flexibility

4/23/07 - late afternoon

My favorite Beatitude for Africa is "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not get bent out of shape...." We are learning quickly the meaning of "African Time." Time and arrangements for nearly everything are flexible and flow and change as the days and even hours pass.


This afternoon, Laureen and I met with Ellen and Esther to figure out how we would use the memory books we had brought with us. We had originally thought we would take pictures of the children and print them, turns out we would probably burn up Laureen's printer with the , so we will print and send them back to Ellen for the August VBS. We were going to start on Monday afternoon, but that didn't work out, so we will start tomorrow with 25 kids, then another 25 on Wednesday and finish up on Thursday. What amazed me was how gracious they were in accommodating us -- we come in with our "project" and they were very willing to make arrangements for us to do it, and Ellen will come along to help. We had been unsure if something like this would be a fun and interesting thing for the kids to do, but Esther (director of the VBS, a Tumaini staff member), said that everyone would want to do it and that they would have to pick who actually GOT to do it, since we only had enough material for 50. She will get a list of 25 kids and have them in the class for us. More about that when I get to tomorrow, 4/24/07.


Later in the week, I will be seeing the family of Ndunda Mwanzia (see picture). I met him today, he is very shy but sweet and he LOVES his purple shirt. Later in the afternoon, I was tracked down by the older sister of Ndunda (pronouned Dun-da, silent "n"), Ruth Mwanzia. Ruth is an athlete (a runner) and one of the smartest girls in Kenya (according to Stanley). She is 19, speaks excellent English and is now in teacher college. She may eventually come to the United States to study, but right now, is concerned with her family. I will write more about this family in the post on 4/25/07. She is a really nice girl and tells me that her brother (Ndunda) has been slightly brain damaged from a bad case of malaria when he was a small child -- he nearly died -- and their mother did. She says that he is having trouble with English, but is a good boy, and loves the animals and works in the crops at home. I am looking forward to meeting everyone else in the family, she also has a sister Annah (17), who I have written to, a sister Mary (a teacher- 23) and a brother Samuel (25). But we don't know what day yet -- that is still in flux and will probably be until 30 minutes before we leave! They live quite a distance away (about a 45 minute drive), so it will take some additional coordination.


Hakuna matata!! (No worries!) (People actually SAY this here -- the Lion King was probably set in Kenya!)