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!

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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..."
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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!

~~~~~~~~
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!

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.

One of the big problems right now is drought. The last rainy season never happened, and this season has consisted of two half an hour showers. That’s it. The problem is especially bad here in the North, as it’s so incredibly dry here anyway. But in addition to that, no rains mean no grazing for the thousands of sheep, goats, and camels that the Rendille rely on for survival.

Food like flour and sugar is getting more and more expensive, too – the price of sugar just rose again this week in town – and people simply do not have money to buy food. Normally for the Rendille, the shops work on a credit system: the Rendille take what they need until they owe enough to equal a goat or a sheep, and then they give the shop owner one of their animals as payment. When the shop owner has enough animals, they transport the animals to a market down country and sell them. But even this system is affected by the drought. No grazing means nobody wants animals. The shop keepers can’t sell the goats, so they’ve cut off the credit for the people. This in turn means the people can buy nothing, nothing, nothing.

In the goobs (villages), a diet in non-drought times might be chai in the morning (tea with milk and sugar), maybe some ugi – a watery porridge made from maize meal – for lunch, and another cup of chai for dinner. Having milk, of course, requires having animals around. Normally, herders and warriors take the animals far away in search of grazing, leaving only a few camels, goats, and sheep back in the goob to provide milk.

Right now, however, most goobs have no camles – there is absolutely nothing for them to eat in Korr, so the camels and most of the goats and sheep are taken far, far away, where even the water and the grazing are a day and a half’s walk from each other. The goats and sheep that are here are so malnourished that they aren’t producing milk. No or too few animals means that there is no milk for chai, and no money for sugar. So many people are living on what little they can beg and a few tea leaves boiled in water. No milk, no sugar, no porridge. Relief food comes once a month, but even that is barely enough to last a family maybe a few days. And relief food is not without its own issues, which I’ll talk about shortly.

Every single day, Nick and Lynne have people at their door crying for help. “We haven’t eaten for two days,” pleads a mother with a baby and two small children by her side. She’s maybe eaten a small bit two days ago, and gone for how many other days before that without food. “Please help us.”

The people. are. starving.

It’s so hard to sit here with my computer and my iPod and my three square meals a day and my recent vacation/conference to the coast and know that people all around me are suffering like this. Sometimes the question isn’t “What have the Rendille done to deserve this kind of poverty” but “What have *I* done to deserve this kind of wealth?”


Beyond even this, however is something that makes me feel so angry and SO… what? Helpless? Desperate? … Heartbroken. This is the amazing waste of money and stubbornness to do things their way of many development agencies and NGO’s. It’s a frequent topic of discussion among the missionaries here, and the more I hear and the more I see, the angrier I become.

This is actually a sensitive topic, so I've decided to take this part down. If you'd like to read what I wrote, feel free to email me and I'll send it to you.

Go back to the home page

Tirrim Primary School

Tirrim School began as a small nursery school class and in 2004, the Primary school was opened for the first time. It has grown and grown and grown, and last year has its first ‘graduating’ class of Standard 8 students. There are 397 students enrolled from Standard 1 to Standard 8, in two locations (only because the more permanent location is still not large enough to hold everyone). There are a number of nursery school classes in town, and more out in the goobs (villages). The nursery school kids are learning numbers and the alphabet in Rendille – giving them a firm foundation for literacy in their own language. The goobs that don’t have classes are pleading for nursery schools to be started there, too. It is so awesome to see how the school has developed into such a big project in such a short time.

But the most exciting news about Tirrim – news that has had the whole of Northern Kenya buzzing for three months now – is how that first class of standard 8’s performed on their KCPE exams.

Some quick background info for you … Kenyans are pretty much obsessed with standardized testing (I know, I know, it makes me CRY). Kids are given exams from the time they enter baby class (three years old – THREE!!!) all the way through university. From standard 1 to standard 8, they are tested, tested, and retested to see how much of the syllabus they actually know. When they get to the end of primary school (standard 8) they sit the big government exams known as the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams that cover everything they have learned not from the beginning of the year, but everything they’ve learned from class 1 all the way to class 8.

These exams bring incredible pressure for these poor kiddies, as the marks they get will determine what kind of school they get into for secondary. Only those with top, top marks get into the cream-of-the-crop national schools. Very, very few students achieve scores high enough for these prestigious schools. Below the national schools are provincial schools, which are also quite prestigious and difficult to get into. The vast majority of students go to district schools or another rank lower than that (I forget what they’re called). Got that? National, provincial, district, and “other.”

So, back to last year’s standard 8 class at Tirrim. Of the twelve students in that class, nine of them got scores high enough to get into provincial schools, which is almost unheard of for students in the north. But the even bigger news was that the remaining three got into national schools. Every single student got a place at some of the best schools in Kenya because of their high marks. Tirrim’s scores were the highest in not only our district, but the neighbouring district, too. Scores like this are nearly unheard of in the North, and especially impressive was the fact that two of the three students who got national scores were girls, who normally score far below the boys on their exams.

One of my favourite stories of one of the class 8’s now studying at a national school in Nairobi is of Chimberreya (which means “little bird”). I’ve never met her, but have heard that she’s this tiny little thing (for whom they couldn’t find a school uniform small enough to fit her, so she’s wearing one that’s too big and rolling up the cuffs and the skirt drags on the ground!) who scored the top mark in the class. Before she began primary school, she lived in a goob that was far out of town. Because of this, she went into the boarding... the only thing was, she had never even been to Korr town before, and had never even seen a building with walls and doors, and was petrified to even go inside. Now, eight years later, she’s living in Nairobi - Nairobi! and going to the most prestigious secondary school in the country! Her parents really have no idea how big a deal this is – what do they know of schools and exams and rankings? They don’t even know what Nairobi is, other that it’s some place far away. All they know is that everyone is very happy with their daughter and that she’s living in some far-off land and will one day help provide an income for her family.

Ah, but how do these people who are just barely scraping out an existence – and very often far less than that – afford to send their kids to Nairobi and all over Kenya to go to school? Yes, secondary education is now free (as of this year), but still they must pay for uniforms, books, boarding fees – they even have to bring their own mattresses to school – let alone transportation to the school. It’s not like you can just hop a bus from the North – transportation around here is difficult and expensive.

However, thanks to a lot of hard work from a few people in Nairobi who have stayed in Korr, all three of the kids in national schools have been fully funded. Chimberreya has a sponsor in Nairobi who will sponsor her for the full amount – fees, room and board, everything – for the full four years of secondary. Muslimo went with a sponsor for the first term, and once she got there, the sponsor has extended it for the full year, with the possibility of it going further. Ajeysho didn’t have an official sponsor by the beginning of school, but was told by someone in Nairobi, “I don’t know where the money will come from, but I will act in faith that God will provide it. I can not let this opportunity pass this boy by. Bring him, and we’ll see what God will do.” What God did was find a sponsor for Ajeysho, too, for the full four years of secondary!

An education is something we take for granted so much in the Western world, but for these kids… man, it is SUCH an opportunity. It gives them so much hope for their future – maybe with secondary, they’ll be able to get jobs, they’ll be able to support their family, they’ll be able to pull themselves out of poverty.

It’s amazing – everybody wants to come and see Tirrim – to find out why the students did so well… what are we doing? How can other schools learn from the school? There have been teacher conferences (more on that one later!), celebrations, meetings on how to maintain this high standard, visits from rarely seen government education people, and even an invitation to host the annual (semi annual?) ball tournament at Tirrim so the schools in the district can come and see the school. And through it all, this little bush school in the middle of the desert can say – and has been! – that the first and foremost reason that the class eights performed so well was because we are encouraging them to put God first in all they do, and we strive to do the same.

It is so exciting to see the kerfuffle these students have made throughout Kenya, and even more to see the effect it has on the kids – they have hope, they are motivated to do well, they see what is possible when they work hard and remember to put God first!

Now with more "Africa!"

Woohoo! I got the new template done! Turns out I could do it myself quite easily, with some technical advice from my friend Paul! (Thanks, Paul!!!)

Since a few people have asked, I thought I'd tell about the photo... Yes, it's me! It's in Kalacha, where we went for our prayer retreat a few weeks ago (ak! Yes, I know, I'm so behind on blog posts/journals about what I've done!). I went for a walk early early in the morning with a few other ladies - we left before the sun rose and walked out into the desert a ways to watch it come up. Turns out that day we watched the sun rise, the moon set, the sun set and the moon rise. Pretty amazing!

Anyway, like Korr, Kalacha is windy, windy, windy, so the fabrics we had wrapped around us were fluttering and blowing everywhere. My friend Barara and decided to take some photos of us dancing around in the wind and the sunrise, and this was one of the results.

So... welcome to my more "African feeling" blog! hehe!

Return of the animals

* I've got another new post below this, too - Bucket Baths!
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The Rendille are pastoralists, which means, in part, that they keep huge herds of goats, sheep, and camels. But in a desert like Korr, there is little grazing for the animals, so young children – often as young as six years old - take the animals far, far away in search of grazing. Warriors, too, head out with the herds to the fora* to help watch the animals and the young herders. Everyone sleeps outdoors with the animals in round enclosures made of thorn bushes, often only eating a mixture of blood and milk from their animals to stay alive.

As the rainy season approaches, people slowly begin to bring their animals back to the goobs*. Once the rains come, there will be a little more water and grazing available closer to home, so slowly the herds all come back. This year people are bringing the animals back earlier than usual, as there have been many animal raids in areas where many Rendille animals have been grazing, so they’re heading home for more security. The animals are beginning to return to Korr.

Last week and the week before, I started noticing herds of camels ambling lazily across the hills in the distance as I walked to school. It was easy to spot the herders among them, their blazing red blankets standing out against the dusty landscape. Sometimes if I walk home for lunch or when I’m walking home after school, there are Rendille women and a warrior or two at the wells by the laga* watering their goats. This week, however, I have noticed a dramatic increase in the number of animals in the area.

When I first described my commute to school, it was across a deserted laga and past empty wells, still and quiet in the “cool” morning air. On Monday morning, that all changed.

Easily over a hundred camels were milling about around the wells and the laga. Have you ever smelled a hundred camels? A beautiful smell to a Rendille, I’m sure! Wooden bells tock-tock-tocked around their necks as they brayed and honked (bronked? What do you call the sound a camel makes?!?!), looking as if they were just thoroughly annoyed with the world.

As I wove through the crowd of beasts, women with large water barrels untied the ropes holding them to their backs and worked at some wells at filling them. Other wells were full of warriors drawing water for the animals, hauling water up and pouring it in the basin that leads to the attached trough. Their low, rhythmic chanting helped them as they worked: “Auhy-yuh, auhy-yuh, auhy-yuh…” I couldn’t see them as they dropped their buckets far down the hole – the walls of the well hid them – but I certainly knew they were there. The beads of both the warriors and the woman brought beautiful colour – red, white, black, yellow, orange – to the otherwise neutral land around us. Cries of “Nebeyon barite” filled the air as people greeted each other, and the odd donkey tied to a tree brayed, laden with baskets waiting to be loaded with the full water barrels.

Farther up the hill were women and donkeys walking huuuge herds of goats out to graze – a sea of white clattering along the rocky ground. Most herds were small enough I could just walk through, but for one I had to physically stop walking and wait while at least 200 goats crossed my path. I used the time to greet the women and use my limited Rendille to have a quick conversation with them. As I looked out over the hills, I could see seas of white where other herders were guiding their goats to graze or to drink.

The whole area was alive with sound and colour and activity, and I just stopped for a moment to drink it all in. So many animals, and the rains are still far off. It’s such a special time to see everyone returning, and gives me a much clearer idea of the truly incredible Rendille way of life.

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* fora = grazing areas * goob = village * laga = dry river bed

Snippets of a desert life - How to take a bucket bath

There’s no running water at the house here in Korr, so bathing is done standing in a large pink bucket inside a little mabati (corrugated sheet metal) room off to the side of the house. I’ve been here nearly two months, and I still love the routine! I’d even call it fun! Whoopie! A bucket bath! This is so cool! Yes, I’m a dork. Deal with it! ;)

Want to get clean? Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Fill a kettle with water and light the stove (that is, if you want warm water – usually it’s so hot I’m happy without this step). Let the water boil as you prepare the rest of your bath.

2. Gather your soap, shampoo, towel, clean clothes, etc and bring them to the stall. Push your hip into the door to slide the padlock out and open the creaky door.

3. Go back to your room and get the bucket that you use for fetching water. Draw a bucket and a half or so of water from the water barrels and dump them in the bath bucket. Draw another bucket of water to leave in the stall for the end of your bath - fresh water to rinse with so you don’t rinse with the soapy water and end up with a film of soap and shampoo all over you for the rest of the day.

4. Go back to the stove and get the kettle. Dump this in the bath bucket, grab the jug for dumping water over you and take your bath. Don’t worry that the door doesn’t close from the inside and just flaps in the breeze as you bathe. Your bath bucket is around the corner and no-one can see you. Just take care when you’re dressing that you STAY around the corner. You never know when a gust of wind will send the door flying open!

5. Once you’re all clean, dump the bath bucket out onto the floor. A little drain pipe will leads to outside and it’ll drain quickly. Return the kettle and the bucket and you’re all done!

6. If you’re REALLY adventurous, do all this by headlamp after dark. It’s much more fun when you’re dodging cockroaches in the shower stall and bathing in near darkness.

7. But of course, if you’re really lazy, just fill up a bucket of water, take it to your room, and splash it all over yourself there. (Don’t worry about the giant puddle on the floor, it’ll be dry in half an hour!)

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...

This is the kind of desert that I picture when I think of a desert – flat, baking nothingness, the ground cracked and dry, mirages shimmering in front of you, only to vanish as you come near, the scorching wind kicking up dust as it howls across the plain. It was incredible! The Chalbi is mostly a salt pan, so, had it not been for the searing heat as we drove across, you’d almost think there had been a light dusting of snow. The black rocks of the lava fields rose up in the distance to our right, and we could see the palm trees that grew in the oasis at the edge of the desert.

A herd of camels walking single file in the distance seemed to hover over the desert, their reflections visible in the mirage below them (I know! Reflections! Crazy!) Soon it was nothing but nothingness, too far from water or food for even the bravest camel herder to venture.

Side story: A number of years ago, some people from the Gabbra tribe raided the Rendille and stole 2000 camels. They took the camels over the middle of the Chalbi because they knew that the Rendille might come looking around the edges, where the water is (they usually walk them along the edge if they have to pass that way). Word got to authorities, who sent a helicopter looking for the thieves. You would think that two thousand camels would be easy to spot, but the pilot flew back and forth all over the Chalbi and was never able to locate the massive herd. It was later discovered that the helicopter pilot was a Gabbra, and the camels all made it over the Ethiopian border and disappeared.

When we arrived at the mission station in Kalacha, I was practically abducted by Barbara and Charmyn, two single girls about my age. “You’re staying with us!” they announced. Woohoo! I was glad to get to hang with these two for the week. Slumber party!!! Hehehe! As we were waiting for dinner, Barbara and Charmyn took me to the swimming pool (SWEET!). The mission station also runs a campground for tourists, and so operates a small (but fabulous when the only water where you live is at the bottom of a well!) pool. We climbed up to the deck and looked at the gorgeous water. “Aw, man! My swimmers are back in my bags at your house in town,” I told the girls. “So???” asked Charmyn as she jumped in in her clothes. SPLOOSH! In went Barbara, too, and I, not being one to spoil a party was in a split second later. Swimming is SO much better when you do it in your clothes. (But swimming in a near ankle-length skirt DOES prove rather difficult!). We got out and stood on the platform a while to let the wind dry us off a little. We were hoping it might make us a little bit cold, but we only got as far as “a little less hot.” Oh well, we took what we could get. We were still pretty much sopping when we arrived for dinner. To the questioning looks, we responded through giggles, “Ah! It was terrible! We went up to the pool to show Hillary and she fell in! I had to jump in and save her!” “Yes, and then they were both struggling, so I had to jump in and help!” “I’m so glad they did! I could have DIED!” We “fell in” three more times that week!

It was so wonderful to get to spend time with both Barbara and Charmyn throughout the week. We shared stories of how each of us had come to work in Africa, talked about our lives back home and our ministries here in Northern Kenya, prayed for each other, and enjoyed some general girlie silliness. One image (of the many!) that I have of my time with them is of the three of us sitting all in a line in the living room of their house and brushing our teeth. Barbara and Charmyn just leaned over and spat on the floor (it’s a gravel floor that gets watered daily to keep the dust and heat down). “Come on Hillary! Spit on the floor! Do iiiiit!” It took me a minute to get over the notion of “a good guest doesn’t spit out her toothpaste on the living room floor!” but I soon did and had fun spitting on the floor all week! (It all got washed away by the buckets of water we dumped on it when washing or faces and our feet, so don’t worry!) hehehe!

The sessions throughout the week were really good. We spent time praying for each other, and I got to hear about what is happening in different parts of the North. We spend some time singing together, and I realized how much I had missed worshipping in a language I understand. I sing along in Rendille at church in Korr, but I often (ok, almost always) don’t understand the words. It was so sweet to sing songs that I knew in my own language! One morning we split up into four groups and went for a prayer walk – we walked all over town praying as we went – for specific people, for the town in general, for the various difficulties that are facing Kalacha at this particular time. It was a pretty incredible time as some of us prayed, some of us walked, we met people at talked with them, and learned in relative detail about what is happening in Kalacha.

During the week, Nick also did a number of sessions on language learning – giving ideas and tips on how to learn a language when you can’t buy a textbook and sit in a class to learn it. I discovered that the idea of figuring out a language – learning bit by bit, discovering and figuring out rules and structures, working with a language helper and then going out in the community to use, use, and re-use what you are learning… it’s really cool!

One suggestion was to get a small collection of photos together of people doing something to things (a man cooking meat, a girl milking a goat, etc). You can do so much with your language helper using those photos: nouns – “This is a man. This is milk. This is a fire. This is meat…” verbs: “The man is cooking meat. The girl is milking a goat. The wood is burning…” adjectives: “This is a tall man. She is a young girl. This is a white goat…” Ah! It’s so cool! I would LOVE to learn a language like this! I SO wish I had more time to devote to learning Rendille!

One highlight of the week (ok, so there were a LOT of highlights!) was when we all packed up Thursday afternoon for an evening picnic out on the Chalbi. Kalacha is just on the northern border of the desert, in an oasis, really, and it doesn’t take long before you’re out in the middle of nowhere again. We made a quick stop at Kalacha goda, a natural spring that has been bubbling up for hundreds of years and provides the town with ample water, then headed out to the desert. It was quite the setup – four vehicles and a trailer, tarps, benches, chairs, and lots and lots of food.

Barbara and Charmyn skipped the trip to Kalacha Goda (been there, done that) and walked out to the Chalbi to meet us. The only problem was, once we got there (I guess there’s kind of a regular spot that they meet), there was no sign on them anywhere. We did, however, see something off in the distance. We weren’t sure just what it was… a hyena? A wild dog? Or was it just a donkey? It was too hazy and… mirage-y? to see, so we didn’t want to unpack until we knew for sure what it was. Nothing spoils a picnic like a hungry hyena!

Just before one of the men got in the truck to drive over and see what it was, I put on the zoom lens of my camera and took a photo. I zoomed in on it, and discovered it was Barbara and Charmyn lying face down in the desert with a dog Charmyn has “adopted” from the village – they were hiding on us! We honked at them and they came over, enjoying the mischief they had caused! :)

All dangers now out of the way, we unpacked and set up, and the kids all went out to play, finding a pile of bones in the dirt and using them to dig around in the dirt. Gotta love life in the desert! We frolicked and feasted, and talked and sang as the sun went down over the Chalbi. How cool!

The families with young kids went back a little early, but a few of us and Charmyn’s dog stayed out to talk and do some star gazing. The wind howled across the desert, but we positioned ourselves behind the truck for some shelter and enjoyed the desert night. Suddenly, the dog sat straight up and started growling. This definitely got our attention. What was out there? We shone our lights around, but could see nothing. The dog settled down, but still sat bolt upright and stared out into the desert, watching. We were on our guard a little, but decided that if the dog was not freaking out, neither should we. And then the dog freaked out – he shot up and ran a ways out, barking and barking like crazy at something unseen. He didn’t let up, so we quickly decided it was time to go. We jammed the remaining things in the back of the truck and jumped in – I’ve never seen a picnic get packed up so fast! We scooped up the dog, too, who’d never been in a car in his life, closed up the back of the truck, and sped away. We never did find out what it was the dog saw or heard (it’s probably better that way!) but it certainly made for a good adventure!

Friday was the day to pack up and say goodbye. We left after breakfast and headed back over the Chalbi, stopping in Kargi, just on the south edge, for a quick ten minute visit with a pastor there. (Of course, there’s no such thing as a quick visit in Africa, and we ended up there for lunch and nearly and hour and a half!) Kargi is the first Rendille town you hit on the way back from Kalacha, and, while Kalacha was wonderful, as soon as we hit Kargi, I felt like I was home again! It had been a wonderful week of new friends and new places, good worship, and exciting learning. I was sad to leave, but excited to come back and see the kids again and attack the language with some new ideas. I was encouraged and refreshed, and so thankful for such a fantasterrific week!


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What's in a name?

As in English, every Rendille name has a meaning. But unlike many names given in North America, names are chosen specifically for their meaning. For example, a name might be given to represent where somebody came from or when they were born – Ndoto was born near the Ndoto mountains. Ngurinit was born in, well, Ngurinit. Mulgis was born near the river bearing the same name. Sometimes it’s something general about them – Hamado comes from the Rendille word hamad, meaning joy. Hirkenna means “rain bringer.” The long dry season ended the day he was born and the rains began to fall. Gumaa’di comes from gumaa’d, which means “Friday.” Guess what day of the week he was born on!

Of course, some names are chosen not just for their meaning, but for a greater, more individual story. Take Gisooya for example. “Gis” in Rendille means ‘to divide up.’ She was one of twins, but her twin died during birth, so her parents decided to call her Gisooya, saying, “God took his part and left us ours.”

And then there’s Limiyoogo. When he was born, he was not breathing. His parents and everyone around tried everything that they knew how to do to get him to breathe, but to no avail. As time was running out, they lifted their hands and asked God to help them, and at that moment, the baby took his first breath. His name means “hands lifted up to God.”

Nabiro, the old woman who lives across from us, had never had any children of her own. She would often say that her heart was burning, so much did she want to have a child. Four and a half years ago, she was able to adopt a baby girl. Finally, a child of her own. She named the girl Hoboso, which comes from the Rendille word for cold, because finally this little girl had cooled the burning in her heart and she was happy.

On a slightly more comical side, some children are named for a particular physical feature. Take Matahween, for example. Her name means “big head.” Or Lokhudeere - “long neck.” Ah, but the names get more interesting still. How about Anzaro (terrible calamity), or Subahdaayi (little black fat). I think my favourite has to be Dufaankhasso. What does that one mean, you ask? Slaughtered a camel ox.

I’m sorry, what? Slaughtered a camel ox???

Seriously! Who looks down with loving eyes on their little bundle of new life and says sweetly, “Awwww! I think we’ll call her slaughtered a camel ox!” I love it!

I was assured that I, too, would be given a Rendille name, and indeed, it did not take long. A mama has adopted me into her clan – Dubsahai – and has now named me Havareya Mirgichan. Havarey is the name of a tiny village farther out in the desert, and so I’ve been told that my name means “from a desert place.” When I told my students, many were confused. “But madam! You don’t come from Havarey! How can you be called Havareya?!?” But I think the name suits me just fine...

You see, life as a Christian has been difficult for me the last few years. I’ve felt spiritually dry and perpetually thirsty for God – a thirst I just can’t seem to make go away. I’ve been in a very desert-like place in my life. It’s been discouraging for me, and, though I know that God has never left me, it’s been hard to see His presence. I’ve gotten impatient and have just wanted out of this dry, dusty period of my life. I’ve often thought, “What good is there in this desert wasteland? I want out!”

And so now, here I am, in the literal desert (ah, God is funny like that!). Both literally and figuratively, I am finding beauty in this place. And more importantly, I am learning that God is here. I am seeing God in a way I never have before here in the desert, and it’s slowly but surely shaping me, changing me. And I know that it’s just a matter of time… the rains are coming.

As I was listening to some music this afternoon, this song came up and stopped me dead in my tracks. It was just what I needed to hear:

My heart is dry and thirsty, Lord,
Let me drink from your well, drink from your well
In this dry and thirsty land,
Let me drink from your well, drink from your well

You see right through me, nothing’s hidden from your sight
So in my brokenness, I run to you
I long to worship you in Spirit and in truth
So let me drink that I may never thirst again

Oh, source of living water, come and heal me again
Let your streams of living water come and wash away my shame
Precious Father, you’re my lover and my friend
Let me drink that I might never thirst again
Let me drink that I might never thirst again...

~ From “Living Water” by Stephen Toon

I just think it’s so cool that even my Rendille name helps to tell about God’s goodness in my life! He is so good!

...especially since He didn’t let me be named “Slaughtered a Camel Ox!”