October 16-22: Week in Review

SUNDAY: Made tacos for dinner! Used chapati (Kenyan flat bread) as the shell. There are no taco seasonings here so I just added cilantro and salt to the minced beef. I made guacamole, and beans and shredded some mozzarella cheese. John, who was spending the night here instead of the farm, said they were sweet – his go to word for food he really enjoys. Ruth didn’t stop eating she just gave me a thumbs-up and Ndungu asked if we could eat this every night!

MONDAY: Today was my third Swahili class. I go to an adult education center at the edge of Mathare slum, which is the end of my street – about ½ a mile away. I’m not impressed with the teachers. They expect me to tell them what I want to learn and then sometimes they can’t explain what I want to learn. I’m planning to stick with it a while longer but will look for somewhere else.

I went to the cyber to work on the assignments for my ESL students until mid-day, and then I had planned to meet Crocodile to go running. When we met, he asked how I felt.

“Fine,” I said.
“Good enough for 10K?” he said.
“More like 6K,” I said.

No more was said about distance…but we head off on a new route…we go through a gate and start climbing a hill – a long slow climb, every time I thought we’d reached the top, I notice that the treetops seems to keep climbing instead of leveling off and descending. I start to curse Crocodile under my breath, which is barely escaping my aching lungs. However during the climb Crocodile got too far ahead of me for me to ask him how far we had run. He keeps going and because I have absolutely no idea where I am, I have to keep going. It is the first time we’ve run in the forest. The path keeps coming to a T and Crocodile is so far ahead of me I have to stop and look both ways to see which way he’s gone. We emerge from the forest and cross the flats and run up the back of Boston Hill (one that closely resembles a hill on the Boston Marathon course) – I know this hill, so I know we are getting close to home. As I crest the hill and jog slowly to where he is standing waiting for me, he reaches out his hand for mine and says, "Well done that was 15K. We’ll walk the last two home."

"Did you see the buffalo?” he adds.
“No I said, but I heard something making lots of noise in the bushes,” I said.
“We were lucky they didn’t charge,” he said.

AIYAH!

When did 10 become 15? Who said I was ready or even interested in running 15K? And I didn’t sign up to have to outrun buffalo! Okay, so I didn’t say any of those things out loud – but my brain was screaming them!

But then I looked up and took in the view from the top of Boston Hill and it was, as it always is, magnificent. I had to admit, I was pretty damn proud of myself for covering 15K – make that 17K - by the time we got home - in one outing; to say nothing of blindly running past a herd of buffalo.

TUESDAY: I went to my Swahili lesson at 9a.m. at Dominion Adult and Youth Education Center. Nobody showed up to teach me so at 9:15 I headed off to the cyber to do some work. At 11:30 I raced home from the cyber to quickly change clothes and head to town (Nairobi) to meet my friend Danis for lunch.

After lunch, I wanted to buy some supplies and books for my adult learners before meeting Elijah who was coming from Kisumu to do a small research project for Wezesha on water use in Kimuga. Elijah and Danis both worked for Give Us Wings and had not seen one another in almost two years. So it was a fun, albeit short reunion.

Elijah and I boarded a mat back to Ngong. The road to the compound is continuously covered in mud this time of year and very slick! As we walked down the hill toward the shops in front of the compound, Gracious, Grace’s great niece, yelled my name and came running into my arms. Elijah was much impressed – not knowing this was a family member.

He was also impressed because as he put it, “You have fit so well into the culture.” That from a man who has known me in this culture for 10 years and gave me my Luo name, Akinyi, which means born in the morning.

I gathered what I needed to go to Ilkiloret the next day and called Frances the preacher/taxi man (that’s a story for another day) to take us to Kimuga. Elijah had been to Kimuga farm and met Grace and John 5 years ago with Give Us Wings.

They discussed how he would go about doing the research and Grace called a Maasai piki piki driver who lives near by to take Elijah around the next day.

Elijah and Raymond, the 18-year-old orphan who lives with Grace and John, talked late into the night about their lives as they are both orphans. Raymond needs to hear that he can be successful despite the hand he has been dealt and Elijah loves to spread encouragement and hope (not to mention that he just plain loves to talk) whenever he can.

WEDNESDAY: Elijah, the piki piki driver from Ngong, came to take me to Ilkiloret on Wednesday morning. On the way there he reminded me that Thursday day was a holiday - Mashujaa Day in Kenya. When I arrived in class I asked Janet if we would have class tomorrow and she said no, so Rebecca and I walked to the network tree and I circled the tree trying to get a few bars of connection. It took three tries but I finally got Njenga on the phone. He agreed to come at 1 pm to take me back to Ngong.

Class went well. My students are great! When they figure out directions they help their fellow students who arrive after them. I have a few students that still are trying to make letters and then there is Rebecca who I have to come up with extra work for because she is so bright and races through all the worksheets I bring. I’m still trying to get across the idea that the line is to be written on, that the letters must “stand” on the line. I stand up and make my body into an X – “the feet of the X need to be on the floor, see?”

The weather all morning is overcast. It hasn’t rained in almost two weeks in Ilkiloret. They are praying for rain, I’m praying to get away before the rain comes. Their prayers are answered. Njenga arrives a half hour late and soaking wet. He has come from dropping some one in Waso and it was raining hard there. We get rained on a bit on the way to the farm, where I stop to grab the things I used for staying overnight, but by the time we get to Ngong it is dry – it hasn’t rained at all there!

I get home and change and go to the cyber. Grace is at Gladys’ so I go back to the compound and show her the brochure I am working on for Wezesha.

THURSDAY: Mashujaa day is rainy and fairly uneventful. I finish the brochure and a couple of other things. Elijah arrives in the afternoon and decides to take a night bus back to Kisumu so I walk him back up our muddy road to where he can catch a bus back to Nairobi.

Grace arrives in the evening to spend the night. Ruth and I watch a movie as it is a holiday and we want to do something fun to mark the occasion. I made meat for dinner for the second night in a row, the next morning I stop to see Ndungu in his shop.

“How was dinner,” I ask.
“Fantastic,” he said.
I have come to realize if you make meat and ugali for a Kenyan man, he will follow you to the ends of the earth; or at the very least, have fantasies of making you his wife! Being a good neighbor could be dangerous!

FRIDAY: Rose came to do laundry at 8 am. I am so glad I finally admitted to myself that doing laundry by hand was one thing I could pay someone else to do. Leaning over doing laundry for two or three hours gives me a backache like no other! It is also my way of insuring that Rose has food for her children without giving her a handout.

I go to Swahili class, which has not gotten much better, but at least the teacher today is able to explain the question I had last Monday.

I spend some time in the cyber and then attempt to print the brochure and invitation I have made. I go to the best printer in Ngong, but the margins on his printer are not centered and he doesn’t know how to change it, so we try a few other solutions but I end up only being frustrated and leave without getting anything accomplished.

Grace informs me that we can restart the building project in Ilkiloret on Monday so I call the stone transporter and the fundi and make sure we are all set for Monday. I meet Grace and John for lunch and then let Crocodile know I will be ready to run in 45 min. – hoping that is enough time to digest the beans and chapo I have just eaten.

“How do you feel?” he asks when we meet.
“Okay,” I say, a little weary of my response this time.
“We do hills today?”

I explain that I’d rather not do hills, but no more is said. We take off running and before I know it we’ve passed Vet, the small town next to Ngong and then we are almost in Bulbul, the town after Vet. We are still running in the field but close enough to the road so that I can see these towns.

Crocodile says, “We’re running to Nairobi.”
“Okay,” I say, because I know he is lying.

We turn just before Bulbul and head back into the field. I’m doing okay until I ask how far we’ve gone.

“Six and half kilometers,” Crocodile say. “Four more to go.”

AIYAH!

I should not ask how far we’ve gone because as soon as I ask I get tired and slow down. It’s funny though because as soon as I can see the part of the field where we stretch at the end of a run, I get this surge of energy and can keep pace again until we finish.

I am completely exhausted by the time we get back to the compound, before I go inside, I walk over to Ndungu’s shop and grab a sport’s drink out of the refrigerator and drink it down.

“I don’t have money,” I tell Ndungu.
“That’s okay,” he says.
It better be okay, I think. I cook him dinner nearly every night of the week!

All the salt in my body has come through my pours and it sitting in a thick layer on my skin. To say that I am exhausted is an understatement. I drag myself home and shower and then drag myself back to the market to buy some vegetables for dinner. A dinner that I don’t cook because by the time I get home I’m too tired. Ruth and Ndungu will have to fend for themselves – 25.5K in one week has worn me out.

I wake up about midnight and check my phone. There is a message from Crocodile.

“Pliz.tomorrow, we can train by 11am or any time, you chose.Thanks. Cro.”

SATURDAY: It’s rainy and overcast and my body feels like a pretzel. Crocodile was supposed to run a 35K this morning with his club. I’m hoping he won’t mind if we don’t run and I do yoga instead!

Please God – let him say it’s okay if we don’t train today!