Warning: Road Hazard Ahead

I heard a cry, muffled by the nightly Kijabe wind, as I was walking back to my house.  I turned and saw someone lying on the road in a heap about 25 yards behind me.  It was CrazyMom.  She had just tripped over a rock embedded in the road and broken her hand . . . and it was the eve of the first day of school.

My father and I had just returned from Nairobi after a 10 hour excursion to collect a few remaining students from the airport.  After a stressful drive back to RVA in the dark, we had parked the school van and were heading back to the house when CrazyMom, returning from helping out in a dorm, saw us.  In running to catch up, she tripped and fell.  Dad and I had survived our road hazards that night without injury; CrazyMom had not.  CrazyMom’s fall has caused me to reflect on the many road hazards we have seen over the last year in Kenya.

The first road hazard to be aware of are the matatus.  These vehicles, just a bit larger than a mini-van, are the backbone of the public transportation here in Kenya and with the vast majority of the population not able to own a car, they are everywhere.  The reason that they are a road hazard is that it is costly for a matatu owner to take their car off a route for a couple of days to fix it up and then get the yearly inspection done.  It is cheaper to pay a bribe for the inspection and keep the vehicle on the road.  Yesterday (Friday) the brakes on a matatu failed as it was coming down the mountain to Kijabe.  It rolled - but thankfully not off a cliff - and sent many of its passengers to the hospital, including at least one of the national workers here at RVA.

One also has to watch for animals on the roads.  There is the standard herd-in-the-middle-of-the-road hazard, but also donkeys that won't budge even after you bump them with the front of your car.  Even more dangerous are the goats that get startled and dash out in front of a car.  If you hit one, since you are rich enough to own a car it is automatically your fault and you will have to negotiate payment with the owner.

Then there are people everywhere.  I will be driving along the highway at night passing people who are between my car and the concrete divider in the middle of the highway.  People will be carrying all sorts of goods, pushing wheelbarrows and pulling carts, and walking on the roads in heavy traffic.  It is dangerous and as a driver, it keeps you on constant high alert.

The boda-bodas (motorcycles) on the road carry people and goods where matatus can’t go.  They drive any direction they want on a road and often are overloaded with people, couches, wood, and, yes, even cows.

Sleeping policemen (speed bumps) are a big hazard as well.  They are almost never marked and occur even on major roads.  In our first month in Africa a woman with us received a concussion from hitting her head on the roof of the car when the driver did not notice the sleeping policeman in time.  I hit one hard enough that we had to pull over and check the car for damage.  If only they were marked . . . .

Fog and dust.  At our elevation, fog sets in on a regular basis and gets so thick that it is hard to see anything.  It's hard to know whether to slow down so you don't hit somebody or keep going so you don't get hit. Then down in the valley there are dust storms that block the view.

When driving in the valley, there are places where the road has dropped anywhere from a foot to 15 feet.  The driving speed is  usually slow enough that there is not much danger of falling in, but I always wonder if I will be on a road when it collapses.  The previous owner of my car had a road collapse below the car.  A group of people came and picked up the car by hand and set it on firm ground.

Rocks in the road, mud, accidents, oncoming trucks in your lane (although the photo is of us in the lane of the truck) and much more is the reason why, after getting everybody in the car, we pray before we set out to go somewhere.  We are thankful that at the end of a year in Africa our only road accident was not involving a car, but rather simply tripping on a rock in the road.

Impressions of Africa - Reflections on our first year in Africa

A local market.

There are several overarching impressions from life in Africa.  One is that life here is raw.  In America, we teach our kids that the meat in cellophane packages comes from animals, like a cow or a pig.  Here, such things are self evident, for you see the animal hanging on the hook.  On a deeper level, hunger, illness, and death are ever before you and a part of the natural fabric of life, which also makes life here feel raw.

Another impression is how almost everything is done via personal connections. Consider getting food for our family.  Sheri’s cellphone is full of connections.  She calls Freda to see if she will bake us some English muffins, Alice to see if she will bring us strawberries, Njoki to see if she can get some salted butter, John for milk from his cow, Peter for a run to Nairobi on his motor bike to get chicken breasts, and Esther to see if she can come to our house to make bagels.  When there is an issue, people pull out their cell phones and scroll through their contacts to see who they know that can help sort things out.  And in times of need in a land where the common person does not have a savings account or medical insurance, this contact list – your community – is your lifeline.

A woman hauling water home in the rain and mud.

People here are up to the challenge of a difficult life.  If I had arrived at RVA and they told me the house that they had for me was an hour walk from the school and it is fine that I did not have a car, I would have refused to accept this as a workable situation and would have expected a change or packed my bags and gone home.  Obviously one can’t expect me and all of my children to walk an hour to school, particularly in mud and rain, and yet many of the national workers at RVA walk even further and count it a blessing to have such a good job.  The Kenyan people are strong and ready to take on the challenges of daily life here.

Things I Have Seen - Reflections on our first year in Africa

I have seen children dancing with laughter and I have seen children with the lethargy of hunger.

I have see lush forests teeming with life and I have seen the smoke rising from charcoal burners illegally harvesting the forests and the dry expanse that follows.

Lunch in the Masaai Mara

I have seen people drinking clean sweet water drawn from mountaintop wells and I have seen people drawing water from murky pools.

I have seen lunch served to me on the glorious expanse of the Masaai Mara and I have seen chai served to me in homes where all of our knees touched when we sat down.

I have seen majestic sunsets from a remote island in Lake Victoria and I have seen unplanned roadside landfills where people just start dumping their trash.

Sunset over Lake Victoria

I have seen missionaries so full of vigor and gumption and I have seen other missionaries tired and weary from the work at hand.

I have seen majestic vistas while reclining on a bed and I have seen bats flying in my room with rats scurrying about.

I have seen fields heavy with their harvest and I have seen the fine dust of a dry and weary land.

I have seen unwarranted generosity toward me from strangers and I have seen people I know steal from me.

A home in the IDP camp.

I have seen my students be robust as they move effortlessly between cultures and I have seen my students be fragile as they sojourn in a world where they have no place to call home.

I have seen people living a life of privilege and I have seen people living in squalor after being driven from their homes by violence.

I have seen things that have caused me to say, “Where is God? I don’t understand,” and I have seen the undeniable and mighty hand of God at work.

Some things stay the same – our 20th wedding anniversary

“Wait!  I bet I have those pictures with me,” I was saying.  CrayzMom and I were on a two-night getaway to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and as we were reminiscing about anniversaries gone by, I realized that I had every photo I had ever taken on my laptop.  As I went to get my laptop it occurred to me that this was one of the many side benefits of moving to Africa – you digitize everything you can.

As we looked through photos from the past, we realized that the self-timer photo we had taken of ourselves earlier that day had been done before - even with us in the same order.  While some things change over the years, some things stay the same.

Year 0: Honeymoon in the Grand Tetons, Wyoming

Year 10: Hocking Hills, Ohio

Year 20: Naivasha, Kenya

The Kijabe Mudslide

Part of the mountain above our home that gave way.

Prior to April 27th, 2013, if I heard the word mudslide I would have first thought of a hillside at a church camp covered with hoses and a bunch of young people sliding down and having a lot of fun.

Those images in my mind have been replaced with different images now.

During the early morning hours of April 27th, after 5.5 inches of rain in a two-hour span, part of the mountain above our home gave way and came crashing down.  It was just one of multiple mudslides that took place that night in our area, sweeping away trees, buildings, water lines, and even the lives of three young girls sleeping in their beds – a tragedy that is still felt deeply here in our area.

The son's room and the headboard of his bed.

The slide that started above our home threaded the needle between the two homes just above us.  One house was that of our RVA neighbors who had mud flow into their yard and the other house was that of our Kenyan neighbors who had mud flow through an outbuilding where their adult son was sleeping.  When the mud entered his room from the back it flowed against the door at the front so it could not be opened.  Trapped inside, he started yelling for help and his father came running from the main house to wrestle off the walls so his son could get out.  The mudslide then swept away the security fence on one side of campus and passed about 25 yards from our house and on down the road toward Kijabe.

Looking from the Kenyan home across the mudslide to the RVA home.

The mudslide between the two homes.

The one lane road, cliff, and tunnel.

There was plenty of other destruction in our area, like the earth giving away right up to the edge of the main road coming into Kijabe.  The edge of the pavement is now a cliff and rocks have been set there to keep cars from falling off, but they also make it a one-way road where people hug the mountain as they drive by – until they meet another car at which point someone has to carefully drive backwards to get out of the one-way section so the other car can pass.  I should point out that when you back up you either have to back up going uphill through a one lane tunnel or downhill along the cliff.  Extreme care is needed in both cases.  No work has been done on the road since it happened and we don’t have any idea when it will be fixed.

Busted hospital water pipes.

The mudslides took out water to our area, but fortunately RVA has its own bore hole.  We immediately went on severe water restrictions so we would have enough water to share with the hospital and the surrounding community.  RVA opened up a water tap just outside our gate for the community and there was a line of people at it for days as they came to fill jugs of water to carry back to their homes.

People have been predicting mudslides in our area for a while now due to the pressure on the forests from people cutting down trees to make charcoal for cooking.  This event will hopefully help to bring resolve in the community to do all that it can to protect the remaining forests.

As some time has passed since the slide, the word mudslide conjures up more than just images of destruction in my head.  It also causes me to think of the resiliency of people living in community that band together to help each other in a time of need.  May God bless the people of Kijabe and strengthen their hands as we all continue to heal from this event.

A Bad Jembe

My bad jembe that can't dig a proper hole.

“It is OK,” said Pastor John trying to make me feel better about the fact that I had just dug a hole for a tree that did not meet his standards.  “It must be your jembe.”

Must be my jembe?  I smiled.

I had heard about this cultural difference, but had not seen it on such vivid display yet.  Here in Kenya, personal responsibility is often not assigned to someone when something goes wrong.  In America, if a friend is at your house and drops a plate and it shatters to pieces, we know they did it and it is their fault, but we try to make them feel better by saying something like:

“Don’t worry about breaking the plate.  That plate had a chip in it anyway and I was going to throw it out.”

Here you would not say such a thing because your friend did not break the plate - the floor did.

So there I was on the mountainside with 10 RVA students and a local pastor planting trees.  When Pastor John saw the hole I had just dug, he thought there should have been more loose dirt in the bottom of the hole.  He asked for a different jembe and did a bit more digging while saying:

“It is OK.  It must be your jembe.”

Why I Don’t Have Dry Pants

“Argh!”

 A helpless feeling washes over you when you hear the rain on the roof and realize that the laundry is still on the line.  What makes it worse is that you know that it could be days before there is a dry spell long enough for the laundry to dry.  That bright sunshine that you thought would last just an hour ago has betrayed you once again.

 If you are a small family, a dry day here and there is probably enough to get the laundry done, but for the nine of us, these sporadic dry spells were insufficient.


This is what led us to string lines in our attic.  A seemingly perfect solution until our clothes started developing holes in them.


This is what led us to borrow a hand made mouse trap from a woman at a local duka (store).

This is what led to the capture of our chief foe.

And that is what led to me having dry pants once again.

The Blessing of a Car

“Will you give these guys a ride?” Martha was saying as she was getting out of the car.  My new friend Martha had flagged me down a few kilometers back as I was driving down the mountain on my first drive in the vehicle we were purchasing.  It would be hard to convince the guys along the roadside that I don’t stop to pick up people when someone I had just stopped to pick up was getting out of my car, so I said, “Sure.”

The two guys got in.  I didn’t ask where they were going at first since there was only one road.  The only question to be asked at some point was how far they were going.

“So you are from RVA?” the older one sitting up front with me asked.

“Yeah,” I said.  There was no hiding that fact since there was an RVA gate pass on the front windshield.

He looked at me a bit warily.

“But you are driving Mr. Jones’ car,” he said not turning his gaze from me.

There are no secrets in Kijabe.

I explained to him that I was buying the car from the Jones’ and I must have been believable since he seemed to relax.

It turns out that both of my passengers have worked for years in the laundry at RVA.

When I asked him where he was going he said, “Mai Mahiu.”

“That is a long walk,” I said, and they told me it takes them about 2 hours to walk down the mountain to their homes at night and an hour or so longer to walk up in the morning.  Now that is a long commute.

When we got to Mai Mahiu in the valley one guy got out and I offered to drive the other one to his home.  After a few more kilometers we came to his house.  He is just six months from retiring and he invited me into his compound to see the home he had been working on for the last nine years.  While it is not done yet, he has laid every stone by hand with loving care and was full of pride as he showed me around.

Our new-22-year-old car turned out to be a blessing for both of us that day in what I hope will be the first of many more opportunities to help over the years.  Even though the car is old, the chief mechanic here at RVA has told us, “This is a good one,” and a good one it has proven to be so far.

Momentarily Forgotten

“So, tell me about how you guys came to adopt,” a student asked me as I sat in the baby room of an orphanage (Amani Baby Cottage) in Jinja, Uganda.  I was on a student trip with 20 Rift Valley Academy students to Uganda and on the agenda for this morning was a visit to a local orphanage.

It had been a long time since I had hung out in an orphanage.  The heat, the smells, and the children at my feet brought back a flood of vivid memories and I had to excuse myself from the room as I was overcome with emotion.  Even living in Africa and serving at an MK school, I had somehow insulated myself for a few months from the plight of children around the world.  This morning was reminding me afresh of that plight and that I must keep it in the forefront of my mind.

Here are a few photos from the day.

Plenty of babies to go around.  Some of our group each holding a child.

 This is the main building of the orphanage which is new.  The second floor is still under construction.

 Miss Bookworm and a friend spending time with with a new arrival that was five days old.

 Most of the kids wanted to run and play.  This little guy found a friendly lap and just wanted to spend the whole time being held.

 Miss Bookworm giving wheelbarrow rides.

 I think you can spot who the trouble maker might be.  :-)  They take the shirts off of these boys when they sit down to eat and then put them back on when they are done.  A very wise move.

Bats, Rats, and a Bed

This boat carried over 25 people and their gear!

My room, the storeroom, and the kitchen.

“All of you will be sleeping here in this building, except for the teacher.  He will be sleeping in a room next to the kitchen,” our host was explaining.

After a two hour boat ride on a vessel I thought might sink, I had arrived on a remote island in Lake Victoria with a group of students from RVA.  We were to be there for a couple of nights doing a service project.

“Sweet,” was my first thought.  On an island with no running water or electricity, a private room next to a kitchen was sounding pretty good.

Little did I know.

The local pastor led me to another building that housed the kitchen, a storeroom, and a room where they had set up a bed for me.  When he opened the door, a wave of heat rolled out of the room.

The heaters (I mean stoves).

“It can get a little hot in here,” he said.  He should know.  He used to live in this room with his family.  The walls didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, so when the cooks have been using the coal burning stove in the kitchen, the heat flows into this room.  It may have been hot, but at least it smelled good, I thought, and I got ready for bed being sure to snugly tuck in the mosquito net.

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.

A few of my bat friends.

As I lay there sweating, I heard the swooshing of bats flying around in the room.  They had come out of the rafters above and were flying around having their evening meal.  I felt good about the development because I knew we were in a malaria area and I figured the fewer the mosquitos, the better.

Then came the rats.  They were crawling out of the walls, scurrying around on top of the walls to the storeroom, then dropping down into the storeroom for supper.  I have no idea how many of them there were, but it sure sounded like a lot.  I had my flashlight with me, but I decided it would be better for me not to look.

The rats dinning room.

WOOSH, SQUEAK, Squeak, squeak.

I heard a noise that instantly took me back to my 9th grade science class.  A missionary kid was dangling a frantic rat by his tail with one hand and holding the tail of his pet python with the other.  The python was trying hard to get to the rat but his slithering got him nowhere since he was being held by his tail.  Then the kid let go of the snake’s tail and I heard:

WOOSH, SQUEAK, Squeak, squeak.

Each successive squeak of the rat got softer as the snake squeezed the life out of him.

Lying on the bed that night, I tried to put a positive spin on things.  “At least there is one less rat,” I thought.

The next day I was talking with the pastor and I brought up the rats. 

“Ah, yes.  The rats,” he said.  “They live in the walls.  We were wondering how the teacher would be with the rats.”

“Not a problem,” I said.  I did not want to complain since I knew he used to live in that room with the rats and his family.

Later in the day I overheard the pastor talking to the people in the kitchen.

“The teacher is fine with the rats,” he said proudly.  “He is used to rats.”

I felt no need to correct the misunderstanding.  Their life on the island involved rats and there seemed to be an appreciation that I was OK with that.

I did, however, move my bed over a few feet the next night so that the bat droppings fell onto the floor and not my bed . . .

Bat droppings on my bedroom floor.

It should be noted that when you ask students about the highlight of the trip to Uganda, many of them will say that it was the trip to the island.  It was the highlight of the trip for me as well.  Any discomfort with the sleeping arrangements paled in comparison to the privilege it was to be hosted by the missionaries on the island and to be able to see firsthand the work that is going on there.  The experiences that take me the farthest out of my comfort zone are often the experiences that bring me the most comfort.