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. 

It is STEEP here!

When Grandpa D and Grandma D were here over Christmas, I asked them what seemed different than what I have been portraying on the blog. The first thing they said was that they were surprised by how steep it is here.

To get an idea of the steepness, consider this part of the map of RVA. Notice that we live across the street from one of the playing fields here, which has been a lot of fun. But just because we are across the street does not mean that we are at the same elevation.

First term I helped to coach junior high boys’ soccer. When practice was over I would put on my backpack and walk over to the side of the field where there are stairs that lead up to the road.

After climbing these stairs, I would walk down the road to our driveway. Part way up our drive I would then ascend the stairs that lead up to our house.

Needless to say, I was tired by the time I got home from practice.

Here is a photo of the back of our house showing the wall that is keeping the mountain from overtaking us. It is STEEP here!

Street Ministry in Mai Mahiu

One of the great things about teaching at Rift Valley Academy is all of the opportunities just outside of our gates.  On a recent Sunday morning I hopped in a car with a group of juniors who were going down to the valley to minister to some of the children in the town of Mai Mahiu – an outing they do every Sunday morning.

We got dropped off a couple of hundred yards from the tree where the church “service” is held to walk the rest of the way and by the time we got to the tree all of us were holding the hand of a child or two with more gathered around.  The students did a great job singing a few songs with the kids, acting out a Bible story, and then just hanging out and playing games with them.  It was a lot of fun to tag along and see yet another ministry of the RVA students.  

A local pastor who went along with us.

A girl caring for her younger sibling.

These kids loved to act like they were doing karate.

Building a Rocket Stove

On Saturday I had the opportunity to head out with a small group of students to build a rocket stove for a widow in the community, something that I knew hardly anything about when the day started.  Good news for us was that a national who is on staff with RVA was going along to show us what to do. 

View from the widow's house, which was inaccessible by road.

Deforestation is a big issue here in the hills of Kijabe with people slipping into the forest to illegally cut down trees to make charcoal to sell to people who use it to cook their evening meals.  Rocket stoves are one of those win-win devices because they help reduce the pressure on the forest by consuming significantly less fuel and they also help people save money because they don't have to purchase as much charcoal.

The clay core of the stove.

What I really love about rocket stoves is how nearly all of the materials to make it are available to just about anyone.  We used dirt from the widow's yard, ash from her fire, water, and a stalk from a banana tree.  We brought sawdust with us, but we could have used dried grass.  The one critical piece that has to be purchased is the core of the stove, but it is a piece of clay and not too expensive.

Mixing all of the materials together was fun, but the real party started when we added water to make the mud.

Here is the source of water for the house.

Mixing the mud!

 After the mud base was put down, the core was set on and leveled.  The banana stalk was then put in.  Then mud was added around these two parts.  When the mud dries, the banana stalk will also dry and shrink so that it can be pulled out leaving a hole where fuel can be added when cooking.

Setting the core and the banana stalk.

Smoothing the completed stove.

The students with the final stove (the blocks on the left were the old cooking area).

While the stove is done, it will not be ready to use until it dries - about 3 weeks.  The students want to go back at that time and see the stove in action.

I told CrazyMom about how great the rocket stoves are, but for now she is still wanting to cook inside on her gas stove.

A Church Service and, Sadly, a Funeral

Two of the national workers here at RVA are heavily involved with helping to establish a church at a nearby IDP camp - a camp for people who fled for their lives in the violence that followed the December 2007 election here in Kenya.

These two guys – John and John – are remarkable and not only help with the church, but they also feed close to 200 children from the camp each Sunday.  What a privilege it was for me and a couple of others from RVA to go along with them to the IDP church one Sunday a little while back.

Church is held under a tree on the edge of a field.  When we arrived, people were emerging from the camp carrying benches and chairs.  A few others cleared the area of manure and even swept the ground with brooms made with dried grass.


As they were setting up, the children gathered together and stood in a tight group for Sunday school.  A man led a short lesson about Adam and Eve as someone else showed pictures from a picture book – the one Sunday school resource that the camp owns.

The church service started with singing and dancing and then different groups of children and adults would go to the front to sing a song.



Then the rain started.  As the rain picked up, people scrunched in tighter under the tree for some shelter.  It was a nice soft rain with no wind, which I thought added to the service.  This service was also the kickoff of a fundraising drive to erect a church building and the rain reminded everyone of why it is sometimes nice to meet inside.  (By the way, if you want to contribute to their church building, let me know and I am sure we can find a way for you to do so.)

Toward the end of the service, the rain tapered off.  As I was standing there, I happened to notice the shoes of the boy standing next to me.  Most all of the kids had shoes, but many of them were not in good shape.

After the service, the children were organized in order to feed them. Usually, hard-boiled eggs are brought and each child gets one, but today John and John tried something new and brought a large pot of beans and rice.  The children were lined up youngest to oldest to receive their portion, but the food ran out when there were about 20 of the oldest kids left.  They took the news well.  There is a strong desire to care for the youngest children, so the older kids would rather go without than for one of the younger kids to not have a meal.

The next day I was sitting in our brief daily staff meeting at RVA when I heard sad news – a young girl from the IDP camp who was at the church service died that afternoon when she was run over by a truck.  I can’t imagine the pain of a family who had to flee for their lives a few years ago to now lose their daughter tragically.  Life can be harsh, particularly here in Africa.

Water Conservation . . . is Relative

Back in America I practiced water conservation.  With nine of us living in the house, adding 1.0GPM faucet aerators to the sinks reaped immediate and large benefits.

Now that we have come to Africa, our water conservation has gone to the next level.  For example, when doing laundry we don’t just flush the water from the washing machine down the drain.  We pipe the water from the wash cycle into a barrel outside so it can be used to water plants in the yard.  The water from the rinse cycle we collect into buckets and then pour back into the washing machine when we start the next load’s wash cycle.

There are other practices here at RVA to help reduce water usage – such as the bathroom rule of “If its yellow, let it mellow; if its brown, flush it down.”  But all of these efforts pale in comparison to the water conservation of the nationals around us who have to walk a mile or two into the forest to collect water and then carry it back to their homes.  I will probably never fully grasp how much water I consume in a day because I will probably never have to carry water to my home, but living in a land where water is a precious limited resource has made me more mindful of the water that I use.