Observations on life…the messy, the chaotic, the beautiful
My hair is more beautiful than ever after all that love it received yesterday. 😊
In a few moments we are off to meet Joseph. 🎊
The food here in Kenya is so wonderful. But the thing is it is important to finish your plate. My problem is that I want to try a little of everything & by the time I have a little of everything on my plate it looks like this! my new favorites are mandazi & sorghum porridge. ❤️
The thing about the children here is they are so open and accepting. We are a novelty. Our skin. Our hair. Today I was surrounded by all these sweet faces, little uniformed people. Then their hands begin to reach out, touching my skin, my hair. Soon I let them take my hair out of its braid and several little hands were in my hair, braiding it, twisting it. The delight was absolutely mutual. Everyone kept saying oh, your hair, it’s going to be so knotted! but the fact is I did my hair just for these kids today because I know they are fascinated by it. It is for them & I welcomed their little hands all over & in it. It is all so much ❤️.
Today was what Sunday should be. A relaxed breakfast before we headed to a local church affiliated with Compassion to worship. Poor Q was not used to a two hour service since our Catholic mass is typically one hour. And most of it was in Swahili although the pastor tried to accommodate us by reading the gospel and giving the homily in English which his co-pastor then translated into Swahili. Again, a beautiful welcome.
After the church service and lovely outdoor reception we went to a restaurant on Lake Victoria. Same healthy local fare, different setting.
And then we got to go on a boat ride! It was supposed to be a double decker but in Africa you have to stay flexible. We ended up taking turns on a regular pontoon and water bus (like a cross between a rowboat and canoe, wooden, but motorized). The water was super rough and though fresh water it is home to crocodiles, hippos and water snakes! We got a bit splashed but fortunately did not capsize!
Now a little about Compassion. It was founded by Everett Swanson (I think I may have misspoken earlier…like I said, this trip is educating me!) as a minister to 35 South Korean children in 1952. The name arises from this Bible verse in Mathew 15:32NIV:
Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.””
Tonight we got to hear a young man share his story and it is amazing. Please check out this link. https://youtu.be/DH8dm_AIiwM
It is short but inspiring. This Kenyan has been with us on this journey all week and has impressed me so much by his gracious manners, ease of public speaking and ability to make all of us feel at home. In fact, a phrase you hear over and over here is kirabu, which means, in different contexts, “you’re welcome” or “feel welcome.”
Please visit https://www.compassion.com/history.htm for more inspiration.
Tomorrow we leave our sweet hotel in Kisumu after visiting one more child development center, this one in the nearby slums, and return to Nairobi.
On Tuesday we meet Joseph!!!
We received another beautiful warm welcome at one of the child development centers today.
I have also been so impressed by our group leader. She has such a humble heart and is so wise. She has so many life-changing stories to share and has traveled all over. We are in very good hands.
The church we visited today had planned such a lovely reception for us. They had never before had sponsors visit and were very excited. The children are eager to reach out their hands for a shake or high five. We got to do crafts and sing songs in the classrooms with them and play games (volleyball, jump rope and others) in the sports field.
You should see the food they feed us! So fresh and healthy! I love all the vegetables and fruits and of course at every meal ugali, rice or pilau, chapati, kale. I learned the Kenyan way is to clean your plate. 😋Also today at breakfast we had steamed pumpkin and I have developed a fancy for the sorghum porridge. And we are always served tea & mandazi bread.
And everywhere always is the smell of wood fires.
We visited a child’s home and again I was impressed by the industry of the family, especially the mom who is a trader and expressed her desire to become a large scale trader. Beautiful family. Beautiful country and people.
Today we visited a center that not only runs a school (from 3-4 year olds up through grade 4) but also has a health and wellness program for expectant moms and their babies. Such impressive work.
We again received a very warm welcome and got to see the children in their classrooms and some sung to us.
They loved posing for photos and liked to touch our skin and my hair because we were their first pale visitors.
After lunch with our hosts at the center…ugali; fried tilapia tails; chapati; rice & kale (and there is always chicken which I do not eat but I love everything else we’ve been eating here, we visited the home of one of the babies being helped through the center. The home was impressive for the area, tidy and well built, with several outbuildings on 3 acres. The family has 8 children. They graciously showed us their fields of sweet potatoes and maize and taught us how to weed. We even learned how to make ugali, a traditional and ubiquitous dish, over the open fire. The mom also sells charcoal and the family grows and sells saplings to be used in home construction. I was impressed by their industriousness.
We had such a full day. Left Nairobi at 5 am for our short flight to Kisumu. I had been too excited to sleep well overnight so fell asleep promptly on the plane and awoken sunrise to this…
Ah, Kisumu is all rolling green hills. The Africa I imagined. Alongside the natural beauty, there is the chaotic joyfulness of women dressed in heels riding on the backs of motorcycles, the smell of cars about to burn up…
Checked into our iconic hotel complete with mosquito net.
After breakfast we piled into our van & headed out to a Compassion Center. On the way we passed through the city center and market stalls. Borrowed from its British heritage, almost every little business is titled “Ltd.” or “Enterprise.”
Then this incredibly bumpy stretch of road. We passed cows and goats and children waving to us from the schoolyard and lots and lots of motor bikes.
The welcome we received at the Center and the church worship service that followed were so moving that I completely lost it. Fortunately Q was sitting a few rows back among the locals. He’s been a trooper, taking it all in stride, but I know from the comments he’s made that it is all giving him lots to think about. And me too. I have never seen such abject lack …and yet these people appear as far from lacking as could be. They more than make up for their lack of material possessions with their abounding love and friendliness and deep deep faith. And likewise the people along on the trip with me are extremely well traveled and compassionate, some sponsoring as many as 12 children!
The home we were invited to visit was mud floored, three roomed (one for mom, dad & baby; one for the other 5 children; and one for the cow). They do all their cooking over an outdoor fire pit. The little girl was in need of a sponsor and by the end of the visit one of the girls from our group had signed on.
Oh, and today was my first time using a pit latrine!
Ethiopian Airlines fed us so well across the time zones… I feel like we covered all three meals in each! And then ate again upon arrival at our hotel in Nairobi! The children filling the plane were magnificent, wandering up and down the aisles to expend their energy, one little girl handing me a page from a magazine displaying pretty colors of lipstick & telling me I should buy them.
I couldn’t see much of the sunrise over Addis from my west side aisle seat but the airport was buzzing with all kinds of people from everywhere, wearing so many types of clothing and speaking so many languages, as we made our connection into Nairobi.
After our respite here our early morning flight will take us to our Kenyan base.
I have Beryl Markham, female pilot who was the first to make a nonstop transatlantic solo flight east to west. She grew up in Kenya and was also an accomplished horse trainer. A long time ago I read her autobiography West with the Night and more recently my book club read Circling the Sun, a biography of her. Both books contain so much description of Africa’s natural beauty, history, people, and I am excited to experience it for myself.
Popped into the National Portrait Gallery yesterday. Now boarding our international leg with our Compassion group.
So I realize you’re not supposed to tell people when you’re leaving town but for the sake of sharing our adventures I threw caution to the wind so please nobody try to break in while I’m away. I took everything good with me anyway! 😅And of course…if I didn’t say…my house will be Airbnb occupied while we’re away. That was a whole other project getting it ready, along with packing! But we got it done & made it to DC, our domestic destination & meeting spot with our travel group. We’ll meet up with them in the morning at the airport.
I am glad that (1) it is not as freezing❄️ as it can be here at times because coming from Southwest Florida & packing for our equatorial destination it actually a Never once crossed my mind to pack a coat! And (2) my intrepid travel companion is such a trooper who wanted to explore a little. So here we are in the middle of the city eating our dinner at Shake Shack (another reason I love him – he is a cheap date!) & heading to the National Portrait Gallery because we like to pack life full.
Get a load of my suitcase! I have never packed so much in my life! This bugger is full of like 3 articles of clothing for me & bags of toys and clothes and household items for our soon to be new friends. And of course there will be lots of room for shopping! 🛍
I cannot believe our trip is here! I’ve spent all yesterday & today obtaining & packing our items for the children at the Compassion Center & our things for the trip. My son’s dad just dropped him off & now he is packing…finally! I am not allowed to pack for him! Unfortunately the dad rushed the other 4 kiddos off to the girlfriend’s so I had about a whole 5 minutes with them even though I won’t see them for 2 whole weeks! Heartbreaking & maddening but I have to focus on he positive!
So here it is…we are going to get to meet Joseph! I cannot even believe it! So I’m pretty sure I said this already but our family started sponsoring Joseph back in my former lifetime when I was living in my dream house in Denver with my two oldest boys. Before I began homeschooling. Before we moved to Naples. Before my husband at the time, dad to my five kiddos, experienced some kind of mid life crisis that resulted in him dropping out of his career, acquiring a girlfriend & moving his family of 7 from a 7 bedroom house to a 3 bedroom apartment. Before I resumed practicing law. Before I learned to be independent & fight for my kids to have the right values. Before my kids’ dad told me he wasn’t going to support Joseph anymore & I took it on myself along with supporting my five kids singlehandedly without a dose of alimony, because I believe in commitment & believe in an infinite universe that provides what we need when we have good intentions and work hard.
Tangent or background? I guess if you are still reading you found it to be an acceptable form of one or the other.
So here is Joseph through the years. He has a file along with my 5 babies & it is stuffed with all the precious letters he’s written us through the last 12 years!
So my friend Amy has recommended I read Too Small to Ignore by Wess Stafford who began Compassion. I was inspired to sponsor a child and wanted someone who my oldest son could grow up with. Joseph was 4, one year older than Q at the time. Now they are 14 & 15! I am so excited for them to meet! I think it will be so eye opening for my Q who is growing up here in our Naples bubble. And a good time for us as mom and son. He will miss two weeks of school but all of his teachers recognize that this is going to be a true education.
Notes From Real Life