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On Saturday, Fred called in the afternoon to tell me that another infant had died here. This makes the third child in two months to die from this manyatta. This child was 8 months, and was the nephew of a friend (a watchman here) living in a manyatta, next to where I stay. One day the child was fine, the next night the parents took the baby to a clinic in Athi River. The child was sent home with some medications but worsened over night. They were on a matatu to a Nairobi hospital when the child died, silently in the arms of the parents. They brought the baby back here on the matatu, and then called Fred to bring the baby and mother from the main road to the manyatta on his motorbike. They buried the baby in the cattle enclosure; the only place assured that wild animals would not uncover the child in the night. They placed stones on the body and then covered with dirt. I tell you the details to let you know how life and death are here. Children die of illnesses like malaria and typhoid but mainly due to dehydration from vomiting and diarrhea. The parents take them for treatment when it is too late.

The Masai will gather from the three local Masai churches today at the burial site for prayers. I won’t attend since my presence either draws attention away from the prayer, or causes concern that I might turn them in to the officials for burying on land they don’t own. Something needs to be done as far as medical services for these children. I’ll keep thinking.

If you would like to donate a cow to help raise money for our projects in Africa and support my travel to and from the States, send your donations to COWS: The Ed Colina Foundation, P.O. Box 199 Burlington, KY 41005.  The cows will be watched by the Maasai herdsmen while I am in the US.  When sold, we hope to almost triple the donation in just a few months.  Each cow costs about $150.  Thanks! e

Today we made the last trip to Kiserian to buy beads for the women to use when they make our belts and necklaces. Since it rained last night, Fred and I trudged for miles in the mud to get to a matatu to take us to Nairobi first.   It takes a while to get there and you need 6 to 7 different vehicles to get there and back, but the prices are still better and the people are really friendly. We always have a good time when we go and they are really interested in me, my travels and my personal life! Pictured are the mama who owns the store and her brother. The brother cannot hear and cannot speak but we seem to communicate very well. He is the one who cuts all the leather for bracelets and key chains. He also makes the leather straps and assembles the sandals we make. Also pictured on the right is Fred, my Maasai friend and the one who oversees the women’s bead-making and goat projects.

After leaving Kiserian we traveled to Nairobi to meet Benson. This has become a pattern each time we go to Kiserian. On our way, we call Benson in Kibera and meet him downtown at Hunter’s Restaurant for chicken, chips, or chapatti. Then it is back on a matatu for a long ride to Athi River. Fred went on to Kitengela and I walked what seemed like many miles through the Jam City slum to my room. I was accompanied, like I usually am, by some Masai children coming home from school. They ask me questions in Kimasai and “pet” my soft skin. Great fun.

And so I call my 89 year-old mother in the states Wednesday. She tells me,

“You know Eddie, you don’t need to come home so often. These flights are getting more expensive.  This was just a bad stretch (She was rushed to the hospital as I was arriving in Kenya.) and I am better now.”

There is a freedom in her words. Yet I know she is looking forward to me coming home as soon as I can – June 27th. It was nice to hear mom’s words but probably won’t change any plans I have for returning to Kenya for longer periods and how soon. Although one avenue of cheap flights has closed, I may still be able to get Buddy Passes from some pilot friends for my next flights.

On Monday, three visitors came from the States, actually from my area; a young St. Henry High School student Michael, his mom and her sister. Great people who are headed to give of their time and some donations to the Samburu tribe, in another part of Kenya. But they spent the day with us, visiting the projects, distributing food and footballs, playing with the kids at the schools we fund and also sitting in on one of the adult education classes. We had a great time.

Ed, Julius, Mike

Pictured with me are Julius and our visitor Michael. A sad note, but so common – when we were visiting with Julius, we congratulated him on the birth of his child. Sadly, the baby died this morning at Kenyatta Hospital, thirteen days old. After we met with Julius Tuesday morning, they took the infant to a local clinic in Athi River, then to a small hospital in Machakos and then finally to Nairobi. Intestinal problems. Death is so common here, especially among the newborn. I’ll be interested to see where the child will be buried – here in Athi, or taken to their ancestral home in Kajiado.

Life and death – I need to deal with it . . . . and I think I am.

All made in THE IMAGE and likeness of God

As I have written somewhere before, prayer comes more easily for me in Kenya. I am not quite sure why and maybe I even doubt if it is prayer at all, but feelings of duty or righteousness or ego. Maybe prayer comes more easily in Africa with less stimulation around? I don’t know. I do have more time to sit, reflect, and be with nature a little more. But prayer, as I am learning, may be more about just sitting and allowing God to see and know me. Not to pray TO GOD but allow God the space to visit me, to see me. I try to be a mirror and reflect God back to God. I try to look at God and see, as in a mirror, myself reflected back from God.

In a sense I begin again, and again, and again, my “spiritual life” – whatever that is. I think, as many have said, instead of we humans trying to become more spiritual, we are all already spiritual beings, needing to become more human. So this morning I began once again. I contemplated the beginning. “Let us create humanity in Our own image and likeness of Ourselves.” It is a good place to start (or to start again!). I just sit with that. That is where my faith begins. I have often turned my faith into a belief system rather than a longing for union with God. God apparently believes that I am “ok” and “very good”. I have a place to return to. I have an original identity that is somehow Divine. My longing and my hope is to return to that. But, I am told, I can’t do it myself. I can’t wish or pray it to happen. I allow. To return to that original Union, I breath in the Spirit that has already been given to me, where there are really no dead ends, no mistakes which God can’t turn into good and teach me.

I am smiling this morning because: (1.) I am happy here. It is a great morning and there is no one around. (2.) I am so full of myself sometimes, full of crap mainly, that I just have to smile, and cry a little too. (3.) I have been given a gift – being able to come to Kenya. I can never forget that, no matter the frustrations, petty illnesses, fears or setbacks. EVERYTHING is a gift. I have to just smile.

“All you can give back to God is who you really are
When God surrounds and fills your “poverty,” as we Franciscans call it, you know you can never do better than God. If God can accept it and forgive it, then I can too!” ROHR

I am down to only 24 days left for in trip to Kenya. There are a million loose ends to tie up, funds to be withdrawn and to be assigned, people to meet with and get organized to continue things while I am gone. As much as I am happy to come home and visit, it is a difficult goodbye. I am never really sure if this will be my last trip to Kenya for a while. When I talk to my friends about leaving or about my feelings toward them, I can feel tears right at the surface – even now as I write this. The folks here have come to rely on me for some income or food or advice and direction. I rely on them as friends and as guides to navigate through this culture and this sometimes frightening life in Nairobi. I also rely on them to teach me about what matters most.
The reason I return home is to check on my mom and family, to raise some money for future projects and to get some rest and decent food. I would come home more often if the flights were not so expensive. I also have to stay overnight in London to get the next day’s flight – and that is always pricey.
When the Kenyans realize my time here is running short, my phone begins to ring. Some think that I barely got here and that I did not spend enough time with them – like my good friends Pascal, or George and some of the other Kenyans. There is no good reason for our lack of contact. It just didn’t happen much. So I am sure to get calls from them and we must get together one more time.
Then there are others, for example, the “retired” Chief of Athi River, who recently got his “priest papers” and tries to call me for food and money for whatever. Maybe it was a correspondence course or something, but he swears he is now a Catholic priest. I am not sure if he has told his wife. He was informed that I helped with the construction of a Maasai church and now he calls wanting money to build his own church. He is quite a character. I don’t answer his calls. There are also the calls that come from the high school students at Nyumbani Village. They have a mid-term break coming and will want me to come to visit in Kitui one last time before I fly. It is doubtful that I’ll make it out to Kitui again this trip.
I had wanted to do a little traveling. Not big safaris but small trips – maybe to Kilimanjaro by bus or to the escarpment at Kajiado to camp out with the lions and the Maasai – It never happened. I didn’t chicken out – the Maasai did. They said there is too much grass to sleep outside. The lions will get you. I also wanted to go to Nakuru to see George’s parents and to Turkana to see Benson’s mom and the two kids we support with school fees. These kids had never gone to school before. Benson’s mom is fading fast, having epileptic seizures nightly and her vision is almost gone. And they are all quite literally starving to death. There is no money, no help from anywhere. No help for a doctor or medication. We help all we can but it is not enough for all the people there who need it. They just die. Older people are left to starve. If there is a little food, it goes to those with most possibility for survival. So the old just sit and wait, wishing to die. You see it all over as we walked Turkana. Sometimes blindness comes first, then death. Anyway, next trip I’ll return to Turkana – maybe with a plan or some hope for the older people.
The Kamba widows in Ngelani know that I am preparing to leave. They said “goodbye” with a reminder that they too are hungry. They have planted but the crops are not yet in. We deliver more maize flour for them, their children and grandchildren on Tuesday.
And so you can see that I am tremendously torn. I want to go home and need to go home but my life has been diverted to Africa. To leave here is like leaving home. I’ll worry. I’ll cry. I’ll return. But the question always asked of me is “when?”

So green now. Outside my place.

Today was meeting day with Daniel, the Maasai Chairperson of the Education Committee for our preschool. The meetings are always lively but agonizingly slow. Things must be stated many times, in many different ways, in order to be understood. At this meeting, we tried to explain the reasons why the Foundation should not pay school fees for needy children this term, since we have put in place an income-generating business from which the women have been paid some good money for their bead work. The women were reminded that the reason for the activities and for the money they have been paid is for the school fees of their children. If they have been paid money for this purpose, why should the Foundation be asked to pay more? Sustainability of the projects is key here but takes a long time to convince the leadership to take over their own destinies.

Fred is still in Kajiado, purchasing goats for the Women’s Goat Cooperative. The cooperative is another activity we created to provide the women with money from the sale of milk and the sale of the new goats born. Soon the women will have around 70 goats. Goat milk is going at a good price and sales can easily pay the small school fees. Fred will come home on Thursday and we will travel to Kiserian for another purchase of beads etc. for our latest bead work order before I return home.

Benson went back to Kibera and is trying to be accepted into a Master’s program in the UK. So far the signs are positive but the funding is often an issue. He wants to get his degree in International Development and return to his homeland of Turkana to work with the refugee camps.

On Sunday, a student from St Henry High School in Kentucky, and his mother are coming to Kenya. They’ll spend some time with our programs, visiting the Masai school and St. Tim’s. Welcome!

Benson and Gazelle

It was a great weekend. Fred and Mwololo are both out of town and Benson came to visit for some days. On Sunday we walked up the hill behind where I stay and looked for zebra. We found some gazelles and many cows going off to pastures. The sun was behind clouds most of the day and it was pleasant to walk and talk. Each day I find the area here so beautiful. I am sure it will change over the next years, as small parcels of land are sold off to investors and for private homes. But right now, the land is rolling hills and beautiful green countryside. Add into the picturesque location, hundreds of cattle and red-cloaked Maasai walking around the hillsides and I find it heaven.

Today is Monday and another walk; this time to Athi River town. The journey took us about an hour and again, the weather was great for walking. We walked a good deal of the way with four little children, headed for a school in the nearby slums. Hand in hand they walked with us, whistling, smiling and so happy, given their living situations. The mornings are cools these days, and the evenings as well. Tonight we walked the manyattas, greeting the Maasai and children, watching the hundreds of cows come back form a day in far off places.

Ed Resting on Rock - Enjoying the View

Mwololo returned from his rurual home and we met to discuss the events of the coming weeks. I realized I have only about 4 weeks left in Kenya this trip. I begin the journey home on the 23rd of June. I am hoping the British Airways strike is over by that time! I’ll pass through London and New York City, getting home on the 27th if I make all my connections.

Maybe it is because I am contemplating my departure that I find this place, the people, nature, so beautiful and it feels like home.