I went with a team of 17 people from Blackhawk, ranging in age from 19 to mid-50s, and consisting of mostly doctors/nurses and teachers/educators. Once in Kenya, we met up with 3 other men who joined our team for the week.
Friday 6/21
After a long trip (16 hours in a plane), we made it to Kenya late on Friday night (Kenya time). We picked up some necessities and headed straight to the guest house for bed. We stayed at Kijiji (pronounced "ka-jee-jee") Guest House in Karen, a suburb of Nairobi. Kijiji (or "the Jeej" as we started calling it halfway through the trip) consisted of 2 large, round buildings with many 2 or 3-person bedrooms, and one cottage big enough for 4 people. I stayed in the cottage with Colleen (whom I shared a bedroom with), Julie, and Tara. We eventually deemed our cottage "The Ladies Lounge" because we were the only ones with a living room area and kitchen. The accommodations were pretty nice for Kenya. The bathrooms/showers were similar to nicer camping bathrooms in the States. We slept in beds like you would find at a summer camp. I slept pretty hard every night I was there, so they must not have been that bad. ;)
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| Outside view of our "Ladies Lounge" cottage at Kijiji |
Saturday 6/22
Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early, and grabbed breakfast at the Kijiji cafeteria. One of my biggest worries was the food, but we actually ate a lot of things you would eat in the States. Breakfast usually consisted of eggs, toast, and sausage (although the sausage was very different than ours...rumor has it that it could've been chicken or even warthog!). Some days we even had french toast. After breakfast, we drove to Beacon of Hope, the organization our church partners with and that we were working with for the week. BOH helps women with or affected by AIDS, in addition to running a clinic for AIDS testing, treatment, and education, and a primary school for ages 3-8. BOH teaches women with or affected by AIDS various skills to help them provide for their family. Women there can learn weaving, sewing, beadwork, or cooking. The products they make are then sold and the profits go to the women. BOH is growing quickly, so when we went on Saturday morning for a tour, we were able to see the new buildings in the process of being built. They are building a youth center, where teens can spend time and take classes on music, art, cooking, etc., a guest house for groups like us to come and stay, a large group gathering room for large group meetings and morning devotions, and a new school building to house more grades than the school has now. It was so cool to see all they are doing for the community. After the tour, the teachers on our team met with the teachers of BOH Academy to discuss our plans for the 2 days we were going to spend with them. They had given us a list of things they wanted our help with and for us to bring, so we had to narrow down what we would have time to accomplish.
Afterwards, we grabbed a quick lunch at a coffee shop (similar to Panera), and headed to another organization our church is involved with called Care of Creation. COC teaches local farmers good farming practices in order to help preserve the land. There is a lot of deforestation happening in parts of Kenya due to people mainly relying on fire as a heating source for cooking. Farmers also don't use the land wisely when they farm, so COC is helping them farm in order to prevent erosion and to use space wisely. We were served tea and mandazis (like a donut) upon arrival, heard all about what COC is doing, and then saw some of their garden plots, demonstrating the farming practices they teach.
That night, we got dinner at Kijiji and had a laid-back evening. A few people came over to our cottage to hang out and then went to bed.
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| The main building at Beacon of Hope |
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| Beacon of Hope Academy |
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