South Africa

South Africa was... incredible. I enjoyed taking a mid-year break to drive in and around Cape Town on wonderfully smooth roads. From bumming on the beach to jumping off bridges, canoeing in tranquil lagoons and hiking to pristine waterfalls, I had a relaxing yet adventuresome time. Although I wasn't able to try out kiteboarding, I admired from a distance and dreamed of trying it out someday. There was also the succulent wines in the vineyards north of Cape Town, the penguins of the cape, the ridiculous mountain or ocean backdrop wherever you looked, and some very real history at Robben Island and the Bo Kaap. Returning from this jewel is like tasting the first goodnight kiss from a girlfriend, and I long to return to explore this country more in-depth. Until then, I have fond memories to kindle what dreams may come.

Below are a few pictures... you can see them all here.


Will and I arrive.

Walking along the shore at Sea Point, Cape Town.

A stunning view of the Cape's harbor on a hike around Devil's Peak.

Will and Gretchen with Hout Bay as backdrop.

The Jump

I got this
 

Let's get it on
 

Um, yeah; that's definitely the ground 200 ft below
 

Lock 'n' Load
 

No Push Necessary


On the Way Down


Sweetness


Even Tiger felt compelled to show me up with a stunt of his own.

Shenanigans

Showing some South African Pride
(we dare not mock)


Cape Town's Garbage Co. & Its Biggest Fan
 

PB & Banaynay... my fav
 

Does he want to be William Tell? Now where'd I put my bow...
 


I'm sorry, but what kind of flavors do y'all have?
 

Kikuyu 4-Square

Today I returned to the Wee School in Kikuyu, where my family volunteered over Christmas. It was good to return and see a lot of familiar faces. After a failed attempt to lead songs on guitar, I taught the kids how to play 4-square.


It was a fun day and I'm hoping to return next month and possibly in May when Emily visits. My two friends and instructors of the school, Julius (pictured above in background) and David, suggested getting trophies for the kids so that they could invite other schools for a tournament. I plan to buy two trophies, one for the gals and one for the boys, in hopes that we will promote not only sports but also kids staying in school to learn.


I also visited some friends, David and Sarah, who run a bakery shop dubbed "Splints" (a nickname of Sarah's) in Kikuyu.



All too cute.

Looking Back to Harden into Salt, then to Break

Uganda. A land undulating in green waves of growth, where the AIDS prevalence has been vastly reduced and a president continues his 20-year reign, winning a reelection only after changing the constitution and imprisoning his main opponent.

I traveled here with a group of other Americans, visiting a partner program working with families ravaged by HIV/AIDS. Thanks to large donor aid, including USAID, and a focused educational slogan of Abstinence, Be faithful and Condom usage, the prevalence rate is one of the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, and yet the disease’s effects will be felt for years to come.

We visited homes headed by boys and girls no older than me, taking care of a grandparent or two as well as several siblings. CWS’ Giving Hope program provides dairy goats and vocational training in skills such as sewing, so that these families can increase their nutrition and possibly their incomes. It was the middle of the day and we saw so few middle-aged adults, but the others would not be returning from the fields at dusk. The process is slow: one does not simply ‘bring back’ a lost generation.

I herded our scattered visitors towards a woman beginning to speak her life story. Standing behind them, I felt more like an observer than a participant, a shepherd among sheep. After all, I had been here before and they had not. This story was for them and not for me.

The woman, Olive Namsuki, spoke of being ostracized by her community because of the virus she received from her deceased husband. She had walked many kilometers on a foot malformed by disease to talk with us. She had no idea where the money would come from to pay for her medical treatment, send her children to school or feed her family. Breaking her solemn stance, she placed her hand over her mouth as the pain overwhelmed her entire body, collapsing into her friend’s arms.

I looked away, not able to bear this woman’s suffering, let alone bear witness. Habits chained my heart to the cellar within the walls of my chest. People had been reduced from their dynamic lives to freeze-frames on my computer screen. The camera was my eyes, a portal to a film playing out before me. I’d been “routinized” to a reality I no longer lived or engaged in.


We bid farewell to Olive the way we all do in situations of another’s unfathomable pain; with light pats on the back and lips that grimace a smile. There would be no encouragement found today, except that a life has gone on and another will go on. I looked up from my seat in the van to see the frame of a retired man in the front, shuddering. Tears flowed into and over the crevices and divots of his face. Blowing his nose, he said, “It’s just so sad.” Again, I looked away.

We left another home, another family, another village. Children, looking up from their dirt playground, stared at the SUV caravan rolling by. Some pointed, some shouted, all stared. I smiled and waved, and the reaction was immediate: some waved, some ran after us, all smiled.

Finally the tears welled up in my eyes. All I had to give was a smile and a wave. Would it brighten their day? Would it make a difference? Or would it just make me feel better?


Halfway through my year in East Africa, I have seen a lot of impoverished places. A sense of need, a sense of duty to respond to such outrage has arisen within my heart, only to hit the external realities and cool into an impermeable crust. What can I possibly do to affect change? Perhaps this is what God means by the hardening one’s heart.

When we respond to the woes of this world with our own particular discernment or religious understanding, we will be overwhelmed unto despair. When our simple, safe solutions are crushed with life’s tragic complexities, how do we respond? Will we be jars of clay or reeds that bend? Eventually we all break, and we are in need of a Savior.

We walk by faith, not by argument. We are guided by the unseen, not by what can be proved in a court of law. We are the poor in spirit, the broken-hearted, and we cling to our vessels of hope and love. And when these jars of clay break, warm flows of softness will pour faith into God’s most beloved, the downcast and downtrodden.


Who will fill the cracks? Who will heal the broken-hearted?

Lord, break us once more, to fill us again.

*Reflection based on John 16:29-31 and Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest, 2/28

Who Will Hear Them Cry Mercy?

“Surely he has [they have] borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him [them] stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.”
This came up during my quiet time today. Usually I have thought and read of them referring to Jesus, the sacrificial lamb and ultimate payment for our sin. Today, however, I thought of these verses with respect to the poverty I’ve seen here in Africa. Poverty is certainly a major them in Isaiah. Yet just as those who saw Jesus back then as struck down by God as he laid up on the cross, today we see the poor as often out of favor and afflicted by God.

What if the poor are the ones who bear the iniquities of society, of us?

Yesterday at dusk I ‘cruised’ the streets of Majengo, one of many slums in Nairobi. I drove by fathers sitting on porches with friends, mothers selling vegetables to feed their families, children playing on heaps of trash surrounded by pools of still water. I have lived here six months, and still such ‘slum’ life both intrigues and frightens me in its unique and brutal vitality.

And I could not help but wonder, Have we “crushed and abandoned the poor”? (Job 20:19). Have we ignored the cry of the poor? (Ps. 34:6). Can our societal woes be traced back to me in this car, before this crowded street of slum… not getting out but driving on? Once gone, realizing too late that we’ve already turned our back? (Ps. 41:1).

When there is a drought in Kenya or an outbreak of cholera in Sudan, it is the poor who suffer first and foremost. We city dwellers may be without water for a week at a time, but that’s about it. The city on the hill still glows, while the darkness clouds all around.

How long will we leave the poor in the dark?

“All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him [them]
the iniquity of us all.”

Verses 4 & 6 from Isaiah Chapter 53, NRSV

Coach Evans

My photographer, Nassar
I was invited by a friend, Atman Mujahid, to teach basketball at an Islamic school where he is the principal. Arriving at noon, I wasn't to teach until 4 PM, so I hung out in his office until then. The school, Al Rasul Al Akram, which roughly means the "The Most Merciful or Generous Propet", is a private school that takes students from all religious backgrounds. Since it was Friday, the muslim students wore white robes as symbol of purification. At 1 PM they had their weekly prayer service, which I was not invited to as a non-Muslim. They returned and we ate pilau, a rice dish popular on the coast where many of the Muslims in Kenya reside.


Atman took me to a Swahili class before basketball, asking me also to teach. I can speak about ten complete sentences in Swahili, and thankfully he was joking. About the only thing I understood was that while one student wanted 9 wives, Muslims were 'limited' to 4 because that's how many the Prophet had. (Later my friend told me that one wife was more than he could handle.)



Then it was time for basketball. The boys, ranging from 14-18, had never had a coach before. But because they had not played very much, they did not have many bad habits to break. I began with passing, then shooting, dribbling and finally the heart of it all: defense. Afterwards, I spoke with Atman and it looks like I'll be coaching the boys once a week. I tried to learn a few of their names, but their voices were so quiet and names so unfamiliar that I had a very hard time. I DO remember that the captain's name is Mohammed!

Magical Coaching Moment: Teaching the kids how to shoot, I said the most important thing about shooting was that in your mind you had already made the shot before you ever released the ball. To prove my point, I threw the ball without thinking and it clanged off the backboard. Then I said, "But if I see myself making it in my mind, the form doesn't matter-" and with that I threw the ball up and nailed the shot. As they stood around agape, I had them continue the shooting drill.


And I couldn't stop from feeling a bit blessed to be here, to pass on a few skills to these kids: both in the game of basketball and in life.

Babybacking

As a Texan, I'm well aware of the term "bareback" in reference to riding horses, and "babyback" when eating cows. Here in Kenya, however, "babybacking" is more common than backpacking. Oftentimes, women come to meetings or work in the fields bearing their children on their back. Almost always the kid is dressed as if it were snowing outside, knocked out and bound tightly to his/her mother. Nonetheless, the mothers and babies are as one in a beautiful, symbiotic? relationship.

Below is my Ode to Babybacking.

One Year of "Dating"

Emily and I 'celebrated' one year of 'dating' today, with a free video-phone call courtesy of our best friend Skype. The long-distance thing has been a beautiful challenge, and one of the defining characteristics of my year in Africa. I cannot even begin to calculate the value of having such a caring friend with whom to share my experience, as well as providing a connection back to my life in the States. I'm thankful to have such a woman in my life.

For further embarrassment, I dug up this photo from a friend of hers when she was in Guatemala. Apparently we both have an interest in babies on their mothers' backs, but I have yet to try one on. I don't think I'd fair much better.

Chickens & Mangoes: Gifts MC can't buy

Sharing the Road
Today I joined our OVC (Orphaned and Vulnerable Children) Coordinator, Jane Machira, on a monitoring visit with our partners, AED (Academy for Educational Development). We visited a community group called Ndimbukaki, located just beyond the vast pineapple plantations of Del Monte in the Central Highlands of Kenya. Passing through the fields, we saw huge stones painted with the number of the field, as well as men with poisoned arrows for any persons trying to steal the precious fruits. And let me tell you, Hawaiian pineapples have got nothing on their Kenyan cousins.

Visiting four villages, we were each time greeted by a group of singing and dancing women. I was taken aback yet again by the overwhelming hospitality of Kenyans wherever I go. After we met the group and discussed their progress in small-scale businesses like kitchen gardens, we made to home visits to young men my age. Both Peter Wambua and Francis Mativo were younger than me yet were supporting several siblings and Francis his grandmother. Through the kitchen garden training, they hope to generate some needed income and provide nutritious vegetables for their families.
Left: Group treks to homes.



I am.
On the last visit, we went to a school where a group of orphans and their grandparents performed a traditional dance for us. This dance troupe is one way the group transfers cultural knowledge as well as engages two generations divided by the absence of their fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. A drama group also performed a poem, with one of the lines saying, "The Third World War has begun," as an analogy to the destruction of AIDS. A choir also sung.


Going Childback

At the end of the cermony, 24 children lined the room and waited to receive school uniforms from our program. As I snapped a few photos, I was informed that these were all orphans. The experience was a beauty most humbling, realizing this presentation was all put on for us, and yet it also a testimony of their will to continue to live and flourish amidst such devastation.

Left: Peek-a-boo

Upon our departure, the community gave us chickens & mangoes. Let me clarify: LIVE chickens and FRESH mangoes. Unfortunately, no one asked me if I wanted to take home a live chicken for dinner, and we gave them to a nearby community. Andrew, our driver, didn't realize we had been given the chickens. He told me, "Next time, don't give them away. We go and slaughter."

Carrying on the Tradition

Before there was me, there was Ryan Pappan. He was the volunteer before me placed at Church World Service, East Africa Regional Office. Presently, Ryan is studying at Austin Seminary, my mother's alma mater, in the great state of Texas (perhaps TOO great for its own good). Ryan is the second Kenyan volunteer to go to Austin Seminary, and the volunteer before him, Page Stephan, is at McCormick in Chicago. I plan to continue the tradition but on the West Coast. San Franscico Theological Seminary has admitted me for Fall 2007. I plan to spend the year in between [my return (July 27th) and entering seminary August 2007] working in Davidson, NC. We'll see if God agrees.

As a way of honoring my predecessor, I took some old photos Ryan snapped and did a little doctorin' up for the finished product found below.

Outlawed Press

Apparently the police have raided the 2nd largest newspaper here in Kenya, arresting journalists and burning today's edition after the paper alleged the president and one of his fiercest opponents had a secret meeting three days ago. While I personally feel safe after this atrocious incident, I do not think this attack bodes well for the freedom of the press - let alone speech - in this country.

Police shut down Standard, KTN
Story by ERIC SHIMOLI and DOMINIC WABALA
Publication Date: 3/2/2006

Armed and hooded police this morning raided the headquarters and printing plant of the Standard Group.
They burnt copies of the newspaper and shut down the media group's 24-hours television station KTN. An estimated 30 policemen armed with AK-47 assault rifles first stormed the Standard's headquarters at the I&M building, in Nairobi city centre, at 12.30am, before another squad swooped on the company’s printing plant in Likoni Road, in the industrial area, and burnt the day’s newspapers which were just rolling off the presses.

BLAZE: Copies of today's Standard go up in flames after being set on fire by police in the compound of the company's printing plant at Likoni Road, Nairobi early today. Photo by Joseph Mathenge

The raids were carried out by a rapid response unit code-named the Kanga Squad, detectives from Nairobi provincial CID headquarters and officers from the General Service Unit.

They were under the command of Mr James Njiru, the officer in charge of operations at the provincial CID headquarters. The elite Kanga Squad was formed by the Director of Criminal Investigations, Mr Joseph Kamau, specifically to fight hardcore criminals like carjackers, bank robbers and murder hit squads.

The raids follow a running dispute between the media house and the Government over a story in the Saturday Standard alleging President Kibaki had held a secret meeting with one of his fiercest critics, former Cabinet minister Kalonzo Musyoka. Both State House and Mr Musyoka denied the story and demanded apologies from the newspaper.

Read the article in its entirety here.

Derailed

I walked out of the gate of my apartment today, greeting the daytime guard, Oscar, on my way out, as I munched on a treasured PayDay from a CWS visiting donor. Oscar is an old man, most likely a grandfather, and works diligently on washing cars or hauling water, and yet always has a smile to spare for me or any of the other residents. I do my best to reciprocate.

Just outside the gate, another old man greeted me and we shook hands. He immediately went into a story about a friend he took to Kenyatta Hospital, his hand clenched around mine in an earnest plea of help. I had no idea if he were telling the truth, and after looking into his eyes I decided I didn’t have the time to figure it out. I looked and turned away from his piercing gaze, mumbling, “I’m sorry, but I can’t help.” I walked on, munching on my PayDay.

It was then I noticed all of the traffic on our local road. By the time I reached the main highway and saw the standstill traffic, I knew something was terribly wrong. When I arrived at work, Mary and other coworkers informed me of a horrific accident involving a lorry and 15 cars. Many people had died, and many more were injured.

What was this man trying to tell me? I wondered. Was there truth in his request? Did he have no where else to turn? Did it matter that I had never seen him in my life?

Now, all I can say is a prayer, writing about it and trusting that somehow in some way, Christ will bring healing to those who have felt so much pain today, both here in Kenya and elsewhere.