After our Thursday pleas for the last of the “map” donations, we were so flush with pledged cash (we’ll send information on how we’ll collect the funds when we get home, so watch for that!), that we wanted to get a jump on our shopping day Friday. The morning started early, with the about-a-mile walk to Village Market to get caffeinated and get going!
We made a Nakumatt (Kenya’s chain of Kmart or Fred Meyer-esque shopping emporiums) run there, purchasing the following to resupply some necessary materials for the housemothers:
1 sufuria (large cooking pot)
1 jiko (a charcoal burning stove)
2 chapati pans
12 bowls
8 cooking knives
50 melamine tea mugs
2 plastic wash basins (for laundry)
Fast forward now to the delivery of the above materials:
If ONLY Christmas morning elicited jubilation like this over each small and useful gift! Catching sight of the children helping us carry in these items, the whole group of women instantly burst into ululations and song – and the Kikuyu singing and dancing went on and on and on… Later, when Scola remarked that she couldn’t believe that we brought EXACTLY what was needed, we reminded her that we weren’t psychic… we just asked. Matching the donated funds to the necessary items was such an easy thing, and it created ecstatic results!
Back to Nairobi:
After loading Gilbert’s car with the kitchen-related booty, we went over to Westgate, a mall in another neighborhood, where we had made arrangements the prior day to order the maps at Savani’s Book Centre. The maps were there, waiting for us upon our arrival, but then we began a LONG process of working with Pardeep and Sam to fill the orders from the long list the teachers had made.
When we were done, we had purchased:
Full class sets of Science textbooks for grades 1 through 8
3 teacher’s guides for above Science textbooks
9 Kenya maps
6 East Africa maps
10 each of 9 different titles of English storybooks set in Kenya
Class sets of Encyclopedias for grades 1 – 8
5 staplers
4 boxes of staples
8 calculators
1 desk sharpener
16 copies of the primary mathematics textbook for grade 7
20 copies of the English primer for grade 5
15 copies of the REQUIRED Social Studies textbook for grade 8
2 copies each of 24 titles of Swahili storybooks for grades 1 through 8
We were giddy to deliver the goods!
When we arrived at Cura, our delivery was turned into a grateful and formal presentation led by Mrs Mwathi, flanked by the teachers who were misty-eyed with joy.
It’s impossible to overstate the number of times the word “miracle” was used in reference to the display covering the three tables they set out under a tree in the courtyard of the school. The grade 1 teacher showed us the scars on her palms, resulting in sharpening pencils with knives and razor blades – thrilled at the notion of having a desk sharpener now. “Imagine,” she said, “a professional teacher who has to find a knife from the kitchen to make sure her students can do their lessons.”
The books, though, were the star of the show – and Mrs Mwangi, one of the teachers who has been there the longest, gave the children a challenge to accompany this gift: She explained that before, they were all struggling to perform well on exams without the required texts to learn the material… but now there is no excuse. The children were assigned their textbooks and were launched, eagerly, into a heightened level of expectation.
While Greg and I shared Fantas and bread-and-butter sandwiches with Mrs Mwathi and Mrs Hinga (the deputy head teacher and extra-curricular music teacher extraordinaire), we noted the chalkboard graph on the wall indicating the exam scores over the last four years: they’ve been in decline. This is a fact Mrs Mwathi is now making public and working to bring the community’s parents and other leaders into the fold for solving the problem. We’ve connected her with our friend Bernard Mathu, formerly of Kenya’s premier high school’s administration and currently running his own school in Nanyuki, and Cura’s new Vicar is also on the team. With this kind of energy and intellect on board now, we also expect good things!
As it turned out, Friday was also an incredible day for Cura because ANOTHER group showed up to make a donation. A group of Nairobi businessmen have formed a charitable project for which they locate orphanages and schools in need and provide necessary resources. Their arrival meant 50 new wool blankets (which will go very nicely with the sheets and pillowcases recently donated by the Hilton Hotel!), bags and bags of maize meal, and various other sundries. They also left Cura with this challenge:
Any of the 5 girls who are currently in grade 8 can earn a scholarship for their secondary school fees next year IF they earn at least a 400 on their national exams at the end of the term.
This is an enormous gift, and a significant challenge. No pressure, Grace, Esther, Leah, Sarah and Anne… Except that the pressure is on!
We closed our day with promises to return (we’re heading back for a day of football and singing and prolonged goodbyes this morning) and a quick visit with Mike Eldon back in Nairobi. We reflected on all the good progress – as well as the ongoing and mounting challenges – we continue to see in Cura, and marveled at the project Evelyn started five years ago, feeling grateful to be a part of it.
-H
On Tuesday, I held a meeting in the library of all 29 children who currently participate in the Pen Pal Programme I run with Scola Nduta, my committed, reliable, capable, not-to-mention gorgeous partner in Cura. The purpose of the meeting was to explain fully to the children how the pen pal letters are sent and received, since sometimes it seems like a mystery…
They draft their letters on ancient PCs, and Scola saves the files to send via email when she can sit down with her portable modem (which we keep supplied with internet “minutes” using the donations of the pen pals on the US/west side). The children receive their letters in print form, after Scola downloads them from the emails I send her – when pen pals send photos, she has to simply show the children the screen view, though, since the printer warps the images beyond recognition.
I assured the children that the eventual goal was that they could one day communicate directly with their pen pals and others, once Cura has internet access more reliable than Scola’s trusty Safaricom USB plug-in. They were thrilled with the prospect of one day having email accounts of their own, and they were inspired to become more proficient with word-processing so they’d be ready when that day comes.
This is the kind of authentic learning we hoped to create with this program: the children learn multiple skills (keyboarding, English language, conversation, inter-cultural awareness, geography…) that are organic to the activity that engages them. What an incredible success this has been so far!
As our meeting went on, I invited the children to ask questions of me… anything they wanted. Nearly all of them wanted to know the ages of their pen pals, down to the day. This prompted my reminder that that’s a question they might ask of their pen pals in their next letters (though I answered truthfully when I could!). Some wanted to know why their pen pals asked so many questions themselves! This led to a lengthy conversation about how it’s a cultural practice in the US and in the west to use questions as an invitation to further conversation. We role-played possible responses, comparing:
Q: What is your favorite animal?
A: A giraffe.
to
Q: What is your favorite animal?
A: My favorite animal is a giraffe because its hide is a beautiful color and I once saw one nibbling from a tree. I read in a book that they have very long tongues. What is YOUR favorite animal?
This was a fun exercise, and Scola confirmed, in Kikuyu, that everyone got the gist. A room full of happily responsive “ehhhhh” affirmatives made my day!
All of this is to say that the pen pal program is not only going well, it’s growing! Many of the 29 current participants expressed interest in having a 2nd pen pal, and the teachers at the primary school expressed interest in having more of their students participate.
If you are not yet participating in the program but would like to, please let me know (hayden@curaorphanage.org) -- I’ll reply with details. The boys, especially, would love boys their own age to write to, so let me know if there are boys in your life who would like to sign on.
If you are already participating, please tell your friends… and please know that your letters are EAGERLY anticipated. Some children receive incredibly regular letters, which is thrilling… but which provides a comparison point for others whose pen pals are less prolific. The children think of you as FRIENDS – they know your names, they ask after you, they give me messages of love to pass along to you, and they want photos of you to have for themselves. You are a connection to a world beyond Cura that they can’t really even imagine right now – a way to make the rest of the world real. No pressure! ;)
At the end of the meeting, I met with each child to find out what they liked and didn’t like about how the pen pal process is going. My favorite moment was when Simon, a born performer and as optimistic a human being I’ve ever met, said: “McKenna is my pen pal and I don’t want anyone else. She writes VERY often, and she knows me. We will meet some day.”
Full disclosure: McKenna is my niece. But she IS an excellent pen pal, and she makes a kid’s day on a regular basis. You can, too!
-H
After posting my last blog and linking it to my Facebook page, we tucked ourselves in for a dvd episode of The Sopranos and an oscillating fan to even out the night noise of askaris changing shifts and traffic heating up on UN Avenue.
And while we were sleeping, the interwebs were hard at work, carrying our plea out to generous friends everywhere!
I am humbled and amazed to report today that not only have we been able to cover the cost of the maps we requested, but we have been able to order EVERYTHING on the Cura Primary School’s wish list. Pledges have varied in size, but the largest portion was one that resulted from wonderful Marte’s birthday party and her request for donations instead of gifts. That brings our total to US$1650 at the moment… far more money than we anticipated. I am deeply grateful.
I am grateful, too, to the book seller (Savani Book Center, Ltd at Westgate, for those of you in Nairobi who might be able to give him more business) we’re working with – after hearing what our purchases are for, he offered a deep discount on everything. I guess he couldn’t help but catch the fever, too!
Those who have pledged these funds can expect a complete reporting of how they will be spent, but know this for now: we can purchase ALL of the textbooks requested, ALL of the storybooks requested, ALL of the maps requested, ALL of the encyclopedias requested, ALL of the calculators requested… and we’ll even have some left over. We can’t wait to see the looks on the faces of the teachers tomorrow when we arrive with a taxi overloaded with much-needed and long-awaited materials.
Watch for photos…
H
We were invited to Moses’ house for dinner last night, and as we walked up the path, we passed the plots where his two brothers also farm and live. Moses talked about the land once belonging to his father, and about his 110 year old mother who passed away just this year. Moses and his children proudly welcomed us into their home, a permanent structure just finished this last February. It is yards away from the corrugated aluminum structures where his brothers live, and even from the structures that house his three cows (one of whom was harassing the others because she’s in heat… Moses wasn’t able to reach the vet by telephone while we were there, so he had to excuse himself to go out and wrangle his misbehaving livestock!). The life Moses has created for his family is basic but comfortable, and we gratefully ate the mukimo and cabbage we were served, while we talked about the day’s news that was broadcasting from the small television on the counter. As we walked back to the Home together, nibbling on roast maize, we could smell the cook fires of various other families who were closing out their day in a similar way.
Since we knew we’d be spending the night, I brought some glow-in-the-dark bracelets to play with before the children went to bed. Distributing them was a chaotic and noisy process, but then the courtyard was filled with neon bracelets, earrings, halos, spears… At one point several children went into a single room, turned off the lights, and managed a techno-rave with all of the day-glo blues, oranges and greens!
Many of the children were still holding on to the bookmarks we had made earlier in the day...
The stickers were a big hit, though I’m not certain whether even one of the bookmarks will ever mark a place in a novel. The children love the library and the books there, though much of even the older children’s interaction with the materials there is limited to admiring pictures. It’s something, but it would be wonderful if words could inspire them as much as pictures do!
There is a lot of learning happening here, of course – and in several languages, which is the most impressive part. The children all speak Kikuyu, their mother language, but instruction in school is in Kiswahili and in English. I sat for a bit with Henry yesterday (he’s the only child at the Home who is still in pre-primary classes, so he has a lot of free time!), and we took turns placing seeds into an upturned Frisbee, counting in both English and Swahili. The reward for his excellent mathematical and linguistic performance? Actually PLAYING Frisbee with Greg!
I notice that I’m taking fewer photos this year of the daily experience in Cura – not even of adorable Henry. I think it’s because the things I am most wanting to absorb this trip can’t be captured. This makes for a less visually interesting blog record, I realize, but if I could I would link you to: the impressive size of the spiders who also live and work here, the sound from across the playing field of the pre-primary students reciting their lessons, the press of hands and bodies as the children greet visitors (and the particular urgency of their questions about when we’ll be back), the sensory overload from hearing ones name repeated hundreds of times a day (calling for your attention, but also wrapped in a sentence in a language you don’t understand), the tug at your scalp of ten pairs of hand braiding and unbraiding your hair, the weight of the wheelbarrow that contains an enormous pot of githeri for lunch (not to mention the solid strength and balance of Grace as she maneuvers it from the kitchen to the Home, the pace of life and work that requires the older children to get up at 5am to begin their studies and keeps them busy at school until after 5pm…
It is not only the children who are working hard to improve their own lives here. The adults are in constant physical and psychological demand, doing the work to raise these 50 children while they also have families of their own. Since we’ve been here, I’ve been called to act as the librarian, a tutor, a computer tech, a security monitor, an art teacher, a financial consultant, a confidante, a storyteller… I know I fell into bed exhausted last night, and I did only a fraction of the labor the house mothers did.
Today’s mud quotient was lower than yesterday’s, which made everything seem a bit easier – planning every ingress and egress in order to minimize the muck-distribution is an intellectual challenge on its own. We accomplished other things, too, though:
--I distributed art work from the HiLife kids in Texas, which the children added to their individual collections of other masterpieces from Lockwood Elementary over the last two years;
--Greg mapped the whole Cura compound, using such high-tech instruments as graph paper and his approximately-one-yard-in-length stride;
--I met with all of the children currently participating in the pen pal program, getting feedback from them about their experiences and answering questions about their US counterparts;
--Greg launched a walk-about clean-up campaign, and he and the children filled four garbage bags with scraps and trash and recyclables from around the compound;
--We both met with the headmistress, Mrs. Mwathi, to receive the list of needed textbooks she and her faculty compiled. (We matched the education-restricted donation we recently received to a segment of the need, and we’ve got an order placed for science textbooks for ALL of the class levels. Delivery on Friday – yay!)
There were notes placed in our pockets all day, expressions of love and appreciation that are unnecessary… but incredible mementos to keep us going when we get back to the US.
For now, back in Nairobi, the next step is a shower and maybe even a martini… we’re children of our own culture, after all. Keeping the ability to be effective in both worlds is key to eventually calling our work here a success.
H
This morning, we were greeted at Cura (which, by the way, is reached by a stretch of gutted red road) by Edwin, the new vicar. He had invited us to his home to meet his family, and he instructed us to get back in our car and follow him.
Gilbert (our driver) was game, so off we went back down the rutted red road (with Cura children following, perplexed by our extremely short morning visit) and over the paved road a ways before we turned off for what seemed like AGES of maneuvering increasingly rocky and neglected terrain. It is Saturday here, so the fields we saw out our windows were filled with people hard at work, weeding and harvesting the crops they depend on for both food and income. At one point, we slowed nearly to a stop in order to let a donkey by; it was pulling a cart laden with charcoal and other commodities for the market. Gilbert chuckled under his breath, and said he was reminded of an adage: Treat a donkey well, and he will treat you well. He was filled with folksy commentary, actually, as he noted the work ethic clearly in place in this predominantly Kikuyu region. Gilbert is a Luo, a tribe that has been disgruntled, to say the least, with Kikuyus through Kenya’s history… But Gilbert thought that old resentment might be put to rest if “more Kenyans went for a drive out here and saw how Kikuyus live.”
We were, of course, eager to arrive at Edwin’s shamba to see how he and his family live… and, sure enough, Gilbert had even more to be impressed about. Edwin and Rachel, his wife, have a small plot of land that is adjacent to that of each of his brothers and his father. On this plot, they proudly keep 5 cows, 20 pigs and 250 chickens, at last count, and they and their three daughters work from 5am to milk cows, harvest eggs, prepare the day’s feed and other chores before walking the surplus to the market for some additional income.
After all of that, Edwin drives the chassis-brutalizing route to Cura to begin the morning’s duties in the parish office, observing, learning about and responding to the concerns of his “flock.”
Not being Anglicans ourselves, we weren’t sure what to expect from Edwin in terms of his observations about Cura and/or his commentary about how to address its challenges. After today, even Gilbert was happy to have sustained ample wear and tear to his taxi in order to hear Edwin talk in such measured, creative and energetic terms about how he can make a meaningful impact on the community there. He spoke about the particular challenge of integrating the various generations into the common and substantial work of the community. He commended Moses and his generation for being the caretakers, and he recognized the young people as the future workforce and leadership of the area. He wondered, though, where the adults between the ages of 25 and 40 had gone… Some have died prematurely (hence, the orphanage!), but, as he says “we have not put every one in the ground as of yet.” He takes as his personal focus the closing of this gap: bringing what adults still hover around Cura into partnership with the young and the old so that the solutions to Cura’s problems are shared by a group of people who can sustain each other into the future. We look forward to tracking his success!
Once we said our thank yous and goodbyes to the Kinyanjuis, we made our way back down and then back up the red roads between there and Cura… and got back in time to spend the afternoon variously playing games, making art projects and taking care of some administrative business. 
Scola, my partner in the pen pal program and the computer lab instructor, helped us manage the children rotating through the art and photography stations, while Grace (one of the house mothers) led singing and dancing and still found time to serve us a heaping plate of ugali and sukuma wiki. Delicious and filling!
The day was chaotic and demanding: those of us with children at home know what it can be like to be on call for every need throughout the day – and imagine that times 50! Though the children are self-sufficient and have plenty of care throughout the day, they were also excited to show us the new skills they had acquired (bicycles, bicycles, bicycles), make plans for when we come back on Monday (pen pal letter-writing, another art project, a shamba walk, and more) and generally get us caught up on what they need (Stephen wants a pen pal that will write more often; Sharon wants a scrunchy to finish off the braid she put in my hair; Minnet just wants Norman to come back, in the worst way; Naomi wants more paper and pens to draw her flowers in peace and quiet; Grace wants to get good enough marks on her final exams to earn a place in a prestigious Nairobi secondary school; Simon wants to become an even better dancer; Minne really wants to be excused from Sunday school… ).
Asking questions and listening to the children was the major focus of the day, and the afternoon passed swiftly! By the time we sat with Scola (my pen pal program partner) for sweet, black tea and hot, fresh chapati, we were exhausted!
I left amid reassurances that we’d be back on Monday, and that I’d have another craft project to do together (it’s bookmarks… don’t tell!). I also left with two small treasures: gifts from Esther and Grace that were so beautifully wrapped that I waited until I got back to Nairobi to open the packages so that I could photograph them before I ruined them in the unwrapping.
H
Yassi and I lingered over our dinner last night, talking about Cura, our respective relationships to the children, the leadership and the projects, and what we each anticipate in the coming years. Connecting with Yassi is always crucial for my work; it is even more crucial for the children in the Home, as she is as dedicated a mother-figure as anyone, crafting games and activities that inspire the children to be the best versions of themselves. This is easy for me to say, however, over my dim sum and papaya salad, my hair still wet from my hot shower!
Today’s meetings, like those over the past few days, covered a wide range of topics, but one, in particular, emerged as paramount: WATER. How to pay for it, how to get it, how to distribute it, how to live without it… The Cura community (separate from but overlapping with our work with the Home) has an outstanding utility bill that must be satisfied before any meaningful solution can be reached, and that obstacle is weighing heavily on everyone’s minds. Because there’s no readily available water (rain is collected, but what if it doesn’t rain??), Moses sometimes has to have water delivered – for washing, for drinking, for irrigation – and both the expense and the rationing have negative impacts on the Home.
Despite the water problems, the housemothers and Moses continue to do their best for and with the children. They build the healthiest menus they can within the allotted budget:
And they even generously share their meals with us when we visit. Today, we were greeted with chai and fresh eggs from the chicken coop only yards from where we sat. For lunch, we had githeri… a treat for us, but a starchy twice-a-week lunch staple for the children.
Headmistress Mrs Mwathi and the Cura Primary School teachers, too, continue to make do with what resources they have. Our meeting today mentioned but didn’t focus on water; we discussed the need for textbooks to meet the new requirements from the Kenyan Ministry of Education, in social studies, in particular… as well as the ongoing difficulties many of the community’s children face in even being able to afford to bring lunch to school.
With water and food and educational basics weighing heavily on us, it was an indescribable pleasure to get to see the children recite poetry and perform the music they’ve been working on. We know how valuable this kind of supplemental education is for children’s development, and, as in the US, most of the work staff and faculty do is unpaid and for the love of the children involved. For her efforts, we are deeply grateful to Mrs. Hinga, with whom we hope to develop more programs for music and dance education in Cura.
Clearly, the infrastructural challenges in Cura are many and mounting, though progress and hope are still in ample evidence. The eight housemothers, with whom we met today, gathered in their kitchen and surrounded by cook stoves and metal pots, can make a long list of needs – but they also smile when they speak of the children’s progress in school, their good health, and their good behavior. They are proud of the work they do – as they should be.
--H
After two or three wrong turns (perhaps our sense of direction was dampened by the rain?) we arrived in Cura to be greeted warmly, as usual, by Moses and his right-hand-man Steven. Hannah served us chai and cakes, according to Kikuyu custom which, according to Moses, requires that one not ask a guest a single question until he has been served some “small bitings.” Once those bitings were served, however, the questions were volleyed from all directions!
Our conversation lasted us until lunchtime, and ranged from the state of Norman’s (the cow) milk production to the cost of water to the plans for the secondary school to the newest members of the Cura community: the headmistress and the vicar.
As if on cue, the new vicar, a tall, slender, impeccably dressed man, walked in to the office and Moses made introductions. More formalities ensued, as did some excellent brainstorming about accounting and vision and community leadership. It was gratifying to speak with people who are so thoughtful about the methods with which they meet the needs of the children, the broader community and even the donors and volunteers who have linked themselves with their work in Cura.
As we talked about the work that has been done as a result of donor dollars so far, we got to visit the Clinic’s nurse and lab technician, inspect the computer lab and library, and even say hello to Norman, Anita (the calf!), and the many chickens and rabbits that now reside in the Cura Orphanage compound.
We’ll have more time with the children at Cura in the upcoming week or so (today we only saw several peeking around the corner of the office, confirming with their own eyes that the rumors of our return were true!), but we have more meetings-of-the-mind in store for the near future.
We’ll meet the new headmistress on Friday, for example, and we’ll get to chat with all of the housemothers that same day over the lunch hour. We’ve met with the men today… we’ll see next what the influential women of Cura have to say!
We left Seattle on Friday morning, 17 June, and drove as far as Redding, CA – the half way mark to LA. On Saturday, we completed the I5 portion of the journey, winding up in Pasadena, where we could regroup, repack and prepare for our next steps.
On Sunday morning, we met with current and future Creative Visions and Cura Orphanage luminaries…
Talking through potential plans for a choral arts program to connect Cura’s children to choirs in the US and elsewhere, as well as about the current status of the plans for the secondary school. Kathy and Amy gave the gathering the usual energy and hospitality, Jon provided perspective and comic timing, Grace set the framework for our financial progress, and we were even lucky enough to have Mike there to provide context and up-to-the-minute commentary about developments in Cura.
Greg and I left inspired, energized, and armed with a substantial to-do list!
It was tough to leave Malibu and its obvious charms, but we tore ourselves away and got to the airport in plenty of time to address the Virgin Atlantic’s various challenges. By take-off at 9pm, the in-flight entertainment helped drown out our chattier neighbors and lull us to sleep.
Arrival in London marked the half way point, and then we had yet another overnight flight into Nairobi… where we’ve now safely arrived and settled in at the New York Times Bureau office.
An hour on the road in the morning will deliver us to our eagerly-anticipated destination and get us started on the work that brings us all the way across the globe.
Worth it.
-H
June and July are beautiful times to be in Kenya, and if you book early, you may be able to take advantage of lower season rates. Please let me know if a safari to Cura might be in the cards for you this year, and thank you for your ongoing support of the children of Cura!
-H
