U(really)ganda Leave?

As always:

To Mail Me Anything: 

Benedictine Fathers
Amani Conference Centre
P.O. Box 32101-00600
Nairobi - Kenya

To Donate Anything: 

Southern Benedictine Society
100 belmont mount holly road
Belmont, NC 28012

Greetings ‘Merca!

Yes, I realize it has been far too long since my last post, and I am eternally sorrowful for it. I’ve come to pay recompense to the masses by posting a blog today though! So let’s get on with it.

It’s been what, 2 and halfish weeks since I last posted? The week after the funeral was pretty low key. I kept my head down and did some good works and whatnot. I’m planning on organizing a paint job for St. Maurus. I need to buy paint though. Also they want me to fix some of their floors which means I need to pay for cement, too. Man, my bills are racking up! Anyways, schools in Kenya let out last week which meant it was graduation time for the classes at St. Benedict’s primary school! What was weird though was that none of the classes 1-8 had a graduation ceremony. Only the Pre-primary class had one, but all the classes performed different acts during the graduation. Apparently, no one cares if you graduate 8^th grade, but, if you graduate preschool, you’re on top of the world.

Soon after the school shenanigans, I began another little adventure. The prioress at the convent where the girls stay in Karen invited me to go with her, the girls, and her sister who is also a nun on a trip to Uganda! This is gonna need a day by day I think.

Last Wednesday

I met Sr. Serva in downtown Nairobi at 9:30am. We were meeting so that she could help me get my Ugandan visa. We went in, and the lady told us to come back at 4pm. Super lame. Up side though was definitely that Sr. Serva ended up buying me lunch at the Java House. It was really good, and I got a pineapple milkshake. I went with her on a couple errands as well. We stopped by the Cathedral book store, a linen shop, the bank, and we made it to prayer service in the Cathedral as well. We got our Ugandan visas and went back to Karen. It took forever traffic was awful, and it was also the scariest drive of my life. Her name does not imply it, but Sr. Serva is 50-60some Korean woman who loves to talk on the phone while driving. I think I cheated death about 11 times on the way back. We got to Karen and found out that instead of leaving on Thursday, we wouldn’t actually be leaving until Friday. So I had a free day in Karen!

Last Thursday

I slept in. Until noon? Somewhere around there. It was awesome. Then I went into town with the girls to this little coffee shop they discovered and we enjoyed the coffee and WIFI. I downloaded a rental of “O Brother Where Art Thou” from iTunes because Caitlin, scandalously, had never seen it. Then we walked back to the convent in 17 minutes which was a new record for the girls (I’ve done it in 12 nbd). Enjoyed a relaxing evening and packed for our journey.

Last Friday

4:30am came around much MUCH too soon. Sr. Michael Marie, the prioress, had insisted on getting a really early start. We got in the car, and I got to meet our driver, Evans. Yes, his name has an “s” on the end, it’s not a typo. Evans and I would be spending a fair amount of time together being the only two guys on a convent to convent trip. We started off towards our first destination in Kerio valley. It was a little village called Chesongoch. The last 40 km was on a miserable piece of dirt road. We finally arrived though and let me tell you it was friggin’ hot. It has been a loooooong time since I’ve been in an environment so sweltering. Of course, Chesongoch is the convent I’ll be staying at during the month of January. Oh boy. We got there at lunchtime and then I took a nap. I sweat myself to sleep. Then the girls and I got around 3 and Evans drove us to Endo which was about an hour away. It was another little convent in the valley. We came back. Did some vespers and then the girls and I watched Cool Runnings on my computer before we went to sleep.

Saturday

We got up and took some cold showers because they don’t have hot water, but I didn’t mind because of the heat. We went to Mass and then we got a tour of the dispensary the sisters run there. It was a really good looking facility. They’d done a lot of building and money raising the past couple years, and they’re even set up to facilitate surgery. The only problem they have now is a lack of people! They need surgeons and other workers and what not. Then we went back to the convent for lunch and headed out again.

We drove up a mountain for 15 km. That was interesting. The sites were incredible though. We got an awesome look at the valley. I can’t wait to live there for a month and get some good hiking in. About 4 hours later we arrived at Kimumu which is another convent and we sat around and had tea. Then they gave us a tour of the school. It’s a small building but they have about 500 kids in their primary school there. We had dinner in Kimumu, and I did my best to entertain all the sisters. I don’t know why but these religious women just seem to love me. Then, because there wasn’t enough room in Kimumu to house Evans, the girls, and myself, we went to another convent in a town called Eldoret about 20 minutes away. It’s a beautiful convent. Small, but very pretty. They had hot water. I took advantage. Since we’d gone up in elevation the temperature had dropped significantly. I took my hot shower and passed out.

Sunday

Went to Mass at the Cathedral of the Eldoret Diocese. Sr. Michael Marie needed more time with the sister at Kimumu so we stayed in Eldoret another day. We came back to the convent and took naps. It was glorious. Then we went out for lunch and ate to our hearts’ desires for about 10 bucks total. Then we went to Kimumu because we were supposed to be there by 4. We got there around 2:30 and hung out. Then we were told to go with this random lady back to her home with Evans as the driver. So we went and we hung out at this family’s house for a couple hours. They gave us tea, cookies, and mandazi. Then we all sat around and discussed different things. I learned something about American History that day, too. Please tell me if this was in your history books.

                The Explanation Behind the Name America as told by a Kenyan

When the settlers of the New World began to expand their lands, the Indians became agitated. One man had an idea to marry a pilgrim woman with an Indian man. The Indians were pleased. The night after the ceremony one of the settlers had hidden in a wedding present. He broke out and unlocked the gates to the Indian village. The settlers came in, over took, and killed the Indians of the village. The phrase “A Marriage Gun” was coined. Over time this phrase turned into America hence the name of the country.

I had never heard that one before, but man is it a riveting story. There were a couple other myths that I had to dispel, but it was fun nevertheless.

Monday

We left for Uganda. Jinja specifically. The nickname of Uganda is the “Jewel of Africa”, so I went into Uganda with this thought in mind. It is indeed a pretty country. The whole country is covered in green and there are rolling hills everywhere. Very pretty landscape, and there’s a ton of food.  The convent in Jinja was more like a massive compound. Everything was gated and all the windows were barred and there was this little courtyard inside. Despite that, it might be the prettiest compound I’ve ever seen. From the view in the girls bedroom, you could see lake Victoria which actually touched a piece of the sisters’ property.

Within about an hour of getting there, they had us back out again to go see the source of the Nile River. Man, that was cool. They put us in a little boat and motored around tiptoeing back and forth over the line separating the Nile and Lake Victoria. I’m not really sure how to describe it.

We went back to the convent for dinner and vespers. Then afterwards, another nun who was visiting showed a slide show of her travels around the world specifically in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro. I want to go there something fierce now. That place looks awesome!

Tuesday

We got up around 5:30 to see the sunrise over the lake. That was cool. Later in the morning we got a full tour of what the convent does at their hospital and there 900 kid primary school. I have no idea where all these kids come from. In the school we went from class to class, and by the time we were done it was recess or something so I started playing with the kids. Here’s a snippet: 

After that we scarfed down some food and hit the road back to Eldoret. We stayed there for the night.

Wednesday

Back to Karen! We arrived mid-afternoon exhausted and hungry. So we took some tea and took a nap. Then we went into town to buy a few things. We came back and we cooked an apple crisp for the sisters to enjoy on our Thanksgiving Holiday. I wasn’t there the next day to enjoy, but I was told we did a good job!

Thursday

Happy Thanksgiving! I got driven to Nairobi and I went with the girls and Sr. Serva to go deal with some immigration issues (ironic). The girls had to renew their visas. Then we went out for lunch to celebrate Thanksgiving and St. Cecilia’s feast day who is Kate’s patron saint. Then I went to Amani think I’d have a few hours to chill. Wrong. I got back to find a note saying I was getting picked up at 4:30 which was about 10 minutes from when I saw it. We were having a big celebration at Dan the Pirate’s House. Tim and Mike cooked all evening making deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, and lamb. We also had a bunch of beer. We listened to loud music and danced around. Almost forgot, when I got picked up, I was asked to drive to Dan’s house. I DROVE FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE AUGUST. It was awesome and driving around Nairobi isn’t so bad! Pedals are still in the right places so it wasn’t too difficult. We got back from the party around 2:30am. I was exhausted.

Today (Friday)

I slept in until 9:30 today and then got tea. I’m planning on doing nothing for the next couple days. It’s been a really exciting past couple of weeks though.

There are always more things that I could talk about, but I’m trying to keep these posts shorter and to the points I’m supposed to hit if I can (I know I typically fail at the short part).

Some Final Things:

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is doing well back in the States. I’m still looking for some donations for some various projects at St. Maurus, and I still want to buy a couple basketball hoops for a couple different places.

Also, if anyone has any interest in seeing pictures of me on Mt. Kilimanjaro, I’m also accepting personal donations J .

God continues to bless my mission with everything that I've needed to do to be successful here. I've made great friends, and I am becoming better friends with some that I was already friends with. My family has never felt so large as it does right now. I miss you all. Only 5 more months!

-Harris

Pole Pole Sana, Bwana. (Very Slowly, Man)

This past week was slow and fast and boring and super interesting. I'll do my best to put it all in words for you!

To Mail Me Anything: 

Benedictine Fathers
Amani Conference Centre
P.O. Box 32101-00600
Nairobi - Kenya

To Donate Anything: 

Southern Benedictine Society
100 belmont mount holly road
Belmont, NC 28012

I left you all about 9 days ago on a Thursday. From Friday to Monday, I took it easy. I went to Karen to see the girls. Kate didn't feel super great, so Caitlin and I watched episodes of House all day Sunday. It was good, lazy fun.

Monday morning I left the girls in time to make it back to Drawing at 11am. I started working on different animals. I'm not really much for actually drawing them, but it was fun trying to get the kids to think of different animals and to teach them some animals that they'd never heard of before! I was going to go to St. Maurus that afternoon, but I got called to a staff meeting at Street Children to discuss some future issues and projects. It was long and boring, but it was actually pretty insightful. As of right now, the policy is that new kids have to stay in the center for one year for rehab purposes before the center can pay for them to go to school. We are now, however, looking into the possibility of taking the necessity of a year of rehab on a case by case basis. Some kids do not need to get weened off of sniffing glue because they never had a problem in the first place. There are also some issues with dealing with kids who are sponsored. Some of the sponsors have been sending their kids money for cell phones and other totally unnecessary things, and many of the kids get distracted from school or get in trouble simply because in most schools phones aren't allowed. Anyways, we got through a lot of information.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I went to St. Benedict's for Drawing and then followed up with St. Maurus in the afternoon.

Thursday is where the fun begins. From this point forward in this blog post, you will hear detailed descriptions of experiences and some possibly heavy insights into certain aspects of life here in Kenya.

Firstly, I'll begin by saying. DUDE, KENYANS SUCK AT TRAVELING ANYWHERE IN ANY CONCEIVABLE MANNER OF TIME. Ok. Glad I got that out. So here's the deal. Augus' uncle who had adopted him and his other siblings when he was younger was hit by a car and couple weeks ago on Heroes Day(a Kenyan Holiday). James Ogutu passed away on the scene. Augus invited the four guys here at the Amani Center to go to the funeral in town called Bodi on the Nyabondo Plateau. Only Mike and I were able to go. On Thursday night after dinner, Augus came over and led us back into the slums after nightfall. We hopped on a couple motorcycles and sped away through the slums. We stopped in an area of Mathare that had apparently alluded me, Baraka. It wasn't the worst that I'd seen since my arrival, but it was pretty darn close. The reason we went there that night was because we supposedly going to take a bus the next morning around 4 or 5. Well, Augus got some friends together as well as a couple bottles of Konyagi, and we all sat around drinking until most passed out. I had brought my computer, and I sat on that for awhile. 

8am Friday morning comes around. During the night, Augus had apparently procured for us a car being driven by his cousin, Jack. Jack as I came to learn was an incredibly nice man, and also a bit simple. He lives the Kenyan phrase Pole Pole. We got in his car at 8:30. Then we drove to his house where we sat for another hour drinking tea and watching music videos for christian music on the television. Then we left his house and piled into his car. The seats were really cushiony but there was really only room for 1.8 people in his backseat. Jack was driving. His wife was in the front passenger seat, and Mike, Augus, and myself stuffed ourselves in the back. It was tight. We left his house, and we made at least two more stops on the way out of Nairobi. Then we finally began the *7* hour journey. I put the 7 in asterisks because that's how long it was SUPPOSED to take. All in all, it took about 11. We were moving nicely, and then we stopped for food where we met up with a bus that had been rented by Augus' Uncle's church. We saw all of them and chitchatted for awhile. Then we got back in the car, and roughly and hour later we went over a bump and heard a loud crack. Yay. Soon, we pulled over into a local mechanic. They removed the front left tire to find the actual frame of the car had cracked, so the man welded it as well as doing a few other things and we got back on the road. We came to where we were supposed to turn, however, and the road was closed. No one was entirely certain which direction to go. So we stopped about 4 times to get proper directions. We traversed the same 30km stretch of road 4 times, and somewhere in there it started pouring rain. Finally, we found the correct road. After driving for another long stretch of time, we got to the bottom of the plateau. It was night time, but even still it was obvious we were getting pretty deep into the Bush. The last bit of the journey was to get to the top of said plateau. We took one "road", but the rain and mud had caused massive rifts and gulleys. We struggled through the road for sometime, and finally were forced to turn back. On the second road, we found more luck, the problems arose when the road became too steep, and the car kept trying to slide off the side of the mountain. We pulled into the driveway of a local "house" and asked if we could leave the car over night. Then we collected our things and hiked through the rain and mud for probably a mile. We met up with a few of Augus' friends who had come down to assist on our hike up because we didn't know the exact way. Only problem was that in the dark, they apparently didn't know the way either. We went up and down the mountain for another hour before we finally found where the funeral party was located. We set up our tent, and then I went out to meet some of the family members. I got brought to the matriarchal house and met a lot of old ladies who only spoke Luo with very poor Swahili. There was very little conversation, but they enjoyed looking at me and laughing. Then I went to bed. Fun Fact: in each family area I guess you would say, the home of the "First Wife" or the Head wife faces directly toward the valley. All other houses face hers. It's important when traveling around to know which house to pay homage to first.

Funeral Saturday came along. I woke up and crawled out of my tent to see a few cups of tea awaiting me. I stood up and stopped.      The view. was. incredible.      I wish that I had had my camera with me. In the rush of Thursday night heading over to the slums, I'd left it sitting on my bed. Even so, my camera could not have done this view justice. Directly in front of me was the rift valley. Must have been 300 km across. Running right through the middle was the Nyando River. To the left was Lake Victoria, but only a piece of it. And on the far side extending across the whole horizon were the Bondo Mountains. I got to see it all just as the sun rose behind me out from the facade of the plateau. So beautiful. I sat and watched for a good amount of time just appreciating it.

Then I heard the microphones. In front of one of the little houses there, a few tents with chairs had been set up. The ceremony was beginning. The ceremony here was different than ours in so far as it was a Seventh Day Adventist service and the whole things last about 8 hours. They do welcoming announcements and tributes from all sorts of people and requiems and choir singing. The people who simply attend, however, do not sit for 8 hours. They mill about having different conversations and preparing food and whatnot. I was asked to go with a number of other guys to go get water from a local stream. I couldn't believe that people were gonna drink this water. The rains had churned everything up so the water was almost totally brown, but I filled my 20 liter jerrycan like I was told and brought it back. It was a long walk, and 20 liters of water is pretty darn heavy by the way. After awhile though, I drifted over to the tents. I sat and listened to a few of the tributes. I didn't understand a word anyone said, but even still. There was a man who went up to the microphone, and he began talking. I tried to be as attentive as possible. I was trying to read his face and his body language. I could here in his voice that he was losing control. Gradually, I began to hear his voice crack and his voice get louder until finally he was at the point of breaking down. At the time, all I remember is feeling for him. I had no idea what he was saying, and yet despite the language barrier *I* was getting teary eyed. Even just thinking back the moment now brings some swelling to my eye lids. After this man who I later found out was the deceased brother, another man came around passing out programs to those who didn't have one. I grabbed one and flipped through it. Oddly enough, the whole thing was written in English. Jame Ogutu was a family man with 3 sons and 2 daughters. Not accredited were his brother's children whom  James had adopted. He finished secondary school and taught in the school systems as well as drove a bus for the rest of his life. And he never missed a day of Church. On the back was a small note written by Augus' eldest brother:

     "It is with sorrow and grief that I honour God your Kind and Keeper for your demise. It has been tough to accept it Dad but you said it before your departure. The love and understanding that has been between us was great and still needed it. You lived a humble life but you made our entire family and me in particular what I am. We were wished extreme poor and hard life but dear Dad you taught us to: Love the Lord whole heartedly, Pray and Fast, be Humble always, Give to the Lord and others, Work with people with no grange, be appreciative even in the little things, be people of integrity, be full of compassion as Jesus is, Love and take care of our families. Dad the list is long. I cannot mention it all. you have left us in the hands of which you loved and trusted most, the Almighty God. You have fought a good fight. You have kept pure the faith of the saints. You have gone to your Father King and faithful friend you loved most. We will for life miss you. You molded us to what we are by the power of your God. Receive your crown and enjoy the life in that eternal house."

I think I died a little inside when I read that. Here's the thing. Kenyan people are pretty resilient. They are surrounded by poverty, failure, corruption, and death. Dan the pirate says that Kenyan men are bred to be super serious and never show emotion. In the villages, when they are 14, they have to be circumcised in front of the family, and they're not allowed to flinch. That's what a Kenyan man is supposed to be like. I think what threw me the most was that these big, kenyan men were breaking down over the death of this one man. At the burial, there was even a man who used my sleeve to sob. I could tell he was trying to hold it back, but he was experiencing true sorrow. My first thought was: I'm not allowed to cry because frankly I don't have the right to! Not only did I not know this man, but the men who are cracking around me are giving up years and years of personality formation and throwing it to the wolves to grieve for this man at this moment. The second thought was: I wish I had met this man. They buried him behind his house and the entire yard was full. I started considering the reach of this one man, and I realized that even I was there. This man had been so influential that two Americans who had no business being there had been sucked into his vortex. What a guy he must have been. He was 54. In 50 years of living his simple life in the slums and going to Church everyday, he had managed to reach me about 12000 miles away. If one guy can do so much and have so much effect who is to say that someone like me can't and isn't. He did nothing spectacular. He just lived a good life. Maybe if I just try to live a good life, the rest will take care of itself, too.

Anyways, a break from that. One thing about the funeral that really irritated the heck out of me were the preachers. They had about 6 preachers, and they went up in twos so that one could preach in english and the other would translate to swahili. So this part I got to hear and understand. THEY DON'T SAY ANYTHING. They talk in circles and they repeat themselves and they yell really loud but nothing actually gets said. Nothing is explained and no information is given. There's no learning. Actually sorry, I lied. They try to teach some things. Like, how all Catholics are misinformed. That's what they teach to their "flocks". How to pass judgment on someone based on their title. What gives? Their whole argument was that in the Bible it doesn't say anything about one church. What makes theirs so great then? And they also say that the Bible specifically says Jesus came with only three things and nothing else: Divine Power, Blood, and Stripes. The preacher explained the first two and then just sort of forgot about the third and went off on a praise tangent. What the heck are the stripes? WHAT THE HECK ARE THESE GUYS EVEN TALKING ABOUT!? I dunno. I was confused, but a good portion of the crowd seemed happy. So I just left and went somewhere else for awhile. Also, all the preachers here call themselves Bishops. It's ridiculous.

After the burial, everyone broke up for awhile. Some went to get food or set up for the evening festivities. I went to go alone into the town to see if I could charge my computer somewhere as it was pretty much dead. I was about halfway there when one of the guys I'd met at the funeral came and dragged me away to somebody's house. He wanted to bring me to the "Men's Club" as he called it. It was someone's backyard that wasn't kept very well. A bunch of guys were just sitting on some rocks and they were passing around some sort of local liquor. Basically moonshine. Oh and did I mention the marijuana? Did anyone else know that Kenya is full of that stuff? Literally grows everywhere.  I spent about 20 minutes there and was able to get away and get to Bodi. I paid some lady like 30 shilling to charge my computer for awhile. Sat around a bit and saw some other people from the funeral that I actually recognized from Nairobi. We went into a local pub and watched Manchester United beat Arsenal 2-1. I was bummed. I went to get my computer and then started back toward's the tent which was about a 30-40 minuted walk. Of course, on my way there it started pouring so I had to sprint. I got to my tent and got dry. Turned on my computer and I'll be darned if the thing hadn't charged at all. In fact, it had probably lost charge. So that was sad. It died about 10 minutes later. So I left the tent and ran over to the little house. There were maybe 150 people stuffed in there. I walked around and chatted with everyone for a bit and then Augus found me, brought me back to the tent, and gave me so freshly cooked fish and rice. It was so good, I couldn't even believe it. Easily the best fish I've ever had in my life. By this time, it was close to 10pm. One of Augus' brothers came in with a bottle of some kind of liquor and we passed it around for a bit. Then everyone left for awhile, and I went to sleep. By the way, lightning storms on top of plateaus are pretty scary but it's a little exciting, too!

Woke up Sunday morning around 6. Jack had told me he wanted to leave by 9:30. I got some of my stuff ready and took breakfast and tea. After mulling around for a bit, I found Jack and he was talking with his father and brothers about something. So finally, around 10 he said it was time to go. We walked back down the mountain to his car and would you believe it? It didn't start! Not only that but the driveway was downhil to where the car was which meant we had to PUSH it up the driveway. We found 5 or 6 people walking down the mountain to come help. The real problem was the ground was so incredibly muddy, we couldn't find good traction. It took about an hour to get it up. I'm pretty sure I almost died twice by that beast of a car falling back over top of me. Augus and Mike stayed in Bodi, but I needed to get back to Nairobi to deal with a couple things regarding my work visa, so Jack, his wife, and now his two sisters who needed a ride down to the bottom got in the car. The two sisters both had newborns with them as well. Jack put the car in neutral and we rode the mountain with all it's slipping and sliding mud and huge bumps all the way into a small town. The two sisters got out and walked to the local matatu station and we pushed the car into a mechanic. Mechanic worked on the car for about 2 hours. Then we just *had* to get the car washed. Pressure washer wasn't working so it was done by hand by one man. Then we finally got into the car and went on our way, and we were making such great time! A minor rain shower here and there had shown up but nothing serious. We were about 50 km outside of Nairobi when on the left we see the big bus stuck on the side of the highway that looked an awful lot like the bus transporting all the people from the funeral. Of course we stopped. Turned out the bus had run out of fuel. The fuel light had been on for over 100km. Driver thought he could make it to the next petrol station. Idiot. Some four wheel drive car came along and tried tow the bus but the hooks kept snapping. That's when I remembered I had two carabiners in my backpack. I always keep a couple just in case! They each hold a few thousand pounds. Figured two should do the trick. So we hooked them up, and they got about 150m down the road. This time the ropes had snapped. At this point the driver of the car who had just been a passerby decided it was time for him to go home. It was late. It was pretty dark. Storm was coming in, and the wind had brought the temperature down a lot. it was probably close to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. We needed a new plan! Jack and I hopped in the car and found the next local town. Wow was this town a piece of crap. Literally drunkards and prostitutes everywhere. I had no idea where we were, but I definitely didn't like it. We walked around asking for some help and we got directed to a mechanic. The issue with the bus apparently was that it was a diesel so even if we just got fuel we'd have to do something called bleeding to make sure the pipes that were only supposed to have fuel in them didn't have air too. So we loaded up the bucket of fuel and the mechanic into the car and got back to the bus. Bus got fixed. Then we went about going over the last mountain. Of course, in the time we'd been figuring out the whole issue, a bunch of storm clouds had rolled through. The entire descent from the mountain was done almost completely blind. The fog was terrible. We passed a lot of cars that had fallen off the side of the road., but we made it back. I got dropped off at the Amani Center, and I collapsed into my bed.

It was definitely a big weekend. A lot to take in. I hope that this story wasn't too overwhelming for y'all but man I had to tell somebody! I learned a lot this weekend. I learned that some emotions are not bound by language. Kenyans are not resilient to sorrow. Traveling takes forever here. And one man can truly make a difference. Not necessarily a physical one, but the kind that matters, "You lived a humble life but you made our entire family and me in particular what I am." Regardless of what you or anyone else might think, everyone has the potential. It's just a matter of what we do with it. Do we live for ourselves or do we live for others or some mixture of the two. I think it's the last, and I think I'm zoning in on the balance. Keep us all in your prayers and stay tuned! I'll be here for 5 and a half more months!

-Harris