Prayer in School 2/9/07

Thirty six American college students taking a wild life conservation course in Kimana came to Oloile Secondary to do a community service project. For two hours they worked hard at installing fence posts and painting building trim, and for two hours they played games and shared songs and sodas with our students. It was a success for both sides and I was proud of what I had worked hard to arrange. But at day's end as we all gathered for an assembly, I met one of my limitations. The Oloile students sang a gospel song to the Americans and Eve, the school's head teacher, thanked our visitors. Then she asked me to close our time together with prayer, an ordinary formality in a Kenyan school. Now, I have prayed enough in front of people for public prayer not to feel uncomfortable, but at a school, in front of my compatriots, I was affected by the oddness of the situation. Having grown up in public schools in the U.S., I expect all religious acts to be separate from educational settings. But in Kenya, at a private school, founded by a Christian charity like the vast majority of secondary schools in the country, prayer is an accepted part of the day. That day, however, as I lowered my head in the late afternoon sun, and started to speak, my mind and mouth failed me. I was more concerned with making sure I did not say anything that would make the American volunteers uncomfortable, than I was with thanking God, and so I stammered and spit out a stream of vague squishy words that amounted to nothing and worshipped no one in particular. Within moments I felt like a phony, and that night I decided that I would try to be more myself at the next opportunity and less available to the nagging need to please others. Little did I know that chance would come so soon.

Two days after the Americans came, a tall, hazlenut skinned student named James came to see me trailed by his shorter, darker classmate Mutio. They came to the faculty building with their exercise books in hand, in order to hide their real need: counsel. We strolled some twenty five yards to the nearest tree, where in the shade James explained that he and his friend suffered under the same burden. The taller boy went on to tell me a tough story. His mother is Kenyan, his father Scottish, an immediate explanation for his exotically lighter features and perfect English I thought. But the tale was far from romantic. James was born out of wedlock and this foreign father ran from the African affair to return to his richer roots when James was only a toddler. Through hard work, James' mother had supported her son, until in 1998, the eight year old boy came down with a case of Cerebral Malaria, the most deadly form of Africa's greatest killer. It brought the boy so close to death, literally, that to hear him tell it, he was taken to the mortuary before the doctor noticed the supposed corpse was urinating, and so still living. In her desperation, James' mother reached out to her son's far away father. Apparently after hearing that his bastard son was on his death bed, the old man simply hung up the phone. Two years later, James came to the simple and wrenching conclusion that his father "didn't want him".

As the other students at Oloile wandered around with their lunch plates in hand, Mutio quietly told a story similar to James’. His father had left his mother, a rare and stigmatizing event in Kenya, and remarried, leaving his family with little money and little means to make more. Two years ago, the man died and the new wife laid claim to every little thing left behind. When a year ago Mutio came down with a severe illness and needed support, he, like James, had to survive without it. The two boys had moist, glazed eyes as they related their life histories. They each had a slight pleading tone in what they revealed to me, a hope maybe for financial help or school sponsorship, but the truth of their tales was evident in their faces. They looked hard at me with expectation. I was in water over my head. Their circumstances seemed so wholly other than mine. There was no sunny side. And with my back up against this hopelessness, I tried to offer the comfort I had to give.

"The first thing I want you both to know," I said slowly, gently to make sure I was understood, "is that you are worthy and deserving of love...far more than your fathers have shown you. I am sad because you have lived hard lives, beyond what I can even understand. I hope here at school you know you are cared for... that you have friends and teachers who are here to hear you if you want to talk. And I hope you find men here who will guide you in some of the ways your fathers have failed to." What I was saying did little to assuage the boys, and I knew it, so I retreated to the language of faith. It was all I had and I was greatly relieved to have it. "What I want you to know most though, is that you are not fatherless. You have a greater father in heaven. And though you may feel like your dad doesn't want you or he has abandoned you, God wants to love and care for you. He has not abandoned you."

Even now putting those words down, they seem trite. But in the face of senseless hurt, I was left with no other answer to give these boys. The alternative is to say that the world is cruel beyond belief to some and that life may in the end be utterly meaningless, so it was only my belief in things unseen that I had to offer. And though most days I barely have faith enough to show up to a Sunday service, when I listened to the burdens these boys were bearing, I wanted to believe in a God who must be there for orphans and widows. The alternative is hopelessness.

So before we parted I prayed for my two students in specific words with my hands on their shoulders. I prayed a simple prayer that they would know they are loved and that the school would be a place where they are listened to. I thanked this unseen Father for Mutio and James, for their honesty and courage. And before I said, "amen", I could feel the boys shaking with tears. I opened my eyes to find two seventeen year old teenagers crying like little boys. I still felt ill equipped to care for them. Afterall, I had come to Kenya to teach and to build a school and what these children needed most was counseling, someone to listen to them and love them. The force of that need was to fierce to face alone, and I was thankful to have a greater father who was somehow, mysteriously in our midst.

Inequality 2/18/07

Though Kimana is abounding in beauty it is also a place littered with stinking trash that is never removed. A place where children are often damp with urine and dripping with snot and chase you with endless shouts of "how are you?" and their dirty fingers reach to touch your skin to see what it feels like. A place where young girls have their most precious and sensual parts cut off by crude knives in as a ceremonial welcome to an adulthood bereft of sexual pleasure. Where women are without rights Americans would consider inalienable, and men have the right to marry more than one wife.

It is a place where roads are often impassable because of rain, and dangerous because of disrepair. A place where four months ago a bus full of 26 women heading to a church conference met head on with a truck that took the lives of 14 people, leaving 5 area pastors instant widowers. A place where breaking down is so common it goes without mention. Where gas and kerosene are carried carelessly in plastic zip lock bags, and two years ago six people died in house fires when on one day the fluid meant for cars was accidentally sold for lanterns.

Kimana is a place where latrines are stinking holes in the ground covered in excrement and buzzing with flies and toilet paper is rarely found. Where hands of welcome are offered everywhere and are universally covered in God knows what, but must be shaken nonetheless, and those same hands prepare food tainted just enough some days to make you puke til you pass out. A place where drunkards wreaking of moonshine plaster your face with their breath as they babble. Where water can contain sickening elements and rivers are hop scotched by women with babies strapped to their backs and jugs in their arms.

A place where officials are ubiquitously bribed and favors are rarely done without expectations. It is a place where you sometimes feel inexplicably defensive and irritable. Where sob stories are contrived for listening white ears. Where everyone who approaches you seems to do so with a hidden hope: a child they want you to sponsor, a trip they want you to pay for, an item they want to overcharge you for. A place where cynicism is a daily sensation. Where it is only honest to admit to at some moments thinking the place is a shit hole. Or worse even: God forsaken. A place that forces the precarious conclusion that all men may be created equal, but all countries are not, all societies are not, and all communities are not.

Pole Pole 2/11/07

Pole pole is Kiswahili for "slowly by slowly", and I have often heard the phrase from my Kenyan friends as advice to me. It also describes well my learning curve here.

Each day I am growing, which, I suppose, is a typical observation from anyone in a foreign environment. Some days I grow a bit through small successes, and other days when I make adolescent mistakes the spurts are more severe. But little by little, day by day, I am learning how to move beyond the idealism of trying to affect the world, through the disillusionment that comes from smacking my nose repeatedly into the wall of disappointment, and into this quest to make a realistic impact on a community scale.

Ten days ago I devised a contract for the staff of Oloile Secondary to sign. Rushing back down the hills from Loitokitok to the school with the forms in hand, I failed to predict the obvious: the teachers would be apprehensive about signing an agreement because they are not used to such things. It was raining past the point of down pour when I arrived, and the sound of the water against the tin roof was deafening. The late afternoon sky had prematurely darkened, and I should have taken the sign that the timing was wrong. Anything I rush here backfires. Though the contract is written firmly in favor of the worker and was meant to give the faculty confidence in their job security, it was not until I made amends by holding a meeting the next afternoon just to explain the terms that I was able to abate the skepticism they felt. I can't blame them, given the corruption most here are accustomed to. Thankfully, after recognizing my mistakes, and slowing to a Kenyan pace, the entire teaching staff signed on for at least two years. Some even have guaranteed five. Most importantly, Eve, the head teacher, has committed herself to three, a decision I awaited all weekend and am delighted to have received. So through my mistakes, I am learning, pole pole, to slow down and to listen.

There are moments though that I am lucky, days filled with good work and fulfillment, hours when I imagine that I have accomplished something, nights when I go to sleep excited with the seeds I am seeing sprout. I hope that with greater experience, knowledge and insight those moments will become more frequent, but for now I cherish them when they arrive.

The teachers and I met on Monday night for our first Teaching Seminar, and I am excited about what will happen in the ten weeks to come. We are discussing practical ways of engaging the whole class. Our four rooms are stuffed with fifty students each and each lesson is manned by one teacher. I wish we could make for smaller class sizes, but the fact is we are now turning students away daily. By putting my first two week's time into observing each teacher in lessons and taking careful notes on ways we might improve the atmosphere in these overcrowded classes, I earned some trust from the faculty as someone who would listen before acting. And though I am proposing some ideas that seem outlandish to them- suggestions like team teaching and peer observations, I believe that slowly by slowly, the teachers will come along. I am learning to take the time to get faculty leaders on my side and to get others to also own my ideas, because when I have tried to take the lead by myself, I have eaten a full plate of dry resistance. But mostly I am learning to believe that good ideas can be implemented and made to work, when conditions are right. The programs I am devising will have life, as long as I don't fall prey to needing the approval of everyone, which I am prone to, and, at the same time, avoid monopolizing the arena of ideas by speaking too much. For now I am starting small, practically.

This week I encouraged the teachers to learn the students’ names by making seating charts for them to fill in, giving the students name tags, and offering a financial reward to any teacher who knows the names of 90% of the student body by month's end. Those suggestions sound so simple, but here they are new. We discussed ways to invite more participation in class- calling on students randomly, walking the aisles to involve the back rows, and welcoming wrong answers, so hesitant students do not fear ridicule. Next week I will set up partnerships between those who teach similar subjects and ask each partner to observe the other during one class a week in order to take notes on how the ideas we are discussing are affecting teaching methods. I am hoping that if this peer to peer evaluation works and real conversations happen between colleagues, then programs will take hold and a system of accountability, that does not depend on my input, will be in place.

Slowly by slowly, I push through the wishful thinking of world scale reform, past the cynicism of corruption and broken systems, and into the work of practical grass roots programs. These small moments of satisfaction are like sips from the cup of hope. Pole pole, I believe that the community will be transformed.

Laughing is a survival skill 2/5/07

There are absurdities here so numerous I fail to keep track. Here are two.

The Range Rover that transports us to and fro is well past its prime. Built in the 70's as a military vehicle, some how the "Green Machine" keeps plugging along, though it would fail every step of an American inspection. In order to start the thing, it must be hotwired, for there is no key. And getting it going requires the pushing power of several men, because the truck can only start out of second gear. The gas tank is hilariously placed under the driver's seat and the only way to asses the fuel level is to put a finger in and look at the line the liquid leaves on your hand. The old thing broke down no fewer than seven times in the first seven days I was here in Kimana. One morning the truck lost power while we were switching to 4 wheel drive, which is normal. The only problem was we were in the middle of a small river. But this dilapidated vehicle is one of the best in the village, and the daily problems only make driving it a communal affair. Everyone chips in a push or a tow, and anyone is welcome to hitch a ride in the bed as you drive down the main road.

The bat living in the latrine is, however, a greater ridiculousness that I have had to incorporate into my life here. Not to be overly graphic, but the bathroom here is an outhouse with a hole in the floor, which one squats over in order to relieve himself. The hole leads to a deep pit of human waste. Last week I was using the place late at night and in the midst of my business, as I squatted there backside bare to the air, something flew out of the hole, grazing my ass. I stood up immediately, not sure what had hit me, only knowing it was more bird sized than bug sized. I tried to convince myself that the flying creature was only a moth or a figment of my American imagination. But a few days ago my worst fear was confirmed. Once again I heard the wings fluttering below me as I hunkered over the hole. Standing up with a jolt, I swung my head lamp toward the floor, and sure enough, flying around in the pit below my bottom was a bat, just waiting to scare the shit out of me.

Blessed are the Poor 2/4/07

A parable came to life as I was giving out pay at Oloile this past Tuesday evening. The teachers are paid between $185 and $225 a month here at the school, and those salaries are noticeably higher than many private schools around. But most of the staff had taken advances on their pay checks, which meant that as the remainders were given out at Month's end, the amounts were between $85 and $210. As we handed them each their cash and had them sign for it, the teachers counted quickly what they had been given and heartily thanked me. And though I took each occasion to thank them in turn, for the work was theirs not mine,I felt a bit sick at the picture I was painting: a white man handing out small salaries to a line of black workers. The image was a throw back to colonialism. I think, next month I will have the head teacher administer payroll instead.

The Biblical lesson came through at the end of the evening as the rain outside threatened flood, and we all worried we would not make it back across the river to town. David Kilelo, a middle aged Maasai warrior and the security guard here, sat down with his bow and arrow beside him to receive his monthly income. He, like the rest, had taken an advance on his 5000 shillings and the remainder was a mere 3200, which is about $50. That was his monthly pay. But the joy he took in receiving it and the pride he put into slowly sketching out his name in capital letters, brought a knot to my throat and that funny sensation in the stomach that comes before crying. "Blessed are thepoor", Jesus says, and at times I know what he means.