HIV issue

As I come to a close here in Kenya I am still learning new things everyday. I love the fact that each of my days are totally different, it keeps me fresh and excited to continue. Something that has been an overriding theme being here though is HIV. I have seen it impact so many of my students and community members- nearly 50% of them are affected in some way.

HIV is reported to have been first introduced to Kenya in 1985, and from that time most people didn’t know what it was, or the severity of it. All they knew was that people were dying in huge numbers. Until the last 10 years or so HIV was a death sentence. When I talk to Hannah, the beautiful director of Mogra Star, she has shocking accounts of life at that time. She said many people in the community would commit suicide after finding out they have HIV because the community would ostracize you so badly. In Mathare Slum, half of the people living there are HIV +and have been chased from their family homes in the rural areas. Life in the slum is awful, and more expensive than life in rural areas but they cannot stay in the areas because of stigma the family would have with an infected member of the family. Additionally, it is usually the husbands who infect the woman, but it is also the husbands that chase the wives away. Until recently, nobody had proper medication so if they continued living with HIV they had horrible affects of the body including thinning hair and skin and weight loss and uncontrolled bowels. It eventually leads to tuberculosis so that is what victims usually die of.
In today’s society, there has been a huge improvement in the way HIV is controlled. Though there are no drugs to cure the infection, there are drugs that control it and allow the person to function properly. There are many clinics that provide the drugs for free, however they must be taken with substantial food which is where the problems continue. Especially in the slum, it is hard to eat enough food to make the drugs help you, rather than causing additional liver damage and other issues. I mostly dealt with those people, who have access to the drugs but not to food. It is great that our school started a feeding program which allows the children to have a balanced meal, and if the mothers come in and volunteer in the kitchen they can also receive the meal. There is still a lack of hope among the woman though, and they need a lot of support in order to revive their hope and be shown they can be upstanding citizens.

One of my students is a very bright young man and he gives me a lot of hope. He comes from an incredibly needy family- he has a single mom of 6 boys, and she is HIV +, along with the youngest boy. Luckily none of the others were infected. The mother was one of the victims of HIV towards the beginning when nobody knew how to treat it properly. She was in a very poor state, flirting with TB and nobody had hope that she would make it. Mamma Hannah knew what needed to be done though and she would bring her food and help to bathe her, eventually bringing her health back into decent shape. With the increased availability of ARV drugs, over time the mother of 6 was able to increase her health even more to a sustainable level. Today, she is a huge inspiration to woman throughout all of Mathare Slum. She does HIV counseling for woman and, helps to run her own small business and raises 6 boys. She has raised her boys so well, they are good and caring kids and know how to work hard and focus on the important matters. The one I am closest to has high dreams of working hard and getting himself and his family out of Mathare. It is not an ideal place to stay but most people are forced to, but he has enough encouragement that he knows if he works hard they can move out. He has learned a lesson from seeing his mother suffer, and the effects that her decisions made for their family, and he knows he doesn’t want to live that type of life either.

Stories like this give me great hope, but they are fairly rare. I am happy to meet these people and see how well they do, but there are many more that are in desperate situations barely grasping onto life. HIV is a horrible disease and the best prevention is argued about on all fields. However, it cannot be argued that the most effective treatment is the ARV drugs, which require regular food and many people are unable to get that food. That is the sad part, lack of food can kill so many people… oh that’s another whole issue I won’t get started on! Pray for all those suffering, this world is a dark place and we must recognize it in order to alleviate some of it

Rwanda Part 2

So apart from visiting Our Lady of Kibeho, I was very excited to see another African Country, and how it compares to Kenya. It only took me 90 minutes to fly to Rwanda, a much better option than the 27 hour bus ride I was looking into! From the moment I got off the plane I was in awe of the beauty of the country, countryside and cleanliness. It was not like Nairobi at all (note, I have been told from everyone I meet outside of Nairobi that we have the WORST reputation as a country, being dirty, unfriendly, and they call Nairobi- Nairobbery because of all the theft, but I have no idea about all this living here!) But I got to see it a bit clearer being in Kigali, the capitol city of Rwanda. It was so clean, fresh and very safe. There are proper traffic lights, and the drivers follow a specific driving pattern- worlds apart from the crazy Nairobi driving! When I was picked up at the airport I got directly on a moto bike- my first one ever! So I was not only shocked at the beautiful atmosphere but also clinging on to my moto driver for dear life! By the end of the weekend and many moto rides later I was able to relax a bit and enjoy them, a huge thrill in fact.

Apart from venturing to Kibeho I stayed in the capitol city, visiting 2 friends- 1 from high school and 1 from college who are separate volunteers in Rwanda. It was just as nice for me to see them for them to see me, as both of them are at sites alone and have 1-2 year commitments, not even leaving for holidays. I can’t really imagine how difficult that would be to adjust to. I loved hearing about their work, exchanging stories about our time in Africa and laughing at how different life is than at home. We could talk about things only we would understand being in a 3rd world country alone. We ate plenty of pizza, popcorn and wine and overall had a fun ‘mzungu’ time, a brief get away from the daily grind of work. They showed me the 2 main tourist sites- the hotel from Hotel Rwanda and the Genocide Museum from 1994. Other than that, Kigali is pretty small, not like what I am used to in Nairobi at all. They are just now building a skyscraper, not sure what businesses they’ll put in it, but they are hoping to become one of the biggest cities in East Africa.

Being in Rwanda, I learned a lot about how it runs and works. Most everyone has a false perception of the truth that Rwanda is, “the beautiful put together country, with excellent woman’s rights.” There is a ‘big brother’ always watching and listening so I cannot write much here but I would love to tell you more about it once I make it make to the states! Kenya is a horribly corrupt country, but the good thing is, everyone knows it is corrupt so you can’t hide too much. When a country starts hiding the corruption that is a bad sign. I wasn’t allowed to ask any questions about how the govt works in public in Rwanda. And I wasn’t allowed to talk about the genocide of ’94- in fact NOBODY does. That is scary, as humans we have to learn from our past mistakes, talk about it and not go down that same path again. If we don’t talk about, there is a chance it will be repeated. That’s all I’ll say about that.

I had the genocide always on my mind being in Rwanda because I knew every person I passed was affected in some way. It was so recent that if a person was over 20 they very well could have been a brainwashed killer, or suffered in some other horrific way. If they are younger than 20 they are probably suffering without much of their family due to over 1 million being massacred.
When I was in Kibeho I went to a church that hid 40,000 people inside during the genocide. The church looks over where Our Lady of Kibeho was appearing- a football field distance away. With 40,000 people inside, the priest succumbed to the evil and he turned his church over to the rebels. They tore parts of the church apart to get inside and instantly killed all 40,000 people. Right next to Our Lady of Kibeho. The church has been rebuilt, and they painted the new bricks purple in order to show where the rebels tore it apart. As I was walking next to the church looking at it a flock of children came and followed- obviously not used to white people visiting. As my heart was being torn apart looking at the walls and knowing the lives that were taken in this very building, the children were contagiously laughing and playing together next to it. My heart was hurting even more looking at their innocence, they were too young to know the horror that happened here, but one day they would. They could still be kids, and not live with the pain right now, but soon enough they will ask questions, “where is my aunt, brother, grandma etc.” And someone will have to tell them about the genocide. I just hope by that time it isn’t too late.

I feel so blessed to live in America, especially since it has had 200+ years to develop. These poor African countries have just recently gained their independence and they need guidance on how to properly function and overcome the struggles that we have figured out. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough faith in any of our “older and wiser” government structures to do that properly. Afterall, we have corrupt and selfish leaders too. I think that is root to it all, are we in this life for success and money and fame, or are we here to love others… as Jesus loves us? I’m sure it sounds cliché and not realistic, but I would claim it is possible. Deep down we all know money and success will not make us happy, so why do we continue with that goal? Let’s make a more conscious effort to love the people around us more, and fight the lies that tear us apart. You can be the 1 person to change the view of 1 other person. There have been genocides across the whole world and every time we say “never again” but nobody actually does anything. Let’s be serious, it starts with us. Love. Love. Love. This lent, let’s love more, even when it is hard and nobody else is. Love will hold us together

Our Lady of Kibeho

Last weekend I was blessed to be able to venture over to Rwanda for a few days. I visited a friend from high school and a friend from college who are both volunteering over there in separate locations. I learned a lot and experienced a lot by visiting a different African country, and will share more about that later. But the main purpose for my visit was to pilgrimage to see Our Lady of Kibeho, a Catholic shrine. It has been a dream of mine to go, and was a huge blessing to finally make it there!

For those of you who are not Catholic, or familiar with who Our Lady of Kibeho is, let me give you a very brief explanation! In the Catholic Church, we honor Mary, the mother of Jesus as the woman we should all strive to be like. We believe she was born sinless and remained that way until she was taken to heaven, walking next to her son in all his sorrows and pains. She suffered with Jesus throughout his years of public ministry, and on the cross and is the perfect person to intercede for us and show us who Jesus is, after all she was the closest person to him.

In the past hundred of years or so, there have been a few approved ‘apparitions’ across the world where Mary has appeared to normal, every day people and warned them to repent and change their lives, in order to go to heaven and take others with them. One of the apparitions that is least talked about is in Kibeho, Rwanda. Our Lady first appeared to a young girl names Alphonsine, a freshman in high school in 1981 and told her “I would like your friends to have faith, because they do not believe strongly enough.” Only Alphonsine could see or hear Mary, but all the other students could hear her responses in conversation. In 1982, as Alphonsine’s apparitions were continuing regularly Mary began to appear to other girls in the school, even those who were unbelieving and converted them. She always urged the girls to have greater faith and spread it to others, along with repentance of their sins. Mary called herself “The Mother of the Word.” By this time large crowds of people would gather to listen and see what would happen in the apparition. Mary’s main priority is always trying to bring people to her son. These apparitions have continued until today, where some of the girls still receive the visions. In fact, last January I went on a retreat and 1 of the visionaries was there, and she received specific words from both Mary and Jesus to tell us on retreat. Incredible!

One of the key factors that has made these visions credible is the vision that Mary predicted and warned the Rwandans about the genocide that was to happen in 1994. In 1982 Mary warned about the “river of blood, people killing each other, abandoned corpses with no one to bury them…” and it was confirmed in 1994 when the genocide killed nearly 1 million people in just 3 months, neighbors killing neighbors and dumped into the Kagea River, which means river of blood.

In the Catholic Church, a LOT of investigation, and many years of work, is undergone to test the validity of such messages, especially the mental sanity of the visionaries. In some cases, they are deemed invalid and the general public is advised not to visit the sites, but Kibeho has been approved and is encouraged to be visited as a holy site. Unfortunately with it being in Africa it is not very accessible for people to visit. However, I am super blessed to be in Africa, and to have my friends in Rwanda specifically, so I was able to make the pilgrimage to Kibeho and see where Our Lady appears. It was beautiful.

There are many aspects of being in Kibeho that I will have to share with you more personally, but it was a very blessed trip. I stayed with a friend of mine and we started our journey at 6:45 am, and after a motor bike, a bus, and an overstuffed mini van ride we made it to Kibeho at 11:45am, just in time to catch the middle of mass. The ride, though it was long, was BEAUTIFUL through the country side. We were not expecting to go to mass, but there was some event going on, with tons of nuns and priests so we were able to go to mass, and confession-very exciting! The church is a large cathedral that Mary asked to be built in her honor. It took many years for such a small village to raise enough money, but they were finally able to build the church. It is simple and beautifully African. After that we went to the small chapel where Mary first appeared in 1982. It used to be a cafeteria for the school but they have transformed it into a chapel for visitors to pray in. It was also very simple and very African, but sitting in it you could tell it was a holy place. I spent most of my time praying for all of you, giving Mary all the intentions I had, knowing she would keep them close and plead with her Son for the prayers. We did not have as much time as I would have loved, because of the long journey and bus schedules, but I felt so comfortable being there, I know I will be back some day.

There are so many miracles and stories attributed to Our Lady of Kibeho, please look them up, they are wonderful!

I am blessed to have been to 1 other Marian Apparition site, Medjuorie, which is also the home to a war that Mary warned about in Bosnia. Medj is a beautiful place as well, and I found a lot of peace being there, but it is very touristy since they receive so many pilgrims. Being in Kibeho was anything but touristy. We were among 4 white people, and there are 2 gift shops—and you have to find a certain nun to open them! In a way it is shame that more people cannot pilgrimage to Kibeho, but I am so happy it is able to retain its simple African beauty. It takes work and intention to get to Kibeho, as a true pilgrimage should. I am sure I won’t know the many blessings that came from that trip, but it was treat to go and see Our Lady. Be assured of my prayers for each of you there, I hope that Our Lady can reach you and bring you closer to her Son and his love for you.

marriage material?

I have my fair share of marriage proposals over here, but tonight I had the pleasure of explain to a few girls what washing machines are and how they work, and they preceded to tell me I will never find a man to marry!

It all started because I was wearing athletic shorts after a run. I rarely wear shorts around the kids and never in the community because I know it is not modest for woman. But I figured the kids know me by now and it would be ok. Well, apparently not! The high school girls called me over to them and started touching my knees. They said, you know Christie, we Africans could never wear those. Everyone would think we were prostitutes! Ohhh Nooo I am not a prostitute I told them, and of course they just laughed. But then they explained that nobody shows their knees in skirts or trousers in Kenya unless they are prostitutes, which is true as I look around and seeing what woman wear. They said I could never find a husband wearing them…. Which then led into them asking me if I know how to wash my own clothes.

Now I could laugh, because I knew they meant hand wash clothes- (and no I cannot do that nearly as well as they can.) So I started saying oh yes, of course: I pile up my clothes then throw them into the machine with a bit of detergent and wala in a hour they are clean! Thy protested saying that is not washing clothes, so then I explained exactly how the washing machines work, spinning cycles and all! I had successfully distracted them from thinking about marriage, because they did not believe me that clothes actually got clean from machines. I started to explain how nobody hangs clothes to dry either, and there are machines that do that too, but that was out of this world and too much for 1 night. Maybe tomorrow that phenomenon will be tackled.

At this point, the girls were (jokingly) not impressed with me at all, I look like a prostitute and I can’t wash my clothes, what else can’t this crazy mzungu do! So they continue to ask me, what DO you know how to do, wash dishes? Finally, I could say yes to that, BUT also add that we have machines that do that too, so I rarely need to! Shocked again, WHAT do you do then? they asked. I said, I know how to cook and bake. They immediately protested, “that isn’t work, you are expected to do that!
They looked at me in all seriousness and said, we are really sorry but you will never find a man to marry. You need to be able to wash and clean for him, and he would never look for someone wearing shorts. Haha

They really know how to make me feel good about myself! Little do these girls know all the male interest I have had from Kenyans in the last months- granted none of them saw me in shorts, or asked if I knew how to wash clothes- so I guess I’m not in the clear quite yet! I am continuously blown away by how different life is here. As soon as I think I am adjusted to the culture a fast one like this is pulled on me and I turned around again! I’m thinking ill continue to wear my shorts, and show them how non-prostitutes can wear shorts freely… only at the orphanage that is, I don’t want to deal with offending the entire community!

i'm not a business woman!

NEWSFLASH: I am not a business woman! I have never ever ever desired to study business or work in the business world and that was confirmed a thousand times this week.

As I have mentioned, Mogra Star is VERY poor, they are in a deficit every month so they have to be intentional about where they spend their money. For this reason, many common household items are not present here. The biggest problem I immediately saw last year was that they have no shelves in the store room where they keep their food. It is shocking and pretty disgusting actually; the tomatoes, potatoes, onions etc are just placed in piles on the floor. Granted, since they do not have much money there is not an excess of food on the floor, but it is still not sanitary at all. This week I freaked out because I went to grab a tomato and saw a white rat crawling inside the pile. GRROOSSSS
Additionally, they receive clothing donations and they don’t want to give them out to the kids all at once, so they keep the clothes in bags. The bags are not organized at all so if a small child needs pants there is no way to quickly locate them.

So I have been suggesting to them to since September they create an organized store room with shelves, but nothing has been done. First I didn’t think they understood the concept, and then I realized they simply didn’t have the money. This week I hit my limit and I decided it was important enough to spend my own money on, so I found a fundi-carpenter- and I asked him to find the costs for me. We went to the rooms and measured the spaces together and designed the shelves for both clothing and food. This is where everything went bad.

The next day he came with the costs of 4 shelves, 9 ft by 7 ft. appx $250. That was more than I was expecting for simple wood, but do-able. The crazy part was his labor, charging me $200 to build 4 shelves- I call that skin tax, obviously since I am white I can pay him well, right?? I took the quote and said I would call him later, after speaking to a few people to confirm it. Throughout the day I decided to cut back to just 4 shelves and reduce the size a bit, still providing them with enough space for the items. So when we sat down later in the day to discuss everything I asked him how long he expected to take building the shelves. He said 7-9 days, and he wanted to be paid by the day, obviously (oh, and his days might be only 3-4 hours). I looked at him very seriously and said, my sister is a fundi in the US and she could build me these shelves in 1 day, and I would not pay her $200. I will give you 3 days to get the materials and build these shelves. He protested and we finally agreed on 5 days, 5 whole 8 hour working days! But I was only paying him for 4 days, a small fraction of the original cost. At this point he was not happy with me, thinking I was cheating him, but I was even more cross with him because he would not sign a contract of any sort and was just a very unfriendly person. Looking back, I knew from the moment I met him I didn’t like his character and should not have hired him, but can’t change that now!

So day 1, I was gone all day so I called at 1pm so check up on him, but he wasn’t there yet. Great- I was scammed I thought. I come to find out he estimated the timber costs 1/5 of the price, and they didn’t know what materials to buy anymore. So I spent that evening redesigning and calculating costs, refusing to add more money (I was very harsh with him, showing him I was all business, even though I had no idea if I was being fair or not!) Eventually we came up with a plan that I thought was fine and he was to buy the materials the following day.

The next day he made a sturdy, decent shelf, I was surprisingly impressed with his work. However, he brought an assistant that helped him and demanded I pay him- not in our original budget of course. After much debate, I decided I liked the character of his partner and they did good work so I paid him. But I told him I would provide him with 1 of my students to help the following day, for free. Before he left he also casually said he underestimated the amount of wood and needed more money to buy additional wood. I am already upset with this guy, so you can imagine how this was for me. I told him I had no money and he better find a friend or some way of finding the wood because I they better be finished. After discussing how to solve yet another timber shortage problem we decided on building boxes for the food to be stored in (which ended up being great)

So he did surprisingly finish in 4 ½ days (I think he wanted to get away from me asap!) and the work he did was solid, I am impressed with it (but after all, I think any of us could build a few shelves without major issues) and even more happy that we now have proper store rooms. But because of his miscalculations we had EXTRA timber that is now wasted. When I paid him he had the nerve to ask me for a BONUS. A bonus! At this point I had no probem telling him that I think he did good work, but I could not give him a bonus because of all of his miscalculations and his bad attitude with me. I was not too charitable to him, but I was already giving him a generous pay and he was a world class jerk to me in many ways so I said no!

As much as I hated those 4 ½ days dealing with him, I learned a lot about how to be a supervisor of a project and doing business. Not to mention the cultural differences we have in work ethic and pay. I am sure I overpaid him, and he played me hard core, but now I know to use my gut more and only go with a person I can reason with and he will communicate clearly to me. At least we have proper store rooms now and organization is on its way! Sorry I didn’t have pictures of all the completions, but you can see the small before and potential after pictures! It’s been a crazy week, with scarce electricity so I better go now!