Tirrim, part 1: Bible Translation

Every time I think about beginning this post, I am overwhelmed. There is so much to tell, so much to explain. So many things are interconnected that if I start with one area, it’s understanding is dependent on another, and then again dependent on another. Where do I begin? I want to do an adequate job of explaining how truly exciting and - yes, I’ll use this word yet again - amazing the Tirrim project is. So it takes time. Time to understand it myself, time to put all the pieces together, time to collect photos to help bring it alive, time write it all down. But it’s more than time to begin. So where do I begin the story? I suppose I must begin with Nick and Lynne.

Over thirty years ago, Lynne read the following verses from Isaiah 18 that speak of a people “just beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:”

Go, swift messengers,
to a people tall and smooth-skinned,
to a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive nation of strange speech,
whose land is divided by rivers.

The Rendille at the time, and to some extent now, were known for their aggressive revenge campaigns. If another tribe raided them, revenge would be swift and severe. As a result, many neighbouring tribes feared them. And, as someone trying to learn as much language as she can, sometimes the speech sure sounds strange, too! :) As far as rivers go, there’s not a whole lot of water here (ok, nearly none), but the land is certainly carved up by riverbeds! Make what you will of the similarities, but for Lynne, these verses were a confirmation for her.

God doesn’t use these verses for the same purpose in everybody’s life, but Lynne knew that God was calling her to Northern Kenya. Both Nick and Lynne wanted to work as missionaries in Africa, and decided that they wanted to work in Bible translation. Through God’s leading and provision, they arrived in Korr in 1980 to begin work on Bible translation. What God has grown up in this place in the past twenty-nine years is astounding.

Bible Translation. Adult literacy classes. Evangelism. Veterinary care. Nursery schools. Primary school. Secondary school. Boarding for the schools. A nomadic nursery and lower primary school in the goobs (villages). Tirrim School of the Bible. Church planting and development. Medical care. Building programs. Water projects. Child sponsorship. Higher education sponsorship. Plans for a medical clinic and laboratory… are you beginning to see why I’m so overwhelmed when I start to think of how to explain it all???

Bible Translation

For years, Nick worked on learning Rendille (and he still learns new things all the time!). He is humble and won’t say this himself, but he is extremely fluent in the language and communicates easily with anyone. He, along with a small team, has systematically mapped out the structures of the language and has established a phonetic alphabet that has allowed Rendille to move from being an oral language only to a written one. When at one time the language was in danger of disappearing, having it written down has now preserved it. Even the most traditional, uneducated Rendille elders have realized this, and have given Nick gifts of great honor in gratitude for preserving the language.

With Rendille now possessing a written system, translation work could begin. While the focus for the first stage was the New Testament, the translation committee also decided to translate Genesis and Exodus 1-20.

They chose these books for a number of reasons, a few being that they gave a good foundation of who God is and a good history of our faith. It also describes people living a lifestyle very similar to their own – nomads in a desert land.

To date, they have published Genesis and Exodus 1-20, the book of Mark, and the book of Acts (and maybe John?). Only a few books are allowed to be published until the whole thing is ready (for cost reasons, they can’t print each book individually and then do a second printing of all the books together), which hopefully will be about a year and a half from now. Twenty-nine years, and this process is almost done (well, the New Testament, anyway)!!! Very soon the Rendille will have the Bible in their OWN language! (click to enlarge)

It is beyond cool to see what an impact God’s word has on people’s lives. Indubaayo is one lady who got a copy of the book of Mark when she was in the literacy program. All throughout the course, she kept telling the teachers, “This reading and writing is great, the health stuff is great… but we have our OWN god! Stop telling us about this Jesus guy!” Then one day she was reading the book of Mark when she was extremely sick in her hut, and she was hit with an overwhelming realization that this was true! She decided to devote her life to Jesus right then, and since has grown to become the most amazing lady. She is now one of the four evangelists for the Tirrim project and goes out to villages six or seven times a week to tell people about Jesus and the new life he’s given her.

Indubaayo has a copy of the books of the Bible that are available, and she carries them with her everywhere she goes. They are tattered and worn and falling apart, but she refuses to let anyone give her a new copy. “No! These books are TOO precious!” she’ll tell you. I am so convicted by this. Her absolute LOVE of God’s word is so challenging! How wonderful it will be when the entire New Testament is available!

Although she has read what she has over and over and over again, there is so much more that Indubaayo is longing to learn. The Rendille religion focuses a lot around sacrifices, and it’s a big question that she has been facing when she is telling people about Jesus. They thing what she’s telling them is great, but they just can’t fathom a religion without sacrifices. Time and time again, they ask her, “But what about sacrifices?” “But what about sacrifices?” She’s tried to answer them as best she can (and I’m confident that this woman has a solid answer for them), but still she questions exactly what to say, how to make them understand that the death of Jesus is the final sacrifice – we don’t need anything else! We’re forgiven – the. end. But still the people ask, “But what about sacrifices?”

A few months ago, Nick had just finished translating Romans 12. He printed off a copy of the chapter from the computer and gave it to Indubaayo to read to a group of Rendille people. (One of the many steps involved in Bible translation is to take the translation to the public and sort of test it on them – see if it makes sense, if it uses the language that they would use, and to see if there are any tweaks that need to be made.) As she read it, her face lit up. This was it! THIS was the answer she’d been looking for!

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.(Romans 12:1-2)

God doesn’t want our sheep, our goats, our camels… he wants US! Alive! He wants our lives, dedicated to Him! LIVING sacrifices!

Excitedly, she clutched the printout to her heart and informed Nick he wasn’t about to get it back. The very next day she used this passage – one she had just read for the first time in her life to speak to the secondary school students in their devotion time. Though school kids can sometimes look down on traditional people, they were all ears as she spoke about living sacrifices. In large part through her talk, fifteen of those kids indicated that they wanted to make a new or a stronger commitment of faith.

There is powerful stuff going on here! God’s word is transforming lives! But transformation doesn’t come without opposition.

Since beginning this post, we have learned that as of two months ago, the translation funding has been stopped. The translators and all the support staff that are covered under this project are now out of work. The organization that has been funding the translation has seen a 70% drop in their donations during this economic downturn, and has had to cut many projects. Heartbreakingly, the Rendille translation project is one of them. Nobody is quite sure what this means for the future of this project. We’re praying really hard.

Nick and Lynne are heartened somewhat in knowing that SO many times with Bible translation projects like this, as the Bible nears completion, calamity seems to strike (the translation project is not the only one with funding issues right now – it seems the Tirrim project is being hit on all sides.). It’s happened time and time again, and now they’re seeing it happen here, too. Hmmm… kind of like someone really doesn’t want the word of God to get out!

But! … God is building His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it!
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* Photo of Indubaayo courtesy Nick Swanepoel

A day in the life

Saturday June 13

6:15 am – Wake up and lounge in bed for 10 minutes or so till I start to hear the voices of the night watchmen arriving for coffee.

6:25 – Get up and go to the house to get the water on for coffee for the nigh watchmen who are going home, and the day staff who are coming on (usually Lynne does this, but they’re away for two and a half weeks or so, so I’m happy to fill in).

7:00 – I make some oatmeal for breakfast, but just enough for me. Usually Lynne makes a big pot and leaves the rest for the workers. I didn’t think of this till after, and make a mental note to make a little more than I need next time.

8:15 – I walk to Grant’s house (another missionary) to plug in my computer and head to town for Saturday tuition (as they say, “tooshen”). Yep, classes on Saturdays (blasphemy!). I meet two women on the way and have a short conversation in Rendille – woohoo! As I walk, the sights and sounds of an African morning greet me – roosters crowing; a long line of Rendille women at the community water pump, yellow gerry cans lined up in the sun; elders squatting in the shade deep in conversation; little children’s shouts of “mzungu!” as I walk by; goats and sheep wandering among the dukas (shops) and huts. It’s a happy walk to the Tirrim Center.

9:00 – My first class is maths class seven. Even though it’s Saturday, I’m grateful to have the time, cause at least I can pre-teach a few difficult concepts in our upcoming unit. Break comes and I chill with some of the kids. When the time comes for the next class to begin (English class six), I find that my class has all left! There’s a big harambee on (a fundraising event for someone who’s going to university) and the secondary kids were watching a video (a big event in Korr!) so I think they all decided they had better things to do! I'm partly disappointed, but am grateful to have some unexpected free time.

10:45 – I begin wandering home, stopping when I see some boys from the school playing a game in town. They have a line of shoes lined up six or eight feet from a thorn bush, and are playing triple jump (double jump?) over the shoes and the bush. I stop to watch. Shortly after I get there, a big herd of goats and sheep cross our path, trampling over the kids school books. One book is ripped in half. The kids just laugh like this is normal (stampeding goats!!!) and carry on with the game once the goats are gone. One boy has rolled his pants all the way up to his thighs and all he has are two skinny little legs sticking out from under his T-shirt. At first I thought he wasn’t wearing any pants! Yikers! He’s one of my class clowns from class six, and he cracks me up! I watch as the boys play, and just before carrying on my way, I decide that I want to join in the game, too! I slip onto the path from the side and start running. Whoop! Over the shoes and I just pray I make it over the thorn bush, too. Falling on my toukas in a skirt in front of a bunch of my students would NOT quite be the effect I was going for. Not to mention the thorn bush would rip my legs to shreds. But huzzah! I made it! The boys couldn’t contain their disbelief (I like to think it was awe!) that their madam just totally joined their game and kicked butt! Buah ha ha!

11:30 - I wander home through town and head to Grant’s house to charge up the next computer battery, upload a photo, and send an email. I have a quick chat with a friend on Skype and show one of the pastors, who is also there, a little bit about blogs.

12:30 - I rush back home to bake a cake for my class, class seven, who is coming over in a little less than an hour for a class party. I want to show them the photos of our outing the day before, and just have a little fun. Maria, a girl from class four, drops by as I am baking, so I get her to help and invite her to stay. (She’s SO fabulous! She was over a while ago and I showed her a coconut that I brought back from the coast. We cracked it open and I gave her some to eat, and I showed her some photos of friends back home. I guess it was a good time, cause as she left, she flung her arms around me and said, “Madam! I HAVE to kiss you!”)

1:15 - The kids begin to arrive just as the cake is coming out of the oven. We wait till a good group shows up and then they all crowed around my laptop for a slideshow of photos from the term so far. They sit mesmerized for nearly an hour. Yes, I, er, have a lot of photos. I haven’t had a chance to cull them, but that certainly doesn’t matter to these kids. For most of them it is their first time ever even SEEING a computer, let alone seeing THEMSELVES on the screen! Before the compy completely dies, we all have cake and juice and just hang out. I have a ton of marking to do, so I reluctantly send them home around 3:30.

3:45 – Most of the kids leave, but the few girls in my class hang back. “Madam, we want to see your house,” they tell me (my room is in a separate building from the house where he had the party.) I invite them in and we hang out – they look at my “friend board” and just sit and chat for a while. I was happy to have some “girl time” with them!

4:30 – I wash the dishes from the party – there were lots and I didn’t want to leave them all for Samayon (a mama that Nick and Lynne employs) to do – there were too many!

5:15 – I sit outside and read my book, enjoying the golden evening light. I should be marking English books, but I’m tired!

6:00 – Marmalo, the head of the Tirrim veterinary project, comes with some medicine for the dogs. Tigger’s not eating, and Kuurte (sp?) was in a fight and has all kinds of cuts and a swollen “knee.” She’s too hurt and scared, and, though we try to hold her down, she wriggles around and the needle detaches from the syringe and stays in her bum! Gak! We get the needle out, but she runs away. Marmalo and Boya, our night watchman, go after her and hold her down. I'm glad I'm not the one who has to do it.

6:45 – I head to Jim and Laura’s for dinner (another missionary couple here in Korr), as I do every Saturday night. We have a good conversation about some ministry questions I’m having, and talk about feelings and responses to the drought the Rendille are facing. I’m encouraged by their wisdom and support, and am so grateful for them!

9:00 – I head home. I want to sleep in a little tomorrow, so I decide to boil water ahead of time and leave it in the thermoses for the morning. I leave the house key with Boya, so he can let people in the house in the morning. While the water is boiling, he sees my iPod on the counter and askes, “Waha a mehe?” (What’s this?). The best I can do is tell him it’s a radio. He looks doubtfully at the iPod, speakers, and battery pack, I’m sure thinking, “This isn’t like any radio I’ve ever seen!” I turn it on and his face lights up. He catches the tune and hums along. I translate the first song vaguely into Rendille, and say a few words as the song progresses so he knows what it means (God - strong!, Jesus, only you…). As I get out the cups and prepare the coffee for the morning, the water finishes boiling. I say goodnight to Boya and lock up the house.

9:30 – I head to my room, where I get ready for bed. I read my current John Grisham novel for a while, but a busy day and the heat of the desert have sapped my energy, and I am soon asleep.

It's been a good day!

Tids and Bits

So much happens around here that is fun and exciting, but would make about a three line post, so here's a collection of tids and bits from the last little while...

* I'm on mid term break right now. Four days of vacation. FABULOUS! We were supposed to get our mid term exams two weeks ago, but three supply planes came and went and no exams on any of them, so we decided to just do the exams later and go for break now, which means that it's a real live break and I don't have to spend my four days marking, marking, marking. WOOT!

* I taught a bunch of kids the Funky Chicken the other day. They were so chocked that their madam would do something so undignified that at first, when I started flapping my arms and knocking my knees, they all covered their mouths, screamed, and ran away. I modified it for the desert... no bacon sizzling, try "Let me see your chapati sizzle." No Frankenstein, try "Let me see your camel wobble." No garden hose, try "Let me see your hyena laughing..." They loved it so much that when we got to the end they wanted to do it all again. One girl told me, "Woooy, madam, it's sooo funnnyyyy!" and slapped my arm in a chummy gesture. She gave me a bruise!

* Scorpions seem to be thinking that my room is a cool place to hang out lately. It's not. I need a sign on the door that says, "If you enter, YOU WILL DIE."

* I started the 100 push ups challenge for something fun and exciting to do (what was I thinking?!), but after about a week and a half, my wrists really really hurt. I blamed the concrete floor (I really should have brought a yoga mat or something) and ditched. I felt kinda wussy, but oh well. Then I learned that my wrists were hurting from doing laundry, not the push ups. Now I feel even MORE wussy (seriously?! a LAUNDRY injury???), and have last my excuse for not doing the pushups. Dang.

* I'm almost finished making my Rendille necklaces, and some girls from my class are going to help me make a rimirimo (the headgear that the women wear). I'm excited! Along the same lines, I'm very much enjoying "fashion freedom" while I'm living here. My friend Trudy observed when she went to Niger that the rule seems to be "pretty + pretty = pretty" and basically anything goes. Green skirt? Pink shirt? Awesome! Hey look, I'm a peppermint! Huge bold patterns? The more gaudy the better! And sequins! Everything is better when it sparkles! (Right, Vicky?!?) And also, for example, I relish the fact that wearing a complete sack is the norm (a la my tie die dress/sac). It's SO COMFORTABLE, and I love it. Here's my demonstration of the totally un-Stacy & Clinton approved outfit. Oh, baby... runways of the world, LOOK OUT! This girl is FIERCE! (Buah hah haaaaaa!)


* After the mid term break, I'm going to try to start a really fun writing project with the kids (if they don't mutiny on me cause it's not the typical weekly boring-as-stink meaningless, reason-less "COMPOSITION" that they always so!). I want to know some traditional Rendille fables, so the kids are going to write them down for me. We'll revise, we'll edit (shocking!!! You mean, not just a one-off and hand to the teacher for some meaningless mark type work?!?!), and we'll make a good copy that will be published in a binder with page protectors. We'll make pictures to go with it, and I'll leave the book in the school library. Wahoo! They have a PURPOSE for writing! They're excited, and so am I!

* I'm rather amazed at technology. Here I sit, and my computer takes in my voice, and beams it over to the wireless receiver at Grant and Loki's house. The receiver sends it to the satellite dish, which in turn sends it to SPACE and bounces it back to Canada somewhere. It goes from the receiver in Canada to a phone network, and calls my family and friends and WE CAN TALK! Kinda like pulling a "nyah-nyah nyah-nyah boo-boo" at this remote desert place. Ha ha! But even better than that? I can TALK TO YOU!!! Seriously, folks, if I've talked to you, you have NO idea how happy that makes me! And if I haven't talked to you, why on earth not?! :)

* Ummm.... that's all for now! More tids and bits later. OH! No! I forgot! Tids and bits reminded me of Tim Bits, which reminded me of this: I made my own donuts today! Well, donuts is a term used very loosely. Basically I fried some lumps of dough in boiling fat. But mmmmm, were they good! All sprinkled with icing sugar and hot and delicious! AND?! I made maple syrup. I went out and tapped a maple tree in our backyard and... oh, wait. Nope - water, brown sugar, a little bit of corn starch, and some maple flavouring, and voila! Ok, Canadians, I know, it's not the real thing, but it certainly did the trick for my French Toast! (let me tell you how happy I was to finally find three eggs that didn't have chickens growing in them)

And here's a fun picture - just because - of me and a cutie patootie who came to sit with me at church last week:

Cross Cultural

Ok, so here’s the thing. Cross cultural stuff is hard. And rewarding, and frustrating and fulfilling and confusing and awesome. But six months here, and I’m still confused (I know, I know… it’s not that long!). I feel like I make so many mistakes sometimes… and other times I don’t even KNOW if I’m making mistakes. People are so gracious – sometimes I’ll ask if something is appropriate or the way things are done or whatever if I’m not sure, and they’ll always say it’s fine, no, there’s not problem… but I’m not sure I always believe them! And then there are times I know I’ve goofed, and don’t really know how to make it right.

Take today, for example. One period I was in class seven helping them with math. The next period I was supposed to be in class eight for their weekly literature period (I read each class a story every week!). But the bell rang, and the teacher was still teaching. And teaching. And teaching. Ok, fine, I guess he’s taking the next period, too? It’s mine, but whatever. I was supposed to go to class eight and he was supposed to go to class seven. He stayed there, so I started something else with class seven – more maths help and a small tutorial. There were fifteen minutes left in the period when the teacher finished his lesson with the eights and came to begin the lesson with the sevens, but by this time I was already in the middle of something with a few of them. I had to stop with the sevens so he could give his lesson (in fifteen minutes?!?), but by that time it was too late to read to the eights, so they were all disappointed and didn’t really understand why I wouldn’t come read with them. Gah!

Now, this teacher’s not bad – not at all. I’m sure had I come to the door at the bell, he would have stopped the lesson and let me in, but I heard he was still teaching, so I stayed with the sevens till he was done. Sometimes a lesson goes an extra minute or two… no problem! But when he kept teaching and kept teaching, I just started my own thing.

I was, however, disappointed to miss my one period a week with the class eights. It keeps getting pushed out for various (valid) reasons. So I wanted to talk to the teacher about it. But how?

Western culture values time – keeping time, watching the clock, not wasting or using a person’s time. Think about how you’d feel if a meeting went an hour later than scheduled, for example. You’d be annoyed! It didn’t end on time, you have other things to do, this person is taking up your time! Not so in Africa. It’s the relationship that takes precedence over the time. You have a million things to do today and you’re just about to run out to the store, but someone drops by for a visit. You drop everything, make a pot of chai, and have a visit. No fidgeting cause of all the things you have to do. No hurrying the conversation along so they can go and you can get on with your work. This whole sticking to the clock thing is a very western value.

BUT… in a school, we have to keep to the clock, otherwise we can’t run our schedule. It’s kind of an in-between place. Yes, he ran over time. But it was a much bigger deal to me than it was to him, so I can’t really go get all mad at him, cause we see the situation from different perspectives.

Also, our Western culture values going directly to a person who we have a problem with and sorting it out. Be up front. Deal with the issue face to face. But, I think, in African societies, saving face is much more valued. Maybe if you have an argument with someone, you don’t go right to them, but rather you find a mediator who will be the go-between until an agreement and resolution is reached. Now, I’m not sure if this is specific to Rendille culture, but it may be a general thing. So I’m not sure how to talk to the teacher. Do I go right to him? In what context? How do I approach is as a woman to a man? How much do I make of the time thing?

I probably will just let this go, cause it was one time, and it’s not really that big of a deal, but with everything I do, there are always these questions that I wrestle with. I want to do things the “right” way, but often I don’t know what that right way IS! And I have a feeling more often than not I’m a big ol’ Western steamroller.

Ah, how thankful I am for this:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James 1:5. Ooooh, send your wisdom, God!

Of course, there are SO many GOOD things about cross cultural work, too. I’m so grateful for the chance to see how life works in a totally different way – I think we in the West have a lot to learn from the Rendille, and from Africans in general. Community. A non-crazed, non-frantically busy lifestyle. Relationships. Work ethic. Faith. It’s not that life is simple here. In some ways it is, but it’s still life - incredibly complex, as it is anywhere. It’s just… different. I certainly have learned FAR more than I have taught (which is a good thing, by the way!). It’s just a wonderfully difficult road to walk.

What can I say? I love this crazy tragic, sometimes magic, awful beautiful Northern Kenyan life!

The Elbow High Five

I've had a number of new posts lately - scroll down or click here to see Drought, A River in the Desert, Operation Library, and Desert Alive.
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I’d been hearing rumours from the kids for a few weeks, but I wasn’t sure if they were true or not. Last week it was confirmed – there is officially a cholera outbreak in our district. It’s hard to know if it’s hit Korr or not, because there’s no way of knowing what happens with everybody out in the goobs (villages), but there have been confirmed cases in Loglogo and Laisamis, towns just south of us along the road, and there have been confirmed deaths because of it. Cholera, in it’s worst form, is one of the most rapidly-striking fatal illnesses known, and is nothing to mess with. People are definitely scared.

For this reason, Lynne got up in church last Sunday and made an announcement, telling people about what cholera is, how to treat it, how to wash their hands after “helping themselves” (don’t have water? Wash with sand!) and told people to avoid shaking hands if at all possible and just do a hands-free greeting.

I decided that this message needed to be repeated at the school, so at Monday’s assembly, I took a good chunk to talk about cholera (gah! What do I know?) and the same three points that Lynne explained to the church, and told them to spread the word to everyone they know. We definitely don’t want cholera adding to the problems the Rendille are experiencing right now with the drought and all of the related problems.

As for greetings, I didn’t think the kids would be so into the “kiss-kiss” on the side of the face kind of greeting, so I decided to make up a kind of a fun, hands-free greeting that they could use – the elbow high-five! I had them all practice, and it’s become a hit at the school!

Turns out it’s not just been a hit at the school. The kids took me seriously when I told them to tell everyone about it, and by Friday, a man came in from one of the faaaar goobs saying, “I hear we’re supposed to greet like this now!” and demonstrated the now famous elbow-high-five! Awesome! I started a trend! :)

Drought

I know I’ve talked about it before, and my posts about the rain may give a different impression, but the drought here in northern Kenya is really, really bad. The short rains in November and December of last year never materialized. It’s now June, and while God can send rain at any time, the long rainy season (April and May) has come and go with next to nothing. It’s a long way to November again.

Animals are already dying – goats, sheep, donkeys, cattle, even camels. No water means not only nothing to drink, but no grazing. People are taking their animals farther and farther to find grazing, but still nothing. And it’s not just the animals that are dying. We’ve heard that at least five men - herders out with the animals – who have died of starvation, and who knows how many more that we haven’t heard about. There is simply no water, no money, no food.

Relief food that is so desperately needed is coming, but is so restricted in who it is given to that it’s next to useless. There’s a one time emergency bit that’s coming from AIM, which might last a few weeks, but what of after that?

You know, because I don’t speak the language, I don’t hear people’s stories. I am working with the kids at the school who get a solid meal once a day (once!), and teachers who at least have a little bit of salary to live on. I don’t really feel the effects of the people’s cries for help or see the desperation that Nick and Lynne see every single day. But I know it’s out there. I hear the stories. I hear about the people in Marsabit who, even if they have a little bit of money for rice or maize meal, aren’t bothering to buy it because there’s no water to cook with. Mothers who are so starving themselves, yet walk for kilometers and kilometers to Nick and Lynne’s house to plead for a little bit of money to buy something for their children. People who make up all manner of stories for why they need money – a dying uncle, acceptance at a prestigious school, anything – in desperate hopes to get a few shillings to buy food. People who are so worried about their children that they just snap and go mental – literally crazy under the strain of worry and starvation – and wander off into the desert or just completely shut down and sit in a trance-like state. People who simply give up and commit suicide to escape the fear and the worry and the pain of slowly starving to death.

I hear the stories, but on Friday, I saw it for myself.

We drove out to Namarey, about 30km from Korr, to take a woman back to her goob who either has cerebral malaria or is one who has snapped from the strain of the drought. She had two young children with her – a baby and a toddler – and another of her sons is a pupil at my school. I sat in the back of the truck with her, and the whole time, she just stared off into space, occasionally rolling her head back and forth and looking around with empty eyes and and a half open mouth. When she got sick, she took the two young children from Namarey and just started walking out into the desert. Thankfully someone found her and took her to town for help. We were taking her back to her home where a family member would look after her and help dole out the medicine that she received from the dispensary.

When we got out of the car at the lady’s goob, many of the children came to see, and I began playing with them, as I always do. Often they’re shy and quite nervous about this strange white skinned creature coming up to them to shake their hand (sorry, to give them an “elbow high five”). There are the brave ones who come right up, those who take some coaxing, and those who stay hidden behind a brother or sister for safety and don’t ever venture out. But this time, there was another group. These were the ones on whom malnutrition and starvation had begun to take their toll.

I went to one little girl, maybe two or three years old, who was standing beside her mother and greeted her. “Aa nebey aa?” I asked her, holding out my hand. She didn’t respond, and at first I just thought she was one of the shy ones. But after I greeted her a second time, I saw that there was no recognition in her eyes. It was like she was looking at me, but didn’t see me. Her belly was distended, her genitals swollen. She didn’t shake my hand, and I can’t be sure, but I think probably because there was no strength in her skinny little arms to even lift them.

You know, it’s one thing to see the pictures on TV and in child sponsorship magazines of ‘starving children in Africa.’ It’s another thing entirely to take the tiny little hand of a child who is in the process of starving to death in yours and feebly tell them, “Yeesoo weyti aki ‘dona” – Jesus loves you very much.

I look around, and the need is soooo huge, and I am so small. I feel so helpless. There is nothing I can do. I can’t make it rain. I can’t raise huge amounts of money. I can’t feed these people. I, on my own, am powerless. But what I can do is pray – which is mightier than one might think. Will you join me? Though it seems hopeless, God is still in control. God sees the suffering of his people. Though we cry out and don’t understand, still God is good.

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my saviour.
~ Habakuk 3:17-18

As I’ve been writing tonight, a song we used to sing at camp has come into my head.

My God is so BIG! So strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.
My God is so BIG! So strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.
The mountains are His, the rivers are His, the stars are His handiwork, too.
My God is so BIG! So strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.
Can I add a verse?

The Rendille are His, the desert is His, the rains and the drought are His, too.
Oh, God, you are BIG! You’re strong and so mighty, there’s nothing that You cannot do.
And that includes bringing relief to the Rendille here in Northern Kenya.

A river in the desert!

I was in the middle of a Rendille lesson at my language helper’s house when the rain started. It was so loud on the mabati (corrugated metal) roof that I couldn’t even hear her when she was six inches from my ear. We finished what we were doing and decided to call it quits for the day. Anyway, this Vancouver girl was eager to go outside and enjoy the wet!

It was incredible! There were little rivulets flowing all over the sand and rocks, and I had a hunch that the lagas (river beds) would be flowing. I was right! Everywhere I looked, little lagas were full of water. I heard the sound of kids shouting behind me at one of the bigger lagas on my way home, and headed over. By the time I got there, it had stopped raining, but the effects were still able to be seen.

I was amazed at what I found – a raging river flowing through the middle of the desert! It wasn’t very deep (maybe to my knees?) but it was wide and swift. The rocks at one side created huge rapids and the water was just gushing down the laga. There were all kinds of people gathered to see, but nobody was crossing. The water was flowing too fast. I dipped my toes in the side just for fun and people all began shouting at me, afraid I would try to cross and would be swept away. We just stood and watched, amazed at how such a short rain could create such a river!

As the rain had stopped, the water began receding fairly quickly. Boya, one of our night guards, helped an old woman across with her bundles, and I quickly joined the kids who had bravely ventured in a little farther upstream. And what does one do when in a river with children who see this kind of water only every couple of years? Begin a water fight, or course! They were a little reluctant at first, but soon discovered that HEY! This is FUN! and loved the idea of splashing the crazy mzungu.

Already mostly soaked, I decided to pull some dramatics and lose my balance and "fall in" to the river. I joined the other kids who were allowing themselves to float downstream a little. The water was maybe a foot deep at this point, so, lying on my back with my feet downstream (mostly so the water wouldn’t carry my skirt up around my ears!), I straightened out and floated down the river (just trying to ignore what might be in the water I was now immersed in! Ah! Fresh rainwater… right?). The kids were all amazed – “Madam! You know how to swim?!?!” I didn’t have the heart to tell them that lying in a foot of water and bumping my butt and my elbows on the rocks beneath me didn’t exactly count as swimming!

After the kids started dispersing, I soggily wandered home, taking a moment to enjoy the view. The clouds had mostly gone, and the setting sun turned what was left of them golden against the pink sky. The river had dwindled to a quiet babbling brook – a sound that was at once familiar and foreign. The birds were twittering and I could hear the laughter of the kids farther upstream who had remained to play.

In another hour or so, the water would be gone completely, and by the end of the next day, the riverbeds were dry again and the rain was but a memory. I learned that for these lagas to flow, especially the big one, is quite rare! It’s been a at least few years since there’s last been water in it, so I’m really grateful I got to experience it!

Operation Library

The school library was in pretty rough shape last term. What very few story books we had were all over the place, tattered and torn, and nearly lost among all sorts of random books and documents. Among these were an eight year old document from the Kenyan Electoral Commission, a Nokia phone manual, and a large political and legalese document on the Middle East Peace Process under the Clinton administration. There was a pile of old posters and teaching aids in the corner, random art supplies, cards, and bits games on every shelf, and torn soccer balls in a bucket in the corner.

There was a system for checking out books, and the teacher in charge of the library is a really committed guy – offering to help and go the extra mile for the kids all the time. Some of the kids used the library, but the fact is, it was so hard to find things that it made it nearly impossible. The kids have one English text book between four or five if they’re lucky in most classes – in my class we have one book for the whole class – so even in English class they rarely get practice reading. And yet, on their exams, they have two passages to read and answer questions about. I continually was tearing my hair out asking, "How can these kids learn to read if they don’t have any books???" Arrrrgh!Last term I started going to each class once a week to just read to them – a story a week – and they love it! It’s a good start (and a fun part of my week!) but they need to read for themselves! If they actually had BOOKS, and if they’re organized and neatly displayed, they might actually want to read! And when they read, their English will improve, and their writing will improve, and they can learn all kinds of new things, and their world will be expanded by leaps and bounds! And of course, if they read and understand story books for themselves, the hope is that they’ll read and understand the Word of God for themselves, too!

Ah! If only they had some BOOKS!!!

When I was raising support to come to Kenya, people were SO amazingly generous and I ended up with a surplus in my account that I could use for special projects and the like while I’m here. I decided to use some of that surplus to help with the library.

While I was in Nairobi in April over the school holiday, I went to as many different book shops as I could to try to find some books. It’s actually really hard to get good picture books for kids here in Kenya – reading for pleasure is often a foreign concept here, so the market for kids books is not great, but I was able to find a decent assortment to start with. (Ah, to have Scholastic deliver to Kenya!!!)

BUT, I really didn’t want to spend all this money (money people have donated in support of what I’m doing here, especially!) to buy books and throw them into the library as it was. It needed to be cleaned, organized, and the kids needed to be taught how to take care of the books and the space they had…

Thus began I think the biggest cleaning job I have ever undertaken. Thank goodness for eager helpers! We sorted books, pulled and repaired torn books, sorted posters and teaching aids and rearranged furniture. We organized art supplies, arranged sporting equipment, untangled skipping ropes, made posters, and threw away a lot, a lot, a lot of junk and old paper. We found teacher’s long lost notebooks of notes, sorted puzzle pieces into different puzzles and bagged them, labeled shelves, and put up photos. And then we swept. And swept and swept and swept and swept and swept. I’ve never seen so much dust in my life! The wind blows pretty much constantly, the windows have no glass, and the library has no door. The kids sweep the classrooms daily, but the library doesn’t get swept. Korr being a desert and all, that makes for a lot of dirt!

A lot of the repairing, sorting of books into vague reading levels (easy, medium, hard), and poster making happened over the break, but a lot of the cleaning I was able to do in the first week and a half or so of this term when I had spares. Many kids offered to help, which I gladly took them up on when I could. As they passed by the window and saw the library slowly getting cleaner and cleaner, their comments were so sweet and a definite encouragement:

– Woooy, madam, you are working hard today!
– Madam, now it really looks like a library!
– Madam, you are truly doing a good work!
– Madam, may God bless the work of your hands! (awww!)
– Woooooy, madam, you must really love us!

Bight and shiny new, it was ready to be opened, but I decided to keep the library closed until I could go around to each class and take them in to show them how things were put away and labeled, how to check books out, and how to keep the library neat. “If you can keep it aaaabsolutely PERFET like this until next Monday,” I told them, “THEN I can bring all the new books!” I had told them all that I had new books right at the beginning of the term, so almost daily somebody asks me “Madam, where are the new books? Can we see them???” I tell them, “Yes! But first I have to see that you can take care of what we already have. I don’t want to bring in new books and have them phoot! thrown all over the floor!”

I tell you, these kids can’t WAIT for these new books, and they’re doing a great job keeping the library clean. But the thing that makes me SO excited is that they’re ALL READING! Every break, every lunch, during morning preps, that library is FULL of kids! I think the other teachers might be a little annoyed with me, too, cause there are SO many kids coming to ask for initials in the check out book that they’re feeling more than a little overwhelmed! And I haven’t even brought the new books in!

There is still a loooong way to go with stocking this library, and I’m hoping that I can maybe strike some deal with shipping or SOMETHING to try to get more books to the school once I get back to Canada. Many things you can just buy in Kenya, but books are difficult. I don’t know… I’m thinking book drives, Scholastic coupons, whatever I can do to get these kids a decent library and get them READING!

AH! I’m SO excited!

Desert Alive

You know, it’s absolutely amazing how this desert comes to life after just a tiiiiny bit of rain. One night just before I got back to Korr from being in Nairobi in April, I heard that it rained for about half an hour over night. We has seven minutes fo rain overnight one night shortly after I got back, then about two weeks ago it rained again in the late afternoon for another half an hour. An hour and seven minutes over three weeks… and the desert is alive!

Trees that looked absolutely dead – just sticks and thorns – are now covered in little green leaves, making the hills look completely different. Little green leaves have sprouted up through the rocks and soil, and are growing big and tall. At first glance, it still looks pretty barren, but in comparison to what it was, there is green everywhere!

It’s not just the flora that has come to life. There seems to be a cycle of flying, jumping, crawling things that arrive after the rains. Moths, beetles, inchworms, you name it. They all come in cycles – first the rain, then the moths, then the beetles, then the inchworms… kinda reminds me of the plagues of Egypt! :) In addition, the scorpions are out, the spiders are out, the flies are out… everyone’s showing up for the party.


With all the green around, too, the sheep and goats (development agencies have dubbed them “shoats”) have come back to town and they are everywhere. As are the donkeys. Grazing at the school, grazing at the church, grazing in our yards… I helped two nearly three year olds chase a whole herd out of Grant and Loki’s yard this morning! Following the sheep and goats are the hyenas hoping for a tasty meal. Life certainly abounds around here these days!


Among the goats and the bugs and green, I found this on my way to school one day, and it made me smile. It amazes me how God is constantly bringing life from the dust and the stones. With a little water, this dry and thirsty place is coming alive. Hmm… sounds kind of like what’s happening to my heart!

Surpirse!

Don't you just love coming to my blog and seeing THIS in your face? These guys like to hang out in my room every night. It's pretty fun.

Sorry, my story teller seems to be broken these days. I'm having a hard time making time, motivation, and computer power happen all at the same time to get some stories up. Camel rescues, desert rivers, sleepovers, holidays, funny kid limericks... for now, let me just say that along with the various insect plagues after even the littlest bit of rain come lots and lots of hunting spiders. Big ones. In my bedroom. I think they're technically not spiders, but they look like spiders, so that's good enough (or bad enough?) for me. Super huge and lightning fast, they are really really creepy. And, oh yeah, they jump, as I discovered after trying to take this one's photo while it was on my door holding a large cockroach in it's jaws. GAK! It jumped off the door towards me and I may or may not have done a little heebie jeebie dance, complete with squeals. It then ran back up on my door, and into the crack between the door and the frame. I slowly closed the door enought to kill it, and it made the most horrifying CRUNCH! Bleurgh!!!!

Once I was convinced it was dead, I scooped it up (it's front legs apparently stick straight up when it gets crushed?) for a photo session. Aren't you glad I did that???

Posts, posts, and more posts!

This is what happens when I write posts offline, bit by bit. I have a million posts that I've started but have not had time to finish, and then when I have a bit of free time, I can finish them all off and end up posting them all at once. Then YOU get here and go "AAAAK!" So here's a list - read 'em all now, or read 'em bit by bit. Just scroll down to see them, or click the links to take you straight to post. Adagta? (do you understand?)

1. Snippets of a Desert Life - Insect Invasion!
2. The Little Megaphone That Could
3. Over The Desert And Through The Oasis, To Kalacha Town We Go!
4. Not So Sparkly

Enjoy!

Snippets of a Desert Life - Insect Invasion!

Just before I arrived back in Korr, they had some rain – half an hour of heavy rain that fell overnight. That’s been about it for this rainy season – not nearly enough for what is needed, but just enough to bring out the bugs!

Before the rains, the flies, looking for moisture, were getting worse and worse and worse. Nick and Lynne told me that they couldn’t even open their mouths to talk without nearly swallowing a fly. With the rain, the flies have dispersed and the moths moved in. For a few days, there were moths EVERYWHERE, and Nick and Lynne would sweep up a mountain of dead moths from the floors in the morning. Now the moths have seemed to go, and it’s beetles. They drop from the ceiling and fall in our hair, our food, everywhere. They fly into the walls and drop to the floor with pings and ticks and clicks. The noise in my room last night as I was trying to fall asleep was incredible!

Though there has been very little rain, it’s been cloudy the last few days, which doesn’t bode so well for the solar panels that supply us with light at night. About 9:30 last night, the battery died and all our lights went out. Nick and I grabbed our headlamps and tried to continue working on our computers, but, the lights just above our eyes was a perfect magnet for the beetles and lingering moths. Needless to say, we didn’t get much work done. Moths fluttering in our eyes, beetles dropping on our heads, and flies crawling all over the screen of the computer made doing anything rather difficult. A grasshopper even hopped onto Nick’s computer and then jumped into Nick’s face!

Perhaps that was God’s way of telling us to make it an early night!

The Little Megaphone That Could

In town there is a tiny mosque with a huge loudspeaker that broadcasts the daily calls to prayer. The Imam goes to a microphone inside and sings out the call five times a day and it can be heard through the whole town (and all the way to Nairobi, I’m sure!) But the other night, around 9:30pm, we heard something strange. It wasn’t the normal time, nor was it the typical call to prayer. I just figured there was some special event happening at the mosque or something (this is quite typical) and though no more of it.

It’s coming up to a new moon once more, so the nights are darker than dark here in Korr. The Rendille know their way around, so many are still out once the sun sets. It turns out that it’s not just the Rendille who are out.

A few nights ago, a few of the Tirrim staff were walking just out of town and saw two men coming towards them. They greeted them, and it became clear that these men didn’t speak Rendille. It also became clear that they were carrying large guns. It would seem that our two warrior friends were back.

The Tirrim guys ran to town to the mosque. They told the Imam what they had seen, and he quickly flipped on the megaphone and began speaking in Rendille, “Everybody, look out! There are two men with guns walking around town. Go back to your houses and just stay inside.”

Everybody did just that – they went inside, locked or barricaded their doors, and the chief and the District Officer drove around most of the night patrolling and looking for the men. Most likely spooked by the megaphone announcement, the sudden disappearance of all the people from town, and the sound of the two pikis (motorbikes) starting up, the men were not seen again.

Ha HA! Foiled again!

Over the desert and through the oasis, to Kalacha town we go

Every year, all the missionaries in Northern Kenya get together in Kalacha, about a three hour drive north of Korr and very close to the Ethiopian border, for a retreat. I made arrangements for other teachers to cover my classes, and I got to go along, too.

We set out after lunch on Monday, and just a few minutes into our drive we saw them – ostriches! Tons of them! There was a big… herd? gaggle? chain gang? of teenagers who were still grey and kind of shaggy (typical!) but a ways onwards there was a mama and papa ostrich with a little baby. We slowed the car to get a better look, but still we spooked them. The papa ostrich spread out his wings and started running away from the mama and baby in an attempt to distract us. Apparently, an ostrich will even fall to the ground and play dead so that a would-be predator will come after him instead of the baby (but look out when you get close! You’re in for a might big kick!). With another small group of teenagers on the road, we drove the car up to them and stopped. “Have you got your camera ready?” I did, and we stepped on the gas and chased them a ways before they all scattered. I know, I know, PETA would kill me, but chasing ostriches across the desert in a land cruiser? AWESOME!

In an hour and a half or so, we reached the Chalbi desert...

Click here to keep reading. Pick up the story where the text is regular size.

Not So Sparkly

It is a pretty incredible experience living here in Northern Kenya. There are so many things that I love about it – standing in the back of the land rover driving trough the desert, my hair being whipped around by the wind. Watching the old ladies at church slowly move from the bench to the floor as the service progresses because they find sitting in chairs incredibly uncomfortable. Hearing the bleats and bells of the animals as they slowly start to return in anticipation of the rainy season. The beauty of the land and of the people, their overwhelming friendliness, and their incredible faith. I really could go on forever.

But there are other things, much more important things, about living in Africa that are harder to deal with. One of the big ones is poverty. I know, I know, when we in the West think of Africa, we think of poverty, of corruption, of famine, of seemingly insurmountable problems. Poverty has been talked about a million times in a million different ways, but to catch a glimpse of what it really looks like is another thing altogether... Click here to keep reading.

In your mind's eye no more! - PHOTOS!

Woohoo! I've (finally!) got photos up! There's a lot, but it's ok, I probably won't be posting again till I'm back in Niarobi again in July (or till I'm home), so you've got lots of time to browse. There's a new link on my sidebar that will take you there whenever you want.

I'll slowly be adding captions over the next few days, I hope! (They're also all on Facebook, if you want to look there).

Click here to see where I am and what I've been up to!

Tirrim Secondary School

Tirrim Primary School began in 2004, with the dream of one day opening a secondary. For years, they couldn’t begin and couldn’t begin and couldn’t begin – there are huge startup costs, salaries to pay, boarding to provide (Tirrim school are charity schools and require no fees from the kids), a school food program to run… not to mention the challenge of where to meet!

Finally, this fall, Nick and Lynne got word that there was a huge amount of money come available for AIM missionaries to fund a project that they only could only dream of - all they had to do was apply. In November, Nick and Lynne and the Tirrim committee decided to take the plunge and start the secondary school. Some of the project staff moved out of their house to make room for one classroom and a small staffroom. Work was done to convert the house to a classroom, desks were constructed, textbooks bought, and, most importantly, word got out all over this and the neighbouring district that there was a free school in Korr. Students flocked to apply, and thirty students were chosen (that’s all the cramped little room could fit!). Students arrived and the school officially opened in January.


Tirrim Secondary is the first secondary ever for Rendille students. People all over the north heard about it, and people in Korr were so proud that their little town now had a secondary school. But they weren’t the only ones excited…

At the beginning of the term, Laura, one of the teachers, asked them to write a composition. She said, “I don’t know you - tell me who you are, your story, where you came from, how you got here…” All thirty kids wrote about how grateful they were to be in school. Most knew that there was NO way that they could ever go to secondary. Their families have no money for fees, and the nearest secondary was far, far away. Paying for boarding was out of the question. A few almost didn’t write their class 8 exams – why even bother if they’ll never get to secondary? Each one talked about how they are so grateful to God for a chance at an education. Reading their thoughts and their stories brought Laura to tears - composition after composition told the same story… all these kids had never dreamed of being able to continue past standard eight, and now they had a chance…

And just what will these kids do for an education? David, the youth pastor, was also talking to the students about their stories. What they told him might give you an idea.

One student is from Songa, about 150km from Korr, where raids and tribal fighting have been particularly bad recently and dozens of people have been killed. He heard that there was a free school and decided to do whatever it took to get there. He walked – WALKED! - 60km from Songa to Lochlogo, got a lift from there to Namarey, and then walked the remaining 25 km to Korr.

Another student is an orphan from Merille. He heard about the school, so he walked to Laisamis (30km), asked the way to Korr, then walked the remaining eighty-five kilometres to Korr. He walked through lion and wild dog country where even warriors walk two by two armed with spears. He walked alone, just him and his small bundle of belongings, the hope of a better future ahead of him.

Yet another student was from Korr, but had been going to school in Marsabit, about 100km away. He was in form three (the third of four years of secondary), but knew that he was getting into the wrong crowds and didn’t like where his life was heading. When he heard about the new school in Korr, he decided to drop to form one and start all over again. The youth pastor asked him one day if the school was the same as the one he left. “No! Not at all! This school is bathed in prayer, and I’m learning things I’ve never learned before. I always knew about God, but I never knew that he loved me!”

This little school has brought such hope to these kids. Unfortunately, they money that was supposed to come through to fund it, that was supposed to be a sure thing, never came through. Now this little school is hobbling by, salaries paid personally by the missionaries here in Korr (something they absolutely can’t afford), and they are unsure if it can even continue next term, let alone next year, let alone expand to form two when the form ones move up. We can only trust that God’s got something up his sleeve, because he’s definitely working...

The last day of the term before the kids went home for the April break, they were having a special evening to celebrate the end of the term. They’ve been having a short time of Bible teaching daily, and a weekly Bible class, and they’ve SEEN the difference it makes to go to a Christian school. And during the devotion time on the last two nights of the term, they were given a lot to think about. First, Ndubayo, one of the ladies from the church, spoke to them. As she was finishing, she told them the following:

“You are very fortunate. You know how to speak English, and you know all these subjects… I’ve never been to school. I don’t know these things. You will have opportunities that I never had. BUT,” she said with a smile, “I have a degree! I have a degree in knowing Jesus, and that is the most important thing. You know all these things… make sure that you know about Jesus, too!”

The next night, the last night of term, the kids were given an invitation to accept what they had been learning and to give their lives to Jesus. Fifteen of them - half the school – stood up.

This little desert school is changing lives – bringing hope through both education and the gospel, and we are waiting to see how God is going to provide a way to open again in May. I’ll keep you posted! In the meantime, please pray for the school, and especially for these kids. God is doing SUCH amazing things!

____________________
This post isn’t intended to be a push for money at all, but if anyone is interested in helping out, or knows organizations who might want to help, I want to give you the opportunity. Please contact me at hello_hillary @ yahoo dot ca for information if you’d like to help!

On My Cross

How wide is Your love
That You would stretch Your arms
And go around the world
And why for me would a Savior's cry be heard

I don't know
Why You went where I was meant to go
I don't know
Why You love me so

Those were my nails
That was my crown
That pierced Your hands and Your brow
Those were my thorns
Those were my scorns
Those were my tears that fell down
And just as You said it would be
You did it all for me
And after You counted the cost
You took my shame, my blame
On my cross

How deep is Your grace
That you could see my need
And chose to take my place
And then for me, these words I'd hear You say

Father no
Forgive them for they know not what they do
I will go
Because I love them so

Those were my nails
That was my crown
That peirced your hands
And your brow
Those were my thorns
Those were my scorns
Those were my tears that fell down
And just as you said it would be
You did it all for me
And after you counted the cost
You took my shame, my blame
On my cross

Those were my nails
That was my crown
That peirced your hands
And your brow
Those were my thorns
Those were my scorns
Those were my tears that feel down
And just as you said it would be
You did it all for me
And after you counted the cost
You took my shame
My blame on my cross

After you counted the cost
You took my shame, my blame
On my cross

So rich a crown

As a friend warned me before I headed to Kenya, "Africa is the place where even the trees are out to hurt you." Now that I've lived in the North for a while, I'm seeing that he's very right!

The smallest thorns are from trees we like to call "wait a bit" bushes. These are small thorns - less than a quarter inch long - but they come in groups of three. Two are hooked forward and one, slightly further down the branch, is hooked back. If you brush past, it's like the tree grabs you and good luck getting yourself free. Acacia thorns are one to three inches long, white, and very strong. There are some thorn trees that look like a wild, curvy tangle of Dr. Suess-like branches, others are long and needle-like, and still others can be mistaken for small branches at first glance. They are easily four to five inches long and can be as wide as a half an inch at the base.

I think the most interesting thorn trees are the whistling thorns. The bark is yellow-ish and the tree grows crooked - a few feet one direction, then another, then another. It zig-zags to the sky with thorns that have often have a big black bulb at the base. Ants make their nests in the thorns and when the wind blows at just the right angle, the air passing through the thorn makes a whistling sound.

Walking barefoot around Korr is dangerous, especially since most thorns have some type of poison that makes them not just pokey, but makes your skin itchy and irritated at best, or causes boils at worse.

So today, Good Friday, as I read the story of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, the crown of thorns stood out. I could imagine it, and I know what it feels like to have one poke my toe as I walk (it hurts!). But to have these digging and scraping into my head, to feel the blood trickle down my forehead, to be spat upon and mocked, to have every blow push the thorns deeper into my flesh... this I could not even begin to imagine. And the thorns were just the beginning of Jesus' suffering for me. In so many ways, the desert is helping the Bible come alive for me. Today, this is one.

See from his head, his hands his feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did e're such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Professional Development, African Style

There's another new post below this one, too - "He's been to Infinity and beyond..."
___________________________

February 27 - March 1, 2009

To celebrate the success of Tirrim’s standard 8 pupils, the Area Education Officer for our district decided that all the teachers from the seven little schools in this district should be rewarded with a trip (that’s the way things are done here in Kenya, it seems… the kids do well, the teachers get a reward!). Word went out to each headmaster that they needed to raise a certain amount of money – not from the teachers, but the community, so that the communities could show their support for the teachers. (Arg! How could I go for a weekend away on the shillings of the Rendille?!?! Hooray for being able to make anonymous donations!) Money was raised, and the trip was on!

We would be heading to a resort in South Horr (look it up! That one’s actually on the map!), would be fed, and would go there and back with special chartered transportation.

Faaaancy!

But then, remember, this is Africa!

The resort wasn’t exactly a resort (though it was pretty nice!). The women – all five of us – stayed in huts with bunk beds, bamboo leaf roofs, and a kerosene lantern. The two married couples also got huts. The other 60 or so men slept on the concrete basket ball court. About 20 had foam mattresses, the rest slept on a tarp, most without sheets, cause there was no indication that we had to bring bedding. I was extra thankful for my bed when I heard that!

We arrived Friday night and had supper (over the weekend, they slaughtered 5 goats to feed us all!). Saturday morning and early afternoon we had a few sessions. I kept thinking – this is professional development African style!

We met under the roof of the basket ball court, which bordered on a trail where Samburu warriors and herders – children as young as 6 years old – walked their cattle and goats back and forth from their village to various grazing areas. As we met, the cattle passed, their metal bells clanging back and forth as they walked. Then came the goats, bleating away as they walked. We spotted some monkeys playing in the trees above us as we talked.

We began the meeting with a brainstorming sesson aboug what makes a good teacher, which was a good inspiration. But of course, things quickly turned to politics. We got into groups and brainstormed some of the problems facing education in the north, and it was amusing to think that, except for the monkeys and the warriors, that it very well could have been Canada – too many kids in classrooms (but here, some teachers have classes of 50, 75 and even 100 kids), too few resources (but here, there is one English textbook for my class or 27 kids), teachers are underpaid (but here, many teachers make nearly nothing, often being paid about the same as a house helper/maid).

But there were problems unique to the north, too. For pastoralist people who keep camels and goats and sheep, the children are needed to take care of the animals. They take the herds far away in search of grazing and of water. If all the children go to school, there is no one left to tend the herds. How do you strike a balance?

After we listed problems and solutions (which basically ended up being “We need more money.”), the Area Education Officer spent nearly an hour and a half telling people that they should stop complaining about these problems, look how much has already been done (at least we have schools… we can’t afford teachers, but we’ve hired untrained people to teach… etc). He then told people that they should really take charge of their lives and go to continue their education so they can help solve some of these problems (gulp!) I asked our head teacher afterward what he thought of all this. He said the AEO was just motivating people and that he came away from the weekend really encouraged. I came away from the weekend angry and feeling pretty defensive for these teachers! I chalked it up to a different cultural understanding. If people felt encouraged, that’s great. That’s what the weekend was supposed to be about. Eekers!

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But the best part of the weekend – an experience I’m so glad I had, but am also glad it’s over – was the special chartered transportation. Sixty people on the back of a public lorry. And not just any ol’ public lorry – a beat up, old, yellow lorry loaded with lumber and tables and all kinds of junk, with some of the metal bars up top lashed together with rubber straps and others sketchily welded together.



I spent the first part of the ride there up at the front, wedged in with a ton of people, hanging on to the bars and bouncing around with everyone else. At least I wasn’t one of the ones sitting up on TOP of the bars. Bumping along and balancing your butt on a two inch metal tube isn’t exactly my idea of comfortable! A lot of the guys rode the whole way like that. I have no idea how they did it, especially considering they had to be constantly on the lookout for overhead branches and duck when we passed under, lest the be torn to pieces by the nail-like thorns!


When my friend Janet and I got tired of standing and clutching the bars for dear life got too tiring, we found a place to sit on a large sack of maize for the remainder of the journey. Thankfully we were under the canopy for most of the trip, so there was at least a little protection from the sun.

The 100 km journey took about six and a half hours over bumpy, dusty desert roads. We stopped at every little town along the way (and a few that were not along the way) to pick up other teachers from the district: Ballah, Namarey, Ngurinit, Illaut... the lorry got more and more crowded with teachers and other random travelers who hopped a ride.

There were a few mamas with babies and a Borana woman who was making trouble, saying that Marsabit, a traditional Rendille area, was Borana country (the Rendille and the Borana are not exactly friends). There was some random dude with an AK-47 that he propped up against the fuel drum he was sitting on and an outgoing pastor who found that the solution to the cramped, dusty, bumpy ride was to get people to sing at the top of their lungs. It worked! You can’t be grumpy when you’re singing!

And then there was the miraa*-chewing muslim man who was stoned the whole trip and insisted that I should marry him and take him back to Canada with me. When my friend told him that I was a Christian and that I wanted to marry someone else who was a Christian, he told her to stop talking and go away, she was leading me astray. I assured him that, no, she’s right, I want to marry a Christian, and he’s a Muslim. “Well that’s not a democracy!” he told me. “Who says anything about a democracy? I can choose who I marry, and I choose to marry someone with the same faith as me.” I’m sure he thought I was the rudest woman in the world. It was mostly in good fun, though I did stay far away from him for the rest of the ride. He didn’t give me anymore trouble, as his attention quickly turned to the guy sitting on his stash of miraa, nearly starting a fist-fight on the back of the lorry.

Before the fist fight got going, however, everyone was distracted by a large part of the lorry FALLING OFF onto the road behind us. ‘Member how I talked about the sketchy welding? Well a piece of the tubing that made up the top of the lorry – it came up from the back corner and then bent and met the beam in the middle – had just had it with everyone sitting on it or holding on to it, and it completely broke off. For a while we thought that someone had fallen off with it, but the two guys who were hanging on to it flung themselves forward into the lorry and were OK. We stopped and a few guys dropped and ran to pick it up. Over the course of the trip, five of the twelve joints had broken.

As far as the driver goes, he was nice enough on the way there, and drove alright, doing his best to mitigate the bumps in the road for his passengers in the back. The ride back, however, was a different story! I think he must have been angry with us or something (we were told that we’d be leaving South Horr at 8am sharp, but knowing about African time, I thought a safe bet might be 10am. We didn’t leave till ten to TWELVE! Or maybe it’s cause he thought we were wrecking his truck!), because he drove like an absolute madman. Janet and I had found our seats on a pile of round-ish wooden poles and we were leaning up against the side of the lorry, our backs just the right height to be against the 1/4 inch metal rail that ran down the side of the lorry. We bumped and we banged and we rattled like crazy as the driver sped through the desert with the wind, causing great billows of dust to pour into the back of the lorry. And the driver slowed down for nothing. At least a dozen times the truck banged so fiercely that I was bounced 6-12 inches into the air, slamming back down again – butt on the poles and back on the rail.

Janet at one point told the driver, “Hey! Remember you’ve got people back here, not sacks of maize!” He just laughed and said that he had forgotten that, that he was sorry, and would drive more carefully. He got crazier. Even the land rover carrying the head honcho people behind us couldn’t believe how this dude was driving!

We could have been miserable, but, like the Rendille seem to do, we all sang instead. The pastor lady, who was sitting directly in front of me, led most of the signing, and as the bumps got more severe, she just sang louder. This photo is from a video I have of her dancing around and whistling and whooping. Notice the poor guy next to her - he has a bandana over his face keep the dust out, and his hands over his ears to dampen the decibels coming out of this fabulously rambunctious woman!

The whole weekend was a pretty cool experience. Despite the stiff body and bruises on my back (!!!), I might even venture to say I enjoyed it! It was definitely an experience to remember. No professional development I’ve ever done or will ever do will rival this one, that’s for sure!
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* miraa – a stimulant drug that’s common here in the North – it’s a plant whose leaves, when chewed, make you pretty much lose your mind. A lot of lorry driver here chew it so they can drive for days without sleeping and make more deliveries, and thus more money.

He goes to Infinity and beyond, but he hasn't been to Korr

This is my friend Phil. He’s in Disneyland, posing with Buzz Lightyear, a character from the movie Toy Story. This is one of the photos that I have in my album of photos of friends and family that I have taken to Africa with me. The same album that the kids LOVE looking through when they come to my house to visit on the weekends. “Madam, who’s this? And who’s this? And who’s this? And this is a picture of the same person, right? And madam, that’s you? And who’s this? And who’s this? And what is that? (a boat!!!) And who’s this?” It goes on for ages! But the photo above is, without fail, the one that draws the most attention. The girls who were here last Saturday, though, had the best reaction yet.

Woy, woy, woy, madam… what is THIS?!?! Nahima physically jumped back and turned her head away in shock. Is it a human being?!?!

Ever the teacher, I asked, “What do you think?”

Woy, ma-dam, I don’t know! She took another peek and shrieked, throwing the book down on the table. Madam, I am afraid!

Laughing, I told her, “It’s just a photograph. It won’t hurt you!” I called the other girls over to take a look. Misano took a look and her eyes nearly bulged right out of her head. She just squealed as she took a step back and shook her hand in front of her face. Nahima still had her head turned and was only peeking at the picture through her fingers.

Madam! Your friend, he is not afraid?

They continued to peek at the photo and react to it for a few minutes, still incredulous that such a thing could exist. After a guessing game as to what on earth that crazy thing was - “I think it is made from plastics.” – I thought about how to explain it to them.

Well you see, my friend was in Disneyland... nope, how on earth could they know what Disneyland is???

That guy is a character from a movie... hmm... it’s highly unlikely that they’ve ever seen a movie, and even if they had, that still didn’t explain this crazy plastic humanoid hugging my friend.

There’s this man wearing a costume... what’s a costume???

So I settled on something along the lines of, "Well, there’s a man inside. He puts on these special clothes that cover his whole body, and even his head, like a hat. The special clothes even cover is face. When the special clothes are on, he walks around and greets people. He greeted my friend and my friend took a photo of them together."

Nahima covered her mouth with her hand and looked up at me with total bewilderment. Wuuuuuuuuuuh, madam. I can only guess at the questions in her head, none the least of which might be, “Why on EARTH would one do such a crazy thing???”

It’s amazing, the more time I spend with these kids, the more experiences I have like this, where I can see my own world through their eyes, and I realize so much of what I just always see as normal is either complete and total lavish luxury or even simply just an understanding or experience that is so incredibly different.

Just before she closed the album, Nahima told me, Madam, in Canada, there are many strange things!

Yes indeed there are!