,000 acre property. We saw large numbers of impala, gazelle, water buffalo, hippo, and bushbuck. We were also mesmerized by the quiet beauty of zebra and giraffe. And we saw three lions!! There was a young male, an older male and a female hanging around in some tall grass by the side of the road. We watched them for 30 minutes. We saw them yawn with huge big mouths. We saw them roll around in the grass. We heard them roar – just like a real lion.



We also got to meet “Max”, a white Rhino that was raised by the park rangers and is being reintroduced to the wild. “Max” believes that Ranger Patrick is his mother and he sleeps next to Patrick’s front door. I wonder how his wife feels about that! Patrick can also “talk” to Max using a huffing sound. It was quite amazing to watch.

After a wet 4 hour drive back to Nairobi, we were exhausted and over-stimulated by all that we had seen.

On Safari ! Day 1

This past weekend we were the ultimate tourists and went on safari!
We spent the weekend in view of Mount Kenya which is the tallest mountain in Kenya and the second tallest in Africa (next to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania). We did not get to see the peak of Mount Kenya because it was cloudy and drizzly most of the weekend. The rain did not dampen our spirits and we are so grateful that the water crisis is momentarily over.
Our first night at Mountain Lodge was like being on a cruise ship. The hotel sits on the equator and in the middle of the jungle at a watering hole. You can’t leave the hotel without an armed ranger. There is a large balcony to sit and watch all the animals come to drink and bathe.
We saw dozens of water buffalo and water buck. A family of baboons were hanging out for a while. There was always a stork walking in the water waiting for the Egyptian geese to leave their babies unattended. He had eaten 6 goslings in a week and only two remained. The manager of the hotel, Jeconiah, taught Max and Simon to use a sling shot if the stork got too close to the goslings.
And then a group of 50 monkeys ran through the open area – one at a time. A monkey would run from one side of trees to the other side and then wave for the next monkey to follow. It took several minutes for the whole crew to make it across. We giggled at their personalities as some monkeys ran very fast, some meandered, some stopped half way to pick his nose,…..
The elephants were the most amazing! A group of 9 elephants walked through and disappeared into the trees. We were so surprised to see these huge animals “pop out” of little paths and then squeeze back in. The largest elephant stayed at the watering hole for awhile. We were hiding in a bunker only a few feet away while he sucked up water like a vacuum cleaner and then squirted it into his mouth like a waterfall. Elephants drink up to 50 litres of water a day. As he was leaving the area this HUGE animal got annoyed at two noisy geese. He made an irritated trumpeting sound and waved his big ears at them! They became quiet.


And besides the animals, our “cruise” had the typical delicious food. We were served 5 course meals which included a variety of Kenyan dishes. Max became fond of having cheese to end his meal. Simon was thrilled that he could have pineapple slices with warm chocolate sauce every meal. Tim enjoyed trying new soups – creamed vegetable, squash, carrot. Lisa was thrilled that someone else was doing the preparation and clean-up!
Albert was our excellent host.

Canadian Thanksgiving

On Sunday October 12 we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with several Canadian families here on campus. There are 12 Canadian teachers at Rosslyn (a staff of 60 teachers in total). We had 22 people come to our home to eat turkey and talk Canadian politics, food, weather, hockey.

It was a chore to locate and purchase a 10 kg turkey. The turkey was also a bit uncooperative because it did not thaw in 3 days and took 9 hours to cook. Rebecca DesRoches made a delicious dressing which included summer savoury. Did you know that summer savoury is quite unique to the Maritimes? No one else has ever heard of it. I will bring some back with me at Christmas.

Here is Simon with his friend Isaiah and Max with Ezra (from Winnipeg).

We played a game of pin the feather on the turkey -- each feather has something written that we are thankful for. Some of the feathers say that we are thankful for "food", "new life", "God for bringing us to Kenya", "water", "the present (tense)", "my childrens' laughter", "chocolate and my Stevie Wonder CD", "the sound of birds waking me in the morning", "teeth", "my Dad".

But this is the one that takes the prize: "I am thankful to be from a country that produced Bruce Cockburn and Stompin' Tom, Maple Syrup and Labatt's Blue, Raffi and the Zamboni, Bobby Orr and Bobby Vinton, Joni Mitchell and Kim Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and (well maybe not Leonard Cohen), Don Messer and Don Cherry, and the greatest place on earth -- P.E.I. I am Canadian!"

Chai Time!

Our home is blessed to have two hard-working Kenyans. Timothy is our 55 year old gardener. Kenya has a policy of forced retirement at age 55 in order to give younger generations the opportunity (and discipline) to work. Timothy works part –time for 3 families here on campus. He lives on campus with his wife and 6 girls. Two of the girls are his nieces; Timothy’s sister is ill so he cares for these Elementary aged girls. His two oldest daughters are in university (one in nursing school) and live at home part of the year. His oldest daughter had polio as a child and is unable to live alone because of the physical and mental effects of that. His youngest daughter is still in school (grade 7).

Cathy is a 26 year old married mother of one. She works with me two days a week doing the house cleaning and cooking. She and I laugh together a lot and she has taught me how to make Kenyan food and Chai. Chai is the Swahili word for tea. Chai is prepared like this: boil water then add loose tea leaves (a Kenyan brand, of course). Boil for exactly 2 minutes then add milk ( half cup for every cup of tea). When the milk just begins to boil, remove from heat and strain the tea leaves out. Add sugar depending on taste (but usually LOTS of sugar) and serve immediately.

Every Tuesday and Thursday I make Chai for Timothy and Cathy. They take great pleasure in evaluating my Chai-making ability. They say that my Chai is Sawa (Swahili for perfect)! We have a wonderful tea time discussing Kenyan customs, Swahili, Jesus.