I’d only be telling my side of the story if I didn’t introduce you to the children of Petah Tikva orphanage.  They are some of the most delightful young people I’ve ever met.  They were always fresh – in appearance and spirit, eager to sing, and beautifully open to just being together.  When I sat down beside them, the girls would lean in, sometimes competitively to see who could get the most body contact with me.  Their warm shoulders pressed against my arms completely softened me; their small frames contained so much love and readiness to be loved, I had nearly forgotten so much feeling was possible.

Snap

We met Felistus at the orphanage that Saturday, just after the four-hour mass and right before we received two bunnies as party favors.  Felistus told Abby she lived in Nakuru – the very town we were to visit the following week – and would be happy to house us.  In fact, she was delighted we were coming: the children would be thrilled.  Abby introduced this free housing to me before mentioning there was an orphanage attached – with 10 young children.  I tentatively agreed in Felistus’ presence, and on the day of our departure for Nakuru it was decided this was the most sensible (well, economical) option.  We thought the 10 children would be the challenge; they were, in fact, angels.  The devil is in the details.

We are going to get into a topic that you won’t like – how money is funny.  More specifically, how a focus on money can narrow even the most generous of people.  This story serves as an example of a common and nonetheless vexing money fixation that might as well be a drug habit, because it’s effects are the same on the human brain and internal organs.  This sounds overdone, but hold on: come to Kenya, or for that matter take a look around wherever you are, and you might find I’m not exaggerating.

Felistus’s home is about 20 minutes outside of Nakuru town.  When we arrived by matatu and then taxi, it was late afternoon and the grounds were peaceful.  We entered the main cement house, its windows open and wafting gentle breezes through the corridor.  The smooth and recently laid tile beneath our feet was like cool water (one begins to pay attention to textures underfoot when there is enough variation in flooring), and our rooms were complete with mosquito netting and a heated shower next door.  Felistus guided us to the dining room, where we laid our arms a bit too heavily on the table and ate several of the fat-fingered bananas.  She showed us her side of the house – her ample room with two walk-in closets and a shower almost as big as the room.  She gestured to her desk in the corner – complete with large computer and full stereo.  “I have internet all day long,” she smiled.  The wall decorations were pictures of Felistas with different hair styles, and some posters of Jesus.  Felistus was a Catholic nun for 14 years; she left the convent four years ago.

In the house there were also two young women (her nieces) and a man who did the cooking.  Felistus walked us outside across the gravel driveway to the adjoining building, one that was taller and made of unfinished cement.  As we entered the doorway, I turned to see a neat row of 10 little bodies, all sitting dutifully by the side of Felistus’s house.  No one made more than a mouse-sound, but all of them watched us carefully.  Felistus noticed that I had noticed them, so she redirected the carefully planned tour to introduce us to the children.  Each one of them extended a hand to me, bowing down full bent-knees when I shook their hands.  I began to mimic the bent-knee reaction with the handshake, and all of us were bobbing up and down, giggling at learned formality.  They returned quickly to their seats, and Felistus promised we would meet them again later.  We returned to the unfinished building’s doorway.

Children of Petah Tikva

The floor was different inside the second building – remember, variations abound – it was in fact, uneven cement.  “This building was built not long ago, and we are hoping to get donations for the floor.  Right now, we have no money for tile.”  We entered the stark hallways of the first floor, the white drywall spattered with stray traces of gray cement.  The kitchen and dining room were simple, “the children eat here – do I eat with them?  Oh”, laughing, “sometimes I come to visit”, and the bathroom at the end of the hall served as the shower and toilet for all 10 children.  “And where do they stay?”  We moved upstairs.  The stairs, also coarse cement, led us to another bleak hallway.  The room by the stairs, set apart from the others, was for the man who looked after the children day and night.  There was no similarity between his room and ours.  The grey of the cement was the only color, besides some blue and red clothing on the bed.  The children’s rooms were brighter, and that was because we knew the children had been there.  Their few belongings were neatly laid beside each bunkbed – backpack, shoes, sweater.  One of the girls came into the room when we were there, and lithely climbed up to her high bunk, smiling shyly down to us when we persisted in being there.  I moved into the next room; Felistus followed me.  “You know,” she whispered loudly, “that girl is a total orphan.”  “Okay,” I said.  I waited to hear what else she may have to say about the child, but she had moved on to another topic.  Luna entered the room a few minutes later and Felistus turned to her, and with the same sharp whisper said, “you know, that girl is a total orphan.”

Felistus was most excited to show us the third floor.  We walked gingerly up the stairs, some stray hairs of barbed wire jutting out from the cement pillars.  From the open-air roof, we could see the surrounding hills of Nakuru – “this is where we hope to build another level for more children one day”, Felistus’s voice was a little softer and her eyes widened with what she imagined.  “Someday there could be 200 children here.  We want to be able to accommodate that many.”  She continued, building the other floors for us, constructing the extensive network of school buildings and the in-house clinic that would exist when these hundreds of children arrive.  The building was almost the size of the entire block before she directed her gaze back down, to our eye level, and her tone changed to that of someone who has been abruptly returned to reality.

“All of these things take money, and you know we have very generous donors from Holland.  But they have asked us to find more friends – friends who can help us care for all of these needy children.”  She kept us on the third floor, going over each aspect of her project that was short of funds, and I listened with awareness and growing uneasiness.  For the next three days, Felistus’s intentions grew more apparent.  The second night, she turned to Luna at dinner and said, “you know how to make a website?”  Luna replied yes.  “You make one for me.”  It was unclear if this was a demand or a question.  The third day, Luna left early for town and I was to follow in the afternoon.  Felistus entered my room shortly after nine, and invited herself to sit beside me on my bed.  “I noticed you have used your sleeping bag every night, and not the sheets I put on your bed.”  I fumbled, saying something about liking my sleeping bag.  She raised her eyebrows and held them for a moment, to note her judgment.  I was familiar with this look – it was the same one I received when I said I ate vegetables, not meat, and when I said I liked hot water more than milk-tea.  These were inappropriate choices, I learned.

Felistus returned quickly – almost imperceptibly – to the facial expression that matched the reason for this visit; it was one of fatigue, and diminished hope.  “Kate, you know, it takes so much funds to run this place.  You have seen how happy the children are?  They are so happy.  This is not how they were when they arrived.”  She continued, repeating what I have already heard, but with bluntness.  And here is what is complicating – I know those children are happier; they are most certainly better off here, more loved here.  I have trouble, however, reaching the children through the woman in front of me, who both controls their future and seems to be progressively narrowing possibilities (for everyone) in her pursuit of the ever-elusive but highly sought-after money-pot.  The money-pot is the money-drug’s undying hope for salvation.  Felistus has (mistakenly) taken me for a money-pot, and I know there is no convincing a person otherwise when the craving has taken over as I feel it has in this room, on this bed.

Felistus informed me it is my duty to bring people here, white people like me who will stay for months at a time and play with the children – and pay for the room, and the food, and the children to have food, and rooms.  I told her I would try to inform others of her home.  She is disappointed in me; this is not money-pot behavior.  After she leaves the room, I have a choice.  I can give her some money for the room that I understood was free, hoping it will reach the children.  Or, I can let my frustration and my pride make the decision – she will not get any money from me – no, more specifically, her money-drug mind will not get any money from me, the false money-pot.

I walked to her room, my entire middle knotted in defiance.  “Felistus?”  I called, and she came.  “Here is some money, for the children.”  Her eyes widened, and she smiled.  I returned to my room, where she soon visited me again – “You know, I am very glad you came,” and she resumed her list of expectations and needs.

This is how the money-drug works: I, a student with debt and minimal funds, become – from the money-drug perspective – a white-person-with-money.  And Lots of money – so much of it, in fact, and so many connections to more of it, that I must want to give it to others in ample amounts.  To Felistus, who chooses to see me as white-person-with-money, I am everything she has dreamed of.  This is where the drug of money becomes dangerous.  When it is all you look for, it is all you see in others – whether they might have it, or might be craving it.  The seeking of money is a false divining rod that can lead a person to a poor student (me) or to a donor who may have money but may not be trustworthy.

[Note: I am oversimplifying, underestimating, and dramatizing – I know.  This is a story about a larger story and Felistus is a mirror for us, of all the parts of her that are in us and around us.  And, all the parts of us that are in Felistus and around her.]

The drug’s consequences continue.  Over the course of my three-day stay, I began to notice more about our housing.  The children were scuffling over rough cement while we skimmed across fresh tile.  Felistus’ room was adorned with more modern electronic equipment than most middle-class Western homes, and her closets were full of new, recently starched outfits.  Was there really a lack of funding for the children?  Was all this searching for money holy, in the end, if it was all for the sake of these children?  I wonder, especially for this former nun, where is God in money?

And this: in a country that has received so much on foreign aid over the past decades, and has come to associate – on a national level – white with funding, how much is this Felistus and how much is this the habit of historical, habitual relationships?  I take this precedence of my skin color over my individuality as a personal attack, but just like any drug’s effect or habitual pattern, this is not about me – and Felistus is not alone.

So we are left unfinished, and strangers to each other, in an almost three-story building with 10 children and a former nun surrounded by electronics and large closets.  The ways into the heart are fewer with so much between us.

Door of Hope Orphanage

After staying with Abby Onencan until July 10th, Luna and I left for Nakuru and Eldoret - two cities to the west of Nanyuki, where Ripe for Harvest has been conducting its youth mentoring program for the last year.  We wanted to meet the mentors and mentees to hear their experiences about how the mentorship affected their lives.  Those stories will come in later blogs.  Before leaving her welcoming home, we interviewed Abby about her relationship with Vital Voices, the challenges she faces as a women leader, and how she manages to balance all of her responsibilities.

Abby Onencan talks about finding balance in her life, and her role as a Vital Voices Global Advisor

It is apparent when first meeting Abby Onencan that she is more than the sum of even her best qualities.  A few of these are: bright in smile and intellect, able to laugh even when – especially when – the circumstances are most trying, possessing a seemingly inexhaustible source of energy while exuding a steady calm and readiness.  We need only glance at her multiple roles to know she must be, out of sheer necessity, extraordinary:

• Advisor to the European Union on Rural Poverty Reduction (combine rural and poverty in Kenya and you’ve multiplied your challenges exponentially)
• Founder and current director of the ambitious NGO Ripe for Harvest that tackles another of Kenya’s mountains – youth, and the country’s collective dismissal of young people’s potential
• Mother of four year-old John, an adorable child that has the energy of three kids in one, whom she raises by herself
• And another hat, perhaps the heaviest: a working woman in a country that challenges any woman in a position of authority.  Abby must demonstrate more frequently than her male counterparts that she is indeed capable of the job, any job, that she has earned, and at any time her efforts and hard-won career may be cut loose by men in positions of power simply because, well, she is a woman (and that would be, in Kenya, enough said)

Abby at her happiest

I learned the most about Abby one day in the most unlikely of circumstances: it involved a scattered group of idle men, a tardy Catholic brother, and a lame donkey.  Bear with me.

During our two weeks together, Luna and I lived with Abby and John.  One our second day, a Saturday, Abby decided to visit a nearby orphanage/school and celebrate the opening of a new dormitory.  I came to learn that there are no days off for Abby, weekends included.  We left in the morning and drove about thirty minutes to a dusty, barren strip of stores by the highway.  We were to wait here for Brother Zachary, one of the Catholic brothers that has been helping at the school.  No sooner had we parked the car to wait did I see the donkey.  It was crossing the road, its front right leg turned painfully outward, as if its knee had been fitted backwards in its socket.  Oh look!  I pointed to the slow-moving animal, now fully stopped in the road.  All of us watched intently as it finally reached the opposite side, the donkey’s face unmistakably expressing embarrassment.

After a few moments, my attention drifted elsewhere, but Abby was still watching the donkey.  Those men are hitting it!  Abby had her neck craned towards the side window, watching the men at a nearby car wash absently throwing stones at the donkey’s side.  We sat in the car, watching.  Some minutes passed, and the men stopped hitting the donkey – but Abby started the car anyway.  We’re going to go see who this donkey belongs to, she said, her eyes fixed on the men.  We ambled our enormous truck, guzzling and sucking diesel, up to the car wash that was really just an open-air gravel square with a hose next to it.  Abby rolled down the window and spoke to the men as if she knew them; for several minutes of back-and-forth Swahili, I thought she did.  The men gestured towards the donkey, laughing and flapping their hands to signal its insignificance.  As Abby continued to talk with them, they grew quieter, until eventually some of them broke off and returned with an older man.  This is your donkey?  Abby asked him.  He said it was, that a scooter hit the donkey some days ago and he left it here, not having the money to take it to a vet.  It was evident he also didn’t care to take it to the vet; the donkey was as good as dead.  Abby talked with the men for over twenty minutes, discussing options, always finding a fine balance between openly chastising them and appeasing their abusive and negligent behavior; she kept them engaged but not angry or indifferent.

Abby and Brother Zachary

Brother Zachary arrived, eager to depart for the orphanage.  Abby greeted him and then asked him to look for a vet – just around these stores, Zachary, then we’ll go, I promise.  He went dutifully searching, and Abby made calls – to neighbors, friends, asking if it would be possible to get this donkey medical treatment.  This man clearly doesn’t care for the donkey, Abby said, turning back into the car and explaining the situation to us.  I’ll tell you what I’m going to do – and now her voice had the quiet determination that I would come to know well – I’m going to come back here and I’m going to take this donkey.  I’m going to take it to a vet and then he’s going home with me.

And I believed her.

I have room in the backyard, don’t you think? Abby turned her head to face us.

Luna and I looked at each other; yes, we nodded, there is plenty of room.

Abby and John

Ripe for Harvest is, in founder Abby Onencan’s own words, a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring all youth to unlock their potential.  In this interview, Ms. Onencan discusses the reasons why she started the mentoring program – and why she thinks youth are more than the inevitable heirs of the future; they are the under-appreciated, entirely capable foundation on which Kenya’s ultimate well-being depends. 

Abby Onencan talks about her non-profit organization, Ripe for Harvest

I should say first that the participants of the first workshop were not all councilors – some were clerks, treasurers, community advisors – but all of them interact at the city council level and so their collective understanding of strategic planning is crucial.  Also, the gender break-down of the council is worth noting: of the 20 participants, 5 were women.  These aren’t bad odds in a society that is so clearly patriarchal, but the group behavior indicated men were still considered the most significant contributors (the women rarely spoke up in group discussion and, if they did, it was inevitable a man would request to respond and end with the last word).

Abby said she wanted me to lead the visioning exercise because of my experience with men in prison.  More specifically: I used to participate in a couple different meditation groups at prisons in the US.  I told Abby this, and she asked what meditation was, and what it was like to sit together without speaking.  Abby encouraged me to do a sort of meditation with the councilors, and turn it into a way of imagining what they want for their city in the future.  At this point, I am still getting to know Kenyans and their level of openness to new things.  They are generous, and certainly forgiving, but will they want to meditate with a musungo they have hardly met?

Abby and Participants Share a Laugh

Luckily, they broke the ice for me.  After lunch, everyone returned to the conference room, clearly sluggish from their full plates of ugali (heavy cornbread), and one of the more gregarious councilors jumped up from his seat.  Let’s sing he shouted, and everyone got up, somehow settling on a song within a few seconds.  All of us shuffled our feet, clapping to the rhythm of the upbeat call-and-response.  When they were finished, everyone was more energized, smiling at each other and then looking eagerly towards the front of the room, where I was standing.  All right, now that you are energized, I said, let’s do the total opposite – let’s completely relax.  I asked everyone to close their eyes, and moved them slowly through their bodies, asking them to loosen muscles and let jaws go slack.  My eyes were closed, too, so I had no sense of the participation or response.  After awhile, I spoke less and less, mentioning only to clear their minds of thinking – there is no need for it now – and reminding them that the breath was still there, steadily keeping time.  After a minute or two of quiet, I asked everyone to keep their eyes closed and begin imagining Nanyuki five years from now.  Walk through town, notice what is different. I waited another couple of minutes, periodically urging them to mentally record details, to take note of the positive changes.

Okay, I raised my voice a little, slowly open your eyes.  I did the same, and looked around to a room of peaceful people.  It was a surprise to me, to see and feel the same calm in their faces that I have seen with meditation groups after a sitting.  People’s shoulders were low on their backs, heads were lilting a little to the side, and in the brief moment people opened their eyes, it was done slowly, like returning from a dream.  So what did you see?  I asked.  And this is what they told me:

• Electric trains and extensive railways connecting Nanyuki to the rest of Kenya
• Smooth roads
• A green environment
• Happy children
• Skyscrapers
• Shopping mall
• Clean roads without pollution
• Green city parks without street children
• City council with better resource center (including better technology)
• Ample supply of clean water
• Street lights throughout town
• Well-planned residential neighborhoods
• Water harvesting

Our list had completely filled the flipchart page.  And here, I said to the crowd, turning the oversized pages, is the vision statement from your last vision statement – in the strategic plan (now me reading aloud): to be the leading local authority in Kenya in provision of quality services.  I looked out again to the participants – does this statement fit with the visions you all just shared?  Faces started to frown, and a few men spoke up.  “The emphasis on ‘best’ is misplaced.” Another: “being the leading authority in Kenya is not the first aim of the council.  If we do our best, we will naturally become the leading council in the country.”  And several: “the purpose of the council is service to the community”, “we must strive to be an organization that the community accepts and approves of, rather than having the ‘inward-looking’ focus of this statement.”

City Officials Discuss Strategic Planning

And this is, happily, where Abby wanted to go.  It is the community that the councilors represent, and this can be easily forgotten when there are elections and contests of ego.  In an effort not to get stuck in the problems with the vision statement, we attempted to make a new one from our collection of visions.  In their revised vision, participants described a council that gives priority to community projects, and makes an effort to establish trust and collaboration between councilors and the community.  I then asked if anyone was familiar with the new vision statement that was published in the most recent version of Nanyuki’s strategic plan (released only a day or two before the workshop).  No one in the workshop was aware of the new vision.  I built a little suspense, flipping the page slowly to reveal the new statement: an empowered community with improved quality of life.

Group Discussion

When asked if this vision corresponded to the vision they were crafting, most participants agreed they were similar and placed a much-needed emphasis on the community.  It was suggested by one participant that the council cannot assure the community has an improved quality of life, no matter the high quality of services provided.  It is ultimately up to individual citizens, the participant said, how much they avail themselves of these services.  And so it was suggested that the most recent vision statement be amended to read: “an empowered community with increased access to an improved quality of life.”

All of these words – it is one thing to print out a vision, and entirely something else to create it.  We collectively broke down old favorites – “sustainable development”, “empowered community”, “improved quality of life.”  What do these things mean?  Can you say?  I really had some trouble.  In the development sector, the international aid agencies – in almost any organization that has a vision – there is a maze of familiar jargon one must decipher before really understanding the intention.  And, as one councilor suggested, the intention does not assure the actual fulfillment of the vision.  The plan is not the enactment, or the fulfillment.  Over the course of the next two weeks Abby held four workshops that we co-facilitated with her, each for a level of officials who complete the ladder of communication and command from the city councilors to the community members.  We met with community development advisors (who take the councilors’ plan to the streets); we met with the committee members (elected community representatives who meet with development advisors and councilors on behalf of the community), and we met with select councilors again to discuss the importance of following a strategic plan with an action plan.  And at each step along this ladder of authority, there were good intentions – and remarkable people.  There were truly challenging predicaments for those who were responsible to both the council and the communities – they were aware of needs but lacked the structure or community cohesion to facilitate productive meetings and community-oriented outcomes.  And ultimately, the national habit of personal interest over collective well-being has stunted officials’ efforts to prioritize the community’s interests.  Only so much change is possible if those higher up on the ladder are more interested in their title than their duty.  But without a fight – and I would say these workshops and Abby’s entire profession are, in fact, vital tools in the fight – there are only plans, and planners.

I returned from Umoja and settled back into Nairobi, having just enough days in the city to feel more agile on the streets.  It was just under a week after coming back (the date here is June 26th) when I met Luna and Abby downtown, and we set off on our next assignment.

- Luna: getting her master’s at University of Maryland, from China, 22 years old, and is another Advocacy Project Peace Fellow who is joining me for the rest of the summer.  Both of us will be working with Vital Voices and its partners, documenting together and separately the people we meet.

- Abby Onencan: woman of all trades that deserves a book of detailed praise.  Okay, a little more: Abby works part-time for the European Union, the local government, and started an NGO a few years ago called Ripe for Harvest that is dedicated to empowering youth, especially women, to meet their basic needs, claim their rights and demand accountability from development actors, particularly the State.  She wants to go full-time with Ripe for Harvest at the end of this year.  There are a lot of youth who will see big changes in their lives because of Abby; they already do.

Abby Facilitating Strategic Planning Workshop

At the start of the week, Abby told us we would join her at work.  After wrestling John, her four year-old, into the school bus, Abby, Luna and I climbed into her truck.  Abby is part of the European Union’s Rural Poverty Reduction Program, and I can only assume the EU thinks a Rural Service Delivery Advisor (that’s Abby) needs a vehicle muscular enough to haul a donkey across Kenya if the need arises – the truck is that big.  Usually, we drive to and from nearby towns, so our high perch and diesel-growl give us a more-city, less-country appearance.

As an advisor to the EU, Abby conducts workshops for members of local government, encouraging greater community participation in needs assessments and project implementation.  Our first workshop with Abby had a slightly different focus – strategic planning for Nanyuki’s city councilors – but is just as essential to effective program design and management.  Before beginning a workshop for local government officials, it is customary to seek the approval of the Mayor.  Running on Kenyan time, we did this 30 minutes before the first session of the workshop (during which the Mayor himself was scheduled to speak).

The town hall’s echoing corridors were dark and busy with activity – everyone from suited city officials to tribal chiefs.  When we reached the Mayor’s quarters, the waiting room was full of farmers, grandmothers and warriors grown old with elongated earlobes wrapped around the ear for city visits.   The Mayor was a tall, square-shouldered man, his voice worn down to a whisper – by age, we were told, but he looked as young as fifty.  Abby, Luna, the treasurer, the clerk and myself sat in the red velvet seats opposite each other in the spacious room, the Mayor at the helm behind his desk, and slowly Abby turned the conversation towards strategic planning.  Occasional visitors entered the room with only a half-knock preceding them.  The first, a gentleman with wrapped earlobes and an oversized dinner jacket.  He stood tottering a little in the center of the room, orating to the Mayor with emotion.  The Mayor bowed his head to meet his hands, and even closing his eyes – it looked as if he was trying to shut out the impassioned speech of our visitor.  After a few moments, the man standing – more upright from his own enthusiasm – stopped speaking and the Mayor lifted his head, “Amen.”  The visitor promptly left, and the clerk turned to us, “he goes to each office in the building and prays for us.”  “For free?”  It was my first question.  “For free,” she smiled, “and every day.”

The second visitor was wearing a more fitted jacket, and entered the room with more ownership.  He gestured gregariously and greeted the Mayor as a friend.  “I am only here to thank you,” he said – shouted.  “The road coming into town, it is wonderful.  So smooth, and really something to be proud of.”  He waved his hands again as we moved towards the door, signaling his approval and gratitude as he left.  This, apparently, was unusual behavior; the visitor was the “paramount chief” of the local tribes, and is often locking horns with the Mayor – convinced that the city officials are only looking out for themselves.  In between the visitors, the Mayor extended his blessings for the workshop, and we were soon on our way to the adjacent hotel where city councilors were arriving for the workshop’s opening remarks.

Mayor of Nanyuki

The councilors were a talkative group, but not at first.  The first day of the workshop was mainly presentations – by Abby and her colleague, Richard Gikuhi – on the benefits of strategic planning.  This issue of planning was particularly relevant: a new draft of the city’s five-year strategic plan was just created and so fresh it had not even been released to the councilors themselves at the start of the workshop.  In order for the goals of this plan to be met, the councilors would have to develop a method for meeting their goals in a timely fashion.  While the emphasis on planning and effective executing a plan may seem unnecessary to a Western audience – no doubt the majority of whom have grown up planning (arguable, sure, but do we not carry small black books with us, our first-borns, affectionately named “planners”?) – but this is a key element of what’s lacking in more recently-formed democratic systems.  The formalities of planning are there – goals are written and vision statements envisioned, but the difficult work of actually creating reachable goals and then plotting a reasonable path towards them, this requires a cooperation and commitment to constant monitoring and assessment that is nascent at best in Kenya’s government.

The day before, Abby pointed out to Luna and I that we were on the schedule for the first day.  We were, in fact, facilitating several hours of the workshop in the afternoon.  There was shock, then disbelief (all hidden, with our best efforts, from Abby) and quickly following, Luna and I shook off our self-doubt and devoted the evening to preparation.  A note: we were under the impression we would be profiling her youth mentoring program; we were unaware Abby is so multi-tasked and talented – the local gov’t workshops were unexpected and a little less familiar to both of us than kids and mentors.

I was to go first, leading a discussion on how to create a vision statement for a long-term strategic plan, and Luna was to follow, asking the participants to consider the local government’s autonomy from the central government.  At lunchtime, I jotted a few notes on the large flipchart, and waited for the councilors to return.

I may have a few extra entries regarding Umoja that could pop up in my coming blogs.  This is one of them.

Rose was with me everyday at Umoja - her excellent English made her my companion by necessity.  When she was away, looking after her children or gathering firewood, her absence was palpable.  Rose and I are the same age, and this still surprises me when I remember the motherly calm and kindness she possessed.  Like the other women at Umoja, Rose is busy from dawn to dusk with beading, child-rearing, and household work.  The interview below provides a look into daily life at Umoja, and gives you a moving picture of someone who has a special place in my heart.

Rose Lekamisi talks about her life - before and after Umoja.

Written June 21st, 2009:

This morning I am leaving Umoja.  The sun is barely above the horizon and the air is still cool from the sunless hours of night.  My faithful friends – George, Benedict and Isaiah – are groggy from sleep when they meet me on the path to town.  We pass by the gate to Umoja and the women are there, just as they promised they’d be.

The day before, after I finished my final interviews and background video shots, I noticed all the children and women were gathered under the central acacia tree.  It was unusual to see the whole village in one place.  I pulled up a wooden stool and sat with Naibala and Sericho, their laps laden with plastic tubing, beads and thread.  The warmth of everyone together – the children’s voices occasionally rising up like bright birds, mothers shushing and quietly talking as they finished necklaces – was perfect.  I sat silent, moving my eyes slowly over the crowd to keep the moment in my memory.

Not long after I sat down, I heard movement from the group of children to my left.  They had been focused on beading of their own, and now they all approached me with their fingers fidgeting around something unseen.  When they reached my knees, they stopped and each took one of my fingers.  With gentle force, small hands fitted brightly colored bead-rings on my larger hands.  The girls giggled when some of their measurements proved too conservative.  Once every finger was colorfully adorned, they moved away collectively and settled back into mothers’ laps.

Naibala began to speak, and the whole group set aside their beading and conversation.  “We have a message for you to take to Vital Voices.”  I nodded.  “For all of the help you have given us, with making our jewelries with thread not wire, other colors, – these ways that improve our jewelries – we will not forget you.  Right now, we have no rain, and very little to eat.  All that we eat now comes from you – the support of Vital Voices.  Without you, we would not be able to feed our children.  Please tell Vital Voices we will always be grateful.  And please return.”  I looked around to see the crowd nodding together.

After I expressed my gratitude to the community, and we sat quietly together, I went to the outdoor market and picked out gifts for family at home.  None of the women would tell me a price for their wares – what you want, they would say – and I grimaced at the task of deciphering the fair price (I had not yet done the calculations for what, in fact, would be the fair price).  After I paid and placed my gifts in my pack, each woman went to her corner of the stalls and came back with other pieces of jewelry, placing necklaces and bracelets on me.  Everyone in the village did this until I was covered in orange red blue green – every Samburu color.  With my body softly jangling its new small mirrors and many beaded layers, I left the market, the extended family under the acacia tree, and replied, yes, of course, I will return in the morning.

Returning home

So I am here, by the bramblebush gate, just after dawn.  The women of Umoja are singing me away.  Their bodies are hunched slightly from the cold, leaning towards George, Benedict, Isaiah and myself.  We are all facing each other, and sometimes I am closing my eyes to hear.  After a few moments, Isaiah tugs my sleeve and we turn our backs on the gate to move towards town.  The women continue their singing – to our backs, the morning and the cold air.  When we reach the dusty crossroads, their sounds fade and I finally look back.  The gateway is empty.  The women have returned to their cows, their waking children, and the shade forming under the acacia.

Umoja Uaso breaks the rules in many ways - they do not rely on men, they are the sole providers for their families, their priorities are on educating all of their children - girls, you’re in - and they are refusing to perform female genital mutilation (FGM) on their daughters.  This last act of revolution is even more impacting once you’ve heard Rebeeca,Umoja’s chief, describe the violence of FGM.  This coming-of-age ritual in African societies is a controversial topic- unquestionably a human rights violation! activists shout; you are trying to kill our culture! tribal leaders and many mothers bite back.

It is, certainly, life-changing; not just once, but over and over the effects of this ceremony will influence the course of a woman’s life.  All of the women living at Umoja have gone through FGM, and all of them are refusing to do it to their girls.  No one will marry your daughters, the local Samburu women warn them.  But Umoja mothers are unwavering.  Their daughters will live different lives, unfettered by traditions that have previously kept women on the edges of possibility.  The following interview with Rebecca demonstrates Umoja’s commitment to tradition that honors, without taking away from, a girl’s future.

Rebecca Lolosoli discusses FGM and her village’s refusal of the ritual