Obama’s cow

This morning, Mr. Nindi told us that he had bought a cow for us to bring home to Obama. We all agreed that Obama would greatly appreciate the gift. And really what’s a better photo op than a cow laying around on the white house lawn? Unfortunately Obama’s cow was not so keen on the idea and seemed to value her freedom more than a trip to the US. When the shamba-man cut off the rope that was keeping her leg tied to a post, she immediately made a run for it. We watched as the shamba-man sprinted out the gate after the fleeing cow. An hour later, Obama’s cow was finally back in captivity. Lesson of the day: cows can run much faster than you’d think.

Nyumba! Nyumba! Nyumba!

With Jacqueline gone at a teacher’s conference, the Nindis asked us to occupy the kids for the day with an English lesson, which somehow turned into a trip to the nearby mud pit to collect “clay”. The idea was to use the clay to teach the alphabet, but inevitably, when you combine a mud pit, thirteen little kids, and two supervisors who barely speak Swahili, the result is far from an organized lesson. As the more behaved kids, like Dominik, Daniel and Beatrice, used water and a huge machete to stir up the dry mud, some of the others strayed from the original purpose of the mini field trip. Faustina and Elizabeth managed to cover their entire faces with clay, and as lunchtime approached, even started to snack on it.
At one point, Charles attempted to pee on everyone, which prompted Rachel to chase him around with the machete. At first, we tried to use our broken Swahili to keep the kids under control, but we soon realized that, despite their age, they have had a lot more experience with machetes than we do and probably didn’t even need our supervision. All the kids keep each other in check, even Faustina, the youngest, carries around a small whip to punish troublemakers.
Elizabeth with a very muddy face

Zula

Along with our nightly Swahili lessons, we’ve also been learning about the tribal languages, especially Kikamba. Tonight, Mrs. Nindi, Jacqueline, Rosemary, and us were talking about the kids over tea, and we got on to the subject of their second names. The second names are in the tribal language and often have very specific meanings having to do with the conditions of their birth or personality. Some of them are very fitting and some are very random. For example, “Muthoki” (that’s the eldest, Elizabeth’s, second name) means that “in-laws on the fathers side were visiting at her birth”. Faustina’s second name means that she’s “small as a black green gram” at birth (a green gram is a lentil). When Mrs. Nindi pointed out that Angela and teacher Jacqueline share the same second name, Zula, all the women started laughing. Apparently in Kikamba, “Zula” means “extra finger” and it’s given to those, like Angela and Jacqueline, who have a wart or birthmark on their hand. Now we feel pretty lucky to have kamba names that mean such simple things as “beloved” (Muende) and “happy” (Mutanu).

You can't buy love, but apparently you can buy a family

Today we visited Machakos Academy, the sixth and possibly final primary school in our search for a new boarding school for our sponsor girls. One of the pros of Machakos Academy is that it’s within walking distance from town. On our walk back to town, we bought a bunch of red bananas, a second-hang “Obama” shirt, and were even offered a baby. As we walked by a woman with a young son and a cute baby, we said, “Habari?”. I guess she took the simple greeting as an interest in purchasing a child. “Do you want a baby? I am selling this one!” Later on, a supposed “professor” stopped us on the street, and proposed to Mutanu that once he was able to pay her the bride dowry, he would like to marry Muende. By the end of the day, we could have had a legitimate three-generation family.

Muende na Mutanu's Excellent Adventure

The other week, we had our sponsor girls, Betty, Lilian, and Vivian, staying with us at the Malia Children's Home. After only a year, they looked and acted so much older, and somehow jumped two years in age. Betty, who was only 11 when we met her, was 13 going on 14 this year. As it turns out, the birthdays that they told us were just random days that Betty and Nancy had made up for the four of them. When we found out that the girls didn't actually know their real birthdays, we asked Vivian, "So you weren't actually born on January 5th?" She responded, "your birthday is the day you were born?!" The kids loved having older Kenyan girls around, and each girl took a special liking to one of the little kids. It's no surprise that spunky Faustina and Vivian were joined at the hip, and Beatrice, the sweet and quiet six-year-old, never left Betty's side. The kids were definitely sad to see the girls go when we brought them back to school the next weekend.

Betty, during our game of bananagrams.

We took a two hour matatu ride with Betty and Lilian to their school in Nakuru. After being in the very dry region of Machakos, we were so surprised to see how green and lush the Rift Valley is. Although the matatu ride was long and cramped, the beautiful scenery made it worth while. Their school, St. Mary's, was nice, although we couldn't get a good feel for it because no other kids had arrived yet. Unfortunately, we didn't have very much time to spend at the school because we wanted to make it back to Nairobi before it got dark. The matatu ride back to Nairboi was far from relaxing. Not only was it pouring rain as we sped through winding mountain roads, but our driver considered speed more important than safety. He spent most of the time in the wrong lane, trying to pass other cars. We tried not to look out the window, as we would often find huge trucks quickly approaching. It wasn't a surprise when our matatu rear-ended the car in front of us. Finally, after more than half of an hour, the two drivers came to some sort of an agreement with the help of almost all the matatu passengers. Luckily, after the minor accident, our driver was a lot more cautious.


Vivian and Lilian helping father Charles out of the ditch.

Pictures!

Father Charles on the farm


Mr. Nindi and all of the kids, singing after dinner

Posing with tires in front of the chicken coop(Father Charles and Dominik)


Hiking through the beautiful shambas with Mr Nindi




All of the kids with housemother Rosemary(L) and teacher Jacqueline


Mrs. Nindi cooking Ugali

The Shrining

Today the entire Nindi family piled into the pick-up truck and took a field trip to “the shrine”. On the first Friday of every month, local Catholics gather at this shrine, which was created in 2005 by an Italian priest. It’s on the top of a hill and you can see the farmland below in all directions…very picturesque. At the end of the event, the priest was making announcements and spotted us in the pews. “we have visitors here sent from Obama”, he said, and asked us to stand up and make a speech. We introduced ourselves in Swahili with our Kamba (the majority tribe in Machakos) names, Muende (Shira) and Motanu (Abby). This got us a big round of applause and cheers from the crowd of over one hundred Kenyan churchgoers.

We thought that the ride to the shrine had been squished (with the two of us, twelve kids, Betty, Lilian, Vivian, and the teacher all packed in) until the ride back, when we found out how many can really fit in the back of a pickup truck. Not only were there those from the way there, but we added in two other kids, another woman from church, a woman with her son, and another woman, the only one who wasn’t actually invited in but somehow came along anyways. The total count was twenty-four people in the back, with another three riding up front. It was so tightly packed that complete strangers who we picked up on the side of the road were holding kids in their laps. Everyone, led by 6 year old father Charles, was singing songs in Swahili. One of the most uncomfortable/fun/memorable car rides of our lives.

The photo below shows just one corner of the pick-up truck!