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.