Back Home - well...almost

Yes, Regardless of the lack of blog updates, I really am back in America. Me and Melissa have been hanging out in New York since Saturday afternoon – although Saturday was mainly spent freezing and wandering around like a sleep deprived zombie. Lol!

We decided to try the “wander around Times Square and watch a Broadway show” method for getting over culture shock. Not something I would normally recommend, but, it seems to have worked well enough. :) Have to admit, though, I’ll be glad to spend a few days in the Tri-cities, where there aren’t quite so many flashing lights and mass amounts of people. Quiet and boring will be nice for a while. Well, quiet and boring, minus the running around like a chicken with its head cut off…

Sorry. If the blog posts have been a little scarce lately, it is because we have been running around, trying to fit in a billion different things before we leave town (tomorrow morning!). That, and the crickets have resorted to stealing documents as part of our ongoing war.

Okay. Maybe the part about the crickets isn't true, but Ashley seriously did count eighty just in our prayer room this morning. If this were a war, I think we might be losing, although, so far, hundreds of them have died, and none of us -- that I know of.

Trying to say goodbye to all our friends has taken up a lot of time, and involved quite a few dinners, lunches, and cups of chai or uji. Not that I am complaining about free food! Lol. (Well, maybe the uji...still not a huge fan of drinking scalding hot porridge.)

At this point, we are finally done with G-town goodbyes -- I think -- and fully into unpacking from our quick trip to Dadaab, repacking for Nairobi, and gutting our house so that we can leave it empty by tonight. So far, so good.

The trip to Dadaab town and Ifo camp (one of the three refugee camps that make up the "Dadaab regugee camp") was an interesting addition to our final week, a welcome break from packing and cleaning, and a learning experience for all of us.

The camps were nothing like what you might think of as a refugee camp, and nothing like what you hear about the refugee and IDP camps in the Darfur region of Sudan. Instead, they looked very much like the town across the river from us here, just a little more crowded together. There was a nice hospital and, what looked from the outside, like very nice primary and secondary schools.

Basically, they were three towns, towns with LOTS of NGOs and some facilities that other communities around here would love to have. (The three camps combined have about the same number of people as the Tri-cities.)

While we were there, we planted some trees in a community center in Dadaab town, took a driving tour of Ifo camp, ate way too much Ethiopian food -- which was a more than welcome change in flavors -- and found a huge wind scorpion that Ashley had battled with in the middle of the night.

We got back yesterday afternoon, visited with our neighbors yesterday evening, and, this morning, I have officially reduced sixteen months of my life to the following:

Yep. That bag even weighs less than fifty pounds, and has room for souvenirs. Epic skills.

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The Ultimate in Re-gifting

As Rebecca and I were searching for a gift to bring with us as we said goodbye to a friend -- who just so happens to be named Jessica -- we found some wrapping paper to use (on the table of ever expanding stuff), and... it just so happened to be conveniently pre-labeled.


Score one for not having to write a note on the gift. Recognize the handwriting, Mom?

Of course, getting to church to drop off the gift was a little bit of an adventure in itself.


Those shiny, dark patches across the width of the road are actually large pools of water, left over from all of our recent rain -- plus a little mud and animal poo -- and, they literally stretch all the way across the road in several spots.

Which means... ducking and squeezing through bushes and against walls... kind of like the trails (or "trails" as my mom would argue) that we used to find and follow when we went exploring when camping. I always knew those ducking and clambering skills would come in useful for something! Lol.

(Rebecca getting ready to duck into a hole)

We finally bit the bullet and started "packing" our stuff -- which looks more like every cupboard and shelf in our house has vomited its contents onto various portions of the floor / other flat surfaces.


Somehow, in the next eight and a half days, we will make it all fit into nice neat suitcases, ready to leave for Nairobi on the 16th and the States on the 23rd. It just won't be today. :)

This table migrated to the front room and has become the collection point for "there is no way this is all fitting in my suitcase; it should just stay here in Kenya" types of items that -- hopefully -- we will be able to pawn off on the new team...err...find good homes for.

And, although these two liveboxes may look like they're playing nicely, only one of them is actually working, the other one is just there for looks -- and as a reminder of all of the many hours that have gone into trying to maintain a wireless internet connection for the last fifteen months. Lol. (Just pretend that you can't see the dust on the floor behind them...)


For now, we've transitioned from packing to visiting friends for final goodbyes, at least for a few hours. I'm sure there will be more packing in between visits this afternoon.

Flash Floods

I don't think that I could begin to count the number of times that I have tried to explain to people here that, during the hot season, my place in America is hot like G-town. G-town in hot, dry, dusty, mostly sunny, and often windy.

Sound familiar?

There is, though, one difference between Tri-town and my other desert home. Here, when it rains, it rains hardcore, and, if it comes down for more than a few minutes, there is a good chance that it will flash flood as the water pours downhill towards the river and then overflows its banks.

Our house is high enough that the flooding does not affect us (minus an unexpected overnight at the house where I was babysitting, because the road home was flooded), but the boys' compound and house get a decent amount of water, and the floods made a nice mess out at one of the primary schools that we have been very involved with, knocking over portions of the fence and filling the boys' dormitory with almost 2.5 feet of water.

By the next morning, the waters were gone and only mud was left behind, but can you imagine if this happened every time that it rained in the Tri-Cities?

Western Kenya

We spent about two weeks in Kenya's Western Province, taking a class and doing a little bit of site seeing. All in all we got a much better idea of why the Kenyan government considers a post in North Eastern Province to be a disciplinary measure. Lol.

In contrast to our skirt wearing in the desert, we spent a week sitting around in the grass in jeans -- shorts for the guys --and essentially not wearing shoes, unless we left the compound to go to town. (We did wear skirts to church on Sunday, and, just for the record, riding side saddle on the back of a bike in a long skirt is not as easy as it looks!)


"Picnics" on a patch of cool grass and scattering across a compound for morning quiet times haven't exactly been normal internship experiences up until now, but we took full advantage of them for a week and a half.


Basically, we got to enjoy acting a little more like Americans than we do in G-town (minus the flush toilets and running water that we do have here, but not there), with all of the games of ridiculously silent Capture the Flag, tag with the neighbor kids, and general running around like crazy people inside of the compound that go along with that.


The day before we left, we took a bus out to the Kakamega rain forest, where the twenty-three of us -- plus guide -- walking through the forest pretty much scared away anything that wasn't a monkey or a butterfly. Although, we learned some interesting facts about why the Blue Monkey is called a Blue Monkey. Ask me when I get home...

And, a group of us hiked a little farther up to a view point, where we suddenly went from rain forest to bare rock and pine trees, definitely a strange sensation. I don't think that I've been that high up on anything since our first Amazing Race in Nairobi, back in last January.

After much bumping along -- or alongside -- more wonderful roads, we got to Kisumu and Lake Victoria. The lake is not know for its great cleanliness, so we spent more time taking pictures of it than actually touching it. That and watching two of the guys climb a huge tree with ridiculous thorns/horns -- and catching one of the new guys when he decided to do a trust fall out of said tree.

The cold nights (at least, cold compared to our air conditioner-less desert) were well worth the exchange for jeans, "grass" -- that was really cheat grass and ground cover -- and fresh, fried fish from the Ugandan portion of Lake Victoria.

Even with all of that, though, we were more than a little eager to get back in town for our last couple of weeks of internship. The Kenyan government may consider this place to be a disciplinary post, but we're rather fond of it. :D

Plans

So…I promised that I would let you know what my plans are for after school.

Honestly, when it comes to the long term, I’m not completely certain, other than that, at some point, I'm headed to Nicaragua – let me know if you want to come with and work with street kids! Lol.

Short term, though, I have a much clearer picture.

Since long before internship, I have been passionate about social justice issues and the idea that the church, for its own health and survival, needs to actively be engaged with the world’s injustices. There are few subjects in the Bible – both Old and New Testaments – that receive more attention than the subject of justice.

There has to be more to Christianity, more to life, than what the American church generally has to offer. Social justice isn’t just justice for “the poor,” it is also justice for “the rich,” in that it brings reality to the consumer driven life that has so enveloped our culture.

Some of you have seen my thoughts on the subject pinned down on paper and ink, but I believe to the core of my being that my response needs to be more than that. For at least one month this fall, I need to live and breathe social justice issues and invite other people to live and breathe them with me.

Imagine, if the passion that comes after a ministry trip could be sustained and tempered for just long enough to form into cool conviction. Imagine if there was more to being a Christian teen than doing "church things" on Sundays and Wednesdays. Imagine if it cost something to follow Christ.

Imagine if the cost was worth it.

Detox

As I was talking with my mom a few weeks ago, she mentioned how she felt like she was running in circles, trying to go a billion directions at once, as she attempted to keep on top of one social justice issue after another.

Really, she was right.

Trying to take in everything at once, trying to change every facet of your life to reflect justice, is kind of like finding out that you have a build up of toxins in your body, and then trying to get rid of them by throwing up your internal organs.

Just like ejecting your stomach out your mouth would essentially kill you, “fixing” everything about your life in one go is a good way to essentially kill off any passion for social justice. The problem isn’t that everything that American culture has ever taught you is wrong, the problem is that your system, my system, has been numbed by a slow build up of injustices.

Our consciences have become toxic.

The body is detoxed slowly, by introducing healthy replacements for the toxins and allowing the system to clean itself out slowly and naturally. By slowly, one decision at a time, introducing justice into our consciences, by introducing mercy and compassion, by replacing inaction with simple actions, we can detox consciences that have become toxic with injustice.

Today, do one thing to help your system detox.

Find a physical or email address for someone with whom you haven’t spoken for a while and restart communication.

Social justice means considering the welfare of your neighbor, even in something as simple as sending an email or putting a letter into the mailbox. It won’t take long today, and, in the long run, it is far more pleasant than spewing up your stomach.

Imagination - take two

While we were at one of the local primary schools, waiting to start Bible club, a friend asked us to print some things off for her. They were just lesson schemes, and a simple worksheet for each of the kids to fill in. But, it was the first printed worksheet that I have seen used in a classroom in my thirteen and a half months here, and it was a strange shock of, "Oh, yeah. That's how people teach in America."

I had to fight with myself for a minute, against a very American response of wanting to "improve" their school by getting them more things. After spending so much time learning to gradually see both the strengths and the weaknesses of the school system here, and to just take it for what it is, it was surprising and more than a little disconcerting to find myself, however briefly wanting to make them like Americans.

It took a few minutes to figure out what it was that I was really wanting.


It wasn't a matter of getting them "real" posters, or putting in classroom bins full to overflowing with school supplies. or even printing off worksheet after worksheet for them to use in class. Hand drawn posters can be used as teaching aids just as effectively as store printed ones can -- perhaps more so, because they can be tailored to match the things that the students already know and don't know. And, creativity can happen without access to construction paper, pipe cleaners, and tubs of glitter -- no matter what the sellers of such items might try to tell you. :)

Places don't have to look like a well funded American school in order to be good schools.


What was bothering me, turned out to be the same thing that has been bothering me since the first time that we took a tour of the school. Somewhere in my mind, computer printed worksheets are connected with teaching at CHECK. And, CHECK means using the imagination as part of the learning process.

While there is a place for financial support to help pay the school fees for sponsored students, the "thing" that I was wanting to give them, wasn't a "thing" at all. Unfortunately, imagination and a love for learning are not exactly something that I can go to Nairobi to buy, or have sent in a package from America. We've done a lot of work in that department, but it takes time to change the entire ideology behind an education system, and time isn't exactly something that is in excess on a sixteen month internship .

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Crash Course in Culture

I know that I already took you on a tour of where I live, but, it’s about time that I gave you the resources for another crash course in culture.

Ready? This one is a little more work on your part, and a lot less work on mine – ignoring the fact that I have spent thirteen and a half months, so far, trying to figure all of this out.

Read The Translator and The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross and watch the opening scene of The Fiddler on the Roof. Then, try to mush all three of them together in your imagination into a single culture. None of the three are actually descriptions of what life is like here, but, in different ways, they all are.

The Richland and Mid-Columbia library systems both have The Translator, although neither of them have The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross -- a church library might have a copy, though.

Enjoy.

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Home to Tell Stories

So, not that we have a running total or anything…but, in seven more weeks (give or take a few days), I will be home, and able to tell you guys all of the stories of cool things that God has done that, for a variety of reasons, I haven’t blogged about. And, believe me, He has done some cool things, that I’m excited to tell you about face to face.

I’ll be back in town from Wednesday, April 28th through Sunday morning on May 8th, and, for once, you might end up wishing that Jessica would just shut up already. Lol!

After that, I’ll be back at school for four months, until I graduate at the end of August, when I will once again be back in Tri-town, for longer this time, with my crazy ideas about social justice. :D

Be excited.

(More information about the things I am scheming up for this Fall is on its way…)