Giraffe Centre

The Giraffe Centre is a breeding centre for Rothschild Giraffes as they became an endangered species after suffering severe habitat loss in western Kenya.  Their population was as low as 130 giraffes when the centre opened about 30 years ago but their numbers have now increased to around 300 giraffes.  They are such magnificent creatures – so charismatic, gentle and exotic looking!  I could watch them forever!!  The reticulated and Masai giraffes are apparently plentiful in Kenya - it is only the Rothschild Giraffe that is an endangered species.

There was a great deal of educational material at the centre but we did not take the time to read it as we were so enthralled with the giraffes and wanted to spend every minute we had at the centre with them.  The centre provides a raised platform for viewing and feeding the giraffes.  There are many giraffes in the forested and grassy areas surrounding the platform that you could also view clearly.   We were given pellets of food and carrots to feed them as they stuck their heads over the railing on the raised platform.  It was wonderful to see them so close up.  Their coloring is so magnificent and they have huge eyes with long curly dark eyelashes.  They would allow us to pet them although they were not too enthralled with that as they were more interested in the food.  When we held out the pellets of food to them they would so gently remove them from our hands.  It is hard to believe that such a large animal can be so gentle!  One of the employees at the centre suggested that we feed them carrots from between our teeth.  We gave it a try and they gently took the carrot from between our lips but often gave us a big sloppy kiss as they were doing it.  (And you thought it was disgusting when Shia would sneak a lick on my face!!)

It was hard to say good-bye to these gentle giants but we wanted to grab some lunch before I headed off to Celia and Peterson’s new home in Nairobi.  Celia and Peterson had decided to move their family to Nairobi after being robbed in their home on the base.  They are now renting an apartment on a well secured property.  They invited me to stay with them for a night to see their new home and go to the Vineyard church with them in the morning.  Their new apartment is really lovely so I am very happy for them.  After we had a cup of brewed coffee (a real treat because I can only get instant on the base) we went shopping for dinner.  We walked through their neighborhood to a produce shop and a butchers shop.  The produce shop was quite clean and appealing but the butcher’s shop was a bit scary.  The carcass of beef that was hanging in the window was covered in flies.  The butcher cut off a slice of beef for us with a dirty knife.   He was handling it without wearing any sanitary gloves and then he placed it on a very dirty scale.  By the time we had bought it I was pretty much turned off eating it.

I had a wonderful time at their house – relaxing on their couch and watching a movie with them.  These are two treats that I have not been able to enjoy since arriving here.  The next morning I was able to have a warm shower!!!  What a treat!

Happy Easter

Thanks so much all of you who wrote me an Easter greeting.  I hope you had a great Easter!  Today is Easter Monday and although the DTS School had classes today, we in the OATS (Organic Agricultural Training School) were given the day off so I thought I should take advantage of this slower day to post a long overdue blog.  In this blog I will share the activities of this Easter weekend with you.

My Easter weekend started on Thursday evening at the base.  I was actually in Nairobi that day with Antonia as we had to get an extension to our visitors’ visas that were about to expire.  We managed to accomplish this in 5 hours and so decided to escape to the Java House to reward ourselves with some good North American food.  I was enjoying a mango yogourt smoothie and a curried chicken dinner thinking that this would be my one meal of the day.  As we were nearing the end of the meal we received a text from one of our classmates reminding us that there was going to be a special event that night for Easter so we all had extra work duties that afternoon.  We gobbled down the last of our food and quickly headed back to the base to our work duty.

We had a wonderful chicken dinner that night with music playing softly in the background.  When everyone was finished eating we moved to another section of the dining hall for a beautiful Easter service where communion was served.  It was really a nice start to the weekend and I was stuffed for the first time since arriving here.  I had only had chicken about 3 times since arriving in Kenya and then I had it twice in one day!

On Friday we went on outreach to do some bio-intensive farming with a group of Mamma’s in a near-by community.  Their garden was situated on a sloped plot of land so we turned over the soil in 10 garden beds that are 5 ft by 120 ft. each, and then dug deep trenches around them and raised the beds as high as we could so that they would not be flooded by the rain waters.  We showed them how to plant kale, onions and spinach that day and let them do most of the planting.  We then covered the beds with dried grass to form a mulch layer over them.  There were about 8 Mamma’s farming with us from the group of 13 that are working together on this plot of land and many children from the surrounding community also joined in the excitement.  On the section of land beside us there was a Dad trying to teach his 9 year old boy how to plough the field with 2 oxen and a single furrow plough.  It was cute watching him try to control the oxen and the plough – no easy feat I tell you!

On Saturday morning Casey, Rebecca and I headed off for Nairobi in the base’s car with Fred as our driver.  Casey is a DTS student (Descipleship Training School) from Atlanta Georgia and Rebecca is a DTS student from Lethbridge, Alberta.  We went to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust – an elephant orphanage in Nairobi National Park which is the only one of its kind in Africa.  They take in baby elephants that have been orphaned by poachers, disease or starvation and parent them with humans until they can be placed in a herd with other elephants. The elephants live in a nursery for 2 – 5 years with surrogate parents that live with them 24 /7.  The trainers even sleep with the elephants every night and if they have to leave them for a few minutes they arrange for someone else to replace them.  Apparently the babies cry quite loudly when their trainers leave their presence.

They feed about 20 baby elephants with bottles between 11:00 A.M. and noon each day and this is the only time you are allowed to see the elephants as they do not want them to become too comfortable with humans.  Their mandate is to rehabilitate the elephants and release them back into the wild.  They brought them out in groups of 10 and told us their age, life story, gave us a health update and told us a bit about each of their personalities.  I was able to pat a number of them as they paraded around in front of the crowd.  Their skins are very leathery and the older ones were covered in dirt that they had thrown up on themselves.  The elephants had very distinct personalities.  Some of them were doing silly things to get attention while others were hiding behind their trainers because they were shy.  One curious elephant headed into the crowd of onlookers because there was a woman in the crowd with an injured leg that was wrapped in a bandage and he wanted to check the bandage out.  Another woman was on crutches and one of the other elephants kept trying to take one of her crutches from her.  Luckily no one’s foot was stepped on because even as babies they are mighty heavy.  The youngest elephant was 2 months old and had two blankets wrapped around her belly to protect her lungs from pneumonia.  This would apparently be a death sentence to an elephant.

There is another section to the orphanage where the elephants are cared for another 5 – 10 years before they try to introduce them to the wild herds that will hopefully adopt them.  Elephants apparently live as long as we do and they never forget the trainers that parent them or their orphanage home.  They return to the orphanage for a visit on occasion, especially if they are sick, injured or if something wonderful has happened in their life like having a baby.

I thoroughly enjoyed just being a tourist for a day.  The little elephants were so delightful!  After this we headed off to the Giraffe Centre that was only a few kilometers away.

Night Intruders

Orphanage Home on YWAM Base

The night before the October DTS’s graduation ceremony was the one year anniversary of Able’s murder on the base.  Many on the leadership team were very heavy hearted as they remembered the terrible events of that night.  However, they were determined not to let this memory interfere with the festivities planned for the following day and they tried to be cheerful and to make it a special time for those graduating.

Everything appeared normal when we went to bed that night.  Celia and Peterson tucked in their children in the orphanage house as normal.  They are parenting a boy that they adopted from Brazil as well as 8 foster children from Kenya and two children of their own.  At 1:30 A.M. Celia and Peterson awoke to the sound of glass being shattered in their bedroom window.  Four thieves outside shone a light in their room and told them to open the door to their house or they would burn it down.  Celia and Peterson were still half asleep and confused about what to do when their oldest boy, Julian, heard the commotion and came to help them.  He decided to comply with the thieves wishes but stalled on his way to the door so that he could call his friends on the main part of the base that is about a 7 minute walk away. 

When his friend got the news he called the leadership on the base.  Soon someone was running through the dorm area banging on doors and yelling “thieves”.  They were trying to gather all of the guys from the dorm to rush out to the defense of the orphanage.  Believe it or not, my roommates and I slept through the whole thing!  By the time the guys got to the orphanage, the thieves had been scared away by the night guard so when Julian opened the door to them, they ran away.  Everyone was celebrated that nothing was stolen and no one was hurt.

The graduation day was a real festive event that everyone enjoyed.  Some people stayed up till midnight celebrating.  At 1:30 A.M. Celia and Peterson were awoken by thieves once again.  This time there were 11 of them gathered outside of their house with machetes, knives and clubs.  The thieves saw the night guardsman and chased him for miles but luckily were unable to catch him which probably was a huge Godsend as they knew he would go for reinforcements which would reduce the time they could occupy the house.  They demanded to be let in the house once again.  This time Julian did not have time to get in touch with one of his friends so he just dialed up one of them and left the phone out where he could hear what was going on at the house.  As soon as this friend realized the orphanage was being attacked, he ran through the dorm area screaming thieves and gathering up the guys to fight them.  We all heard what was going on this time and were concerned for our safety as the base is very isolated. 

The thieves took computers, a DVD player, jewelry, cash, a day’s earnings from Peterson’s bus business, cell phones plus a few other desirables like nice shoes and clothes.  They told Celia they were going to rape her which is common place here during robberies.  At one point one of the thieves took her by the hand and started to lead her away.  She thought he was going to rape her but then he saw her wedding ring and started to struggle to take it off her finger.  She helped him get it off and then he just walked away.  The thieves woke up all of the children in the house to demand cash and cell phones from them - even the 5 and 8 year olds.  One child was under the bed and they grabbed her by the leg and pulled her out.  As awful as the whole ordeal was, I could see God’s hand of protection in it because no one was physically harmed which is very unusual in robberies and their credit cards fell out of one of the purses into a bag of old clothes so they were at least able to buy food on credit after all their money was stolen.

When all of the guys from the base arrived the thieves ran away.  Everyone was concerned about them returning to rob the main base so the guys remained outside all night and hid in the tall grass and behind water tanks so that they could surprise the thieves if they returned.  The next morning they were all talking about how they needed to get bows and arrows so that they could defend us better.  The 2 night guardsmen now carry bows and arrows and we have had a couple of armed policemen sleeping at our base to provide back-up support to the guardsmen if necessary.  I think in a couple of more days we are going to be on our own again though because the base cannot afford police protection.

Celia & Peterson moved their family into a new home in Nairobi this week that has a really good security system.  They no longer felt safe living on the base.  Some of the leadership has also been leaving the base as they have lived through a few robberies and are having trouble sleeping at night.  Luckily I will be leaving this base in a few weeks.

October Descipleship Training School Class

Graduation Day Photo

A couple of weeks ago we were awoken at 4:00 A.M. by the sound of happy chatter, giggles and laughter.  The October DTS had returned from Outreach and they were obviously happy to be back on base.  They had been on outreach for 2 months and had experienced a great deal in a short time.  The majority of them had been sick at some point on their outreach and some were sick the whole time they were gone with either diarrhea, malaria, typhoid or amoeba infections.  Outreach is a time when they go out into the communities to preach the gospel and help churches or missions who are already established.  Sometimes they go to very remote areas where they have never seen white people and the gospel has never been preached.

I would like to briefly share some of their experiences with you.  They often went a day at a time without food or water.  They basically camped the whole time or lived in churches.  They said that in 1 location there were many rats living with them and one Canadian said that she woke up with rat feces in the part of her hair.  They told a story of having to kill an antelope that was caught in a fence with a dull small knife and then they cooked and ate the animal.

One of the American girls was offered a bracelet when visiting one of the tribes.  One of the guys offered her the bracelet and then put it on her arm.  She smiled and thanked him.  Within a short time his mother was dancing around her and whooping it up.  Someone came with a cow horn and dipped it in something and sprinkled it all over her.  Shortly after she saw the whole village coming toward her and she started getting worried about what was going on.  Apparently the guy had proposed to her and she had accepted so the village was coming to celebrate that they were getting married.  There was apparently a lot of confusion after when she was trying to rectify the misunderstanding but she managed to escape with the rest of the group.

In another area that the group went, the women did not wear tops and it was common to see them breast feeding their babies without covering themselves.  As soon as these women saw the girls from the DTS, they passed them their babies so that they could take care of them.  When the babies started fussing they would try to get the girls to offer their breasts as a soother to the babies.  At first they tried to act out what the girls should do but when they were not getting the desired result, the villagers started to pull up the girls' tops to help them understand what they were to do.  The girls were not too comfortable with this so they just handed the babies back to their mothers.

They also went to a mountain region populated by 3 different tribes. There has been a great deal of conflict between these tribes during government elections which occur every 5 years.   Every family that they came in contact with had lost family members to the rebels.  They only had temporary structures because they knew that their houses would be burned down again in 5 years.  There was so much hopelessness in this group that they were hungry for the message of the gospel.  They ate up every moment with the DTS class and begged them to send another group when it was time to leave.  This seemed to be the DTS class's favorite experience.

On Friday, the 23 students in this class were honored at a graduation ceremony that 200 friends, staff, other students and people from the surrounding community attended.  It really was a big affair as we prepared a chicken dinner with vegetables, rice, fruit salad, and cake for all who attended.  This was by far the best food I have had since arriving here!!  My classmates and I from the Organic Agriculture Training School prepared the dining hall, decorated it, and served the food to all the guests.  It was quite an enjoyable day.

Sunday - Mavuno Church

I accidentally made arrangements to go to two churches on Sunday. I was going to try out Miriam and David's church in Nairobi but when Miriam was sick all week with typhoid and an amoeba infection, I made plans to go to the Karen Vineyard again with Scilia's family - also in Nairobi. I had gone there the week before and absolutely loved it. It has the same flavor of any other Vineyard and the Pastor is Canadian so I could fully enter into the worship and could get lost in the sermon with no strange accents to overcome. This Vineyard is actually a pretty wealthy church that is located in a private school for privileged children. Most of the people attending it are businessmen, those involved with the United Nations or embassies and many missionaries that have come from all over the world. I felt so at home there that it was a great short term escape from my life at the base. Oh, and they offer free coffee with cream during the break between the two services so that gets it a thumbs up right off the bat!!! I can count on one hand the number of times I have had coffee since arriving here. Late Saturday night I found out that Miriam and David did want to go to church and had made arrangements to use the YWAM base's car so they needed a full vehicle to help pay for the gas. I altered my plans and went to Mavuno Church for a 9:00 A.M. service. This church is huge - between 3,000 & 3,500 attend each week. Most of the people who attended it were in their 20's & 30's so the praise and worship was very lovely but a bit too loud for me. ( I never thought I would say that - I must be getting older.) It really was a great church for this age group and the Pastor had an excellent, practical sermon on love and dating. They are even playing parts of his sermon on one of the radio stations in Nairobi because it has caught the attention of some outside the church. The church is housed in a number of huge tents. We were in the main one that probably holds about 1000 people but they had other ones where you could watch the service by remote TV. They had a restaurant and drink bar at the church so Miriam and David headed off theree after the service while 3 of us went to another meet and greet tent for visitors. We were given large glasses of mango juice while they told us about their church. I was really impressed with the level of organization at this church because it is distinctly unusual for Kenya. After church, Miriam and David asked us if we would like to go out for lunch. Of course we wanted to get some good food so we headed off to the Java House for chicken burgers, salad and coffee. The food there was fantastic! We finished off a beautiful day with some window shopping in one of the malls. It is so uplifting to get off the base on the weekend for a change of scenery and some good food.

Saturday Afternoon in Nairobi

As we left the slum, those of us who were from North America pulled out our hand sanitizer and cleaned the germs from the slum off our hands. We raced to the city centre to exchange some of our money before the banks closed. I ended up visiting 5 banks but none were willing to cash my travelers cheques. I didn't think this would be such an impossible task in such an international city but the Kenyan banks are very strange about money. They will not exchange American dollars that are older than the year 2008. If you hand them an American bill with a fold in it, they will give you a much lower exchange rate. Anyways, I ended up getting a cash advance from Visa to provide myself with some cash for this weekend. We all decided to go to an Ethioian restaurant that Warrio had heard was very good. We didn't really know where it was so ended up walking through a large part of the city centre where all of the government buildings are. It is actually a very nice part of the city with parks and beautiful old Bitish buildings as well as modern sky scrapers. We were very hot and hungry when we arrived at the restaurant. We sat in an area with a large U-shaped couch and a coffee table to eat from. Warrio and Addis suggested a vegetarian dish that they thought we would like as well as a curried beef and chicken dish. The food was really flavorful which is something that we have all been craving as Kenyan food is very bland. The Ethiopians do not use utensils to eat their food but use a crepe type fermented bread called injira to scoop their food off their plates and into their mouth. They also eat from communal plates. The curried chicken came with one breast of chicken on top and I had ordered this dish to share with Ian so I asked how we were going to divide up the chicken. I was hoping Warrio would ask the waiter for a knife to cut it but he picked up the chicken breast and started pulling it apart with his fingers. It was quite tough so he passed it to Addis to finish the job. They then held out the plate to me so that I could take my portion of the chicken. I was in shock as neithr of these guys had washed their hands since shaking everyone's hands in the slum. I wanted to pass on the chicken but thought that would be too rude, so I took the smallest piece that I could find and said a quick prayer over it before popping it in my mouth. After the main course we had an Ethiopian coffee ceremony. The coffee was served in a demi tasse and was very strong but not at all bitter! It was actually very delicious! When we were finished lunch we went to the supermarket to stock up on foods to supplement our meals at the base. I got oatmeal, peanut butter, cashews, almonds, figs, dates, and chocolate. I think you can see that food has become very important to us! Warrio then led us all to a stand where you could get huge fruit salads or mango/beet juice/avocado drinks. I went for the drink and the other Canadians went for both. We were then escorted to the bus stop and said good-bye to Warrio and Addis as they were staying in the city overnight. We always have to make sure that we get back to the base before night fall as it is very dangerous for us to be out in the dark. Shortly before our bus stop Joelle started urging us to get off the bus so we got the driver to stop and let us off. Joelle got the runs and felt like she was going to explode on the bus so was in a big hurry to get off. She departed in such a hurry that she forgot her I-pod so everyone on the bus was calling us to come back and get it. I thought that was extremely honest of them considering the level of poverty in this area. We walked for about a half an hour back to our base and were quite happy to miss dinner and have a quick sponge bath to cool off.

This Weekend - A Visit to Makuru Slum in Nairobi

This weekend was really great. It all started with a quiet afternoon on Friday when all of my roommates headed off to Machacos to the open market. I was totally out of funds because I could not find a bank in Machacos that was willing to cash my travelers cheques. On Saturday, we would be heading into Nairobi so I was hoping that with it being a large international centre, the banks would be willing to cash it there. Anyways, it was such a treat to have some time to myself. I washed clothes, e-mailed, read and listened to my radio (a huge luxury) while I was puttering around. The girls had a great time in Machacos and came back laden down with produce for smoothies - a blended drink of fruit and green leafy vegetables that we supplement out diet with - as well as a number of purses and a dress. Friday night after everyone had returned home, it started to pour outside. This was the first rain we had had since last August! We were all pretty excited when we saw it pelting down because it meant that we would not have to haul buckets of water out to our gardens to water them that evening. On Saturday, we headed off to Nairobi with a few of our classmates. My 3 roommates, Ian (a Civil Engineer from Tanzania), Warrio and Addis (two classmates from Ethiopia)and I hit the road around 9:00 A.M. We had arranged to visit the slum that Warrio grew up in. He had been sent there as a young boy to live with an older brother. Lynda and Dale, the founders of Organics 4 Orphans, had suggested that we visit The Kibara slum while we were here as it was one of the largest slums in the world and something worth experiencing. We shared this with some of our classmates from Kenya and they told us we would not be allowed to enter without armed police guarding us as Al Shaabab had taken up residence in this area. They are the terrorist group that has taken over much of Somalia and are presently at war with Kenya. We decided we did not want to be depending on the police to protect our lives as being a policeman in Kenya is just a license to take bribes. They do not seem very trustworthy and I remember when I was in Mozambique with Heidi and Roland baker that Heidi told me she told her children that if they ever saw the police to start walking in the opposite direction. Most of them are quite corrupt. Since Warrio grew up in an adjacent slum to Kibara we asked him if he would be willing to show us around his old stomping grounds. He was very happy to do so and suggested that we head off early in the morning before the sun was too hot and the stench too bad in the slum. We took a matatu (public bus) into Nairobi. That is always an experience in itself. These guys drive like maniacs. They are always in a hurry because time is money so they constantly pass other vehicles on the shoulder of the highway, in the ditches, or just by flinging themselves in front of oncoming traffic and hoping that they will slow down and let them into their lane of traffic rather than collide with them. It's best to keep your eyes off the road when riding these buses because you constantly feel like screaming out warnings to the driver. We walked from the main highway to the slum that was Warrio's old neighborhood. We passed through a shopping mall collinade and stepped into a whole new world. The slums were not too bad at this point because the main street was still paved and people lived in cinderblock apartment blocks where families would live in either a 1 or 2 room apartment. Clothes were drying in the wind as they hung from all the balconies and from clothes lines on the roof tops. There were sewage ditches on the sides of the road and planks across them where stalls were set up and people were selling their wares. People were everywhere! As we walked deeper into the slums it became much dirtier. The streets were just mud and the homes were made from sticks and sheets of corrugated tin. There were goats walking everywhere and garbage cluttering the streets and gutters. There was feces on the street as many just squat and go where they are. We passed some men rolling oil drums through the streets and were told that they were collecting feces and removing it to a place just outside the slum. People still had their businesses set up on the side of the road beside the gutters but they were tiny booths made from sticks with plastic to shade them from the sun. It was interesting to see people getting their hair cut by the side of the road and then they would burn the hair in front of the beauty salon. There was a number for the fire department painted on one of the walls so I asked Warrio how long it would take them to arrive at the fire. He just laughed and said normally 2 hours and by then the residents had put it out. There is absolutely no space between buildings so I could see that they would really need to get the fire out quickly. Warrio met up with a number of his old friends and after introducing them to us, they joined us on our walk. We went down a tiny, muddy side street and came to a school where one of Warrio's friends, Kim, worked. Warrio had worked along side him for 7 years in his old neighborhood. Kim was an absolute delight as is Warrio by the way. They are both such gentle, loving guys that you really wonder how they turned out so well living in this environment their whole lives. Warrio said that 75% of the kids he knew growing up are dead now from diseases, violence and drugs. Kim showed us around his school. It was in a very confined area with tiny classrooms. Hoever, each of these classrooms housed about 30 students and a teacher - I have know idea how they all fit in there! He had 9 teachers and 300 students at his school. These students were street children and other kids who had fallen through the cracks in the educational system. We were there on Saturday so he only had the kids requiring extra help with their classes at school that day. He was so gentle and loving with the children and it was obvious that they adored him. Kim is also providing nutritional classes to adults with AIDS and teaching others hygiene classes. He invited us to come back and teach some of the classes or help other adults set of micro businesses. Kim stayed with us for the rest of the tour and then walked us to the bus stop to say good-bye. We got on a city bus and headed for the city centre in Nairobi. We were in a rush to get to the bank before it closed.