I am terribly sorry for the delay in preparing this update. I have been swamped, working from 6 or 7 am till 9 am for Terra Soft, off to Pistis for the whole of the day, and then back to my host family’s home and local internet cafe to catch-up on Terra Soft again.

Just today, Saturday, have I found time to post the prior entries, upload photos, and update the financial tracking of the donated funds for the projects we are undertaking.

In short, until I have more time, this first week (Tue-Fri) was a huge success. We scoped the electrical wiring project, hired two local young men to complete the second floor of the classrooms, and dove right in to digging the trench for the new water line from water tank to the new bath house. The basketball court too sports an update with refreshed paint, a full game engaged just hours after it dried.

More to come …

kai

Gladys, Leonard, and I met for two hours Tuesday morning to review the projects at hand. We broke them down by description, then estimated cost, and then by priority. I have created a spreadsheet on my laptop to track projects and costs against the donated funds.

While the completion of the electrical wiring for the second and third floors of the new school building is important, the connecting of a well-fed cistern to the new bathrooms, a 50m+ run, is imperative as the Nakuru sanitation authority has condemned the current facility, disallowing additional removal of waste. The full assembly of students (400+) return to school in just a few weeks, so we have little time.

Eager to jump into the projects, Gladys introduced me to Isaac, a bright young man who lives at Pistis and attends a school off-site, as someone who can assist me with finding tools, supplies, and coordinating labor forces.

He and I walked to a third and then fourth hardware store (one-room store fronts that offer a surprising array of necessities) in search of shovels and spades. I asked Isaac if he would attend college. He shared that while his grades were in the B+/A- category, ample to potentially win a government scholarship, he desires to join the military first and become a fighter pilot. I stated that his goal was very good. He added that he wanted to live and to die like a man. I concluded, smiling, “And to die going very, very fast.” He laughed and agreed.

Isaac is humble, for I later learned from Gladys that he knows nothing of his biological parents and was raised on the streets by whomever would take him in and yet he is top ranked in the nation for his scholastic achievement. He graduates next year, his proper British English damn near perfect with a vocabulary that baffles me. When he speaks, he commands attention. When he takes charge, the kids follow. And when he and I talk, we cover a half dozen subjects as though we have been talking for as many years. Isaac aspires to be a fighter pilot. From the streets of Nakuru to the skies of Africa, what an amazing story he will tell.

The transition to any country is one of training the body to accept the new time zone, learning the social norms through sometimes awkward trial and error, and adjusting to differences in food and language. In my coming here, I have perhaps more than any of my travels, grown to be aware of the beauty in the basics that we all share.

Every child in the academy laughs. Every child plays. Every child has more than one hundred brothers and sisters with whom they have lived for a few months to a half dozen years. Through basketball, soccer, blowing bubbles, washing clothes, brushing hair, and helping with projects, these children are receiving support, hope, and joy. Pistis is a selfless refuge that allows the children to just be children, their basic needs covered and time for play guaranteed.

The boys and girls wash their own clothes, eat meals from over-turned frisbees with spoons whose handles are missing, and have but one change of clothes. And yet the children’s personal dignity transcends the challenge of their immediate surroundings.

A boy of sixteen or seventeen years introduced himself to me when we began to dig the trench for the water pipe. He wielded one of the new pick-axes (”jemba” is the local name) and said with a wide smile, “I am Bernard. I am Maasai”. His first name he pronounced with soft consonants and ‘Maasai’ carried the haunting depth of a whisper in a narrow passage. Perhaps the images in my mind were reinforced by Hollywood films, but a chill moved down my spine for the strength of his tribal conviction and pride in his people.

I have a house filled with things that I do not need, but do not know both the first and last name of my neighbors two houses down. The children of the orphanage and surrounding families own virtually nothing and yet they have community. They love and support each other in a way that perhaps only the farmers of our Midwest knew when family farms were spaced every mile and survival depended upon community.

I arrived to Nairobi at approximately 9 pm Sunday night. The solar panels did not arrive with the plane. I spent two hours trying to find them, both physically walking the floor of the baggage claim area where a dozen piles containing countless lost items were scattered about. I have a sense that all airports harbor this level of misplaced baggage, just not usually on display for all to see.

I registered as much info as the baggage claim manager would take, then took a taxi to the city center at 11 pm and stayed the night in a hotel more expensive than that which I intended, my first choice booked. My attempts at negotiation were thwarted by an intellect less tired and more accustomed to midnight math.

I slept well, awoke at 6, and headed out on my own to purchase a SIM card for my recently unlocked cell phone, my desire to obtain a local Kenyan number. I learned that my phone was useless, my lack of signal in London repeated in Nairobi. An hour later, I found a ‘cell phone hacker’ a kilometer from my hotel. I traded a set of Linux CDs and 3 hamburgers for the successful upgrade to the European 900MHz range (AT&T was incorrect in their assessment of my phone’s functions, having failed to note mention the differences
between the A and B models).

I met Leonard, the Principal of the Pistis Orphanage and Academy. He and I hit it off perfectly. A wonderfully humorous and strong hearted man who assists his sister Gladys, the founder and Director of Pistis, with organization and management of the facilities, classes, and staff. On foot we crossed central Nairobi a few times in search of a geographic map of Kenya for a classroom, calling the airport baggage services every second hour to gain an update for the missing panels. No one answered. And while we found some good books for the school library, no maps made themselves available.

At 6 pm we gave up and boarded a Nissan transport designed to seat eleven, but as Leonard explained, until recent government intervention, often carried as many as twenty (apparently, a few on the outside). Having taken public transport and taxis in several countries, I was prepared for the excitement, else it would have likely been one of the more frightening rides of my life (through which Leonard slept). We zipped along the broken, heavily potted highway at daredevil velocities. How the axles remained on the vehicle is a testament to Japanese engineering and Kenyan maintenance.

We arrived in Nakuru, a city of approximately 300,000 at roughly 8:30 pm and switched taxis at a small plaza where a late-night butcher shop and restaurant with live music doubled as a taxi depot. A few minutes later we bumped up a rutted, muddy alley to the exterior wall of a dwelling compound in which Gladys and her family live. We ducked through the bright turquoise steel door-within-a-door and were immediately, warmly greeted by a portion of her immediate family.

Late night conversation was supported by chai (hot milk, water, black Kenyan tea and sugar), “Jambo” brand cookies, and steamed greens over rice. More than simply welcomed, I have been given a comfortable place in the Wakesa family home. Never in my life have I been made to feel so quickly and fully accepted. I hope only that I will repay in full the generosity, time, and care through my work at the orphanage.