Apollo's Hammer

Days 7-9: June 1st-3rd, Limuru and Jikaze, Kenya. From Sharon (this was such an incredible experience and I feel like we both have things we want to say about it, so we're both posting about these days. Apologies for the overlap in giving the background and agenda, but hopefully it will still be worth reading!)

Tuesday we woke up late, decided we didn't have time to get see the elephant orphanage before leaving and settled into a big breakfast and early afternoon of reading and relaxing before we needed to head down to the matatu to go to Eric's friend's Joe's place, where we'll be spending the next couple of days (yes, so we basically did nothing until 2pm. Hey, we're in Africa, we do what we want). It turned out to be a great decision because we saw 1) monkeys in Eric's backyard. In the trees. Real, live, wild monkeys. 9-10 of them. Just hanging out, eating leaves, urinating. You know, the things monkeys do. and 2) what we gathered was a wedding procession starting from Eric's compound. Which apparently in Kenya consists of dressing up, getting in your car with all your friends, and honking as you roll through the compound. (Nice Kenyan lady as we walked out of the house:"oh hello, sorry for the disturbance." NB: Kenyans like the word disturb and all variations of it). We successfully got downtown on matatu number 1 and caught the Limuru express matatu without any real problems. I got to sit in the front, which was awesome because it feels less crowded and I got some good views of the countryside we passed through. Lots of fields, more Kenyans walking along the highways (people seriously walk everywhere here -- for miles and miles and miles), donkeys pulling carts, little boys herding cattle and goats, getting stopped by the police, you know, a normal day in the life.

When we arrived in Limuru, we called Joe to come pick us up. Joe is a friend of Eric's who works with a small non-profit called Global Connections. They fully fund the Limuru Children's Center, which is part orphanage/children's home part nursery/primary school. Joe specifically has also been doing a lot of work with Jikaze, which is a small community located in the Rift Valley (mindblowingly beautiful and expansive...runs all the way to Jordan). Jikaze was founded by a group of IDP's -- internally displaced persons, who lost or had to flee their homes during the violence following the presidential election at the end of 2007. It's an interesting (and by interesting, I mean, sad) story that I encourage everyone to read up on, but the basic gist of it is: the presidential candidate (and incumbent) from the majority tribe, the Kikuyu, appeared to be losing in the polls and it was widely believed that he would lose the election to his opponent from the Luo tribe. At the last minute however, he somehow won. There were rumors and accusations of voting fraud and outright theft of the election, but the aftermath was that members of Parliament paid young men to kill, harass, attack, and run out of villages members of the opposing tribe. Since Kenyan identification cards carry your tribal affiliation, identifying the "enemy" was relatively easy. Houses were burned and looted, people were murdered (official count around 1,300 or so, Joe guessed that it was actually much much more than that) and threatened. Many were forced to flee, sometimes without family members or children, and settled in refugee camps. The Kenyan government, under international pressure to do something about the problem, gave all the IDP's 10,000 Ksh (roughly $125) and told them to return to their homes and start their lives again.

Needless to say, that wasn't really a tenable solution. These people had had their homes burned or looted by their neighbors....and $125 isn't really enough to start again. An enterprising group of 145 Kikuyu who met in an IDP camp decided to pool their money together to buy land and start a community...and thus Jikaze was born. They found land for cheap in the Rift Valley, about two hours northwest of Nairobi (about an hour from Limuru). They started off in tents, but eventually started building houses. Joe's group came in about a year ago and offered to help. The community insisted that the rest of the community be housed before any money be devoted to developing business and other interests. Joe calls them "a happy little Socialist commune" and it's a fairly apt description. Unfortunately, a few months ago, a truck ran through two of the houses, destroying them. And just left. Luckily no one was hurt, but the community was now two houses short. The task for college students hosted by Joe this week (and Brian and I, by association)? Rebuild the houses.

After staying at Joe's (a huge house for the staff of Global Connections that could also fit us and the 15 or so college students there), we took a bus out to Jikaze. It's a small, tight little village of 40-45 mud huts with tin roofs in perfect little rows, with crops and animals nearby. We first met with the elders of the village, so they could tell us their story in their own words. (We'd picked up a high school student, Ester, from Limuru to translate from Kikuyu). Mene, who, as far as I could tell was the matriarchal head of Jikaze, gave us the story much as Joe had told it the night before. She was very thankful for the help that Joe had given Jikaze, as he has done much in terms of providing water filters (the water pumped to their village is contaminated), helping provide materials and labor for the huts, getting loans for Jikaze residents from the local bank, and so on.

After she finished, Christine, a larger more passionate woman, said she had something to say. She explained that she had been separated from her husband, but had joined the group that eventually founded Jikaze. She noted that they were a blessed, very blessed community and that God had done great things for them. Her sincerity was such that even though we were sitting in a one-room mud hut, with no clean running water, a hole in the ground infested with every insect imaginable for a toilet, after being run from their homes by their neighbors (who had been paid by the government to do so), and losing family members to violence or the fog of violence (one man got hit in the head, and woke up in a hospital with no idea where any of his family was and without any way to contact them), I honestly believed her. She told us that what she had learned from their experience was that "your family can desert you, your country can desert you, but God can never desert you." She said that God had blessed them with Joe and, in describing what he had done for them, gave the most beautiful and powerful praise of an individual that I've ever heard in my entire life. I won't lie and say I wasn't about to start bawling like a baby. She said that even when he returns to America, God will continue to bless Joe, because He sees the love and goodness in a person's heart. She finished with "although we cannot give Joe anything in thanks, our God, who sees and knows all, will surely bless him." Joe's humble tears were the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing I've ever seen.

We started work on the houses, which when we arrived, were only wooden skeletons. The goal of the first day was to nail wooden branches horizontally to these skeletons to create the walls, which would later be filled in with mud. Brian and I had the good fortune to be sent to the second house, where few people were working. All morning we worked with Apollo, who was a wonder of a man and great to talk to without the distraction of the rest of the group being around. Also, Apollo's hammer sounds like some mythical object that confers great strength on its bearer. As soft Americans, we weren't too great at driving nails into wood with three fell swoops and found that Apollo, old thin man that he was, would frequently take the hammer from our hands and finish the nail himself. When we did well though (got lucky on a soft piece of wood, or found the head of the nail easily), he would smile and exclaim "Ah! Now you are used!" Which probably means...used to doing this now. He was very curious about how houses were built in America, how good his English was (pretty good actually), what we thought of Kenya, what we called peanuts (they call them ground nuts) and so on. He was quite the conversationalist and it was nice to have that kind of interaction. We also got to use a machete, or panga in Kikuyu. Yes, we used a machete in Africa. He also asked us our names again, even though we'd introduced ourselves at tea time. He realized his mistake and explained that "all you white people resemble." As we finished up before lunch, he asked how old we were (24) and said "oh, I could be your grandfather!" He is 54, but has the cleanest, smoothest face that you would guess much younger. He said he would tell us the secret to staying young: "Living a good Christian life. And walking the way of Jesus. Jesus will keep the wrinkles away." Duly noted, Apollo, duly noted.

We'd packed a lunch from Joe's house, but were also given mokimo from the village women. It's a potato mash that has corn kernels in it and something else to give it the color and consistency of pistachio ice cream. It was pretty good, but I was near full. Brian ate his fair share though, which was good since they gave us mounds and mounds and mounds of it.

After lunch, Brian and I finished up our wall (Apollo was nowhere to be found -- he told us the next day he had been "correcting his sheep and goats who had scattered in the wilderness"). Some local boys came and helped us with the next wall before we ran out of wood and had to quit for the day. I'm not sure where these boys came from and I"m pretty sure it wasn't going to be there house, but it was just another part of the "happy little commune" of Jikaze. We also discovered that little kids looooooooove my sunglasses -- "googles!!" -- and liked to wear them. They also played with my camera, which was pretty adorable. We tried to teach them to take pictures, but it wasn't quite as easy a lesson as I might have imagined. We took tea -- again, then boarded the bus to return to Joe's and a delicious dinner that had been prepared for us.

We were supposed to leave Thursday morning to come back to Nairobi, but had such a fantastic time in Jikaze, that we arranged to work another day and come back Thursday night. Stay tuned for how THAT voyage turns out.

Thursday morning we got up and headed onto the bus again. Before we'd really gotten out of Limuru, we got word that the wood would not yet be delivered when we got to Jikaze ("TIA -- this is Africa") so we decided to stop at the Children's Center on the way out. There we got to help little (4-5 year olds) with their arithmetic (Brian was especially loved by two little boys and I wished my camera wasn't out of batteries) while we passed some time. I got talking to the camp director, who proudly pointed out some of his best pupils. One could read all by himself. Another was excellent at handwriting (actually this kid's handwriting was really really nice) and math. Three little girls were "excellent, excellent" students. Then he pointed out another little boy to me and told me he struggled. That his mother had abandoned him when he was 6 months old. And that his father kept trying to commit suicide. And kill the boy along with him. That neighbors broke down the door one day to find the father passed out and the boy sipping on farming chemicals like he'd been told to do. TIA?

When we left and got to Jikaze, we had more tea (of course) and commenced mudding the houses -- mixing dirt and water (shocking) and then slapping it on to the walls. This was actually kind of difficult, because if the mud was too wet, it wouldn't hold...and just fell down. A little frustrating. After lunch, Brian returned to hammering wood on the second house and I think he was glad to do so. During lunch, we got delicious beans and rice to supplement our packed lunches (We don't have shoes, but we're going to make you lots and lots of food. Incredible). Brian and I took a walk down through the village to see the sunflowers and gained a horde of young children. They all wanted to hold our hands. And dance. Incredibly adorable. Don't worry, we have pictures. They also laugh just at the sight of us and yell out "mzungo!" (white person) to get your attention. And then they giggle nervously some more.

During mudding after lunch, I got to working and talking with two young women about my age -- Sharon (what a great name!) and Sarafin. They asked me to explain the difference between the words "lying" and "cheating," which is actually pretty difficult to do with only basic English vocabulary and no common social references. Sharon is 18 and has a nine-month old child. She is unmarried. Sarafin is 24 and has three children. She is married but apparently her husband works in a far-off city. ("to earn money to send back?" "To earn money, yes, but he does not send it back.") They learned I had no children and was unmarried and then were AMAZED, AMAZED that I was 24. Quite past my prime apparently. I was told that if I was Kenyan, I probably would never get married because Kenyan men like 17-18 year olds. I am apparently SOOOO OLD. They were amazed to hear that no one thinks that 24 is too old to be unmarried and childless in America. They spoke of how they wish they had more education, but lacked the resources to get it -- "we are too young for our minds to be idle." They asked me if I'd ever seen a mud hut before (no), if houses were like that in America (no), if I'd ever built a house before (no). Basically I was like a child to them. But they really liked me. They told me they were quite sad to see me go and that they really liked talking to me. They were quite the characters themselves, so I'm pretty sure I got the better end of the deal. (my favorite thing to tell Kenyans is how expensive avocados are in America. Here they're like 5/80 of a dollar, however much that is). I got a picture from the two of them (and digits from Sharon! boom!), which is hysterical because Kenyans don't believe in smiling in pictures. ("We don't look good when we smile." Really? Because it looks like your dog just died. Yeah, that definitely looked better). I had little helpers throughout the day (no older than 4 or 5) who would bring me clumps of mud from the mud pit so that I could put them on the house. I worked out a (nonverbal) deal with one of them that he could wear my sunglasses while he worked, as long as he worked hard. Yes, I just coerced a four year old.

When we finished for the day, we had tea (again), thanked our friends and headed out. Brian and I somehow took three matatus and 2.5 hours to get back home, and ended up running half a mile or so in the pouring rain of Biblical proportions. It was pretty awful, so let's not talk about that anymore.

Basically those two days were the best days yet. It was an incredible experience to see this community and I was blown away by them and their awesome (in the most literal sense of the word) hospitality. I know it's completely and utterly cliche to say "oh I came to Africa, saw poverty, and thus, saw God," but the actual experience was more along the lines of coming to Africa and seeing God in the faith and hope amidst the poverty. I know I had more profound things to say, but now that I've reached the end of this novel of a blog post, I figure that about sums it up.

NB: Tonight we take the bus to Kampala and will be working with the Christian Brothers of Missionaries of the Poor for the next week, so probably won't have internet access.