everyday grace

joy unspeakable

2009-12-13T22:23:00.000-08:00

in a christmas program i attended this past sunday evening, these words, sandwiched in a longer sentence, struck me.

joy unspeakable

perhaps because the words seemed reversed that they particularily stood out. i think more because in the past two years i have experienced joy in my life in ways i have never experienced before.

some people close to me have reflected that i am a different person when i speak of, or when i am in, africa. my conversation becomes more animated, my eyes change, excitement starts building from somewhere deep in my chest cavity. i literally do not control it.

this is joy. it is much more than being happy. it is total and utter contentment, no matter the circumstances. it is understanding that i have been so incredibly blessed to having discovered my calling in life. i am learning to allow that joy seep into my canadian life as well. i felt it when danny, a man who sells a street paper in my neighbourhood, gave me a bear hug yesterday.

joy unspeakable

joyful moments caught in megapixels

i met Hannah, a 12 year old girl in the IDP camp. a week earlier a colleague and i had taken her to emergency to have her broken arm set. my colleague helped the mother navigate the system while i helped the xray tech set multiple fractures.

we were delighted to meet again.

in maasai land while on a safari.

just joyful. just because.

joy x 6

visiting the home of little kenyan alida (the baby)

the adoptive aunt is a kind, caring, and generous woman

who has her hands full with 3 daughters and 2 adopted nieces.

swing and jump.

2009-12-06T18:47:00.000-08:00

skipping rope.

pretty simple game.

nothing more than a piece of rope and the ability to swing and jump.

i had been walking through a camp for internally displaced people (idp) in kenya in february 2008. 20,000 kenyans living in a space called the showgrounds, no larger than a couple of football fields; or something the size of the stampede grounds in calgary. actually, probably smaller.

i had sat in the dirt and talked to mama's cooking over their three stone fires, chatted with a 98 year old man whose maize and farm was burned by his neighbour of 50 years, i was nearly stampeded by a few hundred people who heard that dried fish was being distributed.

i retreated to the bleachers that are usually for patrons who are showing off their cows for market. i needed space from the growing crowd of children who were clinging to me. i needed to digest the fact that this overflowing campground was one of hundreds that had rapidly become a "safe" place after a stunted genocide.

i sat there hating the hatred that sent these people here.

i sat there wondering what on earth one does with 300,000 displaced people.

i sat there feeling defeated and deflated.

i sat there feeling sorry for myself.

and then i saw her. this little girl skipping rope. amidst supper cooking, laundry drying, men drinking, tents sagging. this little girl skipping rope. so simple. so natural. so normal.

i saw hope.

not in the politicians negotiating power. not in the ambassadors urging peace. not in the ngo's giving food. not even in my little arrogant self with little to give.

the tilt of her head and the light on the rope and the swing of her skirt.

hope.

swing and jump.

hope.

swing and jump.

hope.

swing and jump.

watu wakenya

2009-11-29T21:14:00.001-08:00

stunning

strong

courageous

determined

selfless

this grandmother lost all of her children to HIV/AIDs

and is raising all her grandchildren.

when she should be retired and resting

she is gathering firewood

and hauling water

and changing nappies.

and she is still grateful

and lives with joy

humbling me

everyday grace

i want to begin sharing the stories of my year in kenya that had a profound impact on me.

the people of kenya often saved me from myself.

enjoy the coming blog posts as a celebration of a life changed in kenya.

mine.

love them in the moment.

2009-11-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

BBC radio became one of my best friends while living in Kenya. I spent my evenings listening to world report and even relied on their reporters to find out what was going on in town during the post election crisis.

here is a story about the street boys (mostly, there are some girls as well) that live on the streets of eldoret, passing their days by sniffing glue and trying to help you park your car for a few shillings. one tried to sell me a cell phone he had just stolen out of a car. they were mostly good kids, but from poor homes, gone to the city to find food or make money and end up hooked on glue.

it is likely that i have encountered the children in these photos. i was at a loss as what to do with the strung out 8 year old boy or the pair of 9 year old girl prostitutes. they told me the rescue centre was horrible, if they were fed, and they could get more food on the street from well wishers. they "work" by helping stop traffic when you want to park your car or they will

"protect" your car in the evenings while you are at the grocery store. their future looks grim - their brains are fried, they miss all their developmental milestones, they don't go to school.

all i could do was try to love them in the moment.

Orphans continue a tough struggle on the streets

By Will Ross
BBC News, Eldoret, Kenya

A report by Save the Children says that four out of five children in orphanages still have a living parent.

Orphanage life means that millions of children are unnecessarily at risk of the widespread dangers of living in institutions, including rape, exploitation, trafficking and beatings.

Many orphaned children in Kenya prefer life on the streets

In Kenya a combination of a lack of money, physical abuse, the effects of HIV/AIDS and last year's inter-tribal violence are taking their toll.

Many children forced onto the streets are pushed into a life of crime.

'The Barracks'

Just off the main street running through the centre of Eldoret you will find an army of glue-sniffing street kids.

Almost all the children have a small bottle of glue hanging from their mouths and with glazed eyes they appear semi tranquilised.

"It makes me sleepy and I have less stress," says 15-year-old Jimmy, who after years on the streets looks younger than 10.

"I live on the verandas in a box," he tells me.

"Life here is very hard with no food, nowhere to sleep and no-one to care for you," says Evans Kariuki.

"It is not safe. You can die here. People fight. There is a lot of violence. The police come sometimes and take you and beat you."

Broken families

In another part of Eldoret I meet Mary, her husband James and their six-year-old daughter Grace.

Neither of them have regular employment and their single-room home smells of an illegal alcoholic brew - one way of raising a few coins to buy food.

Mary and her daughter Grace struggle through poverty on a daily basis

They were a family of four, but at the age of seven Juma ran away for a life on the streets.

"I tried to look for him but it was difficult because his friends on the streets kept hiding him," said James.

Mary is sure Grace will not follow in her brother's footsteps.

"I can take care of her because she is a girl," said Mary before adding that Grace had been going to nursery school, but she is now at home because they cannot afford the fees of less than $20 (£12) a term.

New hope

I later meet Juma at a centre for former street children. Now 13, he is getting food and goes to a primary school thanks to ECCO - Ex Street Children Community Organisation.

Many children have been rehabilitated, but problems still remain

"I ran away because I was beaten at home. Life used to be good at home but whenever I made a mistake my mother beat me. Once my finger was even cut with a knife, "said Juma who now dreams of becoming a pilot.

For the staff at ECCO discipline is a challenge.

"The hardest thing is keeping them in line - asking them to follow rules which they are not used to and most of them have been sniffing glue for years so stopping that is hard," said Mercy Rotich, the programme officer for social work and education at ECCO.

Hard struggle

As I leave the centre there is news of another crisis.

A 13-year-old street boy has been raped and after being discharged from hospital urgently needs a home.

Institutions have sprung up in Eldoret to take in some of the street children but there are many complaints of inhumane treatment and concerns that they do not have the children's interest at heart.

"You talk to a child who has been in a home for a few months and they do not want to go back.

You talk to a child who has been in a home and they do not want to go back

Mercy Rotich

"They tell you about the problems of being beaten or denied food. These homes are getting money but the money is not reaching the beneficiaries," said Mercy Rotich.

"Some of them are not going to school and yet there is money for them to be taken to school. They are not being taken back home yet they have funds to trace these homes."

The government agrees that there are problems with some of the homes and knows some organisations are formed not to help the children but to make money.

"Briefcase NGOs - I know they are there and they are possibly swindling money from the donors and funders and well-wishers. It is now our role to ensure that what is given to the child is not going to the dogs," said Philip Nzenge, the children's officer in charge of the district.

'Damning indictment'

Back at The Barracks several street children told me they had run away from Eldoret Rescue Centre and preferred life on the streets.

The Rescue Centre is a series of metal shacks perched on a hillside on the outskirts of town.

The staff denied that children were beaten but admitted that some of them struggled to cope with order and discipline after a life on the streets.

Although this is a step up from life on the streets, conditions for the 233 children are grim and bunk beds are crammed into the metal shacks.

Staff said there was a plan to build permanent structures.

I found a month-old girl there - born on the streets but perhaps destined to spend her next 18 years in this centre.

It is no wonder then that Save The Children is calling for stricter monitoring of children's institutions.

It also wants funds to be channelled into helping families support their children describing it as outrageous that children are separated from their families when they have parents who, given a bit of help, could look after them.

body parts

2009-11-15T18:46:00.000-08:00

a few of you have asked me what i do in my free time and once in awhile i reply that i am constructing various body parts for an organization i volunteer for.

my emails between myself and people at the organization and another volunteer have become increasingly interesting...

"i'm just about done with the uteruses and i currently have 6 placentas in various stages of construction. how is the new stretchy perineum?"

i volunteer for an organization here in vancouver called Canadian Network for International Surgery. They teach improved surgical and obstetrical skills to African doctors in various countries. to demonstrate the theoretical aspects of emergency or surgical care they need something to practice on. ideally, one can do this before you get to an actual patient.

you can buy medical mannequins that look pretty real but they are quite expensive. so a number of people have designed a low-cost prototype that is currently made in Canada and carried over by a surgeon teaching the course. i volunteered to sew for CNIS without really knowing what it was i would be sewing. it's probably a good thing they don't advertise the specifics on their website. i may have not signed up to design a placenta.

so, here is an example of the medical mannequins that cost $500.

Birthing Simulator

Click picture to enlarge

$ 525.00

53x33x43 cm

8,0 kg

Birthing Simulator

and here is our version...

you say,

"but alida,

that is an upside-down cat carrier,

with padded walls...

for a psychotic cat perhaps?"

let me demonstrate how i have constructed and birthed a baby in my living room...

here is the top of the "mothers" abdomen.

what you see is a piece something that is supposed to simulate the skin.

it is actually made from vinyl, foam, and elastic and can be cut to be able

to simulate a c-section.

below is the underside of the piece...

if the baby decides to come out the right way, here she comes...

the front of the "cat carrier" is now a womens perineum.

baby is crowning...

almost there, keep pushing...

congrats, it's a girl, and look there is a healthy placenta!

my homemade placenta on the left and the expensive medical model on the right.

mine is made from stretchy purple material that i found in the bargain bin at a fabric store,

a piece of foam from the inside of a whoopee cushion procured at a dollar store, and

some coloured rope covered with glad "press n seal".

bet the old guy in the white suit never thought that press n seal would every be used to make an umbilical cord.

i must say, it works quite nicely.

i can't forget the uterus! it takes the most time to make...

you can remove the top abdominal piece and expose the inside of the "torso."

you are looking through the top of the cat carrier at the uterus and the bladder.

the uterus is made of red tshirt material and is the shape of a water bottle.

the neck of it is snapped to the "front door" and the baby and uterus fit inside.

someone very clever decided that 1980's shoulder pads would make perfect bladders.

the uterus is also covered in press n seal.

i don't think i will every be able to use that stuff for food now... maybe you won't either. sorry!

so, my weekend productivity will be used to instruct african doctors how to improve their surgical skills. who knew that my sewing skills would be put to such use...

i had once planned to go to design school and wanted to work for the likes of burton designing outerwear.

guess there was a change of plans.

i am now designing innerwear...

now, to clean up the disaster of my apartment for my guests coming tomorrow. not sure they want to sleep with the placentas that are currently strewn on the couch...

so, my friends, that is my body parts project. now you know, and i bet you wished you never asked :-)

the danger of a single story

2009-10-27T22:32:00.000-07:00

a thought provoking, challenging, and funny TED talk by chimamanda adichie - a gifted nigerian writer.

me, a monk, and i

2009-10-27T20:58:00.000-07:00

"my Lord God, i have no idea where i am going. i do not see the road ahead of me. i cannot know for certain where it will end. nor do i really know myself, and the fact that i think i am following your will does not mean that i am actually doing so. but i believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. and i hope i have that desire in all that i am doing. i hope that i will never do anything apart from that desire. and i know that, if i do this, You will lead me by the right road, though i may know nothing about it. therefore i will trust You always though i may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. i will not fear, you You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone."

"in one sense we are always traveling, and traveling as if we did not know where we were going.

in another sense we have already arrived.

we cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are traveling and in darkness. but we already possess Him by grace, and therefore, in that sense, we have arrived and are dwelling in the light.

But oh! how far have i to go to find You in Whom i have already arrived!"

"My God, i frankly do not understand your ways with me. you fill me with desires that people have been canonized for having and for carrying out. then You tell me to to carry them out, and You tell me in such a way that it would seem to be a sin if i carried them out. then You make the desires grow more and more until they consume the very foundations of my life. are You trying to kill me?"

"i will travel to You, Lord, through a thousand blind alleys.

You want to bring me to You through stone walls."

i've been reading "dialogues with silence" by thomas merton (all above quotes are written by merton).

outwardly, i have nothing in common with merton. he was a trappist monk who wore brown robes and lived on a commune. he was bald and probably gardened. i'm a girl living in vancouver with a growing collection of shoes and i like red sweaters. i live near the beach and don't pray for hours a day.

inwardly, i feel as though i am reading about my own inner struggle, though merton's writings are more than 50 years old and from a very different place. it is comforting to know that a guy who devoted his entire life to living strictly godly life struggled with solitude, silence, and finding God. i figured, if anyone has found God, it would be a monk in a scratchy robe.

i find comfort in these writings.

i am learning to sit in silence.

and in that silence, i am learning to hear the Spirit of God.

without Him ever saying a word.

water

2009-07-10T09:08:00.001-07:00

ever thought about how much you pay for water by the litre? i mean other than when you pay $2 for a small bottle of water (that probably came out of the tap and was then bottled and sold as "extra purified"

I just read about the current price of water in the Nairobi slums - for one jerry can, which is about 20-30 litres of water, people have to pay over a dollar. so, the poorest people in the world, are paying more than their daily salary, for something simple, yet absolutely necessary. now, would i ever consider paying $300 for 20 litres of water? no, we would probably have protests and bring the government down for that kind of abuse.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8144415.stm

i recently listened to a very old radio show with stuart mclean and peter gzowski, dated from 1986. They were talking about what they could get for a dollar at that time. Stuart mclean said that Toronto city water costs 5 cents for 25 gallons (enough to fill a phone booth if you still know what those are). The men then laughed about the fact that we pay a mere nickle for that large amount of water and then the city happily takes back the water we have dirtied, to clean it, process it, and purify it many times over. all for 5 cents for 25 gallons.

http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/media/clips/12587/

(it is a pretty funny program actually - have a listen if you want to listen to old fashioned radio)

so, the wealthiest of the wealthy (yes, that includes all of us) pay the least amount for a life sustaining necessity, while the poorest of the poor pay prices that put gold to shame.

injustice at its best.

death is not dying

2009-06-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

I just watched the video of Rachel Barkey speaking. She is a member of the church I go to and she spoke about dying from cancer. It is titled Death is not dying: a faith that saves.

I think it is great and it was so very insightful for me as a nurse as well to understand a bit more about what many of my patients go through.

It is worth having a look...

http://deathisnotdying.com

house hunting

2009-06-05T21:40:00.001-07:00

i do not like looking for new places to live. likely because i often seem to make bad decisions and live in crappy places. my first year in calgary was a testament to that! my first "room" was in the basement of a house that i ended up sharing with a sketchy guy - i ended up calling the police because he was beating up his girlfriend on the front street. and the mice were eating my food, hearing the trap snap under my bed at night didn't help with sleeping either...

and then there was living with 5 chinese phd students in a house that has always had medical students living in it. cheap rent, check. bovine solution under the bathroom sink, check. a roommate with possible tb, check.

i thought i had learned my lessons. when looking at apartments last december here in vancouver, i thought i was seeing nice places. the managers of one apartment that i really liked required my credit card number and bank account number on the application form. mmm, i think not. i really liked my current place because of the neighbourhood and the "character" of the house. i should have caught on when the landlord starting telling me about his personal life during the viewing. i think the gas fireplace and in-suite washer and dryer were enticing me.

i am moving again. partly because i can't stand my apartment anymore. it is too dark and the landlord likes to throw many a dinner party. high heels on the hardwood floors sound like thunder. they also sold the house and the new owners take possession at the end of the month. i wonder if they know the lady of the house just took the entire fireplace mantle with her. and thanks to the movers, i found out why the light on the mantle never worked. a screw had been drilled right through the cord. i think i have had enough mayhem with cords starting things on fire in my life...

so i went apartment hunting today. what was most interesting was seeing a part of strangers lives. one place was inhabited by a fairly messy and dirty guy. but he evidently snowboarded, biked, surfed, is a dj complete with 2 tables, and just finished a masters. mmm, like to meet him:-)

i'd like the meet the next guy more - this guy had a nice little bachelor, good taste in furniture, was tidy and clean, surfed, biked, read lots of books, AND tastefully decorated his apartment with skateboard decks mounted on the walls. he had apparently met tony hawk as evidenced by the signed deck. now, i really wanted to meet this guy!!

i was appalled by one girl. landlords have to give 48 hours notice that they are showing apartments. all these tenants know that their apartment is being shown to multiple strangers. the landlord opened the door, and literally the first thing i had to step over was a bright turquoise bra. next to the front door. dirty underwear was strewn a few steps further. granted it was a bachelor and so not very big, but seriously, leaving your underwear next to the front door?

the other apartment in that building, right next door to the dirty bachelor girl, is the apartment i am thinking of getting. it is a big one bedroom, hardwood floors, lots of south facing windows in the living room, a balcony, decent sized kitchen. the disadvantage is that i will have to carry my bike up 2-3 flights of stairs and keep it in the apartment. and the bedroom wall is shared with the next apartments bedroom wall. what if some "very active" person moves in there? i might need permanent ear plugs!

however, here is the clincher. the landlord starting telling me about his bad day because he had just put his 17 year old cat to sleep 2 hours before and he was having a rough time of it. he kept talking about the cat. that is not bad in and of itself, but my current landlord also told me sob stories while showing me the apartment and it has kind of sucked living here. do i take it as a bad omen that landlords tell me sob stories while showing me apartments? or do i just exude such caring and compassion that they feel compelled to tell me?
and here is another dilemma. this apartment is 800 metres from kitsilano beach and about 4 km from jericho beach. (i am currently about 800 metres from jericho). i like jericho beach better than kits beach... (i know, cry myself a river right)

so, do i consider taking this bright, sunny, roomy apartment with the sad landlord or do i hold out and hope something better comes along in the next 2 weeks?

i see 2 more places tomorrow... it will then be decision time...

any advice? are sad landlords a bad omen or do i go by how the place looks?

addendum: the last place i saw is the one i got. a one bedroom with hardwood floors two blocks from kits beach with lots of big windows to let the sunshine in! and a bike room, so no carrying my bike up 3 flights of stairs! yeah!

a day in the life of vancouver

2009-05-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

here are a few photos of life in vancouver...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=120535&id=528770294&l=fc4c7655fb

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=123292&id=528770294&l=f2e9aff3eb

these are the people in your neighbourhood...

2009-04-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

i really like where i live. while it is "trendy" and expensive, i am quite happy with my choice to live in kitsilano.

the obvious aside, that i live next to the ocean in an old neighbourhood with big, old trees, i enjoy the fact that families go out for walks together, that i found a willow tree next to the ocean, that people walk to the grocery store, that the buses will be full on a friday night, that independent coffee shops and bookstores outnumber the chain stores, people take a bike ride for enjoyment, that i have the salty smell of sea in my nose...

but two of my favourite things are this: on the corner of 4th and macdonald, someone very mysterious puts out free things every day. a few weeks ago there was an entertainment unit complete with knick knacks. last week, there was a collection of comforters and pillows, over the weekend, a wedding dress hung on the fence with a collection of sneakers lined up underneath, and today, a kitchen sink. and people take them, because the stuff is always gone at the end of the day.

i have been taking photos of them with my phone and if i can ever figure out how to get them off my phone and on a computer, i will.

but this early spring evening, a woman working in the garden made my day. i was walking along laden with grocery bags, and an old woman starts talking to me

"wait!! wait! i need to tell you something!"
she literally comes running from her garden to her front gate and starts looking at my grocery bags. i thought i had food falling out of them or something.

and here is what she tells me (in her exact words)

"so, someone asked,
'where do moose come from?'
and the other person said from moosejaw!
and then the person said 'where do cows come from?'
why from cowgary of course!"
(interjection of 'oh, now that one's funny isn't it)
but listen to this - a foreigner in australia asked one of those native folks
'what are those things jumping around?'
and since the native person, you know, they didn't speak any english or anything, i mean why should they, said
'kangaroo - i don't know' (pregnant pause after this)
isn't that funny! kangaroo means i don't know in that native tongue!!
what is that native tongue anyway? i think in new zealand it is maori, is that right? well, gee i just don't know what it is in australia.
but isn't that cute. it is so great to tell children!!

(at this point, i thought she meant that i was the child and she was telling me the joke)

and she continues " so go, tell a child that. isn't it precious! oh, they just love it! kangaroo - i don't know" i've read it in at least 4 different places, that kangaroo means that. oohh, children just love it...

i thanked the woman profusely and promised to tell children her joke.
and i walked away smiling..

little alida

2009-02-03T18:32:00.001-08:00

i still kind of feel sorry for little alida - that she is stuck with my weird name. considering few people in canada being able to say it properly, never mind spell it, i don't know what the future holds for this little girl in kenya! at least it kind of complies with swahili language in that every letter in the name is actually pronounced. that should make it easier!

i was able to visit alidajoy and her family in november. the home is filled with girls and loving parents - bless her father, he has to put up with alot of estrogen!

she takes awhile to warm up to strangers...

... but is pretty darn cute when she starts smiling :-)

the house is packed with girls - 3 sisters, a cousin, mom
the girls referred to me as mzungu alida (white alida)
and her as mkenya alida (kenyan alida)

the big, happy family.

message in minneapolis

2009-01-31T20:03:00.000-08:00

www.curlygirldesign.com

I found this card in a gift shop in the Minneapolis airport on my way back to East Africa for vacation. It seems to have been made for me.
Although I am still trying to figure out why I am back in Canada when I would much rather be somewhere else.
I hope to eventually figure it out, or at least become content with not knowing why...

i love my leatherman

2008-12-31T16:36:00.000-08:00

i have found more uses for my leatherman knife. in addition to pruning trees and giving myself pedicures with it, i spent the weekend reupholstering an old chair. i used several parts of the knife to finish the job. it was just missing a sewing needle. maybe i should suggest it....

so here is my first attempt at upholstery...

before after

the chair was evidently old, as the stuffing is made from hay and cotton

i decided to keep this is as the stuffing, basically because i have no idea how to make new stuffing. i made patterns from the old pieces, cut some new ones, stapled them on with my new heavy duty stapler (after shooting staples all over the basement with the old, broken stapler), and then hand stitched the backing on. hopefully i will sit on it once in awhile! although every time i do, i feel like i should start cross stitching or something! kind of fun to actually do something productive with my time!

how to avoid getting robbed in nairobbery

2008-12-09T16:33:00.000-08:00

i have been building up ample experience in avoiding getting robbed. i have had people attempt to rob me at least 7 times here in kenya, and not once have they succeeded. i learned alot of tricks during my time in eastern europe as they are total experts in pickpocketing and bag stealing. little did the street teams of eldoret and nairobi know that i am already on to them...

so i will share how not to get robbed in nairobbery...

do not walk around with your backpack on your back, admiring the skyline of nairobi (or the garbage dumps of eldoret), blissfully thinking about the fact that you are visiting or living in africa. wearing your "back"pack on your back is an invitation to have it sliced open with a razor blade and all the contents emptied while you are composing the next blog entry in your head. you must sling the bag on your side or even wear it on the front. i did that in eldoret and looked pretty stupid but i kept all my money and my phone.

do not be a polite canadian (or "westerner") and apologize when someone bumps into you on the street. you have just apologized to the person who was trying to rob you. i learned this trick in budapest. people "bump" you and your bag and while you are catching your balance they have emptied your bag. this happened to me 6 times on the streets of eldoret. they usually work in teams. one guy bumped my "back"pack (which was on my hip) on a fairly empty street. i whipped around to check the source and a guy quickly walked by holding a briefcase on his chest. i don't know about you, but generally businessmen do not hold their briefcase across their chest. i checked my bag, it was intact and started walking again. bumped again! and a second guy with a briefcase rapidly walking by. a little suspicious... this time, he had unzipped the outer pocket and had evidently gotten his hand in my bag, but all he found was an umbrella and a piece of paper. if they are not concealing their hands with a briefcase, they often have one arm out of the sleeve of their jacket and quickly conceal whatever they have stolen under their jacket when they are done. a rather scruffy looking guy in eldoret tried that on me. "bumped" me, then was surprised to see me whip around to look at him. he tried to non-chalantly walk across the street while i eyed him. he looked a little embarrassed to be caught by the white girl.

do not pack your wallet in an outside pocket of your bag or have it somewhere easily accessible. stick it deep down or sandwich it between other things. it is harder to get at if they are slicing the side of your bag.

do not wear those neck pouches that all the travel stores sell. one, they look dumb. even if they are under your shirt. the big bulky rectangle between your boobs is not exactly incognito. having a strap around your neck is also a little stupid. cause they can choke you with it, or as they are slicing the string, accidentally slice your neck. and i don't think mec or rei offers medical insurance with those pouches.

don't walk around with your lonely planet book out or unfold maps while walking down a street. is that explanation enough? if you need directions, ask one of the guards outside of a bank.

don't shout to your friend that you are going to run to the barclays atm. also watch who is around you as you walk up, keep your peripheral view open while withdrawing money, and don't help people who claim that their card "doesn't seem to be working." Scan the area as you walk away, and walk with purpose. Seems excessive, but do you want to part with the $150 you just took out?

do not allow the boys or men selling plastic bags on the street or near a market to distract you with conversation or even try to sell you a bag. if you want a bag, go and purposely pick someone out and have your 10 shillings ready. one guy waved a plastic bag in my face with one hand while he thought he was stealthily taking the phone out of my pocket with the other. i felt him take it and whipped around and shouted that he give it back. i was fortunate that it was not busy and the street wasn't crowded. he didn't have a chance to pass it off to another bag boy friend. he was so startled by the finger in his face and the crazy white chick demanding her phone back that he actually gave it back!

don't have your phone in a jacket pocket. i learned the hard way. keep it in your bag.

be aware on matatus. if people start changing seats in the middle of the ride and cause "commotions" inside the vehicle, they are busy stealing your phone. last week a guy with an "injured" knee asked my friend to move. when she refused he magically got in the very back with his "injured" knee. he and his friend started switching seats beside me before we even left. his friend had a big piece of posterboard in a plastic bag and tried to act like it was a rare art print that could not be bent. he was trying to hold it between me and my bag so that he could insert his hand into my bag while i politely allowed him to protect his art. unfortunately for him, i didn't care what was in his big bag and shoved it back onto his lap. they were kicked off the matatu within about a minute and everyone checked that they had their phones.

the other matatu tricks are your neighbour pretending to try to access his seat belt or offering to help you find yours. NO ONE in nairobi wears their seatbelt in a matatu or even tries to find it. an expat learned that last week but lost $150 out of his pocket in the process.
try not to open your bag if you are sitting next to an open window, especially in the back seats. a guy stole my friends phone right out her bag and took off running. she was stuck in the back of the matatu and helplessly watched him run off with her phone.

don't yell "thief" at someone unless you are willing to watch them get beaten to death in front of you by mob justice. i have witnessed it once and it was traumatizing enough that i never want to see it again. (i was not the once who yelled thief thank God)

and that, my friends, is some sage advice on how not to get robbed in nairobbery.

sound of goodbye

2008-10-22T17:32:00.000-07:00

sometimes the sound of goodbye is louder than any drum beat

armin van buuren

i have been back in canada for a few weeks now, adjusting to a place that is seemingly the same, yet just a little different than when i left it over a year ago. and i look seemingly the same, yet am a whole lot different.

my last couple of weeks in kenya were incredibly difficult. having to leave a place that i had so grown to love more deeply than i had realized. how to say goodbye, what to say, what not to say. but more often than not, words were not necessary. more often than not, i was sure the sound of my heart breaking would deafen all those around me. more often than not, the sound of goodbye between friends was deafening.

i learned a profound lesson in my most vulnerable moments. a year or two ago, i thought i was off to africa to help people. i had grandiose visions of cuddling babies, holding sick people as they died, of totally changing the small patch of africa which i was going to. i had no idea what was coming to me.

after a year of living in kenya, most of that time in a village, i felt as though i hadn't "done" much of anything. i hadn't started fantastic programs, designed projects, or even made a "sidebar" in the newspaper. i had cuddled only a few babies and held no one as they died. how did i justify my presence? what was i doing there? what was my purpose? all i seemed to do was walk around in villages and drink alot of really sweet tea.

although devastating, my last two weeks seemed to be the most profound. or maybe i was finally paying attention to the reason why i was in kenya. perhaps, i figured out, it was not for me to help kenyans, but for kenyans to help me. to help me shed my arrogant shell that i had all the answers, all the comfort, all the care and compassion that everyone needed.

my first experience of this came via my sewing machine. since i had very little time to try to dispose of my things, i decided to donate my sewing machine to a women's group in nairobi that has been very successful in training women to sew high quality products. i had been to the shop several times and was impressed with the work. so i arranged with the manager to bring by my machine one day.

i was given the opportunity to share with the women why i was donating my machine. first, they sang as i walked in the room! i was still in my week of "dehydration crying" and the moment i started speaking, i started crying. i am not even sure what i said through my bumbling. but the women all gathered around me and put their hands on my back. they took turns praying for me; i felt a soft hand rubbing my shoulders the whole time, and i slowly calmed. i felt relaxed and comforted. i felt cared for. the women i thought i was helping with a sewing machine, were helping me with deep care, concern, and prayers. i had not felt so ministered to in all my time in kenya.

my most humble and beautiful moment was in my village. i had one day to pack everything and say goodbye. only a few people knew i was leaving, none knew why. i had finished packing the things in my house and walked over to the hospital to bid farewell to the staff. i met a gentleman from the village who is well known and loved. he is "living positively", meaning he is HIV+ but open and free, doing his best to live a healthy life with a deadly virus. he has lost his wife to AIDs, and struggles to keep his children in school. in spite of all his challenges, which are more than i can imagine, he is always cheerful, loving, and although he is nearly skeletal, he has one of the strongest, hand-crushing handshakes i have ever experienced.

when he saw me, he heartily greeted me with the familiar kenyan phrase of "umepotea kwa siku mingi!! (you have been "lost" for so many days!). i greeted him back and said in swahili, "yes, and i will be "lost" for so many more days." and i could say no more. i started crying. my face contorted as i tried not to cry in front of him, but the hot tears came faster than i could control. before i could do anything more, he took me into his skinny arms and held me as i wept. i sobbed on his bony shoulder while he comforted me, assuring me that it would all be okay and that God would bless me where ever i was.

the tables turned, my heart flipped on it's head. my time in kenya ended not with me comforting kenyans, but with kenyans comforting me. i was sure i would comfort those with AIDs, but it was those with AIDs comforting me. the only audible sounds were my muffled crying and their soothing words.

the sound of goodbye. deafening.

cadence

2008-10-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

while staying in nairobi over the summer, i joined a bike club and would go riding weekly with a diverse group of people, led by kinjah - a kenyan rider/mechanic. he has started a cycling club, safari simbaz, in an effort to promote cycling in kenya, especially among the youth. he trains young boys in cycling and bicycle maintenance (thereby keeping them out of trouble as well). but it is incredibly difficult to get any decent bikes or bike parts in kenya. he normally buys used stuff that arrives in containers from europe, japan, and north america.

I am looking for a way to support him with parts, accessories (and possibly bikes), used or new, so that he can continue with this work and not go broke buying our used stuff!

i am going to put out a call for any bike enthusiasts who have quality bike parts, accesories, or connections to those who do, who want to donate them to a kenyan bike club.

leave a note or email me if you have anything or are interested in supporting cycling in kenya!

asante sana

links to kinjah's riding... (rides the cape epic in south africa every year)
http://cyclingnews.com/mtbphotos.php?id=/photos/2008/mar08/capeepic08/capeepic080/CE_Prologue_KS138
http://bike-zone.com/mtbphotos.php?id=/photos/2007/mar07/capeepic07/capeepic075/ce04297

less like scars

2008-09-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a hard year.
But I'm climbing out of the rubble.
These lessons are hard.
Healing changes are subtle.
But every day it's...
Less like tearing more like building.
Less like captive more like willing.
Less like breakdown more like surrender.
Less like haunting more like remember.
And I feel you here.
And you're picking up the pieces.
Forever faithful.
It seemed out of my hands a bad situation.
But you are able.
And in your hands the pain and hurt
look less like scars and more like character.
Less like a prison more like my room.
Less like a casket more like a womb.
Less like dying more like transcending.
Less like fear, less like an ending...
And I feel you here.
And you're picking up the pieces.
Forever faithful.
It seemed out of my hands a bad situation.
But you are able.
And in your hands the pain and hurt
look less like scars.
Just a little while ago.
I couldn't feel the power or the hope.
I couldn't cope, I couldn't feel a thing.
Just a little while back.
I was desperate, broken, laid out.
Hoping you would come.
And I need you.
And I want you here.
And I feel you...
And I feel you here.
And you're picking up the pieces.
Forever faithful.
It seemed out of my hands a bad situation.
But you are able.
And in your hands the pain and hurt.
look less like scars.
And in your hands the pain and hurt
look less like scars.
And in your hands the pain and hurt
look less like scars.
And more like character...
(lyrics by sara groves)

i have had some pretty tough times in my year here in kenya. i have had babies die in my arms after trying to resuscitate them for 5 hours. i watched a mother die of Aids and leave behind 4 children under the age of 11. i witnessed a man being beaten to death for petty theft. i coped my way through post-election violence and listened to horrific stories of torture and murder.

somehow, i have made it. but a recent event in my life has completely devastated me.

last week i was suddenly terminated from my position. i am not able to share the details with you but it was shocking, hurtful, confusing and devastating.

as the lyrics above say, "i am digging my way out of the rubble"

i am heading to tanzania at the end of this week for some R&R, to visit with a couple of friends, contemplate on the beach. i will be returning to canada sometime at the end of september. i don't know my exact plans from there. i will be seeking some re-entry counseling so that the transition goes as smoothly as it possibly can. from there, i don't know.

i don't know what else to say. i don't know what to pray. this morning in church we sang a song about casting our cares on God and allowing the Holy Spirit to come and fill us up. i started crying. i pray i can do both of those things.

i hope that i learn from this experience and grow into a better person that can continue serving God and people in whatever capacity he has planned for me.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and prayers in this extremely difficult time.

ironic

2008-08-27T22:20:00.000-07:00

there are so many things i wish i could take photos of or describe vividly to you that make me pause. some are funny, some are tragic, all are ironic.

it is ironic when you see 3 traditional maasai women each wearing their 25-30 necklaces, earlobes drooping to their shoulders, buying their beads to make their distinctive jewelery from indians in a shop in nairobi that is so obviously dangerous that all the windows are barred and a security guard has to let you in the door.

it is ironic to look for "african" cloth in kampala, uganda only to find that the black africans are selling cheap polyester made in china and the indian africans are selling the "typical" african hand-dyed cloth made by black africans from a village.

it is ironic to see a maasai man sitting on an eldoret shopping street selling his "natural herbs" that cure all illnesses, but he is sitting on a wooden box drinking a coke and text messaging his buddies.

it is ironic that in canada, "punk rock" kids think they are ultra cool for stretching out their earlobes with plugs, while i walk behind an elderly man of 80ish whose earlobes are so stretched he has actually flipped them over the top of his ear to keep them from swaying too and fro.

it is ironic that to get a decent bike here, i had to buy it from a kenyan guy
who buys them from an indian guy who buys them from canadians, americans and europeans, who think they are no longer good enough to ride
and they are shipped to kenya to be bought back by canadians, americans and europeans
who are desperate for a bike good enough to ride in kenya.

it is ironic that the coffee mugs i bought for my friend at a local supermarket are actually Ikea mugs that were made in China.

it is ironic that although there are scores of countries to report on in africa, the national newspaper carries at least a full page on barack obama and the american election every day. i know more about the current american campaign than i ever knew about a canadian one, and i am not currently living in either of those countries.

it is ironic that in a culture that values children so much, people so easily ignore the 7 year old drug addict begging for money to buy food and fuel his glue addiction.

old skool

2008-08-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

you know you are old when you go back to school and your brain actually hurts.

i have been going to school for the past 2 weeks and have 2 more to go. i am taking a class called "training of facilitators" for people working in community based health care. it is jam packed with information and group work (we all know how fun that can be) and i am generally pretty tired by the end of the day. let me sum up what a typical day at school looks like. (i will combine details from different days for brevity).

I am staying with my friend Amanda in her townhouse not far from the training centre. I set my alarm for 6:30 so that i can get up and turn on the water heater for the bath. the heaters here are turned on manually so as to save money on gas. i crawl back into bed for another 30 minutes hoping for some good last minute dreams. after some cornflakes, i brew some coffee and put it in my spill proof starbucks coffee mug, throw it in my backpack, jump on my bike and start praying that i don't get killed. i have to fight my way through a throng of matatus all lining up outside the path from kibera (the slum) as thousands of people are heading to work. i head to the freeway and hope i don't make any permanent pitstops at the funeral home i pass each day. i whizz through the traffic circle and hope the cars think of me as one of them. as i pass the local airport a small private airplane takes off for its safari in maasai mara. i turn into the driveway of the training centre (African Medical and Research Foundation) oddly noting that on my right, not far away is an elementary school, straight ahead is a prison, and to my left is my school. on one particular fine morning they had the prisoners in their black and white striped outfits pruning the trees. one nearly fell out of the tree when he whipped around to loudly greet me. just another day in nairobi when you're "givin high fives" to the prisoners on the way to work...

i enter the classroom and start greeting in as many mother tongue languages i can remember. one of my classmates from kartoum, sudan, has taught everyone how to say good morning in arabic. when he sweeps in the room he shouts "saba alkier!" and you hear 25 people shout back "saba alnoor!" very enthusiastically. my classmates are from all over east africa, including kenya, sudan, and somalia. there are doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and clinical officers. they work for the red cross, cdc, goal, world vision among others. the experiences and stories are rich and varied.

it was decided as a group that every day be opened with prayer. this is such a change from a north american meeting. in what "secular" place would a meeting start with prayer? the interesting thing is, is that the class is not all protestant christians. there are muslims, christians, catholics (my neighbour is a nun), and total non-believers. we have prayed in english and arabic, to Jesus and to Allah. it is always an interesting start to the day.

we usually begin with a short lecture followed by group work. i usually start heated discussions in my group and sometimes we end up talking much more about other topics than our assignment (this should come as no surprise to people who know me). yet, we always seem to come up with some of the most comprehensive presentations. one of my group members likes to say that a group that bonds produces good work. so i guess we are bonding.

tea time and lunch break continue to be living classrooms for me. i learn more cultural lessons over a steaming cup or a plate of food than in the classroom. i have learned about "alternate uses" for coca cola and lemon juice, how the prostitutes in nairobi operate, that a woman in somalia garners a lot of respect and will rarely be shot in conflict, what a guy is really saying to me when he says "i love you so much, let's talk more" (i can be so naive) and so many other interesting things that are too numerous to list.

people are also fascinated with canada and often ask me what it would be like to study there, if people would stare at them on the street, if there are africans there, how cold it is... there is rarely a dull conversation. i get alot of comments that "you talk alot. but please don't stop. it's so interesting."

the day ends with me collecting all the evaluation forms and delegating the task to one of my co-students as I was elected to be the "evaluation form coordinator." a title i can put on my resume perhaps...

i retrieve my bike from behind the guards' building and ride beside my walking classmates. they express shock that i am riding a bicycle as opposed to a motorbike or car and think i am a bit crazy for riding in the same lanes as cars, but they heartily send me off with well wishes for safety.

i pass the herds of indingenous cows that are being herded by little maasai women or young men in leather jackets. no one, including myself, thinks it is odd to see 50 cows walking down a freeway in the middle of nairobi. i push myself up the hill desperately trying to stay ahead of the old man on a one speed bicycle who seems to have an effortless cadence. once in my friends large estate i ride by the drunk car minders who reach out their hands to give me five. i slap a few of their hands, figuring it is better to keep the throng of young, drunk men on my good side. but i change my pattern of coming and going everyday so as to avoid someone easily following me. sometimes i say a small prayer as i go by the boys and men who sniff glue and literally live in the garbage pile, eating our leftovers and finding treasures in our trash.

when i glide up to my friends front gate, i get out my giant key ring and start sorting out which key opens what lock. i undo the front gate and lock it from the inside. then i go through her laundry room, unlock another door where i store my bike. i unlock the two front doors and have to be sure to lock them again behind me (i NEVER locked my door in calgary). i dump my bag by the door, turn on the computer and check email and facebook. i watch a lame movie with my friend and crawl back into bed by 10. ready for another day of prisoner greeting, cultural learning, laughing over tea, and oh yeah, a little school too...

idp

2008-07-29T02:02:00.000-07:00

idp

internally displaced person.

an acronym that all kenyans are now terribly familiar with.

alida fernhout, rn, bn, idp.

and now i feel like an idp. many people have asked if my house is fixed and i am back living in it. the answer is negative to both. i am bouncing around. there is a house but not a home. i am not able to live in my home or eldoret. i feel a little displaced.

i spent about 10 days staying at a house in eldoret town and commuted to the village on my motorbike. i then went to nairobi for a small "reading recess" and took a week long course on "hiv/aids and water, sanitation and hygiene." during that time i have stayed at my colleague's home. while in nairobi, some "things" happened and these "things" are very complicated so it is difficult to explain or discuss. but let's say that it has prevented me from going back to my home in the village. i flew on the weekend to eldoret to get some necessary things such as my bike and computer. i stayed with some dutch friends at their home.

i am now back in nairobi staying at my colleague's home until i start a month-long course on the other side of town. then i will move to a friend's house for the month of august.

needless to stay, i am living out of a bag and feel like a bit of a transient. but now i have my bike and my mac and these things are like "home" to me.

i can't give details, but if you could pray that the whole messy situation is sorted out, i would be grateful. i look foward to getting back "home" and dropping idp from the acronyms behind my name.

house on fire

2008-06-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

well, i wasn't sure what to call this blog. so, why not be straight forward?

my house started on fire on saturday and my kitchen is toast, the rest of my house is black, and everything i own stinks like burned plastic.

but i'm okay. for now. i think.

in fact, i can see clearly how God was working in all this. now don't get me wrong. God didn't burn my house down. and i know he is all-knowing and infinite and everything and could have miracously stopped the fire, or even prevented it. and i am not happy my house burned, but i believe there is a purpose for everything. and i saw a whole lot of purposes.

let's get back to the dirt bike. because it has a part or purpose in it. i was having trouble starting it yesterday. something with it being brand new, apparently they don't like starting. my friends gardener went and found a british guy in their neighbourhood who apparently knows about motorbikes. he came over got it started and then gave me an x games lesson on how to ride a dirt bike. i learned more from him in an hour than any and all kenyan lessons combined. he took me for a freakin crazy ride - we were literally flying through giant ditches, mud, gravel, slamming on brakes. he is a little ADD but he both encouraged me and scared the daylights out of me. but good ideas on how to avoid getting pancaked by a semi truck while trying to go around herds of cows and bicycles.

so, with his advice, i went riding on the dirt roads in the farms this morning pretending to be a mini carey hart, minus flying in the air and breaking all my bones. i was riding in and out of ditches, through big crusty mud patches. pretending like i owned the place. i stopped over at the chiefs house as i hadn't been there in the 9 months i have lived in the village. we are sitting there chatting and my phone rings. i hate answering my phone while having interesting conversations, so i silenced it and kept talking. a minute later it rings again and i see that it is my colleague at the hospital. i find that strange as she never calls me on a saturday. the chief said "go ahead, answer, it's no problem." so i say, "hey esther, what's going on?"

"your house is on fire!!" she says breathlessly.

"my house is on fire!!??"

i literally leaped across the room and raced to my bike. i rode like mad back to my house. and thanks to my self-imposed x-games morning lesson, i rode with confidence and aggression. even the cows got out of the way!! (for real)

i kept watching the horizon for billowing smoke. it's hard to concentrate on pot holes when you imagine your house burning down. and i realized how selfish i was in that moment. my first thought was not of "is anyone hurt?"

but "i hope my mac isn't on fire!!"

then, "i just bought all those beads to make jewelery with the women. what are we going to make now?"

i ripped up to the house to see a small crowd but no shooting flames. okay, good sign.

i ran to the back of the house to see smoke coming out of the kitchen and people standing around saying "pole" (sorry).

the fridge and my very nice microwave are toast (yes, i do not have running water but i have a microwave. so i am a lazy cook), the kettle melted into something resembling a cake, the paint is burned off one wall.

but i cannot be more thankful.

yes, thankful. my kitchen burned, right after i had finished painting it a beautiful white and red, but i am blessed.

the doctors wife happened to walk by at a time when she was not planning to and noticed the fire. she alerted my neighbour, also the hospital maintenance guy, who happened to refuse to drive some people to town that day, feeling like he had to stay at the hospital. he is one of the only people who knew where a working fire extinguisher was and put out the fire. the fact that a fire extinguisher at the hospital worked is also a miracle!

i wasn't home and therefore not hurt. the half full gas tank standing in the middle of the fire did not blow, which would have surely leveled the house. it happened during the day and not at night when i was sleeping and may have suffered or been killed by smoke inhalation. i was prepared to ride my dirt bike like a bat out of hell because a brit happened to scare me into it the day before. and God knew what was important to me. my mac is not burned, and my coffee bodum is still standing on my kitchen counter perfectly intact, still with coffee in it. my mountain bike is covered in black soot but still waiting patiently for me to ride it. all my clothes stink like burned plastic, but i can provide income to some local women to wash everything in my house.

i also believe there is a greater purpose in all of this. i will experience personal growth, of course, in trusting that God has a plan. a couple of things have struck me. the devastation of a fire is strange. and fires were on the top of the list of damage done during post-election crisis. people's homes and properties were burned to the ground. i now have a small taste of what is like to lose something you've worked for. it was a bit traumatizing and the fire was not even deliberately set. but perhaps now, i have a sense of empathy for the victims of the recent violence that i did not have before.

it is also a way to build relationships with people in the community. you see, i have been told that people generally believe that nothing bad happens to white people. that they are all rich, they never get sick, they have no worries. i have had several experiences that have helped them see otherwise. i burned my leg quite badly earlier this year, and they had not seen a white person's flesh before. they exclaimed "it looks just like our flesh!"

a few weeks ago, i tripped and completely biffed in town. i was flying through the air, arms flapping, trying not to fall. but i skidded through the gravel and ended up with a bleeding arm and a bruised ego. people just stopped and stared. they were literally stunned, frozen. no one moved to offer a hand. when i recounted this to my colleague, she laughed and said "we don't believe white people fall. or get hurt. we believe they are perfect."

my massive tumble was a demonstration that white people can also demonstrate poor coordination:-)

my home starting on fire, and me starting to cry on arrival really demonstrated my vulnerability. as a person. as a child of God. i am not the invincible white person who has everything going for them all the time. i also suffer tragedy, i experience pain, i shed tears. and i think it might be a powerful witness and a growth in my relationship with the community. it might be a stretch but i think that potential is there.

so, i am blessed. i am blessed that i am alive. i am blessed that it was only my kitchen. i am blessed that my mac computer, my ipod, and my bodum are all intact:-) i am blessed to have the genuine concern and care of so many people. i am blessed that for this moment, i can see the positive change in an unfortunate situation. i am blessed.

see photos...

http://picasaweb.google.com/alidafernhout/HouseOnFire

p.s. from the home office: see the link to the left if you would like to make a donation to alida... (note the donation will not go directly to me, rather to my work...)

motorcycle diaries - the saga continues

2008-06-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

i have had my license for awhile now, but the motorcycle remained elusive. partly "this is kenya" partly "kenyan government bureaucracy." the phone call came from a colleague yesterday.
"we are sending it to the courier as i speak to you. you should have it by tomorrow morning."

i have learned, however cynical it seems, to believe it when i see it.

but i couldn't help but stupidly grinning during the entire 45 minute walk to the junction today. a degree of freedom has finally come!! not being stuffed with 29 other people into a minivan!!

i ran several errands in town, waiting for the supposed phone call from the courier company. while crossing a street, a large truck from the company tried to run me over. when i started crossing, the driver actually stepped forcefully on the gas and i had to leap off the road. the passengers laughed as they passed.

i never received a phone call so i finally decided to just go there and hopefully my motorbike would run out to greet me. and of course, there it was, waiting patiently.

while one worker went to check on the status of the delivery, i asked the other woman if there was a fuel station nearby where i could get fuel. she stared blankly at me (she had just finished doing a massive nose pick, maybe she went too far and nudged some brain tissue).
"no, i don't know. there's no fuel."
"do you know where the nearest fuel station is?" i asked again.
"maybe around nakumatt?" she replied.
okay, nakumatt is a grocery store about 5 km away on a street with no gas stations in sight.
perhaps it was my strange canadian accent, so i tried again. and they don't call it gas here,
they call it fuel, but pronounce it more like fuewhhel.
"you know fuel, petrol, gas, benzine. that stuff you put into cars. is there a station close by where i can buy some?"
more blank staring.
"you have to go back into town for that. i don't know."
i was literally stunned. i think she still had no idea what i was talking about.

i was then allowed near my motorbike, and so i asked the new guy.
"do you know if there is a fuel station here where i can buy fuel?"
"yes, of course, just around the corner, only 20 metres away. i will get a jerry can from the mechanic."
okay, so it was not my accent, my english, or my wording. i don't know what was wrong with that girl.

he comes back with a jerry can but doesn't hand it over until he launches into a passionate plea how he is actually a pastor and is called to do the work of God, but it doesn't pay the bills, so he has to work for the courier company, but he wants to study counseling and do i know someone who can pay for his courses?
seriously, there is something about me getting a motorbike and people asking me for money. the police man who administered the driving test also asked me to pay for his sons university education in canada!

so i head on over to the fuel/gas station with an oil container where i ask the guy to please rinse all the oil out of it. he assures me it is no problem to put oil in the gas tank. i assure him that i want to take good care of my motorbike and therefore, no oil will enter the gas tank. as he is writing my receipt and before he hands me my change he says "so, you will let me keep the change?" with a big grin.
"no, you are not keeping the change." i say with a straight face (the change is almost $4, not something like 50 cents) and head back to the courier.

by then a small crowd has gathered, the mechanics came out to ogle the bike, but they were also very helpful in showing me all kinds of nooks and crannies on the bike. like where there is a small tool kit hidden under the seat, how to remove things, which buttons to press etc. they put my side mirrors on and got everything ready to go. i was very appreciative and was ready to jump on the bike and head home when it started to rain. hard. we ran for cover and hoped it would pass in a few minutes. not 30 minutes earlier i had been sweating in the sun!

i waited, and waited, and waited. i read the newspaper, sent text messages, ate some chips. told them how their delivery truck tried to run me over. it just rained harder. i asked God what he thought he was doing. i had waited months for this motorbike and then he sends a downpour? i decided to go into town to eat and wait some more. i just couldn't bear to go home without my motorbike.

i slowly ate my coconut chicken, took photos for the people at the neighbouring table, drank some bad instant coffee and stared out the window as it continued to rain. i seriously asked God what he was doing. as if my patience was not tested enough! the problem was, there is really no dry way for me to get home except in a taxi, which costs a fortune. i could have taken a matatu to the dirt road, but then i would literally have to stand in the rain waiting for a random car to hopefully go to my village. i decided to wait some more.

i bought some groceries at the aforementioned nakumatt and emerged from the store hopeful. only a few drops! good enough for me! i headed back to the courier company. i decided to catch a cab because i was tired of walking back and forth. the driver stopped to put in half a litre of gas. yes, half a litre into a car. but with gas costing about $1.80 a litre and most people here make a fraction of a north american or european salary, i suppose that is understandable. we had an interesting conversation about why the people in his Christian church wear turbans and he asked me how it is possible that a "born again" Christian smokes because that is a grave sin that apparently negates your faith. i explained that yes, smoking is a sin, but no more a sin than gossiping, swearing, getting angry, or any other sin that any non-smoking Christian commits. so how can we judge someone else's faith in Jesus Christ because "their sin" is more evident than ours. he thanked me and said he understood my point.

finally, back with my motorbike, no rain, gas (or shall i say fuel) in the tank, ready to go. a bunch of armed police men in camouflage were standing around my bike. i asked them if they were the army or worked for the courier company. apparently, they are the army for "private hire" because they have guns and the company doesn't. i asked one guy if the guns were actually loaded and he suddenly popped out the part that holds the bullets, and well, there were alot of bullets. i jumped a bit when he popped it out (i haven't watched enough movies to know what that piece of the gun is called). they all laughed at me. six guys with loaded machine guns. i guess it is better to have them laughing at me than be angry with me... they assured me the safety catch was on and they all proceeded to show me their guns. i thanked them profusely, then was ready to go.

well, i couldn't get it going. i had to get the mechanic to start it. seems that i am so nervous that my legs are like jelly and don't have the strength to even kick start it!

by this time, it is rush hour traffic. could be okay, or i could die. rush hour traffic is not north american rush hour traffic. it is not nice and orderly. it is wazimu. crazy.
i only had to go straight down one road. but people really don't think lanes are important here, or signaling, or not overtaking when it isn't safe. throw in the pedestrians darting out of nowhere, huge trucks passing me with only a whisper inbetween us, and you have a very nervous alida. my first time riding a motorbike on a road, in rush hour traffic after a rain storm. (well, there was riding a moped in florence, italy, with no helmet, through 8 lanes of traffic... but you know i was 20 and invincible).
i make it out of town and onto the highway. the praying begins. big time.
it is amazing how complacent i have become as the passenger in a matatu. it seems normal to swerve on the road to avoid potholes and have cars driving in your lane, except they are coming at you, from the opposite direction. i don't usually blink when it happens. someone calls "chicken" and moves. however, now i am the chicken. all the time. several cars are coming straight at me and all i can think to myself is "holy sh#!? where am i going to go?" there is no shoulder, only a sharp drop off to some dirt.
i realize how vulnerable i am on a motorbike. on a bicycle, i actually feel safer. i can move easier as my bike only weighs 20 pounds instead of 200. now, i am at the mercy of the other vehicles. i can drive safely all i want, but if that car decides to overtake at the last minute... i just prayed that i would black out immediately and not feel the pain!

i finally arrived at the junction, where i now have to drive through mud.
"Come on God, all of this in one day?"
i stop and greet my fellow motorbike drivers. i get alot of handshakes, and "jepkemboi, can i please drive it, just a little ways?"
i decline and make my way through the mud. it is kind of like hydroplaning, for 4 km.
i park it in the rickety garage next to the vehicle straight out of "the gods must be crazy" and breathe a massive sigh of relief.
now i am not much of a charismatic person at heart, but i wanted to holler "Praise God!"

this is kenya.
and these are my motorcycle diaries.
now, please pray.

work

2008-05-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

my blogs have not been reflecting it, but i do more than go on bike rides and play with kids at IDP camps. i "go to work" everyday, although my definition of work is changing. sometimes "work" is drinking tea with people or walking on the side of a highway for an hour looking for a home of someone living with HIV.

one of the projects i have been working on is teaching a few ladies some crafts/skills so that they might hopefully earn money to feed their children and buy tea leaves and sugar. we chose 4 women, all of whom are clients of the Community Based Health Clinic. They are at very high risk of needing to engage in risky activities (i.e. brewing local beer or trading sex for food), yet they have difficulty finding employment. they all have young children in the home which restricts them from finding casual labour jobs. two of them are illiterate (although Maria proudly showed me that she can write her name and add numbers).

i have been teaching them how to cut and fold chip bags and transform them into purses and wallets. so far, they have been perfecting the folding technique; i constantly need to enforce and encourage high quality work instead of high quantity work. i have just introduced them to the cutting part. remember, what is easy for someone with years of education, is a major challenge for someone who can't read or write and has never used a ruler. i devised a pattern piece so that they can trace it onto the paper and then cut. even cutting a straight line can be a challenge some days. but i am very proud to say the women caught on extremely quickly and are proud of their accomplishments, however slowly they are coming.

three of the women concentrating very hard on the task at hand

i also invited a local businessman, who owns a souvenir shop, to come and teach them how to make beads out of magazine paper. i sent them home with a magazine, scissors, and glue. maria returned yesterday with hundreds of beads! i dipped them in varnish for a finishing touch while she cut and folded foil wrapping paper for a wallet.

Robert teaches them how to carefully cut magazines to transform into beads

the wallet on the left is one i bought in the US.
on the right is the one that Maria folded the pieces for,
and i just figured out how to sew together.
i will next teach the women how to sew the pieces together.

i have to admit, sometimes i have an inferiority complex about what i do here in kenya. while waiting for my luggage at the airport in nairobi, i once heard two ex-pat women sharing with eachother what they do for a living. the british woman, in her london accent, remarked "oh, i consult here and there for the UN, the Embassy, and other NGO's when i'm not busy with the 3 kids! you know how busy that can be! hahaha!" I was standing behind her, thinking, "Oh yeah, well I have 2 university degrees and I fold chip bags for a living! So there!"

but it struck me a few weeks ago while i was sitting around the table with the women as they diligently folded their rectangles, listening to them talk (in swahili) about their medications, which clinic they went to, how many kids they had, which pastors were doing what in which villages (not good things, by the way), that this "craft" time was also an opportunity for the women to just be women, to be mothers sharing a cup of tea while fellowshiping. they rarely get that chance "just be." maria shared with me yesterday that making the beads and folding the paper at home helps her to stay busy and keep her mind occupied and she is grateful for even that small change.

will i start the next "red" campaign here? i doubt it. i just hope to find a local market for the items that will sustain the women while they continue to develop new skills, grow in confidence and provide for their families without risking their lives or dignity. (however, we are also not opposed to an international market:-) )

the other activities i have been involved with are joining the environmental club at the local girls high school, demonstrating a simple solar oven and fireless basket (both of which I hope to develop as income generating projects for other support groups), arranging and helping with volunteer trainings, and i hope to start a community health group in june (that is if people show up, and hopefully not 3 hours late). i will act as a facilitator of the group to help them identify health problems in the area, and "steer" them towards identifying hygiene and sanitation issues (a doctor at the teaching hospital told me that 70% of pediatric admissions have to do with ameobas). a michigan group is coming to introduce water filters, so i hope to liaise with them regarding that project.

through all these things, from folding chip bags to cooking with the sun, to teaching handwashing, i hope i can contribute to the overall health of the community. not quite neurosurgery or consulting for the UN, but i know there is a bigger purpose that i haven't realized yet.

picture this postcard

2008-05-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

having no vehicle, i take self-propelled adventures. i grabbed my bike today and headed out to a road i had never been before.

the purple grey clouds banked the horizon, threatening to release their moisture at any time. but with the sun at my back, i risked a shower. i passed crowds of kids just out of school, all waving and shouting "mzungu" even though they know my name.

the red road rose before me. i could not see the end of it over the horizon, and i wondered if i might fall off the edge in a few moments time. to my right, green stalks of maize were struggling out of the hard red soil. to my left, nothing planted yet. the farmer is waiting to plant his wheat. who ever it is has a huge farm and i passed nothing but soil for several kilometers.

the sound of a match striking draws my attention to the ditch. however, it is not a match but the simultaneous snap of wings of tiny black birds startled by my intrusion. they burst out of the ditch, and in formation cross my path. all at once, together, they bank to the left, flashing their orange underbellies. i am in awe at this simple gesture and the surprise of a bright hue. maybe their way of saying "hey mzungu"

i wish i had my camera as my mind's eye takes in the view. an acacia tree stands alone on the horizon in between vast fields waiting for the rains. i reach the rise in the road and drink in the normalcy of village life. modern houses stand next to mud huts, 3 children stop their digging to wave and smile. a woman carries a heavy load on her head. a child of 7 is herding over 10 cows.

delicate cranes tiptoe through the untilled field. their careful gait resembles socialite ladies walking in high heels in the thick carpet of an opera hall. their blue backs, white bellies, and black faces are a fancy costume for the simple farm they visit. their mohawk of yellow straw is halo like, or perhaps a crown of gold to match their stunning outfits and proud walk. when i stop to quietly watch them walk, they glance back at me, and as if snubbing my trousers and dirty sandals, ever so slowly take off in flight to join better company.

i turn back as the purple of the clouds is giving way to a more ominous black. i smile at the shocked faces of men as i ride my yellow, multi speed bike past their one speed "black mambas." school children who were dawdling home, are now jumping over the maize mounds to get home and disappear into the tall green grass. i love how their pink shirt collars poke out of their burgandy sweaters and their white knee socks will not stay up to their knees no matter how much coaxing they get.

i descend down the last small hill before the hospital and navigate my way over the jagged rock. it reminds me of downhill riding in whistler. my arms begin to itch with the vibrations of the rocky road. i pass the round yellow church before the hospital gate and 6 of my little friends scream "bye! bye! bye!" from the door of their mothers hair saloon. a motorcycle driver gives me a friendly nod from "one biker to another" as he parks his bike.

no camera today, but picture this postcard of plateau.

wish you were here.

things i love about kenya

2008-05-05T06:12:00.000-07:00

I love red dirt roads, green fields, and blue skies.

I love that I am totally comfortable walking, running, or biking through a herd of cows and they don't even blink an eye.

I love that I can buy really good gouda cheese here.

I love iridescent blue birds that flit in my path when I am feeling sad.

I love full rainbows arching from valleys to fields.

I love that when I start speaking swahili in the market, the price drops dramatically.

I love that I am "baptized" with a name from every tribe.

I love the vast differences in geography and landscape - from volcanoes to salty lakes to blue oceans to huge valleys.

I love that when I go for a run, a 6 year old girl in a satin dress and no shoes kicks my butt.

I love playing football (soccer) in the school field and the girls team beat the boys team:-)

I love hot showers when I get to have them once a week. I will never take them for granted again.

I love that Kenya has really good coffee and that I can satisfy my caffeine addiction every morning with my Java and my bodum.

I love that I am the only woman I have ever seen ride a bike around my village and now young girls want to learn too.

I love that my Kenya mama watches WWF wrestling and loves Hulk Hogan are (well, I at least think it is funny!)

There are many things I love about living in Kenya and I have been reminding myself of these when I get irritated or frustrated.
What do you love about where you live?

motorcyle diaries in kenya

2008-04-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

i am no che guevara and don't have books and movies named after me, but i have a tale to tell about getting a motorcycle license in kenya.

i signed up with Budget Drivers School who advertise "Very cheap and the best instructors." Okay, should have been my first clue, but Rocky Driving School admitted they kind of forgot to maintain or take care of their motorbike and thus couldn't offer me lessons at the time.

Day one
I was told I could show up "any time i wanted" which i found strange, but i took their word for it. i showed up on a monday at 1pm and was sent into a small classroom with two tables and lots of chairs. at least 30 people were crowded around a small table with a table top road set up and dinky cars. my instructor "brown" directed me to sit at the empty table and he started driving the dinky cars around. i thought perhaps i had come to the wrong place - was this a daycare or driving school? who plays with dinky cars on a play map of a town? well, my 3 year old nephew does. perhaps he could come get a kenyan license.

so the play map has a traffic circle with 4 lanes with 3 and 4 lane roads branching off 4 sides as well as a parking lot and a side street. we didn't really receive any instruction about kenyan road rules. just told to follow the blue car there with the red car here. so, i start, with my understanding of canadian traffic circles. "NO! you can't do that! start again." i was told. utter confusion on my face. the next student, grabs the red car, proceed to swerve the thing all over the road, make several u-turns, drives through the parking lot, goes through the traffic circle (or roundabout known here) and after about 5000 turns ends up behind the blue car. "Very good" says Brown, "did you understand that alida?"

"is that for real?" i question.

"yes, of course. what is the problem?"

"well, why did the car have to change 4 lanes from the right side of the road to the left, only to move back 4 lanes three seconds later in order to turn right?"

"well, you have to move to the slow lane of traffic, of course, and then move back into the right lane, or fast lane, so that you can slow down and make a right turn" replies Brown (by the way, his real name, not a "The Office" episode)

"i am sorry, but kenyan road rules may actually cause fatal crashes, rather than prevent them"

"well, when in rome, do as the romans"

so, for the next hour, i have to drive dinky cars around a play map around road blocks and thru parking lots. i am hoping they have snack time or something.

finally, it is time for actual riding on a motorbike. Brown hands me a gigantic helmet and a rubber rain jacket. the helmet is fit for a giant and has no chin strap. it immediately falls in front of my eyes and i am still standing on the street. I ask Brown where the straps are. He has never seen straps on a helmet and I show him where the attachments are inside for the straps; where they once were. He surmises that a student must have removed them at some time because they didn't like them. We get on the motorbike, he turns around, and insists that i do up all the buttons on the cheap rubber rain jacket for my safety. jaw gaping, i reluctantly button up the whole jacket and pray that we don't crash since the helmet will fly off before i hit the ground.
we stop at the gas station and he has them put in half a litre of gas. that should get us far! he actually has to shake the bike around to swish the gas around in the tank to see if it actually in there.
we drive to an empty field with a dirt road around it. Brown shows me the clutch, gas, gears and foot brake and tells me to start driving. he points out that the front brake is missing (again thanks to a previous student) but it doesn't matter because the rear brake is more important. i notice the clutch is almost vertical and i find it difficult to release slowly. that might because it is also partially broken. i start driving it around the road, and notice that it has no side mirrors, the spedometer doesn't work, the right side of the handlebars seemed to be attached with a piece of rubber, and the headlight is taped on. i ride around a couple of times and he motions me back to the centre of the field.

"so how was that?" he asks.

"well, most of what is on the bike is broken, and the helmet keeps falling in front of my eyes" i reply.

"oh, but is much better to learn on this bike, because it keeps you alert. if everything worked, you would fall asleep."

i then have to ride in small circles around a tuft of grass and move onto figure eights formed from random stones. i have to stop at one point because i am so dizzy that the grass is blurring together.

"great, we're done. i just have to stop at my house. i forgot something" says Brown and we head to "his place." i stand reluctantly in the parking lot. what driving instructor takes his student to his house? (don't worry, i was limbering up to use my self-defense moves).

we return to the office downtown to return the bike and high quality equipment. the school owner is yelling at someone at the phone and i slink out as quietly as possible so i do not suffer the same wrath.

Day two
i return tuesday morning, ready to play with cars again. but instead, 60 students are stuffed into benches in the too small room reciting road signs - or "sings" as the schedule indicates. i notice then, that someone in the office has a spelling problem. Friday is spelled "fhariday", saturday is "satir" and all signs are "sings." This does not bode well.

The instructor does not actually teach or explain road signs. the students are expected to memorize them off the handout given and then stand up and recite them for the rest of the class. most students mutter under their breath and no one pays attention. they are texting on their phones or yawning. the instructor walks in and out of the room, randomly deciding that the rehearsing student has made a mistake, like reading the signs out in a horizontal fashion instead of a vertical one. they have to start again.

fortunately, i escape having to recite them that day.
Brown and i take out the stellar bike again, once again, filling it with half a litre of gas.
i drive around in more circles while Brown relaxes and picks at the grass. i do notice though, that the dirt road i ride on simulates real conditions in that it is filled with potholes and garbage. i even get to compete with other cars - those being filled with learning drivers who seem to be terrified of the motorbike. they stop the car and freeze any time i come near them.
school children stop and stare. somehow they can tell it is a woman on the bike and they stop and stare as if it is the 8th wonder of the world. when i ride near them, they scatter and scream.
i drive in more small circles, figure eights for "my safety." apparently these are defensive driving mechanisms.
i am happy, though, that it feels totally natural to ride a motorbike. it must be in the genes.
day two is done. i haven't broken anything or fallen down. and the instructor didn't take me home.

day three
back to playing with cars on the wooden board. the instructors step up the difficulty and throw in road blocks all over the place. i have to try to figure out how to get around the road blocks, while obeying absurd kenyan road traffic laws. he then puts in some very easy situations, that as an experienced driver i figure out easily while my kenyan counterparts struggle. however, they seem to get the long routes with a million turns before i do.

before we head out to the motorbike, i have a word with the driving school owner. i admonish her for having such poor equipment and dangerous helmets. she shrugs and says the helmets came without straps. i assure her that they did not and show her where the straps should be attached. she becomes angry with Brown for not telling her that things are broken and how is she supposed to know if she doesn't ride a motorbike? She demands that he have straps attached for tomorrows class and doesn't care where he finds them.

back in the field, Brown tries to convince me that straps are not necessary and that the helmet falling in my eyes is to "keep me awake" while i am driving. if everything worked so well, i might fall asleep behind the handlebars. i then explain what working neurosurgery is like and the patients i took care of because their helmet came off. his jaw drops and his eyes bulge. he has never heard of anyone having to be fed by a tube or having their bum wiped because of such a severe head injury. he assures me he will find some straps somewhere.

Day four
i can't escape having to recite the road signs. while waiting for my turn, Brown tries to make me fill out information forms for future students and i put the pile of papers back on his lap. he then starts stretching his neck to and fro and saying "oh, i need a massage..."
"so, go get one" i say.
"oh, but where?" whines Brown.
"where ever they give massages" and i turn back to my handout so i don't blunder during my recital.

when i stand up and take the stick so i can point at the road signs painted on the wall, everyone stops their phone playing and yawning and sleeping. the mzungu girl is up and is she going to get everything right? i apparently state something wrong in the "regulatory" signs and some men in front of me start giggling.
"is there a problem?" i ask.
they keep giggling. apparently leaving a zone of 40km an hour is pretty funny.

then i start reciting the "information" signs. i say "restaurant ahead" and i am stopped by the instructor. "you don't need to say ahead, it just means that the restaurant is there. maybe it is behind you."
"okay, fine. restaurant. refreshments. camping area. caravan area...."

then i have to demonstrate the hand signals. when i start with left signal, which involves whipping your right arm up and down three times, then turning it in three giant circles. i get in trouble for turning my arm the wrong way. i tell the teacher that is it probably dangerous to be doing the front stroke with my right arm when i should be having them on the steering wheel in order to actually drive the car. i sit down and then get in more trouble from Brown for having had my left hand in my pocket while demonstrating the hand signals. Apparently, if i were to do that during the exam, or chew gum loudly in front of the police officer, i will fail the test. not because i don't know how to drive, but because i have my hand in my pocket.

Back in the field, i drive around while Brown lays in the grass. i am driving through a bumpy part when i see a half naked man bent over in the bush. his bum is facing me, his face is to the busy road. he is trying to go poo and i nearly hit several pot holes. i am shocked at first, but then i feel bad for him as he is still trying to go on my 4th way around the field. the poor guy must have been constipated.
when i stop in front of Brown, i explain about the man, not so hidden in the bush. he tells me "he is nuts and lives in this field." i tell Brown the man is mentally ill, but that Brown, himself, is nuts.
I ride in my circles and figure eights for half an hour.
on my final ride around the field, the clutch actually falls out of its resting place and is hanging off the handle bar. i have to put it back in place and hope it still works as i try to slow down. when i tell Brown, he says it is to keep me awake, and smiles.

Day five
Having taken the weekend off, i return monday morning for my last lesson. i manage to spend only 30 minutes driving the dinky cars before we head out.
as we drive to the field, i see combat police lining up on the road. riot police on a monday morning is not a good sign. the politicians had finally agreed on something on sunday and announced the cabinet. Brown tells me the Mungiki gang was demonstrating that morning (as he drove the wrong way through the traffic circle and then the wrong way down a one way road).
I stall the bike several times and swear it has something to do with the half working clutch. Brown is convinced it is my inability. I do my routine and at the end of the lesson have to take Brown on the back of the motorbike around the field several times to practice having another person on the bike. As i am speeding up, he suggests he puts his arms around my waist. i told him if he touched me i would throw him off the back of the bike before he knew what hit him.
(this is after last week when he asked if i had a boyfriend or fiance, and then called me several times over the weekend - phone calls i did not answer)
At the end of the lesson, he seems to have "forgotten" something at his house again. I ask if he takes his male students to his house. He acts very astonished and says "i don't do funny business! i am saved!"
okay, saved man, stop taking me to your house then...

Test day
Tuesday morning, i show up bright and early and i head over to the testing centre with 2 other students. it turns out they are social workers with a catholic agency and we work in the same area and will all be riding yamahas around the village.
we arrive at 8:30 and wait for something to happen.
at 9am the police officer in charge comes out of his office and we all stand at attention. for the next 45 minutes he gives a speech about how we should not be nervous and that we have practiced well and that no one will fail. the speech then becomes more sermon like when he starts telling us how we should and should not dress. if we are "showing our stuff" with low cut shirts, that reflects bad character and what will people think of us.
then, reflecting on mondays violence involving the gangs, he instructs us all to "pray and go to ch---"
"Church" replies the crowd.
(a kenyan thing that you complete only half the word and then wait for the audience to finish the word).
He finished his sermon with the instructions to "let the ladies go first because they have to go home and take care of the children and cook food for us."
i stifle my gasp and tell my new friends that i will withhold my comments until after i have passed the test.

we then sit on the grass in the hot sun for more than 2 hours waiting for something, anything to happen. i suspect the police officers are taking a nice long tea break.
finally they start calling in people for their oral exam and playing with cars (yes, they even have dinky cars in the exam). i am near the end and the police officer is surprised that a lady was left to the end. i manage to withhold comments. he calls me "fleln" (instead of fernhout) and he asks me where i work and what i do. i tell him i am a nurse in a village not far away.
"what is your lore?" he asks
"what is my role at the hospital?"
"no, what is the lore?"
"the role of what?"
"the lore of the road?"
"oh, the rule of the road?" ( i then am able to figure out which tribe he is based on his switching the letters r and l).
i answer his traffic questions, repeat road signs, and drive a dinky car around a traffic circle.
i am then instructed to go drive the motorbike in 3 circles around the parking lot and stop in front of the office. he will be able to see me from the window, while quizzing other students.

so, i get on the motorbike, and all other activity stops in the compound. all eyes are on the white girl driving the motorbike. it is probably still being talked about in people's houses.

i get called back in the office and congratulated on passing.
"Alida Danfelle" now has a license. i try to correct the fact that my middle name is spelled incorrectly throughout, but that is what is on my Kenyan ID card, so i stop arguing. as far as kenyans are concerned, i am alida danfelle.
as the police officer is filling out the paper work, he asks me to sponsor his son to go to school in canada. i clarify that he means pay for his university education. yes, of course that is what he means as he laughs. i tell him i am still paying for my own education and i also laugh. as long as he gives me the license. if he doesn't and still talks about sponsoring his son, i plan to point to the "no corruption" signs all over the walls. fortunately, i do not have to resort to that and happily take my papers.
but it is not over. then i am directed to another place. i squeeze my way through a broken door into a shack area. although 6 men are waiting their turn, i am told by this police officer that it is "ladies first." i don't argue as i have spent almost 7 hours sitting on a patch of grass in the hot sun to get my license, when the whole process could have taken no more than 30 minutes.
finally, i have my 20 papers signed and in order, but i do not yet receive my interim license.
i am instructed to return to the driving school the next day to get my certificate and then proceed to the Revenue Authority office where i have to pay more money.

so finally, today, i submitted my pile of papers saying i am a competent motorbike driver.
and i have not yet driven a motorbike on a road with other traffic.
this is kenya.
and this is my motorcycle diary.

a bike... at last

2008-03-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

i love riding a bike. a good bike that is. one with gears and brakes that work.
i wasn't very impressed with the one speed chinese bikes in the supermarkets and the "mountain" bikes had their pedals put on backwards and non-functioning brakes, while still new in the store!

so, as i was walking into a nairobi shopping mall, and i saw a group of guys leaning on specialized bikes, outfitted with helmets and all, i just had to ask where they got their bikes. they looked at me suspiciously but finally gave me the number of their "manager." i found out later that they initially thought i wanted to accuse them of stealing bikes!

i got in touch with "the manager" who happens to be one of the few professional cyclists in kenya (david kinja) and we met at his "shop/house." i was practically drooling on the array of bikes, all used bikes non longer considered worthy by their owners from north america and europe. i chose a blue and white GT frame and he set about overhauling it for me. i certainly paid more than i would have in canada, but hey, the thing took a 10,000km boat trip to get here!

in january i was able to load it on a plane and bring it back to eldoret with me. it feels so good to ride a bike around the village, flying by the men as they are pushing their one speed bikes up the hills. but i do smile and wave:-)

i look forward venturing out more! i don't dare leave it anywhere though as it kind of stands out and kids like to play with it during church... but my kenyan father (Baba) was very impressed with it and was so surprised that he could lift it up with only one hand!!

my Baba (kenyan father) takes it for a test spin. i am
pretty sure he wanted to keep it.

my village vehicle. hopefully it copes well in the rainy season!

but what i love most is this...

2008-03-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

i could give this blog a number of titles.

Why the children?

I want to beat drunk people with sticks.

Running into the pain feels like diving into a pool full of rocks.

So you have gathered that i have had a rough week. as a disclaimer, i had many a rough week while working in calgary also. i cared for many patients whose situations broke my heart. i counseled dysfunctional families on christmas day while they denied alcohol abuse. i cried myself to sleep on more than one occasion after the death of a patient.

i just didn't post my thoughts and experiences to a blog. partly because i probably would have been sued by the health region, but also because i had a patient roommate who listened to my venting and b*&%ching. but now i have you. the people who read this blog. i come home to an empty house and talking to the wall or the racing grannies on my mantle is not doing the trick.

so, if you want to hear about my days, continue reading and accompany on my journey. what i am sharing is simply what i am dealing with and trying to cope with. so if you continue reading, consider yourself my new global roommate.

the past couple of weeks have been trying. i have been witness, by sight and sound, to atrocities i could not imagine could happen. i have been part of some counseling sessions at the local girls highschool. i have listened to stories from teenage girls about the trauma they have experienced. one saw a kikuyu man burned alive just down the road while people shouted "we will have nyama choma (roasted meat) today!!". another slept in a swamp for two nights because chaos was ensuing all around her. yet another was forced to walk in the streets of kisumu shouting down kibaki in front of a strange funeral procession involving a snake and people dressed in wigs.

i have visited several IDP (internally displaced people) camps within a 50km radius of where i live. tens of thousands of people living in squalor because of their last name. or because they rented a home from someone with the wrong last name/tribe. i have sat with an elderly man under a tree while he explained that he was literally chased off his land and all his maize burned to charcoal. i have had 50 children hanging off my body (literally a child hanging off each finger) until i organized games on a lawn to distract them. i took hanna, an 11 year old, and her mother to emergency after she broke her arm while collecting firewood. i navigated the health system for her hard-of-hearing mother and then assisted the people in the cast clinic to set hanna's arm. with very little medicine for pain, i wrenched her arm one way, while the technician pulled it the other way, and all the while listening to hanna scream for mercy.

then there are my sundays. several sunday afternoons were taken up with arguing with people using and abusing a family of orphans. an uncle and his wife tried to stop them from going to a boarding school, because then their "income generating project" would be gone. they admit to using the children to get food and other items from "well wishers." they asked how they would feed their own children or get free things without the orphans around? then there was the headmistress at their former school. she had neglected them while they were there and then refused to release any of their belongings. we had to make several shopping trips to get new mattresses, clothes and school supplies.

things at the hospital get no better. i mercifully missed the birth of a stillborn baby, but inquired about the other baby in the nursery. a teenage mother gave birth at home and brought the baby that morning because it wasn't doing well. my short visit into the nursery turned into 5 hours of trying to resuscitate this premature newborn, only for her to die while i held her head in my hands. again, i wrapped the baby and offered her to the mother to hold, which she refused. instead, i sat beside her on the bench, the lifeless child in one arm, my other on the mothers back, and this time i could not hold back the tears. i quietly wept and asked esther to tell the young girl that she had done the best she could and we had done the best we could.

today, sunday, was another unenjoyable day. i went with one of our volunteers and several people from catholic relief services to the home of 5 orphaned children who have no support. we finally met the grandmother and two uncles, all of whom were drunk out of their minds. we spent several hours trying to figure out who was to care for these children (i mostly listen and try to quietly advocate through an interpreter). at one point the grandmother tried to get in a fist fight with the youngest uncle, of whom i suspect is sexually abusing the children, and then screamed "take these children away! i don't want them!" the anger inside me was trying to push itself out through hot tears. but i would not let them come. it was finally settled that an uncle and aunt would present themselves, sober, to the catholic clinic later this week for further talks. we left the food, soap, and clothes with the seemingly most responsible person, however, the drunk grandmother is known for stealing anything from the children.

but what i love most is this...

as i pick up cheryl and winnie, two of the orphans, in a bear hug, and swing them in the air, their exhilarating laughter tickles the most inner part of my ears and swells my heart beyond the capacity of my chest.

it is the only thing that keeps me going and gives me hope.

yet, even with all the frustration and pain, i have never loved a job more.

as an aside, i saw this quote on someone else's website. i guess i know i am not locking my heart in a coffin and that the laughter of innocent children is a piece of heaven on earth.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

camps in kenya

2008-03-02T07:16:00.000-08:00

last week i visited several camps for internally displaced people in kenya. tens of thousands of people living in tents, makeshift shelters, under tarps. homeless, with nowhere to go. some live close enough to their farm that they can go work on it, but their home was burned to the ground. even a 99 year old man was chased away because he lived in a house owned by someone of the "wrong tribe"
i have not been able to formulate thoughtful words about my experiences, but as per usual, i took hundreds of photos. i posted some of them to a web album. let the images speak without my words.

http://picasaweb.google.com/alidafernhout/RefugeeCamps

i also have some of myself with multitudes of children at the camps, posted under "me in kenya"

http://picasaweb.google.com/alidafernhout/MeInKenya

if you feel at all compelled to support the displaced people in kenya, you can donate to crwrc for this specific purpose: http://www.crcna.org/pages/crwrc_donate.cfm

money donated will be used directly to purchase items such as blankets, soap, cooking utensils, and medicine for the displaced people.

rafiki zangu

2008-02-26T09:46:00.000-08:00

it never ceases to amaze me. that it takes moving 10,000km and multiple time zones away for me to truly appreciate my friends. i wait until i move to another continent to ask for prayer, when i really needed it right there in calgary. it took me moving to a small african village to realize that the same problems exist around the world and we are all working towards eliminating them, but help appears in different forms.

take my friend amy. she huddles in the back of a van with prostitutes and drug addicts, teaching them, testing them, listening to them, and above all, caring for them. she laughs at my lame stories and encourages my "rogue" activities to include the "c" portion of ABC! (okay, not your sesame street alphabet - "c" stands for condom. another blog, another day). i miss sitting together in kensington coffee shops drinking fancy coffees. i can tell her anything, or just sit in silence and feel like we had a heart-to-heart.

then there is elise, monitoring a plethora of IV lines snaking their way into her patient in ICU. she hums and sings in a melodic voice to her unconscious patient, comforting them, caring for them. and doing it all while wearing stylish pink crocs. she has introduced me to "dressing like a girl" and the mantra "I am smart, I am beautiful" to be repeated on a frequent basis, especially before exams.

you will find that patti moved from a nice, quiet area in her german town, to the inner city filled with drunks and drug addicts, so that she can minister to children desperate for a loving touch. i see her every few years but it feels as though no time has passed at all. we reminisce about days of old while she takes me on adventures to german villages and christmas markets to drink warm wine and eat fat sausages.

cindy has a heart for teenagers with big problems. she offers them refuge from unstable situations to bask in unconditional love. her passion for her friends is unbeatable. i will never be as good a letter writer or encourager as she. she has traveled to unbelievable places but finds contentment and a "mission" in small town alberta. her adventure has sent her head over handlebars on mountain biking trips and camping with a 6 month old. her energy never ceases to amaze me.

neda runs off her feet at work, but never neglects to make sure her patients have received a warm, comforting bath and are turned to face the beautiful view of the mountains from their hospital window. i miss our sewing sessions in my calgary living room and going to persian restaurants to try new food. i even miss administering her weekly needle in the med room at work!

i have so many incredible friends. it would take days to write about them. Karen, who sends me constant letters of encouragement, whether i live in calgary or kenya. Janice, who prepared a care package with some of my favourite things, to arrive on a frustrating day. Roula, who gave me a book about how to flirt and takes me to salsa lessons. Joe, who gives me tips on not what to talk about in front of cute boys (BM...W, i got it joe). Magda, who shared many cups of tea and frustration with me back in the dutch days, and still keeps in touch no matter where i go.

i could not be who i am without my friends. if i have any good qualities, it is not that i was born with them. i have been molded and shaped by the goodness of those kind enough to nuture me with their unconditional love and patience.

rafiki zangu. my friends.
asante sana. thank you so much.

finally something funny...

2008-02-18T10:14:00.000-08:00

i have this black skirt that i bought at superstore last summer for $8. it is a stretchy cotton skirt that is versatile enough to wear as a tube top dress(haven't tried that yet!), or folds downs to be a normal skirt. i have grown to love it because it is easy to move in. especially when we do home visits. i usually have to climb over, under, or through wooden or barbed wire fences.

it has caused me some embarrassment however. last november i was up in kitale, kenya with the relief team on a food distribution. we were eating at a restaurant and i was heading into the main building. i stepped over a stone barrier, but the bottom of my sandal caught the back hem of my skirt. when i put my foot on the ground, it took my black stretchy skirt with it, fully flashing my big white butt! thank goodness, the restaurant was empty and no one was temporarily blinded.

the men at the supermarket were not so fortunate last week (or maybe they thought they were fortunate). i went to a place called Tuskys supermarket in downtown Eldoret to waste some time while my key was being cut. I decided to use their bathroom before I set out on my journey back home. all was fine until i walked out of the bathroom and back into the supermarket. I had a coffee mug hanging off my bag and I felt like it was leaking coffee on my butt even though it was empty. I moved it twice before I heard a low, short whistle from behind the blanket counter. Things were feeling a bit airy so I put my hand on my behind and discovered the hem of my skirt was stuck in the waistband. yup, flashing my double half moons at several supermarket workers.at least i had nice pink underpants on.

probably the first and last time they will see a white girls bum. needless to say i was a tad bit embarrassed, fixed my skirt, and ran out of the store. i spent the next two days holding the back of any skirt down over my butt should i cause further temporary blindness in kenya. the hospitals are full enough!!!

(and, yes, i still do wear the skirt. it is just too comfortable and versatile to retire!)

lost

2008-02-05T06:48:00.000-08:00

bbc africa radio reports one tragedy after the other. the current situations in chad with rebels storming the capital, and somalia, in which msf workers were killed, make kenya's troubles pale in comparison. still, there has been so much lost in this country in one short month. i can't speak to chad or somalia, but i have had a taste of the atrocities and the losses here in kenya.

kenya has lost its reputation for being a peaceful, stable country. a place known for its hospitable nature and safari tour companies, must now try to restore trust in the rest of the world that it will not spiral into a hateful, precarious state.

kenya has lost its tourists and therefore a major source of its "imported" income. this income provides a very large piece of the governments income. it has now migrated to other countries, much like the wildebeests making their pilgrimage to better places. one might think, oh big deal, a few tourists are gone. think of it this way. tens of thousands of jobs have been lost in that industry alone. it was stated in the paper, that for every person gainfully employed, 10 people are fed. 30,000 jobs lost in a matter of weeks= 300,000 people don't have food to eat.

billions of honestly earned dollars have been and will be lost. did you know that kenya is one of the major exporters of flowers and tea in the world? due to the dangerous road conditions, trucks have been unable to move the goods out of the country, dollars literally wilting, more job layoffs happening. and it is not just the big businesses hit. a local man was unable to ship his truckload of mangoes to nairobi - instead they rotted on the side of the road. other people's vegetables "confiscated" by the youth "protecting" the area. people's liviliehoods lost.

innocent people have lost their lives. over 1,000 people in 4 weeks. i know it is a drop in the bucket compared to rwanda's genocide, but each life lost impacts scores of family members and friends. the fact that 999 other people suffered the same fate does not lessen the pain.

hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes. if they have not been torched by rowdy youth, they have been told that they are not welcome back, in no uncertain terms. church members in eldoret stated in an interview (on bbc) that their fellow parishioners who were of kikuyu origin cannot come back to live, work, or worship. despite the fact that they have been neighbours for 30 peaceful years. with their homes lost, the displaced people are not finding a welcome mat in any other part of the country either. habitats lost.

women and children have lost their innocence and dignity. it is reported daily that rape is out of control. men who leave their area to fight, leave women and children vulnerable to sick men preying on the sidelines. in the camps for the displaced, women lie in fear for being attacked and assaulted, raped by strangers taking advantage of the most vulnerable people. and the children are privy to this all. they watch their mothers and sisters being violated again and again. it is predicted that the HIV/AIDS fallout is going to be huge.

vulnerable people in the most destitute of circumstances have now lost the ability to access even the most basic health care. in the villages surrounding me, people with HIV/AIDS are terrified to leave their home to receive their ARV medications. the clinic workers have been going to camps looking for them, trying their best to protect the people they have come to love. immune systems will collapse, infections will take hold, and more victims of this chaos will go uncounted, simply because they had a virus.

students and teachers have lost a month of school. some students have lost their school altogether. a children's home and school near eldoret was recently torched because "foreigners managed it." families who have been on the run have nowhere to send their children to school. children have lost their teachers because of the teacher's tribal heritage.

trust has been lost by everyone in almost everything. even i don't trust what people tell me, i don't trust the "youth protecting me" , i don't trust an innocent person greeting me on the street. people don't trust their neighbours or people they have called friends for years.

if people do not lose their pride and anger, to gain peace and forgiveness, kenya will lose its future. that is a loss that no one can afford.

alidajoy jepkemboi

2008-01-30T23:03:00.000-08:00

I was sitting at my computer on facebook when she died. only 100 metres away a labouring mother passed away in the operating room. she had tried to give birth at home, alone, but was not succeeding. so somehow she made her way to the hospital. the baby was breech and in distress. as they were prepping the mother for a c-section, she died. they did the c-section anyway and were able to deliver the baby. nurses resuscitated her for an hour and the baby survived. motherless, with no name. all the while i was tapping on a keyboard.

i learned of the little girl the next day and started visiting the nursery for feeds, hugs, cuddling, and some awful lullaby singing. she is the only one who would tolerate it. but she didn't have a choice. the mother came unprepared, likely did not plan to keep the baby. so little "no name" was wrapped in a torn sheet and crocheted hospital blankets. my colleague got some onesies from home, but she was still diaperless. with money from a well wisher, i decided to get her a good start fashion wise. i bought a dozen cloth nappies, more onesies, blankets, and some "sharp" outfits. i returned from town on saturday, looking forward to a happy reunion.

i greeted the staff in the delivery suite and was laughing about something when i noticed they were bagging a baby. my balloon burst. it was not our little orphan girl, but a new boy strangled by the very cord that had been giving him life for 9 months. they had been bagging (breathing for him with a bag hooked to oxygen) for more than an hour. his heart rate was strong but he stubbornly refused to breathe on his own and his pupils were fixed and dilated. the doctor instructed the nurses to stop bagging. my coping skills are to start doing "stuff." i removed the IV, cleaned and dressed the little boy. I wrapped him snuggly in a blanket and placed his lifeless body in the mothers arms. I asked my colleague to explain the importance of grieving and spending time with her child that she had nutured for 9 months. i don't yet know "grieving process" in swahili and felt inadequate to explain. instead i choked back my own emotions while washing my hands. i didn't have time to grieve. our orphaned girl needed to be fed.

i warmed the formula and sang "you are my sunshine" while slow dancing around the nursery with her in my arms. my lullaby repitoire is limited. she heard alot of twinkle twinkle little star and you are my sunshine. she ate hungrily, i wrapped her in a nappy far too big for her 2.7kg, dressed her in a new outfit and wrapped her in a new blanket. she looked like she knew she looked good. the extended family came to the hospital to get the mothers body for the funeral. the women cooed over her and the grandmother pronounced that she would be named after me. alida jepkemboi. they will return next week after the funeral to take her home, after they decide who will care for her.

i went back to the delivery room and found the 2 nurses swamped. another woman had just delivered a baby boy and the nurse was delivering the placenta. since i know nothing about delivering babies, it has become my job to clean and weigh the babies. i was delighted to hear him crying but i was not happy for the woman on the other side of the small room who had just lost her son. she had to lay and listen to the commotion. inbetween these two women, another had just rushed in, miscarrying and bleeding profusely on the floor. the second nurse was caring for her. three women experiencing very different emotions only feet apart from eachother. once i had the newborn wrapped and proudly shown to his mother i went to check the wards.

i found a labouring mother vomiting and helped her clean up, while trying to reassure her in my limited swahili. i see a clinical officer run by to the female ward. an elderly woman has just passed away and he must pronounce. i go to see if i can be of assistance but there is not much they can do. i return to ask the nurses and doctor what i should know about contractions because there is another woman in labour. i return and place my hand on her stomach for the next 15 minutes to time contractions. i hold her right hand with my left and she won't let go. i feel the babies feet kick my hand at the top of her stomach. amazing. like what you would imagine angel wings to feel like. her contractions are 4 minutes apart and i go to report to the doctor. the woman follows me and tries to hop into a bloody bed. i convince her to sit on a clean stool. there is nothing more i can do. i don't know how to deliver babies. but i do know how to feed them.

so i take our little orphan home for the night. i feed her, make funny faces, and feel the warm stream of pee she released all over my legs. she smiled after she did that. i swear.
i set up the cot on a chair beside my bed and drape the mosquito net around her. i set my alarm to go off in two hours, but i am not used to having a baby in the house so i check to make sure she is breathing every ten minutes. we make it through the night. i give her a bath with lavender baby wash in the morning and she loves the warm water. i returned her to the hospital at 1100 because i am afraid if i keep her longer i will want to keep her forever.

her uncle and his wife come on monday morning. they decided that they will raise her. they have three girls at home under the age of 10, so she will fit in well. the father has a good job and the mother stays at home with the children. they still have enough energy to take care of a baby. they take her lovingly and are receptive to instructions regarding how to cup or bottle feed her, mix cows milk for her(formula is prohibitively expensive) . they say they have been instructed to name her after me. i had protested with the staff and suggested that the well wisher also be honoured as he had a part also. the staff decide that joy will substitute for joe and that she will be alidajoy jepkemboi. i feel kind of embarrassed, but secretly i am truly honoured. the family and i promise to keep in touch.

alidajoy jepkemboi. i will miss her.

headlines

2008-01-28T07:46:00.000-08:00

headlines are usually depressing.

Aid workers die in somali blast.
Man shot in front of Second Cup.
Gunmen hold Pakistani children hostage.
Gangs on rampage in western kenya.

tragedy occurring
every minute
of every day
in every country.

where is compassion? understanding? forgiveness? reason?
i am listening to the radio, listening for changes outside my small village of Plateau. a reporter in Eldoret was coming from the airport and witnessed a hacked up body on the side of the road. he was reportedly dragged out of a matatu for being of the "wrong" tribe and hacked to death by a gang of youth. this is but a minor fraction of the violence and hatred occurring just kilometres away.

no one seems to understand these radical changes in kenya. heads shake, hands wring, hearts cry. it was looking hopeful. kofi annan even got the feuding politicians to shake hands and smile in public. i returned to my village and downtown eldoret seemed pretty normal. people buying food, the market was packed, the glue boys asking me for money.

i don't know what will happen. but i am happy to be back in my village with friends and family. as difficult as this time is, i would choose to be nowhere else. i came to share burdens with my african brothers and sisters. i am doing nothing radical. i am just being with them. i am holding their babies. i am shaking their hands. i am speaking peace.
i look forward to some more hopeful headlines.
Peace prevails in Kenya.
Children stop dying of diarrhea.
Second Cup to give free lattes.

here's to hoping...

tanzania photos

2008-01-21T22:54:00.000-08:00

here is the link to my picasa site where i have been posting selected photos. i can't possibly post all my photos because i take hundreds, but this should give you a taste...

http://picasaweb.google.com/alidafernhout/

i will also try to formulate some new blog posts, but i have to get my neurons to communicate in an organized fashion first...

mt. kili and other delights

2008-01-10T00:32:00.000-08:00

greetings from tanzania. i arrived sunday evening and was welcomed by julia and meaghan, american girls who are working in and around arusha.

tanzania is so very different and so very the same as kenya. fortunately, they speak swahili, so i am practicing my poor language skills and learning more words everyday. their matatu's or "dala dala's" are actually fuller than ones in kenya. i have had to stand a few times. however, they don't have giant crater holes in the road, so swerving all over the road is not exsistant.

i have been fortunate enough to go visit villages with meaghan and see the work going on there. yesterday i went to the village of mwika in the foothills of mt. kiliminjaro. the scenery is stunning. however, this village has a 30% HIV rate and loads of orphans. i spent most of the day playing with 25 kids. half of them are also HIV+ and i could feel enlarged lymph nodes in most of their necks. one child is so anemic, i don't want to even know what his red blood cell count is. i would likely empty my blood into his body to help!

i also went on a home visit to see an elderly lady with a large facial tumor. they took me to see her as i am a nurse and it is reassuring to them to get a "professionals" opinion. Josephine is HIV+, and has a large facial tumor that has completely eroded all the tissue on the left side of her face, and has eaten away so much of her cheek that she now has a complete hole filled with dead tissue. she is in a lot of pain, but i can tell that they are trying hard to keep the wound clean. they had been referred to Dar es Salaam for further treatment. they can't even afford to go down into town to get a CD4 count. there was not much i could "consult", but i advised on how to clean it, control pain. I just tried to be encouraging, because that is about the only treatment she can get. perhaps i should get a prescription pad, that just says "hope" or "encourgament" on it.

the drive back to arusha was beautiful. we had gorgeous views of mt. meru and mt. kiliminjaro and we drove into the horizon of the setting sun. it was a blessing.

i still don't know when i can return to my village. the reports i get from co-workers is that it is calm and safe, but my return will be decided by the emergency response team. my hosts here in tanzania have been fantastic and have made me feel at home.

i do long to return to plateau to be with "my people" to be part of the healing process. i hope it will be soon.

thank you to everyone who has sent me emails to let me know that they are thinking and praying for me. please also do the same for the people in eldoret and plateau. i have also been praying for the hearts of the youth who have been perpetrating the horrific crimes. they need a radical transformation of mind and heart.

mt. kiliminjaro (taken from a car while moving 100km/hr)

"mt. kili" closer up

me with josephine - the lady with the facial tumor

sunset (again from a moving vehicle)

leaving on a jet plane

2008-01-04T02:11:00.000-08:00

no, i am not being evacuated. but i am not returning to my village for an undetermined amount of time. i am going to visit a friend i met in a training this past summer. she lives just over the kenyan border in arusha, tanzania.

i have been in contact with my friends in eldoret and plateau. plateau is still "calm" and "safe", however all local roads are blocked. the small hospital that has seen little action for months is now handling gunshot wounds and machete slashes. the teaching hospital in eldoret has 200 more patients than beds and have been running out of guaze and basic supplies.

they have begun escorting people out of eldoret now on busses, but under heavy police escort. no one is going in. hence, i will not be returning to my village any time soon.

so, early next week i will be leaving on a "jet plane" (probably something much smaller) to arusha, tanzania. a positive outcome is that i can see a friend, see somewhere new, learn about her work with HIV/AIDS, and add a new country to my facebook map.

wazimu

2008-01-02T03:57:00.000-08:00

one day in swahili class, my teacher asked me about canadian politics. i gasped, initially, because i thought he wanted me to discuss politics in swahili. i can talk about the weather and bargain in the market, but my swahili language capabilities are not that good! i was relieved when he said i could converse in english!

as we talked about the different styles of politics in canada versus kenya, my teacher taught me a new word. "wazimu" is how he described kenyan politics, and this was while it was peaceful. wazimu means "mad" as in "mental illness mad." it has become a new favourite word of mine.

wazimu is the state of kenya right now. truthfully, i am quite isolated from the riots, violence, demonstrations. the closest i see them is the same as you, on the internet. yet, i am close because i have spoken to several friends and colleagues in eldoret to keep abreast of the situation.

i felt a change in the air last saturday. the results had not yet been announced but there was anxiety as it was taking so long for results to get in. i walked to the local shopping mall and noticed that most shops on the street were closed. few people had ventured outside. however, as i approached the mall, i saw the longest line of cars trying to get into the parking lot. the majority of the license plates were from the UN or an embassy. i thought it strange that they should be holding a conference there (it has a conference area inside) on that day. when i arrived inside the mall, all but a few shops were open. i wondered where all these people were going. and then saw the lines in the grocery store. everyone was stocking up like it was the end of the milennium.

i was on a quest for a radio so that we could listen to election results, and had to go to another nearby shopping mall. as i wandered into the electronics section, two employees cornered me and tried starting a heated political debate with me. needless to say they were pro-kibaki, and were trying to get me to say the same. i maintained neutrality and explained i just wanted a cheap radio!! i did ask why all the expats seemed to be stocking up and they said things might get bad and i should stock up for 2 weeks. it sounded a little extreme to me. i bought the radio and left.

but walking back through the neighbourhood, the tension was palpable. i felt like i could push and pull the air and that it would spring back at me if i leaned too hard.

well, the air has split in western kenya. i live 15km outside of eldoret, a major area of violence and bloodshed. i have confirmed that my friends and colleagues are safe, but they have not left their houses, even out in the farming area. their food is limited and they have no access to airtime for phones. i have been sending airtime so that they can at least contact their families.

amidst the violence, i have experienced "everyday grace."

first, i had no desire to spend the christmas holidays in eldoret. as much as i love my kenyan family and friends there, i wanted to be with some other friends for my first christmas out of the country. i had also witnessed the level of passion that people exhibited when campaigning, and i didn't want to witness that passion go awry should their chosen leader lose. about a month ago, i witnessed a murder by beating of a petty thief. if people were willing to beat someone to death over a cell phone or a bunch of bananas, what would they do for their leader?

second, my friends and i that were spending christmas together almost booked a week in the city of kisumu. we were on the verge of booking when we recieved an email about a different option and we abandoned lake victoria for lake baringo. it turns out that kisumu was one of the first places to break out in violence. according to reports, every supermarket has been burned to the ground and thousands have fled the area for the ugandan border.

third, my friends and i were supposed to spend 5 days in lake baringo and paid for it in advance. now, we stretched out the activities as much as possible but were bored to tears after 4 days. despite that we are all poor, tight-wad mission workers, we decided to leave a day early. we drove the little station wagon through washed out roads and over rocks, past young children selling honey on the road. our cell phones had little to no signal for about 2 hours. less than 24 hours after we left, and during the time we had previously scheduled to be in the area, violence broke out in baringo the minute the election results were announced. had we clung to our money and stayed an extra day, we may have been on an almost deserted road with no communication while people went berserk around us.

but, my heart is still in a headlock. as i had written in a blog some time back, i came (or was called) to kenya to "run into the pain." i want to share and suffer alongside my kenyan friends. instead, i am sitting in a walled compound in an upscale area of nairobi in no immediate danger, while the people i have come to know and love are hunkered in their homes fearing for their lives. i feel helpless that all i can do is pray. because quite frankly, it feels like the prayers are bouncing off that wall of tension.

i know that God's hand is in my life. i was traumatized after witnessing that murder a little more than a month ago, and i don't think my heart could have taken what is happening in eldoret. but i still long to hold the hands and hug the women and children in my village. i feel as though i am abandoning them.

as for the next few days, our office held a security meeting today and we have made contingency plans to evacuate (the expats to begin with followed by the kenyan staff) if necessary. i hope and pray it does not come to that. but the next 48 hours are extremely critical and it rests in the decisions that the political leaders make. cling to pride, or bow to humility. different outcomes that will affect millions of lives.

pray that the wazimu will end.

safe

2008-01-01T06:44:00.000-08:00

i just wanted to let everyone know that despite kenya experiencing turmoil and chaos, i am in a safe place.

i am in nairobi staying with a friend. she lives in a very safe place with walls, wires, and guards.

i had spent christmas in lake baringo (see photos on my picasa site) with friends which went very well and was very peaceful. by the grace of God, we left a day early due to boredom. i read in the paper today that violence erupted in the area less than 24 hours after we left (the exact time that we would have been on a road with little phone access).

eldoret, the town i live close to is completely chaotic, with the death toll at 25 and counting. the people in my village of plateau are safe, but have no access to getting phone credit or food. no one is leaving their house. again, "everyday grace" intervened. i would have had no transportation and little communication.

i am safe and do not feel in any danger. but please pray for peace and wisdom for kenya. it is imperative that people can move past this and reconcile and forgive.

normal

2007-12-19T07:35:00.000-08:00

i love hearing about normal things. i love hearing about how you carved 6 pumpkins for halloween. i love hearing about the cute guy you saw at safeway. i love hearing about the crafts you made with your kids, and the birthday cake for your church function. i love hearing about snow, and how many times you had to shovel it. i love hearing about trips to the shopping mall, or the bad haircut you just got.

and since i love hearing about your normal stuff, i will tell you about my normal stuff. i might live on a different continent than most of the readers, and granted a few details of my life are different, but i still do normal stuff.

i still press my snooze button at least 4 times before i get out of bed. i still make coffee in my french press for breakfast. i eat muesli or oatmeal for breakfast. i take a "shower" in the morning, with the only difference being that i have to heat my water with a coil and my shower head is my hand and a bowl.

i did laundry this morning. only this time, it took 2 hours to wash my underpants, one pair of jeans, two pairs of pajamas, a sheet and a towel. i hung them outside to dry before going to work.

i zap my lunch in a microwave and eat mr. noodles (ramen) because i am too lazy to cook. i check facebook after work to see what my friends are up to around the world. then i ironed all my clothes because i am scared of mango bugs laying their eggs in my clothes. i listened to emmylou harris while ironing.

when i am bored and/or need to procrastinate on the long list of things i have to do, i pop a dvd into my computer and watch ugly betty or scrubs. the nice thing is there are no commercials!

i bought some flashing christmas lights and strung them around my living room window. i bop around the house to boney m's version of "feliz navidad." i am too cheap to buy an ugly plastic tree, but i have an angel ornament made out of a piece of beer can (the irony!) and an ornament a friend sent me from canada. on my fireplace mantles are two "racing grannies" dressed up like myself and a friend. when i feel homesick, i wind them up and watch them hobble across the mantle with their walkers.

i don't have to shovel snow or mow the lawn for that matter. i have several built in lawnmowers and fertilizers. my neighbours sheep come over and do the job for me. my grass is nice and short and i haven't busted a sweat for it. when i start a garden i will have to put a fence around it to keep them out. but that is a small sacrifice for free lawn moving.

i live in a 3 bedroom house and i don't like cleaning it! nothing new there!! sometimes i don't have running water, but i have rain water outside that does the trick.

i have a sewing machine, and if i ever get around to it, i want to start quilting again.

i still have the notion that i should check my messages every time i walk in the front door even though i don't have a landline. i have finally figured out most of my cell phone although i still jump a mile when it vibrates.

i do normal stuff. i procrastinate, i go for walks, i go to supermarkets and shopping malls. i look at cute boys (well, once in awhile) and wonder if they look back. i do normal stuff. i will tell you my normal stuff if you tell me yours.

vehicular guardian angels

2007-12-19T07:05:00.000-08:00

over the past year some good friends and colleagues have given me "guardian angel" pins and momentos, reminding me that i am being watched over. us dutch reformed people don't talk about guardian angels much, so i used to think of them more as a nice symbolic gesture.

i have become quite convinced as of late, that there really are guardian angels, and that i personally employ an entire fleet of them. i like to think of them as my vehicular guardian angels. in the past i have engaged myself in some activities that i thought were "risky" such as paragliding lessons, zip-lining in costa rica, and bombing down the sides of mountains on mountain bikes. i now think these activities are fairly tame compared to stepping foot on a road here in kenya.

i look back in astonishment and a bit of laughter at the "rides" i have experienced...

*hitched a ride in the back of a pickup, had to sit on bags of cement and wedge my legs between metal gates. i got a free ride for about 500 metres and several bloody scratches on my legs.
*hitched a ride in the back of a pickup into town. this time i got to sit all the way on the floor. good thing too, because the driver sped with a lead foot all the way to town.
*hitched a ride in the cab of a dump truck driving past my village. i sat between three men who all just sat and grinned at me. when i looked over at the steering wheel i noticed that in the place where the turn signal should be, uncoated wires were sticking out of the steering column. i grinned back and prayed the driver would not electrocute himself.
*rode on the trailer of my kenyan brothers tractor to the highway. i was a new colour on arrival as i was completely covered in red dust.
*caught a ride on the back of a pickup, but as it was a school bus with 30 children standing in the back, myself and the school bus attendant had to stand on the bumper and hang onto an overhead bar while flying through the countryside. i prayed to be knocked unconcious right away so i wouldn't feel the pain when i fell!
*hired a cab from town to the village although the car looked a little worse for wear. the driver assured me it ran well. while driving on the dirt road home, the keys actually fell out of the ignition while the car was moving! that was a new one. the car stalled twice, the driver had to get out and fiddle around with unknown car parts to get it started again.
*the vehicle for the community program is an 1986 isuzu trooper. it still runs... kind of. to get it out of the garage, i usually have to pop the hood and jiggle the battery connections. we used to have to turn it off to switch into first gear and reverse. while it was running we only had second and fourth gears. that part is now fixed, but i still have to jiggle the battery wires.
*the matatu ride i described when i first arrived was tame and safe by comparison to taking matatus up-country. due to lax (no) enforcement of laws, i am usually happy if the doors close. one conductor put so many people on that people's bums blocked the sliding door from shutting. last weekend, the conductor stuffed 25 people into a matatu. for reference, a matatu is roughly the size of large mini-van. i sternly asked him if he was wanting to be in the next days newspaper under the headline "25 people die in matatu crash." he laughed but i was not amused.

overall, i am so fortunate and grateful that i am still in one piece and have not suffered any major harm. i did recently enroll in the "flying doctors" service however! i am entitled to one flight evacuation per year!

january will bring motorcycle lessons so that i can get my kenyan license. i look forward to the ability to control my own mode of transportation! i am also getting a decent mountain bike that i hope will serve me well in this back country terrain. but i will try not to test the fleet of angels any further than necessary:-) they are already working overtime!

glue boys & child soldiers

2007-12-15T07:59:00.000-08:00

Ishmael Beah is a former child solider from Sierra Leone. He wrote a powerful book called "a long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier" which I bought and read in one day this past summer. Amazing and disturbing book. I recommend it.

It has helped me to have more empathy for all the glue sniffing boys that roam the streets of any city here in Kenya. They are boys, who through no fault of their own, have become drug addicts as early as age five. They steal, harass, and sing songs off-pitch when they are high - but they are boys, they are someone's son, they are desperate, they are hungry and they are alone. I don't know how they got to where they are, but most 7 year olds don't go looking to do drugs, or to become soldiers.

I just found out from a friend's facebook wall that Ishmael Beah will speaking at one of my alma mater's (Calvin College) in January during the "January Series". January 11, 2008 to be specific. If you live in Grand Rapids or anywhere near it (to me "near" is about a 5 hour driving distance), I highly recommend you go see this guy speak. It is free, but I imagine you will have to line up for this one!
So, if you can, I highly recommend going to see Ishmael speak. I doubt you would regret it.

http://www.calvin.edu/january/2008/

heart in a headlock

2007-12-11T03:48:00.000-08:00

i've been addicted to imogen heap lately - listening to her music again and again. the title track from one of her albums is "heart in a headlock" and while jogging down a dusty dirt road near my house, i realized this a perfect diagnosis for my internal chest pain.

many days, as i meet people in the village and listen to their stories, a tight, suffocating sensation develops in my chest. a single mother with 4 children, ostracized from the family, without food, water, firewood, or even a toilet, sits coughing on the ground describing her desperate living situation. headlock tightens. but i learn her name is grace, and then she smiles and laughs at a joke. the headlock loosens.

a grandmother, close to 75 years old, finds herself raising 10 grandchildren. some are as young as 2 years old. all of her children have died. she should be resting, her children caring for her. but she has no choice, she must now clothe and feed hungry mouths. headlock tightens. she shows me around her farm full of corn, bananas, passion fruit, and maize. she is able to earn enough money to send her grandchildren to school. the headlock loosens.

i meet a man named Joseph at the World AIDS day planning meeting. he tells me that less than five years ago he laid in a hospital bed weighing 23kg (just over 50 lbs) with a CD4 count of 7 (normal is in the thousands). he was nearly dead. headlock tightens. he was started on ARV's, now weighs 50kg and has a CD4 count of 700. he became a community health educator and started his own beadwork business that now employs 10 other people, all of whom are HIV+. the headlock loosens.

while waiting for a friend downtown one day, i witness an incredible act of violence against another person. headlock tightens, this time near strangulation. i ask my friends to pray. they do and share their own struggles. i feel connected even though we are far away. the headlock loosens.

injustice and violence tighten the grip, grace and love loosen the grip.

my heart is in a headlock.

Crumbs from our table

2007-11-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

On the streets of Nairobi, Eldoret, and Plateau, I see people wearing clothes from North America, sometimes even from my hometown. Last week in Nairobi, I saw a woman wearing an Oilers jersey, on an Eldoret Avenue, a “Cassie Campbell Street Hockey Tournament” t-shirt, on a dirt road to the farm a young boy with a Toronto Maple Leaf jacket. Initially, one might think, “that is so cool!” Years ago, during my first trip to Nigeria, I thought it was kind of cool. Now, I have reason to pause when I see this.

The amount of used clothing here first struck me as I went on a search for Kenyan fabric that I might quilt with. My experience in Nigeria had been that there was beautiful Nigerian cloth everywhere – in markets, in stores, on the street corners. Women took great pride in their outfits (and Nigerians even have a reputation here for being well-dressed). I had made the incorrect assumption that this would be the case in Kenya. There is the red Maasai cloth and some bright cottons called kikoy, but even these can be difficult to locate. I started observing what people were wearing, and where they were getting it. And something started to bother me.

We (and I am included) in the “First world” or “Northern Hemisphere” apparently send our leftovers to less developed countries. And it is not always the nicest clothes that get sent. I saw a small child with a “Miami mice” t-shirt on. That has got to be at least two decades ago!
I think of the story of Lazarus the beggar in Luke 16 eating the crumbs off the rich mans table. “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.” The rich man ended up in hell while Lazarus was seated in heaven and the rich man was begging for Lazarus to “dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” Like it or not, we are the rich man and the majority of the world is Lazarus. What are we called to do? What are we going to do? I, myself, am so supremely challenged by this. Do I wear my linen and give my leftovers? Do we just give away our old and unwanted clothing, the crumbs from our table after the feast?
And it is not just the “developing countries” that get the leftovers. A friend who volunteered in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina said they had to spend money getting rid of horrendous clothes donated by generous people. He said, and I read in various articles, that people had donated prom dresses and 1980’s one-piece silk jumpsuits. Now, imagine you live in the Superdome with 10,000 other people and you don’t even have a toilet. Are you going to want to put on someone’s old prom dress?
I think about some of the things I have donated in the past, and I am embarrassed that I expected someone else “less fortunate” to wear it. I thought, “well, they should appreciate having clothes at all!” What a poor attitude on my part. Why should someone, anyone, get my old leftovers. Are they not deserving of something new, just like I would buy for myself?

Something else that began to bother me was the lack of a local, indigenous clothing market or industry. Now, I don’t expect people to dress in their traditional clothes from 50 or 100 years ago, but it has been hard to find anything that has been made in Kenya other than school uniforms. I started to ask questions of my host family, friends, and colleagues. I have been told that four textile factories in the Eldoret area alone have closed in recent past, resulting not only in a loss of locally produced clothing, but a major loss in jobs. One colleague commented, “the used clothes are very cheap and so it makes us very happy to get such cheap clothes, but many local factories have closed down now because of it.” National Geographic, in the Africa issue last year, also reported that the influx of used clothing is essentially destroying the African textile industry.
This was reinforced by an article in the Daily Nation, a popular Kenyan newspaper, titled “Man sees hand of God in recall to garment firm.” The story is that William Odumbe had a well paying job in a garment factory which was shut down seven years ago. Unable to find a new job and forced to rely on his brother for help to buy food for his children, Mr. Odumbe said, “that was the time I wanted to look for a rope and hang myself, but something inside me told me to carry on.” Now, seven years later, another firm has decided to re-invest in the factory, update the equipment, and Mr. Odumbe was the first man they hired back. His joy and restored dignity practically leaps off the newsprint.

Now, you may be wondering how your skirt or dress shirt went from your closet to the market stalls in Eldoret? Well, used clothing establishments get an excessive amount of goods donated to them. Rather than throw away the excess, they sell it in large bundles to people here in Africa, and it takes a nice holiday cruise over the Atlantic. Once the bundles arrive, entrepreneurs buy a whole or part of a bundle in bulk and head to the market to make a buck. Some people just buy a stack and sell each piece for about 50 cents. Others are selective and find the best quality pieces to hawk on the street. It is common in downtown Eldoret to see a man wearing 10 suit jackets. At first I thought they were like the homeless in downtown Calgary, wearing every layer of clothing they had ever owned. Then I realized that they were selling the men’s suit jackets but they were their own walking stalls. Some of the clothes are actually still in good condition, others are years old, or have rips and stains (and are then sold much cheaper).

I am not sure that there is a surefire solution to these issues. I am certainly not against donating used clothing to the various outlets that accept them. After all, I grew up on second hand clothing, and have frequently donated my clothes that no longer fit or are flowing out of my closet. So, I don’t want to say, “Stop donating clothes” as there are people who will genuinely get a second or third use out of it. Recycling clothes also keeps them out of landfills.

When we do donate clothes, perhaps we should consider why we are giving it away. Is it filled with stains? Consider cutting it up into rags and use it to dust or clean your toilet. Is it way out of fashion? There are programs in high schools that accept old prom and bridesmaid dresses and re-fashion them into dashing new ball gowns for low income girls. (Cinderella project in Calgary, at least three of my bridesmaid dresses went there) Think about why you want to get rid of something and imagine a person on a downtown street in Calgary or Nairobi wearing it. Are you giving linens or crumbs?

photo link

2007-11-11T07:53:00.000-08:00

i have started to upload photos to picasa, as i can work offline with it and it is connected to my gmail and blog. if the connection was every fast enough i could probably make nice slideshows. but at the moment i have 5 minutes of battery time on the computer left, so I will post the link to my public gallery here...
http://picasaweb.google.com/alidafernhout

i hope it works... i hope to upload some more photos soon.

out of necessity

2007-11-06T03:03:00.000-08:00

In the past month I have lost count of the number of professional athletes I have met in my town and village. I have a cousin (I have been adopted by a family here) who runs for the country of Qatar and was inbetween trips to Korea and Switzerland. Some teenage boys walking home with me told me that their older brothers are in Venezuela on running scholarships. A friend who owns an internet café was a hurdler for the University of Arkansas. A man on the dirt road near my house, stopped and said “my name is Vincent Limo. I am a marathon runner and run all over the world. Do you know me?” I met an Olympic gold medalist the other day, and accidentally assumed he was the mechanic there to fix the car. Olympic runners seem to come a dime a dozen here. I am sure that every third person here is a professional runner of some sort.

My cousin, who runs 5km in 13 minutes (I can barely tie my shoes up in that time) commented to me that “you north Americans run for exercise; we run out of necessity.” I asked him to explain. He said that as a child, he had to walk or run 7km to school, each way. If it was raining, they ran the whole way. If they had to herd the cows, they had to run after wild cows or the predators out to get them. One colleague often recounts his childhood encounters with wild animals (i.e. giraffes, elephants, leopards). There are not nice smooth city paths here or indoor tracks and gyms. One has to dodge potholes, jump over fallen trees, and find their way down paths in the forest. They don’t run for exercise, they run out of necessity. Watch out for that leopard!

the gods must be crazy

2007-10-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

I thought I was in a film last night. I had arrived at the hospital compound from Nairobi at 5:30pm last night just as it was getting dark and it was raining heavily. Elizabeth, the nursing matron, went to arrange a ride home for me.

I am standing under the awning with some other staff when I see some headlights flicker on. Some smoke comes belching out of this small truck and I see someone looking under the hood and playing with some wires. After 10 minutes of revving the engine, flicking the lights, the truck suddenly comes lurching down the hill as if it has no brakes. The transistion was not smooth and it was jumping around like a frog about to be stepped on.
“Alida, that’s your ride,” someone says.
All I could do was laugh. I load my bags in the back and gingerly open the door. I am expecting it to fall off. Thankfully, it doesn’t and we set on our way. The truck is still jumping as if the driver is still learning to drive a stick shift. He laughs and says, “the battery is not very strong!”
Less than 50 metres down the road, Isaiah is sticking his head under the steering wheel to remove his shoes. Is there some special test I will have to pass to drive with my head under the steering wheel with no shoes on?
He explains, “there is very much water coming in from somewhere and it is making my shoes wet. I have to remove them so I can keep them dry.”
Again, all I could do was laugh. We slip and slide our way to my house, nearing taking out numerous pedestrians and fenceposts. We “stopped” to pick up one rider, although Isaiah had to simultaneously brake and step on the gas to keep the truck going.

We arrive at my house to a barbed wire gate which I have to take down so that Isaiah can turn the truck around. He manages to leave without getting stuck and I struggle not to rip my skin to shreds trying to put the barbed wires sticks back in place in the dark. I jump over my barbed wire shortcut with my suitcase and backpack to a warm, dry welcome at home.

Now, if you have never seen the movie “the gods must be crazy” you probably won’t think this is funny as I do. So, go rent the movie and you will understand my vehicular experience!

(addendum: my kenyan colleagues were laughing so hard at the scene that they told me to journal about it. they also have all seen "the gods must be crazy" and agreed it was similar.)

new photos

2007-10-21T11:47:00.001-07:00

i updated some photos, check out the links on the side.
i will write some new blogs this week, i have been very deliquent about that...

facebookisms

2007-10-10T23:24:00.000-07:00

Alida is….
*Learning to be a good farm girl in the Rift Valley.
*Building arm muscles stirring ugali (corn flour & water), shucking corn, and hauling water from a well for a bath.
*Getting her butt kicked racing school kids down the road, and their shoes are completely falling apart.
*Is hoping she gets nice legs and bum walking 5-10 km a day.
*Is absolutely itching to buy a bike so she can stop walking 5-10km a day.
*Really, really wanting to buy a 100cc Yamaha motorbike so she can ride on the dirt roads during rainy season and do the 40km round trek to town without dying on a matatu.
*Is wondering why there are 4 Bata shoe stores in the span of 2 blocks in downtown Eldoret.
*Shaking her head as a billionaire is flying overhead in his helicopter while 8 year old homeless kids are sniffing glue on the street.
*Having her skin touched, hands held, and hair tousled by curious children on the road.
*Being stared at most of the day by people who have not seen white people before.
*Going through a coffee withdrawal and looks forward to getting her bodum and fresh coffee from her bag in Nairobi.
*going to have broken hand rehabilitation by milking a cow very soon.
*has eaten 2 omelets in one week, after eating less than 5 eggs in 30 years.
*is drinking fresh cows milk every day.
*eating beans and potatoes for breakfast everyday
*the only person in the whole town who wears sunglasses.
*happy to be living 20 minutes down the road from and old college friend and his wife! (small world).
*learning a lot about very interesting beliefs about procreation….
*trying to avoid getting set up with a kenyan man and may start wearing her “stay single” tshirt.
*a cell phone owner even though she doesn’t hear it ring most of the time.
*a bit surprised that she has seen personal ads looking for a “God fearing, very fertile, intelligent, second wife” (again, that stay single tshirt)

farm girl

2007-10-10T23:21:00.000-07:00

As a young girl, I resembled Laura Ingalls from the TV show so much that I was asked for my autograph on a couple of occasions. Even watching the show now, I feel like I am looking in a mirror. I had the two long braids, big buck teeth, but lacked the bloomers and bonnet. Well, I now understand the advantage of bloomers. When it is less than 10 degrees Celsius and you have just bathed in a wooden shelter out of a bucket and now must put on a skirt, bloomers would probably be nice and warm!

But by the time I am finished living in rural Kenya, Laura Ingalls is going to have some stiff competition. I have already honed my drawing-water-from-a-well skills in Indonesia and Nigeria and can do it so well that even African women are impressed with my knack for hauling H20.
I am currently learning how to properly stir ugali to a perfect paste in an “African kitchen” over a wood burning mud stove. And I can tell you, it looks easier than it is. Try mixing cement in a steel pot over a fire with smoke in your eyes. Mama said I am almost ready for independence and I will soon be preparing it on my own without any flour clumps in it.
Baba has threatened that I will be milking the cows as soon as my hand is healed, or did he say it would be good therapy to heal my hand?
I stopped using the headlamp to go to the outhouse because I could see how many spider webs were gracing the wooden throne. I am now probably one of the fastest bathers in the world as the warm water quickly evaporates off my cold skin in the bathing shelter in the cool of the Kenyan morning. Living at an elevation of 8,000 feet has its benefits in keeping the weather cool and it is never so evident to me at bath time. Alas, I do bathe with warm water which I truly appreciate!
You know how your parents had to walk 5 miles to school in the snow uphill both ways? I almost have them beat with walking 2 km each way through muddy roads and farmland to work although I don’t have to go uphill. This morning I had 5 pounds of mud on each shoe despite following Mama down the railroad half the way to the hospital. I am quickly becoming an expert in avoiding stepping in cow poo without even looking down at the road.
Although they do not have covered wagons here, I am sure that hopping in the back of a pickup truck and bouncing down a Kenyan dirt road is just as challenging. On Saturday I wedged myself between metal gates and bags of cement in the back of a little Isuzu and tried to precariously hang onto the sides while it bumped through 2 foot potholes. (I think I need to make friends with the local billionaire who just flies his helicopter to avoid road traffic – no lie, it was flying over me on Sunday on my way home from church).
I am fortunate enough to do my Swahili homework by electric lights and not kerosene lamps. But we have some just in case as the power goes out at least once a day.
All of these rural experiences are molding me into a more versatile and grateful person. I love the family who is sharing their home and life with me. I am learning how to be flexible in a challenging environment. And I am practicing my audition in case they ever decide to do a “Little House on the Prairie 2: Alida vs. Laura.”

mzungu

2007-10-10T23:19:00.001-07:00

Gringo, bature, mzungu – they are some of the words that identify me as a person in a culture that is not my own. White person – two words that can at times make me cringe. I have never been very sure if these words are simply a description or are said in a context that carries some spite, anger or discontent.

One of my Swahili teachers provided one plausible explanation for the history of the word mzungu that does not bring with it a derogatory feeling.

The coastal people of Kenya used a bluff overlooking the water to watch for sinister weather but one day saw something else that was even stranger than a bad storm. Over the whitecaps, they saw a strange moving thing with large flapping sheets. As it drew nearer, they became frightened by this enormous thing moving on the water. But even more disturbing was what was on the boat. They saw creatures with very light skin, long hair and even wild hair on their faces. The coastal people had never seen anything like these creatures and decided it would be best to escape before the creatures landed. They ran for over a month and arrived in what is was known as Zanzibar. They told the local people they had run from strange creatures arriving on the coast of their homeland. They couldn’t be sure what they were or what their intentions were, but they thought it best to stay away from them. They had been settled there for little more than a month, when again they spotted these large vessels with the strange creatures approaching Zanzibar. They exclaimed that these creatures have “been coming around” as they went from their homeland and now were “coming around” to Zanzibar. The verb for “coming around” in Swahili is “zunguka” and to “be surrounded” is “zungukwa.” Thus, they created the word, “mzungu” for these strange creatures that were coming around.

Whether or not this explanation is exactly true, I do not know, but I know that I am stuck with the name mzungu regardless. My host mother explained to me today that some of the children out here in the Rift Valley have never seen a white person before; they only know the word to describe what they see. Some of the children think that my name is actually mzungu, hence they believe they are calling me by name as I pass by their farm. So, I no longer cringe when I hear mzungu whispered by a 3 year old in downtown Nairobi or yelled across a field in the Rift Valley, for they are greeting me by name. And I am coming around to greet them.

incognito

2007-10-10T23:16:00.000-07:00

Even in the best of times I am not a very subtle person. Among friends and family I am known to be opinionated, loud at times, laugh loudly when it is quiet, and people generally know when I am around. I made a “disturbing” speech about HIV & AIDS from the pulpit of my childhood church shortly before I left for Kenya. I said the word sex several times and if people didn’t know who I was before, they certainly are not likely to forget now. I am not very incognito.

Now, imagine this loud, outspoken girl in Kenya where her skin colour speaks volumes before she even opens her mouth. Incognito, I think not. In addition to my light skin colour, I arrived with a broken hand which was bandaged and drew many stares by itself. When I didn’t want to explain extreme mountain biking to people, I joked that I had punched someone and broke my hand (I usually told this to tall men with guns, not grandmas or children). I again realized I was not incognito when after my cast was removed, I walked through a government building area in Nairobi and a guard that I didn’t recognize, but had apparently conversed with, yelled jokingly after me, “Don’t hit any more people!” I garnered a few stares from passerby’s and smiled very gently at them.

Now, I am living in the Kenyan countryside in an area that few white people frequent. As I make my six kilometer trek from the main road to the farm, children and adults alike run from their homes, abandon their cows, and stop their work to stare as I pass by. I greet each and every one with a “habari yako” or “what’s the news” to which they give the standard reply of “nzuri” or “fine” but stand with a look of astonishment. School children run after me in groups, and when I greet them they literally somersault on the ground in peels of laughter. I have barely opened my mouth in public in a week, but my physical presence is speaking volumes. Incognito, I think not.

swahili

2007-09-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

I have been waking up lately thinking in swahili. Not full sentences, mind you, but there is always at least one word on repeat in my brain. Yesterday it was "kifaranza", the word for french language. Couldn't it at least be a useful word? Interestingly, I spoke some french with a man from Niger later that day. Earlier in the week, the word was "mgonjwa" meaning "to be a patient" or "to be sick." I have been telling people that my hand is sick, Mkono yangu ni mgonjwa.

Swahili started out easy enough. Who can't remember "Ninapenda kahawa", or I love coffee. I had that phrase down in 5 minutes. I could say, I am eating, I am from Canada, Hello, how is your morning. However, I cannot spend 2 1/2 years telling people i am from canada and i love coffee. Hence, my language lessons became more complex. I learned past tense, negative, future tense. All relatively simple, except actual words completely change their spelling in some cases. For example, I eat is "Ninakula." If you want to say I don't eat, it becomes "Sili." The only letter left from the word kula (to eat) is the letter L! How am I supposed to follow that! It only becomes more difficult when you get into the 9 different noun classes, the exceptions for each class, and the possessive pronouns get really messy. I hardly know what a possessive pronoun is in english!! (I have also learned how little I know about the structure of the english language - like what is a subject prefix and a gerrand? Who knew these words were in the english language!)

It is coming though, polepole, (slowly) and people appreciate the efforts I make to converse with them. They are often quite amazed I can actually answer questions in swahili and ask me why I am even trying to learn it when everyone in Nairobi speaks english. I explain I am moving to another town, and they usually raise their eyebrows, start laughing, and explain I will have to learn the mother tongue of Kalenjin in addition to swahili. As if my brain could stand any more. I already pull dutch words out when I can't think of the swahili word. It sounds strange to say "Ninakwenda boodscaapen doen" (I am going to do errands - first half is swahili, second half is dutch).
I will persevere, and perhaps one day I will think only in swahili and have difficulty speaking english...

lenny.

2007-09-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

I learned today that my friend Lenny, aka caveman, died this past saturday.
My heart is heavy for the loss but I am relieved that Lenny is now free from the pain of alcholism and street life.

I met Lenny six years ago at the Mustard seed, a homeless shelter in downtown Calgary. I only knew his street name, Caveman, for about two years. It was in a rare moment of sobriety that he told me his real name. Lenny did, indeed, look a bit like a caveman. He was blind in his right eye, so wore a black pirate-like patch over it. His hair was long, wild, and scraggly and his bushy beard often had remnants of food in it. He had a wildly decorated stick he used as a cane and wore the same clothes for weeks at at time. I have seen people cross the street to avoid him, I crossed the street to meet him.

Despite his "rugged" appearance and almost constant state of drunkennes, Lenny had a soft heart and an engaging personality. I think even the police liked him. He was well-known and well-liked by paramedics and downtown clinic staff. In fact, I was behind Lenny in line at the downtown medical clinic a few weeks ago. The staff greeted him like an old friend, or a prodigal son. They treated him and let him sober up in the waiting area. As we left the clinic together, Lenny wished me well on my journey to Kenya. I wished him well period.

I will have a moment of silence today in rememberance of my friend Lenny.

Kenya is cold and other cultural lessons

2007-09-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

There is an incorrect generalization (made by Canadians at least) that all of Africa is hot. I have not gone a day without wearing a fleece jacket and been huddled around a hot cup of tea. Kenyans keep reassuring me the hot weather is coming, but I will believe that when I stop seeing my breath in the morning.

When ordering coffee or tea, one must indicate if they want it “black” or “white.” I have also seen it advertised as “ebony” and “ivory” (cue in Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton). I have forgotten several times and ended up with milk in my tea and milkless coffee.

Mamas and Babas can text message (called sms here) on their cell phones faster than I can figure out how to turn mine on. I am considering hiring a grandma as my cell phone tutor.

In addition to learning Swahili, I am concurrently learning British English. I am learning to refer to the boots and bonnets on cars, run to the loo, drive on carriageways next to lorries, and stand in queues.

Speaking of driving, I am constantly trying to get into the drivers seat despite the fact that I am a passenger. As the steering wheel is on the right side of the car, I am still shocked when vehicles drive by and I mistakenly think they are allowing a 6 year old drive the car. And since they drive on the left side of the road, I have nearly been hit several times because I look the wrong way on the road before crossing.

In the weekend newspaper I read about everything from a dead fathers spirit beating up his living son, to what modern Kenyan men want in a woman (and I am not it!), to an interview with Stephen Lewis, to an update on Britney Spears debacles, and finish up with a personal ad from a man seeking a second wife for reasons of procreation (with his wife’s permission).

I have learned that Kenyans have never lost an Olympic steeplechase race and often win the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. Why does anyone else try?

Kenya is well-known abroad for its coffee, but they also produce high quality tea. Africa is the source for 30% of the world’s tea. On the news recently, it was highlighted that the farmers union fought for and received a wage increase. They will now get 6 shillings per kilo. That is about 10 cents for every kilo of tea they harvest. How much did you pay for your tea today?

The book “The Constant Gardener” was apparently banned in Kenya for depicting corrupt government officials, but the movie directors managed to film part of the movie in the Nairobi slums.

The obituaries are often headed by the words “promotion to glory.” I look forward to my eventual promotion though hope it doesn’t happen any time soon.

I am staying at a guest house located on what is called “Nairobi’s safest street.” It is not the fact that I am surrounded by government buildings, the prison headquarters, or there is a large convent and catholic school that make it safe. It is the heavily fortified and well-guarded Israeli embassy a few hundred metres away. There are large barricades called a “friendly checkpoint” that prevent drive-bys, manned by several armed men to insure it remains the “safest street.”

Some interesting signs I have seen around town:
Inside of a bus
“No hawking or preaching”

A billboard near the hospital entrance advertising for a “safe” driving school
“Hospital ceilings are boring”

Extreme public transport.

2007-09-20T23:50:00.000-07:00

Matatu
A 15 person metal coffin otherwise referred to as a vehicular mode of public transport in Kenya. Operated by a driver who may or may not be clinically insane; and a conductor, who is a adept salesperson, banker, and trapeze artist rolled into one.

Let me begin with a joke told by a Kenyan colleague.
A priest died and was standing at the pearly gates of heaven expecting a warm welcome. Unfortunately, he was informed that he would be going to hell. Behind him was a matatu driver, who sailed through the pearly gates.
Stupefied, the priest exclaimed, “But God, I have dedicated my whole life to you, and always obeyed you! Why am I not going to heaven, and that matatu driver is?”
God answered, “My son, whenever you preached, everyone slept. When the matatu driver drove, everyone prayed.”

Forget extreme sports like mountain biking, heli-boarding, or kite surfing. Taking public transport in Nairobi should be an X-games sport for the fearless. My on-going experiences with public transport are leading me to consider wearing a helmet and full body armour to navigate the streets here. Let me describe for you, with no exaggeration, my recent matatu experience…

I waited on the side of Waiyaki Way for a “City Hoppa” bus to return to downtown Nairobi. No bus was in sight, and since there is no such thing as a schedule, I decided the #23 Matatu that screeched to a stop at my feet might be a more efficient way to return to town. The conductor swung from the side of the van, sliding door open, yelling unintelligible destinations before the van even slowed to less than 50 km/hour. There were empty seats on board, so the conductor heckled incessantly (or rather promoted the virtues of the matatu) to every person on the road until they entered the matatu, whether or not it was going in their desired direction. Although not overweight, I struggled to wedge my hips between the seats before settling in against the window. As I surveyed the insides, I could see that the driver took pride in his ride. The ceiling was decorated in gold and red vinyl, punctuated by matching covered buttons. Each seat had robin blue and daffodil yellow plastic covers over the headrests. The windows were mysteriously free of mud or the layers of black exhaust that seemingly blanket everything in the city. Small speakers were mounted along the length of the van, blaring Swahili hip-hop at a tolerable decibel. The driver looked as though he believed he was driving a low rider car with hydraulics on the streets of Chicago. I had a good feeling about this matatu, but then he started driving.

Driving is done on the left side of the road here, except if you are a matatu driver. We were suddenly lurching across 3 lanes of traffic, weaving in and out of any possible inch of space on the road. Waiting in a queue is not an option here, curbs are meant to mount, and red lights are optional. The driver sped into the far right lane only to have a passenger indicate his desired stop by rapping on the window with a 20 shilling coin. No sooner had the passenger rapped twice on the window, the driver was suddenly on the left side of the road, hitting the curb, nearly taking out several pedestrians, and the conductor was hanging off the side of the van, swinging like a monkey, and shouting for new riders before we had even lurched to a stop. We didn’t leave again until the vacated seat was filled with a new victim. I said a little prayer and decide to relax a bit and started envisioning heaven. The Swahili hip-hop seemed pretty decent and I ever so slightly bop my head to the beat, trying to blend in, like I have always lived in Kenya. Suddenly the only English phrase of the song blares above my head; “Black Supremacy!!!” before returning to the Swahili lyrics. My head bopping stops. I smile awkwardly to no one. We are almost downtown. We arrive at the main hub, near the Hilton, and we hop off, one by one, before the matatu stops moving. A group of European tourists stand and stare as though they are on some sort of human-sighting safari before they board their roomy air-conditioned bus. The conductor is already jumping on the sidewalk, recruiting people for the ride, possibly reassuring future customers that all the passengers arrived alive. Our prayers were answered for another day, another ride.

good parents

2007-09-15T04:59:00.000-07:00

I've got good parents

When I was an unruly teenager, my father used to say, "If every father were like me, the world would be a better place." I would roll my eyes and never believe it to be true.
I have learned that it is true.
If all parents were like my parents, the world would indeed be a better place.

My father, at the tender age of 67 (am I allowed to tell?) just spent half the summer riding his Goldwing across the country to attend a motorbike convention. Last year, he drove the Highway to the Sun in Montana, and has hopes to ride to Alaska in the near future. There was a time when I did not think my dad was so cool.

In grade twelve, my brother and I had a little party while my parents were away. The only damage was to my dad's leather chaps, which "Paul" had decided to try on, and the zipper pulled off the leather about an inch. My mother had taught me to be an excellent seamstress at a young age, so I fixed them, thinking no one would know. After my parents return, we were sitting at the supper table and my father asked what happened to his chaps.
"What makes you think something happened?" I asked as innocently as possible.
"Because they were unzipped on the outer leg. I always have them zipped."
Oh crap, I thought to myself. What am I going to say?
"Alida's friend ripped them at the party," my brother Eric nonchalantly offered.
My father sat waiting for a reply, uncharacteristically quiet.
"Well, you are the only dad at school who rides a motorbike, and all my friends think you are so cool, so Paul wanted to try on your chaps. Because he thinks you're cool," I offer.
Another quiet pause…
"Your friends think I'm cool?"
I didn't get in trouble for the party or the torn chaps.

Riding a motorbike is not the only thing that makes my father cool.
My father tells me he loves me everyday.
My father has helped run a summer camp for children and adults with developmental disabilities for over 15 years and loves every minute of it.
My father volunteers just about as much as he used to work. He devotes an evening a week to people with disabilities, has provided respite to families coping with dementia, delivers furniture to carless people, drove single parents to a weekly meeting for years, cuddled babies in the hospital, and now volunteers in the church nursery just so he can hold babies (parents, bring your babies to him!). His latest bragging right involves singing at the Native Women's talent show, in jail, and receiving a t-shirt for it. He struts around like a peacock in that shirt. My father actually brags about knowing convicted murderers and playing scrabble with them.
Really, you can't get much cooler than that.
I've got a good father.

My mother can do anything. Really, if she decides she wants to try something, she will get a book, read about it, and do it (okay, maybe not extreme mountain biking). When I was five, she built a picnic table for my dollhouse to an exact scale. She decided to learn how to spin wool, so she checked out books from the library, bought a second-hand spinning wheel, some dirty wool from a farmer, and transformed the wool from the sheeps back to a hat that I still have. She recently decided to try watercolour painting. Her first painting is a mountain scene that I would frame and hang on my wall. Give her a scrap of fabric and she will turn it into a ball gown. She is resourceful, and creative and imaginative.

My mother's life has been one of service to others, and I don't think she even realizes that.
Shortly after marrying, my parents became foster parents for seven emotionally and developmentally delayed boys. For two years she mothered them, cooked for them, hugged them, took them to soccer practice and doctors appointments. In short, she loved them.
Having children did not stop her service. My dad used to take us for ice cream on Saturdays while my mother served meals in a soup kitchen. We indulged ourselves while she indulged others.
She operated a support group for single parents that was so successful, social workers around the city referred clients to the groups. It was a full-time job to run that group; arrange meals, rides, outings, speakers, free haircuts, free mechanics for broken cars, retreats, crafts, crisis counseling. She could easily spend 40 hour a week volunteering, and she never once complained about it.
During one of my mother's birthday parties, a mentally ill woman came to the door claiming some one was trying to murder her. My mother spent the whole evening listening to the woman, and then getting to her an appropriate place for help. We ate cake while she counseled in the spare room. Indulging others.
She has served as a deacon at church so many times and helped so many people that she discovered from a prescription drug addict a few years back that "her number was on the streets." 1-800-Marian-helps. Indulging others.
She is now starting a grandmothers-to-grandmothers group in Edmonton to raise money and offer support to the grandmothers raising their grandchildren here in Kenya.
If I can indulge in service to others a mere fraction of what my mother has indulged, I will be a glutton for sacrificial love and unbridled compassion.
I've got a good mother.

pole

2007-09-12T02:26:00.000-07:00

My broken hand garnered me no sympathy in my journey to Kenya, but it has since drawn the attention of most passerby's who cluck a "pole" as they shake their heads in my direction. Pole is one of the first Swahili words I have learned. It is pronounced polay, and means sorry. Not a sorry out of pity, but a sorry out of true concern for my well-being. If the person continues with dialogue, they next inquire, "in which country did this occur?" When they hear it was in Canada, you see their shoulders relax, and an audible sigh of relief that it was not in Kenya that I was so tragically wounded. Pole. Concern for my well-being. A warm welcome to Kenya.

I arrived in Nairobi on Tuesday afternoon, to a "sorry" at the visa desk, and my tourist visa was stamped without question. I was pleasantly shocked when I retrieved all of my bags from the conveyer belt and began apologizing to Nyamuhu for loving books so much that I felt I had to bring a whole library with me to Kenya. Books, and my favourite cereal bowl, and my sacred bodum French press, and a Frisbee and an exercise ball.

Wednesday morning we were off to Eldoret, for a whirlwind tour of meetings and greetings. Three hundred twelve kilometers and 9 hours later we arrived after 4x4ing through muddy construction, crossing the equator twice while seemingly going in the same direction, and admiring the breathtaking mountain views through cold breaths that fogged up the land cruiser. As we rose to an elevation of almost 8,000 feet I added every possible layer of clothing and wrapped myself in the hotel wool blankets upon arrival. And everyone thought I would be hot.

Thursday brought some sunshine and more warm welcomes from the Plateau hospital staff. I was impressed with the hospital staff, the cleanliness, and the bright murals painted in the maternity ward. I was also introduced to my host family, a lovely couple and their son, with whom I will live for 2 months once I return to Eldoret. Mama is a nurse at the hospital, and Baba is a retired school teacher turned farmer. Timothy, my new brother, helps on the farm. He and Baba asked me if I had ever milked a cow.
Oh boy. It may be good physical therapy for my healing hand, but I am hoping my therapy sessions don't start at 5 a.m.

I caught a glimpse of my future home, complete with wood burning fireplace (which I think I may need on a frequent basis), and 3 bedrooms (hint, visitors are welcome). We stopped in a grocery store where I discovered I can get sensodyne toothpaste and sunlight laundry detergent. It will seem like I never left Calgary!

On our safari home, we passed several long distance runners, some of who may be training for world competition. There are a few Olympic gold medalists living in my new town. My measly 5 km jog is going to look pretty lame; I will have to find some back road to avoid feeling like a slug.

The weekend has been spent wandering downtown Nairobi. I unknowingly meandered a few hundred metres away from the president at a prayer meeting (I was wondering why there were several black sedans and police everywhere). I was on a quest for an internet café and coffee. Can you blame me?

Monday I begin my Kiswahili lessons, and perhaps I will impress the teacher with my knowledge of pole and asante. Maybe I can learn "don't worry, I broke my hand in Canada."

gravity.

2007-09-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

it hasn't hit me yet. what i am about to do. leave my stable, happy life for something totally unknown. moving to africa. all the poetic words come to me in that state between sleeping and waking. not 10 minutes ago, i was lying on my thermarest writing a bestseller in my head. and now. wordless.

i often wonder why i am moving to africa. why that continent fascinates me. there is need everywhere in the world. lennie, a 40 year alcoholic living on the streets of calgary, needs someone. new sudanese immigrants trying to navigate canada need someone. paralyzed patients in the foothills hospital need someone. but i have a sneaking suspicion it is not me that they need. someone else needs me, and they don't live here.

running into the pain. this phrase has been on a loop in my head for months now. i don't know where it came from. maybe i stole it from someone else's blog. running into the pain. that is what i feel like i have to do. not that i will not also experience great joy, but i feel i must share the immense burden of pain that my african sisters and brothers are bearing. i must share in their suffering, but find hope as i offer to share the yoke.

it hasn't hit me yet. what i am about to do. sharing words and cups of coffee with friends across the country has not felt like goodbye. i laugh, i tell stories like nothing has changed. then give a quick hug and say "see ya later." i don't like goodbye. i prefer till we meet again. two years is long. two years is short. it hasn't hit me yet.

i have about 20 cards in my carry on suitcase from people who think i am nice and brave and loving and kind and courageous. is this the same alida i know? why i am so blessed to be in the company of so many people who like me and love me, i do not know. it hasn't hit me yet.

2200 is my departure time. i will step on a plane and defy gravity as it hurtles at 900km/hr to my new home. i think, amongst the quiet clouds, it will hit me.

fall from grace

2007-09-01T18:48:00.000-07:00

"you want to go biking in whistler?" the facebook message asked.

"sure, sounds like fun." i replied.

we drove up the sea to sky highway, my brother eric and i, happily anticipating a day of bonding over full suspension bikes. after strapping on full body armour and cramming on my full face helmet, i turned to face the bottom of the hill. giant jumps and ramps faced me. tachycardia set in.

"do i have to ride those?"

"no, those are for crazy people" came the reply.

phew.

we started out with a green run. fun, but easy. i wanted a challenge. eric led me down a blue run that involved teeter-toters and elevated boardwalks. getting better. we headed to another blue run, crank-it-up, and that we did. i had never ridden anything like it. the successive jumps felt like a self-propelled roller coaster. natural endorphins being released.

"let's do it again" i said.

"we'll do this a couple more times, warm you up for a-line, the most infamous downhill trail. and then i'll get you a t-shirt"

it started out well. i felt comfortable, getting some air, but under control. i was looking forward to the roller coaster ride. one small jump, getting a little bigger, under control.

then suddenly...

i am suspended, floating, seemingly trapped in time. where's my bike?

"this is not going to be pretty"

bump, bump, bump, bump, bump.

my helmet hitting the ground, body grinding to a halt in the dirt.

open your eyes. open your eyes. open your eyes.

open.

okay, i am conscious. that's good.

okay, wiggle your toes. wiggle.

move your fingers. move.

spine pain? back pain? no.

okay, get off the trail before you are run over.

where are my shoes? my shoes came off? oh boy, this is not pretty.

a few riders stopped, my brother, not seeing me come, ran back up the trail. he saw me laying on the trail, shoes off.

i broke my little sister!! i broke my little sister!!

i moved to the side of the trail. blood draining from my face. cold. clammy. nausea.

"i'm going to throw up"

'okay why don't we sit you up" came a voice from beside me.

"no, i think i will lie in the recovery position" i reply.

take deep breaths. take deep breaths. nausea passed.

i feel something whoosh by my leg. another rider. he doesn't even slow down. almost runs me over but rides over my bike instead.

"okay, i feel better. i am going to move over"

a whistler first aid guy shows up, starts asssessing me. "what is your name?"

"alida fernhout, i am in whistler, b.c., the date is thursday, august 23, 2007"

he laughs, "you seem to know what you're doing"

"i'm a neuro-surg nurse. i have no numbness or tingling, strong x4"

"great! i have to fill out a few forms, ask you some dumb questions, bear with me"

nausea again. blood drains. cold. clammy.

"i have to throw up"

"go ahead, don't be shy"

don't be shy, i think. i am about to vomit on the side of a mountain with lots of people watching. don't be shy. i vomit.

"your heart rate is a little slow"

"how's the bike?" I ask.

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE BIKE!!" comes a chorus of voices.

we take off my arm guards and my right glove. my pinky finger is in a strange position. i think it's broken. but i can move my legs so i am happy.

i recover enough to walk off the trail to a waiting quad which takes me to a truck. load the bikes, head to the hospital.

"where do i put my bike?" i ask.

"quit worrying about the bike!" eric says .

it turns out this kind of thing happens often enough that the hospital has its own bike locks.

i am seen by a nurse, then a resident, then an xray tech (nausea again), then a doctor. i need to go to vancouver to see a plastic surgeon. my pinky hand bone broke, punctured the skin, then retreated back to its resting place.

back down the sky-to-sea highway. eric is worried. he thinks he broke me. i tell him not to worry. i am high on my own endorphins.

several hours later i see a resident. i ask him what year he is. i don't want a first year resident touching my hand. i am moving to africa in 10 days. he is second year. okay, you can assess my hand. finally a 4th year resident comes in.

"you will probably need surgery, but we will try to reduce it and see what happens"

see what happens. did i mention that i am moving off the continent in 10 days?

right before he reduces it, i find out the second year resident is actually an ears, throat, nose specialist. well, he has to learn somehow.

he reduces it. i didn't know my fingers were allowed to be moved like that . i kick my feet and take deep breaths even though my hand is frozen.

they splint it and send me for an xray. it is set perfectly.

"can't get better than that!" proudly announces the resident.

'great! can i go now?"

"good luck in kenya!"

my bones are still perfectly set, i can walk and i know who i am, and i am still headed to kenya... tomorrow.

and thus was my fall from grace.

http://www.whistlerbike.com/gallery/photos/index.htm

moments collected in a calling

2007-07-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

Moments collected in a calling

My desire to travel and experience other cultures started at a very early age. I spent hours poring over a national geographic book called "Our world.” My Sunday afternoons were filled with imaginative vacations to faraway places.
When I was old enough to venture out on my own, these once imagined vacations became reality. I have dined in “the valley of the beautiful women” in Hungary, walked in Rembrandt’s footsteps in Holland & snorkeled in Cuba.
I began to feel called to work abroad in my mid-twenties and I began pursuing short-term volunteer trips to test my resilience and seek confirmation from God that we were on the same page.
It was not 'one' exact moment in time, but a collection of experiences that solidified this calling. It was the month of November 2005 and I spent 12 hours a day at the Mkar Christian hospital seeing patients, doing rounds, reading x-rays, then falling, exhausted, into bed every night. The gravity of HIV astounded me, the abuse of women angered me, and the abandonment of children broke me. But the joy in Bridget’s face as she hugged her pink balloon moved me, the tears of hurting women drew me in, the children's songs and games made me laugh. I knew without a doubt where I had to be personally, professionally & spiritually. I knew I was called to work in hard places that I would both loathe and love. Moments collected in a calling.

The next step...
I have the honour of being chosen to be a “Program HOPE!” intern. This opportunity ‘provides an “apprentice type” experience in Christian community development at the grass roots level.’
I will be working with Christian Reformed world relief committee (CRWRC), a relief and development organization that has programs around the world.
I will be living & learning in Eldoret, Kenya for the next two years. I hope to offer my skills of nursing, water filter construction, and perhaps even my sewing abilities to local partner organizations.
My departure date is September 2 after a summer filled with learning and training across Canada.

As I have been going through my belongings (thousands of photos...) I found these photos randomly scattered about. they reflect some of my adventures in the past few years.

in one of my favourite places on earth - kananaskis country

i can't seem to resist sick people lying on the ground.

enjoying an afternoon swing on pulau weh, indonesia

a camel ride in mahula, nigeria.

with friends in mkar, nigeria

i hate costco

2007-07-19T14:55:00.000-07:00

i've just had a very traumatizing experience...

i shopped at costco for the first time in my life.

where can one begin? the grocery carts are the same size as my bedroom, and i was tempted to drive one in the corner, crawl in and wait for the palpitations to stop. everyone drives their bedroom sized carts as if no one else exists - they may turn and nod if they fracture your hip as they corner you against the cases of ketchup, but no one makes eye contact or acknowledges that there are other human beings in their presence.

overwhelmed with excess, i became increasingly confused when on my left i noticed a 100 jet hot tub, and on my right, a stack of pineapples. have i been transported to a new dimension where these things belong together in one place (outside of someone's backyard party)?

what was most striking was the total lack of community or interpersonal connections. there was very little talking, minimal eye contact; just bodies moving, filling their metal mesh bedrooms with parachute size beach towels and backyard bar sets.

i like going to the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker. i deliberately chose to live in a neighbourhood where all of these establishments actually exist within walking distance of my front porch. i like saying hello to the sarong wearing DJ hanging out on his porch on my way to the locally owned coffee establishment, checking out the produce boys in the grocery store (where, much to my surprise, they only sell food), then purusing through the sale table at the bookstore (where you cannot buy a pool table or hot tub), and meandering back home (by foot) through the busy playground.

my nauseousness is abating, but my disdain for excessiveness called costco may never be cured.

a franciscan benediction

2007-07-08T11:18:00.001-07:00

may God bless us with discomfort...
at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships so that we may live deep within our hearts.

may God bless us with anger...
at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

may God bless us with tears...
to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war. so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and to turn
their pain into joy.

and may God bless us with enough foolishness...
to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can DO what others claim cannot be done.

amen.

a good belly laugh

2007-07-07T21:17:00.000-07:00

forget "the secret"! i am watching channel 91, learning all about the reverend peter popoff's "new larger miracle spring water" that will completely heal me of all ailments and bring me lots of money. why would i try to think positive, or lead a Godly life if i can call 1-800-206-8909 for some free miracle spring water. except, i can't take it as soon as it arrives in the mail. i have to call peter popoff and wait for his instructions so that the "holy spirits" can first "stir" the water. it would be even better for me to attend one of the revivals where the rev. peter popoff could literally throw me on the ground and "heal" me immediately.
it gets better... apparently one woman's blood pressure was over 500mmHg consistently, but it is now "normal." what is not normal is that i have never even seen a blood pressure cuff that can even measure above 300mmHg. maybe they have those down in peter popoff's ICU...

what is fantastic, is that i have not laughed so hard in quite awhile. i almost fell off my chair. my belly hurts.

what is really scary is i have not made any of the above stuff up. this is actually being "advertised" on t.v. i truly hope that there are not too many vulnerable people being sucked into this marketing ploy being played off as christianity.

arida

2007-07-04T18:45:00.001-07:00

arida... this is how i am advised to introduce myself in kenya, so that people will pronounce my name properly; alida. r's and l's are often interchanged, and in nigeria people would often call me arida.
someone just shared a hilarious story of pronunciation in zambia. there, they pronounce the l's as r's, the r's as l's and take the y's and e's off the ends of names. so, if your name is dave, it is prounounced davey, if your name is charley, they will call you charl.
a new girl was coming from ireland and her name was cloe. the zambian team was going to warn her that she would be called "crow" all summer, as the l would become an r, and the e would disappear. they were going to call her crow all summer. then they had the bright idea of introducing her as crow, then the people would change the r to an l and add an e to the end. and wonder of all wonders, they would say "this is my friend crow" and the people invariably said "oh , nice to meet you cloe"
so, i will arrive in the country, "hello my name is arida" and they will exclaim, "oh alida, how nice to meet you!"

this, too, is toronto

2007-07-01T19:58:00.001-07:00

many years ago, while on a weekend trip to prague, i stumbled upon a photography exhibit titled, "this, too, is prague." it showed the personalities of prague that are not on postcards. no jewish graveyards or charles bridge in this exhibit. only skateboarders hanging on to the backs of streetcars (this is the photo that drew me into the exhibit), male prostitues from romania, a man so devastated by the death of his wife, he married a new bottle of gin everyday. i was so impressed by this collection of photography that i bought the book, and since have always tried to see new cities through different eyes. yes, the tourist attractions are popular for a reason. they are usually interesting, but what i am more drawn to are back alleys, beautiful grafitti, and seemingly everyday chores made beautiful.

i have many photos of people from my last trip to toronto (also many years ago) of "queens" on queens, the squeegie kids, and the religious propaganda on sandwich boards worn by tired looking men.

i didn't take too many photos yesterday, partly so as not to hold up the other three people i was with (most of my good friends are used to me crouching in some corner trying to get the perfect shot, but these relatively new friends are not). but i took a few in the contemplative spirit of "what is canadian?" (as the Toronto Star newspaper is asking) as we celebrate this canada day.

which country are we in?
(the beauty of a multi-cultural society)

i have branched away from the dutch palate of meat,
potatoes and kale, and into the wonderful world of flavour.
the house of spice offers plenty to keep the taste buds working.
(and is in kensington, where i have decided i will live,
if i ever move to toronto)

breakdancers on the waterfront... mmmmmm:-)

field trips & barista boys

2007-06-29T13:52:00.000-07:00

I am in the lovely city of Toronto, reportedly the most multi-ethnic in all of North America, taking a crash course in how to be an effective cross cultural worker. Topics are culture shock, adaptation, coping skills, interpersonal skills, conflict management, holistic growth...

I feel like i am in school, sitting in a desk many, many hours a day, although they make us get up and act things out, or play games. We get to go on field trips, except we don't need our parents permission this time:-) We went out to eat in Little India (and I caressed hundreds of fabrics in the plethora of fabric & clothing stores), next week we are visiting a mosque, on the weekend we are hitting Chinatown and Kensington market, enjoy some fireworks on canada day.

It has been a good time of growth & challenge on many levels. I have many philosophical debates going on in my head. I dream and think in "cnn". I have a main picture going, but I have one or two subtitles whirring by, and emerging news popping up in the corners, and everything is in loud voices (you know how wolf blitzer makes everything sound so urgent). so a major challenge for me anywhere, anytime, is to quiet my mind and allow myself to "be."

I am getting to know the other girls who are going out with CRWRC (christian reformed world relief committee). Melissa is also a nurse, going to Sierra Leone for 2 1/2 years, Chichi and Amy are going to Nigeria and Kenya (respectively) for one to two year terms as "cultural bridgers". We have alot of fun together, and were all rolling with laughter last night telling fart stories. Melissa, Amy and I visit the local Second Cup on a very frequent basis, not only for the coffee, but for a cute barista boy that we have all developed a crush on:-) There are also several young people who are going on CIDA internships (Cdn international development agency), and wonderfully, several retired people who are moving abroad to volunteer for retirement. so we span most decades of life and wisdom.

I have one more week of training here, then I head back to Calgary for a few weeks. I have to literally sort through my entire life there and discard most of my earthly belongings, visit the friends and family in edmonton, wind down my life, and perhaps get in a few more shifts at work. Then I am heading back out eastwards to Michigan and Burlington for more agency training and preparation. I will wind it up with a week long course on Vancouver Island about community health mid-august. I hope to wrap it all up with a couple of days of surfing in tofino, spending time with my niece and nephew, saying goodbye to my oma again, and finally hanging out in calgary for about a week before I head out to kenya on september 2. (if my visa goes through i suppose).

amy, chichi, me, melissa

swing twisting
(throwing myself into a twisting motion
while swinging as high as possible - better than drugs)

the new bond girl?

internal spedometer

2007-06-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

when i arrived in costa rica i was speeding around, thinking i needed to be in the water NOW, needed to surf 12 hours a day or it wouldn't be worth it, got frustrated with people when they walked too slow, wondered what people did all day because it appeared many people did not work at all.
my internal spedometer was still revving when i arrived.
my crazy dutch work ethic and my hospital job don't allow me to be still.
i have slowed down over the last several days. once i took a surfing lesson i realized it is totally impossible to surf 12 hours a day. that would be like working out at the gym for 12 hours straight. i realized that it was okay to actually sit on a beach and think, sometimes of absolutely nothing. i have wandered the same 3 streets of the town, not really caring that i have walked by a particular shop window 30 times already. i have swung in a hammock with a book and a coffee and thoroughly enjoyed it.
my internal spedometer is now going just fast enough to make me get up in the morning and putter me around for the day (except when i surf, i do go hard). and now my vacation is over. tomorrow i head to san jose to do souvenir shopping, and then a long trip back home. and i will be forced to put the pedal to the metal on my internal spedometer. (i am leaving for kenya sept 2 and have way to much to do).
it was nice while it lasted....

pura vida - costa rica

2007-06-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

observations of my trip so far...

never stop to talk to a tico (costa rican) man riding a mountain bike on a beach.
(must read previous entries to understand this one)

consider it normal to be watched on the beach by 20 construction workers on their lunch break.

my hostel roommate and i are pretty sure that the owners son is a crack addict. two kinds of crack, however... crack the drug, and his own butt crack. he ALWAYS wears shorts so low that his butt crack shows 2 inches, which means in the front, guess what is showing... yes, pubic hair. it is very gross.

i have deduced that most men showing their butt cracks around town are also drug addicts.

i figured on on my second day here who the local drug dealer is.

mullets are very popular here. the drug dealer has short hair in the front and gross dirty dreadlocks half way down his back.

my bum cheeks look like two red apples.

if you are an american hippie you either used to live in costa rica or have never left and now own a used book store in tamarindo.

seared tuna that is fresh from the ocean tastes really really good, even if it costs $17 bucks.

i wake up with a major afro every morning.

my bottom lip got sunburnt and now looks like i had collagen injections.

i am pregnant with twins by a tico man.... no wait, that was in cuba...

have a great day!

knee rash

2007-05-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

i upgraded a board today from a beginner board to a lighter one. it didn't go as well. i had a hard time finding my centre of gravity, and kept pitching myself over the right side of the board. that, and i have a hard time going from a laying to a standing position in one easy quick jump while being swept in a wave. hence, i end up on my knees part way and get a rash on them.
i cut my foot, burned my bum (despite sunscreen and a completely overcast day), and then my board hit me in the face (it was my fault, i had it parallel to a wave so it picked it up and pitched the board into my face.) i had a swollen lip for the afternoon but that settled down.
it hasn't been sunny at all, very overcast and cloudy but obviously the sun is getting through! i met a girl at the hostel here who is also working on her surfing, so it is nice to be able to leave my stuff on the beach and not worry about someone jumping out of a bush to take it.
we had a little viewing party at noon today. we were both laying on the beach when i noticed a few figures emerge from the trees and park themselves on a tree stump. they just sat and unabashadely stared at us. then in my right peripheral vision i saw movement, and lined up on the grass were 6 other construction workers. they kept coming and coming. i think there were at least 15 guys sitting and watching us some point. they were obviously on a lunch break, but were mysteriously not eating lunch. filling themselves on the eye candy i suppose.
i had to bring my surf board back and ask them to downgrade me back to a beginner board so that i can get more practice actually standing instead of falling. when i get better at that, i will try the smaller lighter board again... i just have the expectation that i should be good at things immediately. i don't want to wait to get better; i only have a week darn it!! :-)
so it will be back to the beach tomorrow. tamarindo is a good place for beginners to learn, waves aren't too big and it isn't crowded due to low season. good time to come...
hope you are all well and that there is no snow!

surfs up - and so is alida (on the board)

2007-05-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

well, took the first lesson today. i have rashes and bruises and a sunburn despite sunscreen, but it was fun! surfing is definately more difficult than i had hoped:-) it takes alot of effort to swim out, and stand up, and try to stay standing up (if i even get that far...) i was totally exhausted after an hour, but darn it, the lesson was two hours, so i just kept going and going (being the good dutch person i am, i have to get the full money's worth)

i managed to stand several times, once even going all the way to the beach, where i had to jump onto the sand to stop. that was exciting. i fell more than i stood though, often leaning too far over the right of the board and going head first into the water. i am not so nimble as to jump right up like the instructor either. it takes actual effort to push my body up. i provided some entertainment for people walking by on the beach. good thing i am okay with laughing at myself!

i hung out on the beach the rest of the afternoon and read. the beaches are pretty quiet because it is low season. this is good and bad. it is nice because you don't have to fight for a spot. it is bad because you don't want to leave your stuff on the beach lest someone leaps out of a bush to steal your stuff. that and, strange costa rican men sit and watch you and do other stuff...
i was getting a little uncomfortable with a guy sitting about 50 feet away. he was looking over too much and there was no one else around (to hear me scream) so i decided to head back to the hostel and then find food. that guy didn't bug me, but as i was walking back, i saw a guy ahead of me stop on his mountain bike. i thought he was going to try to sell me necklaces or something. i would have preferred he do that, after what transpired. as i walked closer, i noticed he was fiddling with his pants, and then doing motions with his hands that can only mean one thing. apparently, he gets off pleasuring himself in front of gringo girls on the beach. as i walked by he starts saying "hola, hola, hola, hola"
well buddy, "hola this"... of course i don't say anything as i don't want to give him even an inch to go with (sorry, a bit pun like).
my hostel manager wrote down for me " leave me alone or i will call the police" in spanish, so i will practice this tonight. she assures me this is an unsual activity and that i should have gone to the police (doesn't help if i don't know where the police station is)

i plan to rent a board tomorrow and spend the day on the beach, taking rest breaks inbetween my efforts to stand on a surf board.

not so funny comedy of errors

2007-05-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

i can't believe i actually made it to costa rica, never mind tamarindo - the small surfing town i am staying at. it has been a pretty ridiculous chain of events!
it started in houston, texas. they announced we would be leaving late as the pilots were still flying from atlanta. they boarded us an hour late and told us the pilots would be "just a few minutes" and "they are landing on the runway now". well almost an hour later no pilots - apparently they got stuck in a line-up on the tarmac for 45 minutes.
finally, the pilots get on the plane, and awhile later... "well folks, it seems like we don't have enough fuel, so we just need a few minutes to fill up"
30 minutes later, "well folks, it seems something was miscommunicated, they didn't give us enough fuel. i would like another 5000-6000 pounds on board. just a few more minutes"
another 30 minutes later... "well folks, the fuel truck is now stuck on the tarmac, within our sight. apparently they are being blocked by a medical emergency in another plane"
finally, about 2 1/2 hours of sitting on the plane watching every t.v. show they have on their old vhs tapes, we start the taxi down the runway.
and we are off...

and finally some good news... "well folks, to thank you for all your patience, alcoholic beverages are on us tonight!" well, i admit i had a margarita, and i am surprised that the whole plane didn't get wildy drunk off their faces because there were some very irritated people! everything seemed to be going well... i had missed my ride pick-up at the airport and tried to email from houston, but i had a hostel booked and i felt good. i was even laughing!

but there is more... we started our descent into san jose, costa rica, when i noticed the nose of the plane started pointing more and more upwards. i thought "this isn't how you are supposed to land a plane" and what do you know
"well folks, there is alot of fog here in san jose, and we CAN'T FIND THE AIRPORT" ( i add the emphasis). so we have to circle around and try again"
so we fly in another circle with a few dims lights showing through the fog. and we fly in another circle... and some more...
"well folks, it seems that we just can't seem to land here in costa rica, so the plan is to land in nicaragua. we'll fill you in on the details as we know them"

so it is now 11:30 pm, we were supposed to arrive at 8:30 pm and now we are going to nicaragua! well, i thought, i haven't been there before! now i will be able to say i dropped in! they tell they will put us in a hotel for the night and announce more plans in the airport. and oh, by the way, the airport in managua, nicaragua was closed for the night, so they had to call all the employees and ask them to come back!

so we land and shuffle into the airport. no announcements, no direction. just 2 11 seat vans to shuttle about 200 people to different hotels. i took one of the last shuttles as some very ornery people pushed their way to the front. i could sleep another day... they told us, we'll announce in your hotel what the plans are for the day in the morning...

so, 1:30 in the morning i finally fall into bed. i am supposed to be catching a separate flight at 8:30 in the morning on a different airline to get to tamarindo...

in the morning, do you think there are any announcements. no, why would they do that? based on heresay from other passenegers i find out about the flight and spend $13 on a phone bill to rebook my other flight and arrange transport to the other airport. 20 minutes later, another passenger tells me a different departure time which screws up my other flight. i sent a fax cancelling everything and have no idea what i am going to do.

we finally get to the airport and i meet an american couple who are also trying to get to tamarindo. we decide to make a run to the other local airline to try to snag a last minute flight.
in another miscommunication between the pilots and airport staff, we spend another hour on the tarmac in san jose right in front of our gate...
no such luck with the other airline... they have closed their gate... we are all wandering back to the main airport wondering what the heck to do.
a costa rican man approaches the guy (of the couple) and offers transport in a van to taramindo. we check his van, he looks legitimate, has a friendly face, so we negotiate a price and jump in. so i just take off in a van with americans i met an hour earlier, with 2 strange but friendly looking costa rican men. everything the travel books say not to do!
but i arrived safely, made two friends on the way!
i am now in a hostel that is called "a bottle of milk" with a bunch of people almost half my age - one of whom constantly paces the room - i think he is a little high. i also think i may look for a new hostel tomorrow... but FIRST i must take a surfing lesson!
wish me luck! i think i am going to need it!

moments

2007-05-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

i have been contemplating again... daydreaming a little, reliving moments in my life. i thought i would write some of the down (and share them in this very public forum). not all my moments are happy, significant, or inspiring. they are just moments that somehow have significance for me...

calling
it was not one exact moment in time, but a collection of experiences that solidified my calling in life. it was the month of november 2005, and i spent 12 hours a day at the mkar christian hospital seeing patients, doing rounds, reading xrays, and then falling, exhausted into bed every night. the gravity of HIV astounded me, the abuse of women angered me, the abandonment of children broke me. but the joy in bridget's face as she hugged her pink balloon moved me, the tears of an infertile woman drew me in, the children's songs and games made me laugh; and i knew without a doubt where i had to be personally, professionally, and spiritually. i knew i was called to work in hard places that i would loathe and love at the same time. many "moments" collected in a calling.

gelatto
and on to something lighter! much lighter! October something, 1996. Lost in Venice, Italy with 4 friends looking for a cheap place to eat which we didn't find. i decided to get icecream for supper - cappucino gelatto- from a place about to close. i don't think i have ever been closer to ectasy. i was so engrossed in relishing this gift from the icecream gods that i almost walked/fell into a canal. and then began my love affair with anything and everything coffee flavoured.

fear
people always ooh and aahh when i say i have been to nigeria - "isn't so dangerous?" or "won't you get kidnapped?" i can say i have rarely had fear there - even when highway police officers have tapped my window with their machine guns (only for me to turn to look and then they wink and offer me a life of bliss with them).

the MOST fear i have every experienced was in innsbruck, austria in december of 1996. i took a late train from budapest to this "idyllic" mountain town. i arrived at 2am, expecting there to be a nice little warm waiting room (most stations i have been in europe have these) that i could fall asleep in until 7 am, and i would then head to a hostel, before going snowboarding for the day. well, innsbruck had no such wonderful little room. so i had to hunker down in the cold, drafty large entrance. there were a few other sober people there, so i thought i would be in good company. it was not long before the local drug addicts descended... one man in particular scared the daylights out of me.

the next part is not a delusional dream of mine - it was real. this man, on some pretty unbelievable drugs and alcohol, was smashing his empty wine bottles on the floor at the other end of the station. he then made his way to me, all the while screaming what i assume to be disturbing things in german, and snapping a large rubber whip-like thing on the ground. his beard came to his xyphoid process and had dinner still stuck in it. he had on what looked to be a large costume from the "sound of music", complete with a very large cowbell tied around his waist (his other friends had similar outfits on). he ran up to me, and on and off for 3 hours, waved broken wine bottles in my face, snapped his rubber whip at my feet, and topped it off with a few rings on his giant cowbell, all the while screaming and singing at the top of his lungs.
i told Jesus i looked forward to meeting him that night, but hadn't expected to die at the hands of a psychotic whip-snapping, cowbell ringing, drug addict. i literally sat there imagining what my parents might write in my obituary!
well, i made it through the night, went to the hostel at 6am, slept in a 6 footx 6 foot temporary plywood porch with another tourist (who spoke no english), slept at the hostel until 8am, then caught a bus and went snowboarding all day in the austrian alps - thankful to be alive. (i ended up cracking a rib after catching my front edge but that is another story/moment)
that was a very long moment...

?poverty?
the first time my idea of poverty was flipped on its head for me was september 1996. i was travelling the transylvanian countryside with 15 other north americans, being hosted by the most gracious, humble, and grateful people i have ever met. by social and economic standards, they were poor, impoverished, "lacking" what many of us "developed" people consider essential. they had lived through the hell of Chouschecu's regime, but were grateful to be alive, to be free. They praised God. (praised God after that hell? wow) my understanding of poverty was kicked in the butt. they may have been "impoverished" in material things, but i was equally, if not more, impoverished in the gifts of gratitude, hope, humility, contentment...
thank you hungary, thank you romania

rockies
every time in drive into the canadian rockies (jasper, alberta especially), i have tachycardia. my heart beats faster, my breaths become shallow. i am always in awe, always astonished, always grateful that such a tiny human being such as myself was made to enjoy such grand showcases of God's imagination.

those are a few moments. more to come. (if you haven't noticed, these are more for me, than for anyone else - a personal journal so that in case i have dementia one day, someone can read them to me;-) )

snowboarding saved my life

2007-03-29T18:30:00.000-07:00

Amazing grace
How sweet the snowboard
that saved a wretch like me.

chairlifts have a way of bringing out the contemplative side of me; swinging high above pines, peaks, snow, valleys; the sun on my face, joy in my heart, a board on my feet.

i hadn't been out in awhile, and i couldn't believe how much i missed it.

i LOVE snowboarding.

i LOVE that God gave us mountains, snow, and the technology to get up and down them several times in one day.

snowboarding did indeed save my life.

i spent my teenage years in the trenches of anorexia. obsessed with starving myself. thinking and dreaming about how not to eat, how to exercise until i blacked out, how to slowly kill myself via starvation.

through serendipitous events, i received some salvation in the form of a big piece of wood delivered in the mail one day. 163 cm of salvation, painted black with splashes of fluorescent pink. sims swithblade. my new obsession that helped deliver my from my own personal hades.

snowboarding consumed my thoughts, i turned away from my homework every 20 minutes to look at the sims. started reading transworld snowboarding, snowboarding magazine, memorized the 6 brands of snowboards, pored over the new burton catalogue, idolized victoria jealouse, and the other few female riders on the scene in the early 90's. the more i thought about snowboarding, the less i thought about starving myself.

and then started my recovery and acknowledgement that i was suffering.

i am recovered, and i still love snowboarding.

Thank you God, for snowboarding.

three stooges

2007-03-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

I spent 4 days with my niece and nephew in victoria recently - i hadn't seen them in over a year, and it may be another 3 years before i see them again... jacob was only a crawling, beer guzzling babe of one and katie had just passed out of her toddler years when i saw them last.

jacob, still with a zest for beer, runs at full speed, throws himself off high objects risking life and limb at every opportunity. katie has developed into a fully fledged princess with a wardrobe to match it. what have i missed?? it is alarming!!

jacob knows how to charm...

katie has a daily after-school routine of becoming a princess

three stooges

A part of me wishes I could live around the corner and pick them up for icecream on a whim, or play "choo choo" trains on the living room table more often. Another part of me wants them to be proud of their nutcase aunt who jumbles around in a 4x4 in the bush of africa. i love them dearly, i hope my physical absence in their daily routine doesn't make me less significant in their lives...

I also went to visit my Oma for an afternoon, one of my last chances to sample her outstanding coffee and watch her throw her cane across the room. She is still spry for 93 1/2, takes only a multi-vitamin, and the way she whips around her apartment, you wouldn't know she is missing half a femur! When I told her I was moving to Africa, she smirked and said "i'm not surprised!" For all I know, she will still be making coffee and doing needle work at 97 when I return from Kenya. She is an exemplary model of good honest hard work and a fiercely independent woman! (i ask her about boyfriends in the building, and she turns up her nose, saying "what do i need one of those for?")

a new washing machine

2007-03-09T11:24:00.000-08:00

I recently procured a state of the art washing machine! As you can see from the photo it is extremely low maintenance, has no moving parts, and requires no gas or electricity to run! Talk about environmently friendly!

This machine will be going with me to Kenya where I will spend 2 1/2 years with CRWRC (Christian Reformed World Relief Committee). I have been accepted as an intern and will be working and learning about Community development with a health care focus. All I know thus far is that there are community based health promotion activities, and a program for orphans and vulnerable children. The grandiose plans I have in my head involve starting quilting bees, and starting a water filter program (have a head start on this as a college friend who is a water engineer already lives there and is interested in promoting this in the area).

I still don't know when I am leaving - more than 6 months though- as the visa process has not started, or exactly what I will be doing. I need to step out in faith and follow the call for my life!

The OR

2007-02-27T14:20:00.000-08:00

In my "free time" when I wasn't trying to build water filters, I would pop into the OR to see what was happening, sometimes I ended up doing some sort of assisting and always documenting...

An essential in any Nigerian hospital is some sort of insect killer. You just never know when a stream of ants is going to march through your surgical field or try to get into your sterilized instruments...

Here I don a super extra large set of scrubs donated by some Canadian hospital. I know I have lost weight recently but this makes me look like a poster child for Weight Watchers! I am with some of the visiting staff at Peace House hospital. They have volunteers that come on their days off from other jobs to help. The hospital is run completely by volunteers - no one gets paid a salary. I learned a lesson about living by faith...

To get into the OR, you have to change into sandals - yes, sandals. They do have a couple of pairs of rubber boots but those are reserved for those actually doing the surgery, and often they don't wear boots. A couple of patients had some major blood loss and I had to make sure nothing dripped onto my feet!

I'm sorry if surgical pictures make you sick to your stomach - this one isn't too bloody. It is a uterine fibroid. It was attached to the top of the uterus and several times the size of a uterus. In this case the uterus was saved, and hopefully the woman will be able to have children in the future.

I also watched a leg amputation (yakubu's), an appendectomy, and the most disturbing was a goiter removal. They don't have intubation at Peace House, so they use something called Ketamine which is a sedative. But not all people are completely sedated during surgery. One woman in particular did not "take well" to the ketamine and kept waking up and struggling during surgery. I had just stopped by to see how it was going and ended up coming into surgery to hold the woman's arms and legs down and trying to suction her mouth with a bulb syringe (no suction either) under a sterile field (I was in my everyday clothes), during the surgery. The woman was fine post-operatively despite her struggle and major blood loss.
I learned I never want surgery under minor sedation!
But I love watching surgery and seeing all the "parts" I only seen drawn in books. God was pretty imaginative when it came to designing the human body!

Soul food

2007-02-27T13:39:00.000-08:00

People have often asked me what kind of food I eat in Nigeria. I will offer you a little smorgasborg of photos. Be careful not to drool on your keyboards!!

Below are yams for sale at the Adoka market. These are a staple food in southern Nigeria. They are quite large, not like the yams you buy at Safeway. You can eat the yams fried on the fire, or "pounded". With the latter you peel them, boil them, then pound them in a large mortar with a pestle. It is pretty bland, but you eat it with a soup...

Above you see "pounded yam" on the left and a soup to accompany it on the right. You pick a piece of pounded yam off your ball, roll it in a small ball, make a divot with your thumb and dip it in the soup. This particular soup was served to us at a hospital we visited. I thought it was fish inside at first, then noticed the skin was a little too thick for that. I ate it anyway and it tasted like chicken. It was "bush lizard", which I later saw for sale at the market....

mmmmmmm..... lizards-on-a-stick or shishkabob-lizards.... whatever your pleasure:-)

Another soup is "draw soup" which can be made from various vegetables. This particular one is made from a bush/tree that has white stalks. It is also made from okra. It is not my favourite as it reminds me of secretions that I suck out of people's tracheostomies at work...

And then we have "bean cakes" (below) which are made from mashed up beans which are then rolled into a banana leaf and baked. Sometimes they put a boiled egg in the middle of it. To spice it up, they mix in salt and pepper and HOT red peppers which clean out my sinuses and make it look like I am weeping about how good my lunch is.

Leanne, Jenny & I nicknamed this snack (above) "peanut poo sticks" for obvious reasons. They are actually quite good. They are made from the left over peanut oil and residue and pressed into these stick formations. They are very hard and crunchy, and taste, well, like peanuts:-)

Speaking of another nut, did you know where cashews come from? Being a city girl, I thought they came out of the bulk bin at Safeway... but they grow on the top of this fruit. Perhaps there is an african name for this fruit, but we called it "cashew fruit" (geniuses i tell you...)
The fruit has kind of a smoky flavour, and I guess you can just pluck off the cashew and roast it.

The fruit in Nigeria (and every other developing country I have been too) is OUTSTANDING because it is fresh off the tree and not covered in pesticides. I love mangos and bananas and oranges and pineapples. I probably eat at least 10 servings of fruit a day while in Nigeria (where it is available). below is my somewhat pathetic attempt at creatively peeling a mango.

Nigerians can peel an orange top to bottom in one piece. Normally, they suck the juice out of the top and discard the rest of the orange. It is affectionately referred to as "sucking an orange"

My last week in Adoka, Nelvia and I learned how to bake without an oven. She brought dry brownie mix from Canada, we mixed it up with some eggs and oil and put it in this ingenious little oven. All you do is take a large pot, fill the bottom with about an inch of sand, put your smaller pot inside, cover it and put it on the stove. 30 minutes later we had delicious fresh brownies! It was a little piece of heaven:-)

That is just a little taste of what I have sampled of the wonderful African cuisine (i say wonderful with a mischevious smile).

(background music: corrine baily rae and moby)

the biosand water filter in the making

2007-02-06T15:55:00.000-08:00

How is a biosand filter made?

With dust and sweat in 37 degrees celcius, here is a small look at what goes into making a filter.

On the right, I am sieving rocks and sand so that we have the proper size of gravel and sand to make the filter itself and also the "media" inside of the filter.
We had three different sieves made - to sort out gravel into 1/2 inch stones, 1/4 inch stones, and sand.
Although this is the "easiest" and most straight forward part - my nigerian counterparts made comments about how doing things "the canadian way" took much longer than a typical "nigerian way." They joked that "their way" is to find the shortest and fastest way possible to finish a job (whether or not it is done "the right way"), then go home as soon as possible. Joking aside, I told them we were going to do it "the right way", no matter how long it took:-)

Next, you pour a filter.
We mixed small stones, sand, and portland cement and filled our steel mold.

A steel mold can be used thousands of times if taken care of and used properly.

We let each filter set for 18-24 hours, then removed the mold, filled it with water, and let it set for another 5-7 days.

At the right, we are pouring cement in our first filter.

I demonstrated then how to work the cement into all the crevices of the filter and how to "bang out" the air that gets trapped in the cement. Air pockets will weaken the strength of the filter, so you do your best to remove them.

We banged the sides of the mold with rubber mallets until we saw fewer and fewer air bubbles coming up to the top of the fresh cement.

It often sounded like a drumming party, and I would throw a little dance in here and there to get a laugh.

Here is a "snap" (nigerian word for photo) of our very first filter! It was probably also the best one as people were diligent in their work and excited about the outcome.

The work got a bit sloppier as time went on as I tried to supervise less, and the "nigerian way" started to take over. I had to repeatedly reinforce that each step of the filter making had to be followed exactly, not what steps they felt like doing.

A particularily frustrating day was when for some reason we could not get the mold off the filter. I demanded that the guys stop trying to remove the mold as they were on the verge of breaking it. A mold costs about $400 to have made and the cement inside is worth only about $3. They finally consented and started the process of removing the mold a different way in order to break the cement off. But as soon as I left for the market, they put the mold back on and started again trying to force it. They ended up breaking a piece of the mold, stripping the nut and part of the metal plate. Thank goodness it was a smaller piece of the mold and not the large part. It cost a few dollars to fix, but I was very upset and disappointed. The hired mason (cement worker) apologized the next day, even getting on his knees, and I told him I hope he would take this as a learning experience and not make that potentially costly mistake again.

After allowing the filter to cure, you fill it with specific levels of washed gravel and sand, place a diffuser plate on a ledge to properly difuse water into the sand, and start pouring contaminated water into it. It does not require a pump as it works by siphoning effect. The tube coming out of the nose is fed through the cement, down to the bottom of the filter. When the water level is above the curve of the tube at the top, the water is automatically pushed out. When the water level equalizes again, the water stops running.

All the parts and equipment are made from locally available supplies (although not always easy to find as home depot does not exist there) and therefore can be built anywhere in the world.

Through a simple, yet complicated process, it removes up to 98% of bacteria, 99.9% of viruses, and 100% of protozoa and worms. It requires simple maintenance that requires the user to drag their fingers through the top layer of sand. If maintained properly it can last for decades.
All for about $20. The families are required to pay for it, but the cost of the filter is a fraction of what it would cost them to treat one bout of typhoid.

It has the potential to revolutionize drinking water and eradicate water-bourne illnesses in the area. If successful in Adoka, the program can be implemented in new villages and towns.

That is the filter in a nutshell....

the water in adoka

2007-02-06T15:19:00.000-08:00

The first day in town, while looking for filter supplies,

Dr. Aba stopped some girls who were walking by and
had them put their bowls down on the ground.
The young girls had just gone to the stream to collect
drinking water. This is what it looks like to the naked eye.

Can you imagine what it looks like under a microscope?

Above is a photo taken less than 50 metres from a river/water source. Nigerians seem to think they should dump their garbage right beside streams and rivers. The garbage ranges from plastic bottles to batteries, to paper, to rusty buckets to car parts. The children are walking through the garbage to get down to the river. In the top third of the photo, the river is inbetween the garbage and the bushes. Then, not 50 feet from the garbage dump and the river, we saw children relieving themselves...After relieving themselves, the children run down to the river to bathe and do their laundry. Many people also relieve themselves in the stream when no one is looking, or their "gifts" left on the banks are later washed into the river during the wet season. After bathing, washing laundry, and relieving themselves, the women and children load up their buckets full of water to take home to drink....

There are several places in town that have large tanks with "Buy your clean water here" painted on the sides. I don't know where they procure their clean water or how they ensure it is clean. But I certainly was not comforted when I saw this tanker trunk on the other side of the stream. The men dumped one end of the hose in the stream, hooked it up to the truck and started pumping water into the truck. Who knows what the destination is... I would probably just get more angry...

Below is me beside one of the rivers where people get their drinking water from. January to March is dry season, so the level of the river will only go down and the water will become more and more disgusting... but people have no other options due to the complexities of poverty (i.e. no money, no education, no understanding of hygiene)

how diarrhea and dehydration kept me motivated...

2007-02-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

There were many times during my time in Adoka that I wondered why I was there, was I really doing anything worthwhile, was it really worth the frustration?

My last weekend in Adoka kept me motivated and reminded me of the reason that I was sent to start the water filter program.

Nelvia (at right) came from Mkar for a week to work at the hospital in Adoka. She is a GP resident in training and was doing an international placement with the medical team. We were "on call" one weekend to try to give Dr. Aba a break. We spent most of saturday night at the hospital trying to revive babies. This first picture is of Monica, who came in with severe diarrhea and even more severe dehydration. During the evening a nurse had attempted a "cut-down" IV with no success. Nelvia tried an intra-osseus IV as a last resort. This is done by driving a large bore needle into the leg bone. You can rehydrate for 24 hours until you can get a regular IV. Hers went into the tissue, so we had to teach the parents how to feed her 20mL of IV fluid every hour and hoped that it would keep her a bit hydrated until the morning when we could try a scalp IV.

Then it was onto Joseph. He is 9 months old, but not much bigger than a 4 month old. It was at that time that his mother introduced some baby food to him - mixed with stream water. When you see the photos of the stream water, it will be no surprise why he started getting sick.
He stopped growing and became consistently ill for the following 5 months. As you can see, he is severely malnourished, not much more than a skeleton. He had been doing well during the day; eating and playing with the balloon. But sometime late in the night, he took a turn for the worse. The night nurse came to get Nelvia and I to try to intervene.

Joseph's whole body had started shutting down. He was so dehydrated that his eyeballs were dry and they rolled in his head like a doll. His limbs were flaccid - they just flopped around, and he was not responding to touch. Nelvia started a successful IV into the bone and we started to rehydrate. We had the generator turned on so that we could give him some oxygen and had his mother come and hold him.

After a couple of hours he started to perk up just a little, enough to make some eye contact with Nelvia and his mother. We started some blood donated by his mother (after I had to practically beat off his abusive grandmother who was screaming that he was no longer human).

It was during this time of trying to resusitate Joseph, that I looked down at his tiny body struggling to stay alive - and realized HE is the reason I was there to clean the water. Throw the frustrations of working on "african time" and the obstacles of getting the program off the ground... and focus on the real reason I was there. The helpless babes being fed stream water, getting diarrhea and dying by the thousands. I had to keep going for Joseph, whether he lived or died.
Unfortunately, Joseph lost his struggle only a few hours later. His body was too weak to keep going. Monica, on the other hand, recovered and was smiling and laughing the day I left Adoka.
Although I deeply grieve Joseph's death, it was the motivation to keep me going. I don't write this to try to depress people, but to give some hope - clean water will save the future Joseph's from ever knowing dehydration, malnutrition or death.

yakubu

2007-02-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

Although I went to Nigeria to start a water filter project, I could not stay away from the wards for too long...
I had seen Yakubu sitting outside many days - his left leg wrapped in a huge piece of guaze, his face a picture of pain when he tried to move, stand or walk. But his shy smile and quiet nature intrigued me and i asked more about him.
He had been abandoned by his parents for reasons unknown to me, and was discovered by a good samaritan woman who brought him to the hospital when she saw the state of his leg. He was being cared for by an aunt who came after he was admitted.

His lower leg, tissue and bone, was completely ravaged by a horrific infection with no hope of healing. The only option was amputation, which was done when Dr. Verbrugge, an American doctor on the team, came to visit adoka for a day. We knew he could do well if he had access to rehabilitation and a prosethic leg, but considering he was abandoned, there were no financial resources to pay for such things.

Dr. Verbrugge told him that within one year he could have a new leg and be playing football (soccer) with friends. This didn't sink in for Yakubu until the next day when he motioned for me to come to his bedside. Through an interpreter he asked if it was really true that he could get a new "rubber" leg and be walking without crutches. When I affirmed this, the look on Yakubu's face was one of astonished enlightenment.

I had been trusted with funds from various sources to help pay for treatment for needy people, and Yakubu continued to tug at my heart. I knew that without financial help, Yakubu would be on crutches for the rest of his life, with no chance of running and playing like a 13 year old boy should.

I am happy to report that a fund was set up at a Rehabilitation hospital in Mkar for Yakubu to receive physiotherapy and treatment for two months, and he will receive a prosethetic leg once his therapy is completed. His aunt agreed to accompany him so that someone is caring for his daily needs while in hospital (in Nigeria, the family must provide all food, bathing and personal care). Yakubu will be in Mkar by Feb. 10 to start treatment!

Yakubu and his aunt were deeply humbled and greatly appreciative of this help and encouragement, and he promises to work hard in physiotherapy so that he may soon be running and playing.

The seemingly small gifts of several people in Canada have contributed to an enormous change in a young man's life. A boy abandoned by his own parents is being cared for by an "international family" who has never even had the pleasure of meeting him. Yakubu's life is renewed not only because he will be receiving a new leg, but because he has received a new heart and hope where he thought there was none.

the power of prayer

2007-02-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

besides completing the basics of a water filter project in 2 1/2 weeks, not getting killed on the roads in nigeria, and arriving safely back home, i witnessed quite an answer to prayer that i have neve seen so readily and quickly before!
while i was still in mkar in mid-january, waiting to go to adoka, i spent some time going on rounds with the doctors in mkar hospital. the first patient we saw on ward six (male medical ward) was an unconcious man who had apparently suffered a stroke. with a history of hyptertension and consistent blood pressures of about 210/110, the three canadian doctors and i thought he must have suffered from a devastating intracerebral hemmorhage. on exam, he did not repsond to speaking or pain stimulus, had zero movement or pain reponse to to any limbs. the nurse and the wife said he had been like this for over a week. one of the doctors had the nurse tell the wife that we would treat him aggresively for a couple of more days, but that his prognosis was poor and he would likely die very quickly. another doctor suggested we pray for him and the family, so we offered an open-ended prayer up to God, then moved on to the next patients.
about 20 minutes later the wife came and tugged on my arm. "he's talking, please come and see" she said. i highly doubted this. i figured he was probably moaning and she misinterpreted it as speaking. but to appease her and settle my curiosity, i went with her to the patient's beside.
"good morning, how are you?" I asked in his native language of Tiv.
"nothings going on" he replied in Tiv.
my mouth agape, i asked if he had any pain and he quickly replied "no".
i went over and informed the other doctors that we need to pray for ALL the patients!!
i left for adoka the next day but learned that within a week he was talking and walking around the ward and was slated to go home within a week or two.
never doubt the power of prayer!

things are picking up

2007-01-23T00:18:00.000-08:00

i just have a few minutes to try to update and this keyboard has alot of sand dust stuck in it so it is difficult to type.

things got off to a slow start - i got out to the village of adoka on wednesday, and spent thursday - saturday looking for the right supplies. unfortunately there is no home depot here, therefore the efficiency of locating materials is a bit slow. but we did manage to find everything. finding the right sand for the filter has been tricky - at the moment we are not using the optimal sand but it will do the job.

we took the first filter to the catholic women's group yesterday - first swayed the 'reverend father' first. i gave a little introduction about the filter to about 100 women, then demonstrated by pouring dirty water in and clean water coming out. i felt like i was doing a magic show as i was standing in the back of a pickup truck and the looks on some of the older women's faces was priceless. their jaws dropped - weren't quite sure what was going on inside of the big cement box...
they were very interested and asked when they could get one and how much they would cost. so we have several potential orders already!
networking with people in the community is just as important as making the filter, so we have been meeting with alot of people. i met the chief of adoka the other night - that was a classic story all in itself. no time to post it now. i'll just say i sat on red velour couches in a room lit by a single red lightbulb and was served 'bubbling wine' with a taste reminiscent to laundry detergent...
it is going well though and people are very excited about clean water. i have seen what they drink out of the stream and it is not pretty...
i don't know when i can post again - we are in a different city right now..
we plan to start pouring the filters today - sift more rock and sand -
have a great day!
alida

17 minutes

2007-01-15T04:05:00.000-08:00

do you ever get impatient with the slowness of your computer?
let me give you some perspective.... it just took me 17 minutes to get into my blogger account and now i have 12 minutes to try to type up a message and actually get it posted. wish me luck..

i arrived safely with the team, we again had no problem in customs which is always miraculous. i was supposed to go to adoka yesterday but due to mechanical problems with the pickup truck i am going tomorrow morning. it actually worked out very well because i was able to see several friends this morning and distribute some asked for items (LED flashlights are popular).

This morning i saw the lady with the huge goiter lined up for surgery. so gilbert, wendy and family, she will likely have it tomorrow and i will make sure the other team members take photos. when she saw me she screamed with delight and gave me a huge hug! it was a joy to see her, she has an amazing joyful spirit that exudes out of her pores!
i went on rounds this morning - already have seen some interesting things - another child with burkitts lymphoma - a pediatric, african cancer. so i may use some sponsor money to help with chemotherapy. it is easily curable if treated early.

i am heading to adoka tomorrow to start on the water filters. the doctor, dr. aba, is so excited! he wants to drag a 300 pound filter around to communities to demonstrate it - i think we may have to bring the people to a filter rather than haul it around. but it is going to be interesting. he has a young woman who is a mechanical engineer lined up to learn about it, and as water is a "womans's job" here is is really aiming to get all the women on board (first convince the men it is a good thing, then implement with the women..
i gotta go, my time is almost up!!

i'm off to clean some water

2007-01-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

i am off again to nigeria from january 10-feb 3 on a different mission of sorts. i am going to a village called adoka to "teach the teachers" about a biosand water filtration program. we already have the steel mold built and test poured a filter - so that is ready to be up and running.

i will be teaching through the manual i used in the course i took - splitting time between theory and talking to building and testing water filters. i really just want the potential program managers to have a very good hold on the filter, understanding how it works, trouble shooting, setting it up etc. It will be up to them then, to implement the program in the surrounding communities. I will be working with people from a local nigerian organization called peace house - they have already acheived incredible things in other ventures. i am quite confident that this program will be carried out effectively. Dr. Aba, who runs a small mission hospital, is so excited i am sure he will be the motivating factor in getting the program off the ground.

i am a little nervous as i have never done this before and don't have "concrete" (sorry for the pun) plans in place. but i see this as a total "God thing" as my visa was renewed in a miraculous way, funding has come in without me really asking for it, it is now getting really cold the day i leave (so that i can roast in 40 degree celcius) :-) But i know God will work through me - it is not of my own doing!

I don't know how often i will be able to access the internet there as i will be in a smaller village... but i will try to keep you updated as often as possible..

Have a wonderful month - see you in february!

for more information about the water filter go to www.cawst.org
it was even featured in the calgary herald last week!

alida, turn your (red) light on!!

2006-11-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

I was able to visit a good friend, patti and her family in germany for a few days on the way back from nigeria. i had a great time of relaxing, hanging out with her children and husband, drinking real coffee, getting used to "western" life again.

I took a train to amsterdam on monday evening as my flight left midday on tuesday, and i decided to stay at a hostel in the heart of the red light district as it is close to the station, cheap, (and christian, therefore no crazy drunk tourists). i was dragging my bags down a street and accidently took a wrong turn so i pulled out my directions. an old, innocent looking man approached me and in dutch told me he was "not an amsterdamer" but perhaps he could help me. he directed me to a pub a few feet away and it being tiny suggested i not take my large bag inside. i put it on the ground but before i even took a step inside the bartender and a customer were yelling at me not to leave my bags outside as theft was rampant in the area. i backed up and what do you know, the nice old man had disappeared (thankfully without any of my bags!!) i should have clued in as i have never seen so many people on hard drugs in one place outside of east hastings in vancouver. i even saw a woman eating dirt out of a flower pot. i guess they have to steal their drug money from somewhere!! (this is the part where i should have turned my brain/light on, and been more aware of my surroundings!)

the customer and a stoned guy on the street were trying to figure out what street i needed to go to and the stoned guy apparently knew where it was. the customer suggested he might take me there for two euros... ya, i don't think so... i said i didn't have two euros and what do you know, the stoned guy went back to his friends who were snorting things beside the aforementioned flower pot.

i had to walk through the heart of the red light district which i found quite repulsive. i had been there many times in the past (when i lived in holland) but apparently i had only ever been on the fringe of it... there is some raunchy stuff there and full of male tourists checking out the female wares. i passed one really lovely gentleman who was the door guy for a live sex show and he had a scar from the left corner of his mouth to half way to his ear and it had been deep enough that it obviously cut his entire cheek. i walked a bit faster by him....

the hostel was quiet and clean and safe though and i had a good nights rest...

when i left the next morning at 9:30am there were no less than 6 people cooking crack cocaine on tin foil less than 20 paces outside the hostel doors. pretty sad stuff...

i am now back in calgary in one piece although my insides were almost frozen solid when i stepped outside the airport. i knew it couldn't be good when i saw amy dressed in a 3/4 length down jacket, hat, scarve and mitts. only a 70 degree difference from nigeria! i have not braved the outside yet today, but i need food so i am going to have to leave the house at some point!

i am returning to nigeria in january to try to start a biosand water filter program in a small village. i am a little scared as i have never done this before! we were able to have a steel mold made in november which is a huge part of it, so now it is about teaching about the filter to some designated teachers, and pouring and testing the mold. i pray it will be a success!

i am trying to sort out all my thoughts and experiences from this past month, and will try to put a short summary on my blog in the next few days... thanks for reading!!

dutch police, drugs and diarrhea

2006-11-25T02:38:00.000-08:00

So, what do these things have in common? me of course!! leave it to me to unknowinlgy cause some ``wahalla' without knowing it!!

just as we were leaving for the abuja airport, i started getting stomach cramps. the whole ride to the airport i was having violent stomach cramps and didn't know which end it might come out of. once in the airport i had to go to the bathroom five times before i even checked in!! i took 3 pepto bismal tabs, a bunch of maxeran (for vomiting which also makes one drowsy). i was feeling pretty dopey when i was checking in and kept doubling over my suitcase with unbelievable cramps about every 15 minutes. in one line up the wife of a swiss ambassador gave me some imodium which greatly helped. i had to ask for a seat near the toilet on the airplane and once i was sitting, all the stewardess were asking me if i was alright or tired. i told them i wasn´`t feeling well and had taken medication that made me tired. after a stopover in another nigerian city, a stewardess took me to the front of the plane to let me lie down in 3 empty seats.

apparently, as i was walking by, jenny and leanne told some people near them that i was their friend and not feeling well. a dutch guy who later identified himself as a dutch drug police agent said that all the KLM staff had alerted them to me as i appeared stoned in the airport. apparently, the dutch police had been alerted that alot of drugs were being taken from nigeria to holland and they were there to investigate. the police agents had been watching me closely in the airport. then jenny and leanne without yet knowing who he was told him that i had `taken alot of drugs`` and had ``overdosed`' in the airport, and was having stomach cramps!! so they probably thought i had bags of cocaine in my stomach!! when jenny and leanne were told who they were, they made sure they clarified that i had diarrhea and had taken legal medication that made me droswy!!

so while i was passed out on the three seats, i was being discussed and watched as a possible drug addict!! i had no idea any of it was happening as i was completely passed out!! i thought it was pretty funny and i was thankful that i was not subjected to a bodily cavity search!!

only i can seem to get into this kind of situation!!

i am now in germany, visiting a friend and will be back in canada on the 28th!!

see you then!!

there is a plan...

2006-11-19T07:11:00.000-08:00

this week God reminded me that he has a plan and purpose for everything. one of my boxes was stuck in minneapolis for a good time, then the phone numbers i gave klm in nigeria for contacts in the country did not work, then the office at the airport was closed on the day the driver was in town.... finally the box arrived on thursday, the second last day we spent in mkar. i had been fairly irritated with the whole process because i wanted to hand out all the supplies. so on friday, i still had the majority of supplies sitting in the house still.

friday morning, i walked up to the house where we eat breakfast, and a man was laying on the sidewalk who looked like he was 15 months pregnant with triplets. he had the hugest ascites (fluid in the belly) i have ever seen. so much that it had started leaking from his belly button!! he was on his death bed, he could barely breathe as the fluid in his abdomen was pushing on his lungs. dr. reedyk decided that we would offer him some relief by tapping his abdomen on the front stoop. and what do you know, i had all the supplies in the box! we put a 16 gauge (really huge) needle in his belly, hooked it up to an IV tube and drained it into a bucket over several hours. i even had tegaderm bandages to cover the site with. over a period of several hours, over 8 liters of fluid drained from his abdomen on the front lawn. "real bush medicine" at work! it was disturbing, but cool. he felt alot of relief and his breathing improved. if we hadn't had all the supplies, we would have had to admit him (a family with no money anyways - you are really desperate when you drop someone on a doctors sidewalk for help).

a little later in the day, joe, our engineer was on the front porch was talking to his wife on the phone when he mistepped and fell off the porch. he dislocated his shoulder and they couldn't get it back in without some valium. jenny and leanne started an IV with the supplies from work, leanne ran to the hospital to get some valium, and we sedated him a bit to "reduce" his shoulder back into place. again, if the box had arrived on time i would have given away all the supplies and would have nothing on hand. God works in mysterious ways!

So to my colleagues at work, I have photos of all those discarded supplies that you have faithfully put in the box, being put into use! Thank you for your efforts!

This trip has carried with it alot more frustrations than last year with the nursing students and it was easy to get overwhelmed, angry, irritated. i have been questioning my desire or calling to work and live in africa. i talked with several people who have lived here for decades and ask how they cope. they have encouraged me to focus on the people that show hope, determination, desire, and mentor them. i did meet a few nigerians along the way that give me hope... a 15 year old boy who is head of the household as his mother died, his father works out of state, he is responsible to put his younger twin sisters through school. he shows a strong desire to work hard and suceed, and i really want him to pursue education. so i have invested time in my relationship with him, encouraging him... please pray that i don't get disillushioned with the
"bigger" more depressing picture...

we are heading up to "the bush" tomorrow and i am looking forward to seeing all my old friends in the village of mahula. apparently they have internet up there, so hopefully i will be able to update there...

peace alida

it's all in the name

2006-11-19T07:07:00.000-08:00

some interesting store and church names i have seen around the country...

embryo book shop

senile youth corp

bature (white person) medical clinic and midwifery

sympathizers coffin and casket

semen fashion

catholic charismatic renewal centre

de final home - casket construction place