May/June Newsletter

The last two months, I have spent at school in Gatundu during the middle of Kenyan winter. “Winter” basically means that the temperature hovers around the mid-sixties, but everyone dresses in scarves, heavy jackets, and wool caps. Kids walk around with their entire faces covered! I have to laugh sometimes, but I must admit that 65 feels a lot cooler after being in the Kenyan sun for the past ten months, and I am often in a sweatshirt myself!
When we returned from Mombasa in May, we began a new term, my last one at Icaciri. It has been a term full of moments that are both ordinary and hilarious. I have woken up to the sound of drums coming from the church, stepped outside to see the matron sweeping the leaves off of the path to our home with a broom made of bigger leaves, and been stampeded by a group of primary school children all shouting "how are you? how are you?" as I walked by their school one afternoon. I have spent time sitting in the field on Sunday afternoons talking to our students, and laughed when one of my Form 2 girls, Jemimah, looked at me and said "Teacher, you have hair that is for a horse. My hair is for a human being!" One of their favorite activities these days is to imitate the way that Kari and I walk. Our students here never cease to make me laugh, though it is mostly at myself. At the same time, the past two months have been extremely eventful. The Icaciri handball team was second in Central Province, which is exciting because they had to compete against many schools that are more equipped and better funded. Our school had a "Prize-Giving Day" where they awarded all of the top students in the various grades, the athletes, and the prefects for their hard work. It was fun to see them rewarded for all of the work they put into school and to see their excitement about introducing us to their parents and siblings. Our soccer season both began and ended this term, as our team lost in the division finals last week. I even had a visit from Rebecca McRae, a good friend from W&L, which was amazing! It was so good to have her come, to share with her part of my life here, and to talk to her about her experiences in Tanzania where she was also volunteering this month. What a blessing it was to see her for the first time in almost a year!

Towards the middle of June, all of the volunteers that I am serving with in Kenya got together in Zanzibar for our final retreat. It was a time when we could all rest and hear about the different experiences people have had this year. It also gave me a chance to reflect on what my time here has meant and what it means to go home at the end of this month. When I left Darlington last August, I was leaving my home for a mostly unknown place. Now, as the time nears for me to return, I am leaving a place that has become my home and a community that has become a part of my family and a part of who I am. I have learned more about myself and my faith than I could ever have imagined a year ago. It has been a crazy journey over the past eleven months, but I know without a doubt that this is where God called me to be this year and that He has changed who I am and who I will be by my time here. I have come to a place where logic cannot take me any farther, where I cannot reconcile the brokenness of our world to the idea of a merciful God, and that is a good and a scary place to be, because it is a place where faith happens.

I came here with ideas of mission work as a partnership and those ideas have only been strengthened by my time here. I know now that our lives are bound to the lives of everyone else on this earth, that we are a part of a greater humanity. What that has come to mean is that I am not complete without other people, that I cannot be free until others are free. While we were in Zanzibar, we visited the slave dungeons just near the coast. They were the last stop before men and women from all over East and West Africa were shipped out to Europe, America, and the Middle East. We sat in the same rooms where people were held before being sold into captivity, we saw the tree where they were whipped to determine who was the "strongest" and therefore could fetch a higher price. Even while we were still there, thinking of the promise that never again would our world allow such an atrocity to rob a continent and a people of its strength and dignity, I remembered the bondage that still exists today. I saw the faces of girls who live in Korogocho slum, and the smile of a 7-year old dying of AIDS. I thought back to the street children sifting through piles of garbage in Nairobi, clinging desperately to bottles of glue that can dispel the hunger that plagues their days and nights. I thought of women who spend hours each day fetching water, and of girls in Mombasa who sell themselves into the sex trade because they don't have any other options. People who are not free to make decisions. When my own students get sent home for school fees every term, they are not choosing to end their educations; they are simply unable to continue because they are unable to afford secondary education. I have questioned God this year and have failed to find answers, until I realized that God does not always give answers, instead He gives Himself. Through a pain-filled sacrifice made by a man whose heart was broken by our brokenness, by our inhumanity towards one another, He gave Himself. And in those moments when we can ease the burden of someone else, or when we can allow them to ease ours, we come in contact with our Lord. As I prepare to return to the states in the next few weeks, I want to thank all of you for your continued support and encouragement throughout this year. Thank you for all of the cards, letters, and e-mails that have helped me to remember the wonderful community that I have across the globe. It has been such a blessing to serve here this year and I thank all of you who have gone on this journey with me.

Grace and peace to you all,
Lauren

An Arrested Morning

So it turns out some of the police in Kenya aren't always so trustworthy...
One morning as we were on the way to a handball tournament in Makuyu, our school bus came across what appeared to be a routine road stop. Roadstops here, however, involve tire spikes and policemen armed with rifles at least 2 feet long. We came to a halt and one of the officers proceeded to inspect the bus. As he approached the window to speak with our driver, we realized something was amiss. The driver climbed down from the vehicle and began a discussion with the officer. Pretty soon, Kari and I got out of the bus as well to find out what the problem was. We discovered that the inspection sticker had expired the previous week and needed to be replaced. That seems simple enough, but oh no. The officer insisted on taking the driver and vehicle to the police station so he could write a bond. What?! We had 23 students on the bus who had a game to play! Eventually our two fellow teachers, Mr. Njenga and Ms. Kigia also alighted from the bus and joined the ongoing debate. As the discussion progressed, it became more and more heated with our teachers suggesting that we continue on the journey and bring the bus back after it dropped off the students and the officer refusing to allow the vehicle to move. As voices and tensions rose, it looked like the situations was going to turn ugly. All of the students unloaded themselves from the bus in the middle of a highway just in time to see one of the officers slap their teacher in the face and handcuff him. They then escorted Mr.Njenga to a waiting police lorry for "obstructing justice." All of our students were just shaking and many of the girls burst into tears. We later got Mr.Njenga back safely, and the girls won both of their games that day, but it was certainly a frightening way to begin the morning!
As it turns out, the officers were angry because the driver and teachers refused to give them a bribe to let us pass. Kenyan police are notorious for their corruption, and we got to see this firsthand, though hopefully it is not something we will have to witness again.