Many impressions

August 11, 2011
Yesterday we went to District Development Meeting with our 6 elders in the morning, then met with a Branch President to help him get started on a computer, something he has never even touched before. He is a darling man. We just love him to death, so humble and kind. He is the one who ran his bike into the ditch because he can’t see. He now has glasses, but we worked until almost 7 last night and it was raining, and he still had a 2 hour trip home by bike. It is so muddy, I don’t know how he can even ride, even when he is on tarmac. We had to take our YW Pres home (opposite direction).

After the computer session, we drove out to get the YW Pres. She is in her 30s I would suspect, single, and very ,very crippled up with arthritis. She is a very beautiful woman, keeps herself just immaculate, painted finger and toenails, fixed hair, lovely clothing, etc. She is also well educated. She lives by herself in actually 2 houses connected that have fallen into bad disrepair on a big shamba owned by her parents.

Our goal for the day was to visit all the active girls and their families in the branch. We made many (not all) of them. We took the YW Pres and the Br President with us. We rode for a very long time on muddy dirt roads twisting and in and out among the maize fields until we came to the home of the 1st Coun in the Br Presidency. We’ve been to all of the homes in the past that we visited this day.

We were able to meet with 3 YW, several smaller children, and the mother, who was pulling kernals off a cob of corn. This corn is still wet (fresh). She said she needed for the 10 members of the family 20 cobs (big lovely ones) to add to their beans and Irish potatoes (as opposed to sweet potatoes, which they eat for breakfast with cocoa at 7AM). Supper is 7PM, and they eat maize and sometimes this stew like substance. Meat is consumed only on special holidays.

Some of the girls in this family are less active, but the YW is so eager to do her job well, that she just sat right down with them on their rickety stools and table and pulled out the Personal Progress and got them involved with her. She is amazing. We had chickens running under our feet. They usually don’t eat the eggs they raise they said. They use them for barter so they can get things like wire or wood or other commodities.

The house is larger than most here—the father is a mason. He has built a separate outdoor kitchen and some other rooms. They have a single bulb light dangling from the ceiling, but the power is erratic, and they can’t afford the electricity, so they use a lantern from 7-9 or 10 when they go to bed. They usually read the scriptures at night or sing together. No TV of course.

We left there and went down into the slums. The mud was unbelievable. We usually get lost in this area of the branch, and today was no exception. It is Ramadan right now, so we saw many completely covered women (black veils and gowns) picking their way with everyone else through the mud. Although we see Muslims fairly commonly, we don’t usually see so many Muslim women in this area. The Br. Pres thought they must be coming from the mosque.

They, like everyone were very curious about us. We could not see their expressions other than their eyes, but that told a lot. We were parked right in the middle of tons of mud homes with garbage scattered in large piles around us. People walked all around the car peering in to see the muzungus…the kids climbed right up on the edge of the car. We had to be careful when we opened the doors because one little boy tried to climb right in over me. Then he clung to the edge of the door and an adult had to come and pull him off. He was probably 6-7. Everyone was caked with mud in that rainy place.

The family we visited here is often sick with Malaria. It is a very poor area with standing water and garbage everywhere. The houses are joined to neighbors in many cases and very small and wet. The mother came out to welcome us into her home. Her father died that morning, and she was very upset because of his death and that he lives down by Kisumu (5 hours away), and she hasn’t any money to go to the funeral. We talked for awhile with her and then the YW talked with 2 of her girls. The Br Pres stayed to talk with her while we went to the car. We don’t know if he helped her with money for the trip. We are strongly cautioned not to give money, so we didn’t. I go out of those situations with a stomach and heartache. Oh, how hard it is for them, and what can we do?

We visited the next family—former pioneers here, 15 years in the church, just recently reactivated. The mother has just been called to be the R.S. Pres and the father to be the SS Pres. They live in a very poor house as well. The YW Pres had a very difficult time trying to walk to these houses through the mud and wet grass. She wears flipflops (probably because her feet hurt so badly), and it is treacherous walking with the clodhoppers I wear, I can’t imagine being in flipflops. This house was higher than most and to enter you had to climb cement steps. It was perilous for her, but the men came to her assistance. We had a good visit there with one girl.

While there, two female visitors came to the door and called “Hodi Hodi” The mother responded, “Karibu” Welcome. I think they came mostly to see the muzungus. One of the women is due to deliver her second baby this month. She was more sophisticated than most in our area. She was nicely dressed, spoke English very well, and just seemed quite put together. She has her own business in the next block from where we were visiting. She became very agitated as she began to talk with us. She started out with usual pleasantries, but then became more upset as she talked.

Last night, she locked her shop carefully, because she had just fully restocked it with hardware and foodstuffs to sell. Even though she had a night guard, she was completely robbed. She left the structure (they are usually little shacks) padlocked, and when she returned this morning (being yesterday), she found the padlock in place and locked, but she had a bad feeling. When she opened up, it was slicked clean. She usually sleeps on the premises in the back, but this night she had felt uncomfortable about doing so. She was understandably, very upset because of her many losses. The mother we were visiting reported that many shops had been robbed that night.

We felt so badly for her, but again, we are not to give money. We told her how sorry we were. I can’t imagine how hard that must be for her. She said all the money they had saved for the hospital for the baby is now gone. She had hidden it in the store and lost it as well.

We traveled even further into the slum to a very congested area we have visited before. This family lives right in the middle of the market, down an alley. The father is a tailor and has his sewing machine across the street right on the boardwalk outside. We were very crowded in this very, very small home. The YW Pres visited with the daughter as we encouraged the family (the father) to become more active. The father was anxious to leave once we had been welcomed, but Neal encouraged him to stay and talked with him about his son working on the Duty to God.

We left them to visit our last family of the day. It was pouring by this time, which only made it muddier. We moved to a bigger slum called Kipsonga, the largest slum in Kitale. This family lives down off the road in a very populated area. We parked up on the pavement (steep drop offs on either side). My door opened right down into a ditch. We had the YW Pres exit the car by the other side because it would have been so slippery, she would have been right in the ditch.

We crossed the busy road to the other side. Again, a very steep muddy drop off that continued that pitch from the road right down to the line of mud houses (all connected together). It was probably 40 feet from the road to the house. They had tied a filthy goat right by their door (a new acquisition just today). It bleated all the while we were there. We wondered if the neighbors came to slash its throat last night. They had piled a huge stack of garbage mixed with maize stalks and other greenery next to it from which piles of mosquitoes were rising and coming into the house.

They said they were going to raise the goat to sell for meat, hoping to mate it with another so they could have a herd. We wondered where they would put these animals with the neighbors so close around them. As we tried to visit, the goat was bleating, and somewhere a church or natives were beating drums, so it was difficult to hear. The father said, “I am so happy. Today, I got a goat and you have come to bless my home.” He was so nice about us coming. He was telling us what a good thing a dung/mud home is because the dung smell will protect the occupants from caterpillars entering the house.

Two of the girls had been working on Personal Progress. They found scraps of paper, which they had torn apart and colored with something to make torches for their PP books. I was so touched by their efforts. It must have taken supreme effort to do that with the few resources they have. The Br Pres translated to the mother the things “For the Strength of Youth” emphasizes. She was really pleased and wanting her girls to have those ideals and principles in their lives.

It was quite a day. We feel like we are overwhelmed and inadequate and helpless to make any changes or inroads. There is so much opposition, and their lives are so hard.

August 11, 2011 Today we were supposed to meet with another branch president to go visiting. We met with P and E first to talk with them about changes they would like to make to their situation. We have tried to be very prayerful as have they about their lives.

It was really raining when we reached the Church. We took the elders up as far as this branch so they could catch a motorcycle to their area. We know they were going to drown because they only were in their white shirts, and it was pouring and so muddy. They were going up to their homes on those roads that are so scary. They called us after they got home to tell us they had finally made it. We had really worried about them because those motorcycles are so dangerous on good days far less bad ones.

The branch president and 1st counselor, P. got into the car as we sat outside the Church in the rain. It was warmer than inside the church would have been. The branch pres talked about how hard it has been for him to be the BP. He said that his neighbors THINK he is rich now he is a leader, and they flood his house and stay all day eating what little food his family has. He tries to tell them he isn’t rich, but they don’t believe him. He feels he can’t go to his neighbors any more to ask for help because they think he is rich. Later, he said he plays conference as a missionary tool for them to watch on the TV and they sit and watch it all day.

He said they believed all were rich because in the past people had been given land. We went over again that that isn’t the way things work. He mentioned it was hard for any RMs that come home because neighbors expect them to be rich when they returned and wouldn’t help them get jobs or help with food.

He is so worried because almost all of his people in the branch are hungry. He said there were only 3 people in his branch who have high school educations. He explained that to get a high school education costs for the 4 years total of school between $1,750 and $2,000.

He works with NGOs—Non-government Organizations who do research. They found that in Kenya there are 8 months of hunger each year. There are only 1-2 families in the branch that have a family member employed outside of individual farming on their small plots of land. He left us early to go into Kitale (about ½ hour away in a matatu) to see if he could get work at the Community offices. He said he left at 8AM and his wife left at 10AM leaving the kids at home with all the people who are crowded into his house watching the TV. He was worried about what his kids would do at lunchtime when all those people want to eat.