Giraffic Park

No, she's not Karen Blixen, or even Meryl Streep. He's dashing, but he's not Robert Redford...and they are in, not out of Africa. They are having a simply breath-taking day.

We visited Crescent Island on Lake Naivashu, which was stocked with wildlife by the famous author, Karen Blixen, so the animals would be accessible for filming. Earlier generations of the animals we saw yesterday appeared in the autobiographical film, Out of Africa. Here's just a bit of what we saw and experienced.

First, the good gnus...







...joined by zebras





And giraffes!



An impala graces the horizon...













While a herd of hippos lurk in the lake and
play peek-a-boo with tourists.














We saw the grandmother of all pythons -- well-fed and enormous,
and then turned around and gasped...






At the simply stunning vista behind us.

Africa through their eyes

Jim and I can tell you what we observe and experience here, but whatever small insight we can give is nothing compared to what our young people know after spending much of their young lives in Africa. I never liked the usual vacation essays, so I assigned something different for my ninth grade class: "My Place of Peace." I knew to expect something different from RVA kids and I was not disappointed. I asked and received permission to quote their work. You may almost envy my opportunity to read and grade these. Here's what a few of them had to say.

Julia finds her place of peace on a beach. "There is a certain peace in the early hours of the morning light when everything is still asleep. The shell sellers have not yet arrived and aren't aggravating anyone to buy their stock of shells...In the afternoon, I decide to read a book our near the beach where the seaweed has now been raked into nice rows. The shell sellers and the dukas are now bustling with customers. Now the waves whip the shore and the salty sea stings my parched lips unlike this morning. I try my hardest to concentrate on my book, but cannot. Then I remember once again that God is in control of everything, no matter how chaotic it may be."

Nathan seeks his solace in a tree. "I climb up the tree until I am out of sight, then I sit down on a comfortable branch so I can lean back and be relaxed. I close my eyes and feel the cold breeze brush my face like a caring mother to a son."

Bree tells of a remote place in Uganda. "I observe some fishermen rowing by in their skinny canoe. They have on tattered clothes and these ones carry a load of fish with them. But even when their nets remain empty from the long night catch, they still sing a chanting sort of tune. Full of life, they declare their joy...Their lives are so much harder than mine, and yet while doing what they do everyday, they glorify and worship their creator..."

Jack describes his trek to local caves. "My place of peace is a place where it feels like I've been tapped on the back of the head and all the pressure leaks out. Getting there is all part of the fun...We begin the waterfall descent by hopping rock to rock like hyrax racing for food. Sometime we use roots to rappel with."

Justin reflects on a moment of peace learning to rock climb with a African guide, Watchmwamba. "I just sat down on the highest boulder thinking about how amazing God was and how beautiful his creations were...I heard utter silence, there above loud cars and cities. It was the most peaceful place I had ever been."

Ha Eun, like many of her peers, finds her peace in music. "I usually listen to classical music, Hillsongs, or Korean pop songs...When I hear Hillsongs, I feel that my faith in God is growing."

JuEun found his peace in an unexpected place for a ninth grader -- his family. "I realized by now, I thought they were my shame. I always could not show them or introduce them [to] others. How stupid! They were my place of peace that always accepts me with not reason, just...like God...They were my energy resources and they were the reason of my breath. I love them; they are my place of peace. Always!"

Daniel describes this place in Ethiopia: "...I have a place that I go to if I am angry, depressed, sad, or just want to spend some time with Christ. This place is on top of a cave that shepherds hide in when it hails. The cave is inside a lava wall that comes from a volcano core on the other side of the valley...On the other side of my wall there is a field where kids play soccer when they should be watching livestock...When I reach the top, my head full of sorrows, I sigh and look down on the green landscape...The sky is darkening; it looks like it might hail. The youthful [who] are too young to plant and the elderly who are too old to reap are willing the dark sky to disperse so their livestock get a little more of the sparse grass. The music of the Orthodox church is deadened out by the rumblings of the coming storm. As I hurry to my home, I realize that my sorrows are nothing compared to these people who have stolen my heart."

Glorious flowers in Africa

I am dazzled everyday.

One can literally garden

twelve months out of the

year.

Even in a drought, flowers

bloom,

and I'm told when there is

abundant rain, Kijabe is

lush, as is the rest of Africa.

The photos will

tell the story in this

entry. Gasp along with me.



Rosemary in bloom on a bush three feet tall -- it's our small one.
This is in the garden in front of our duplex.











A bottlebrush tree in a friend's yard.

A crown of thorns plant. These thorns are as wicked as they look.



After a long, hard day, Jim and I will treat
ourselves to a walk along this path. The purple foliage is Wandering Jew.















These are nasturtiums. Yes, nasturtiums that you and I would buy at a nursery. These are growing wild outside our fenced-in compound.





This spectacular blossom reminds me of a Colorado columbine, but it's the size of Jim's hand. God's botanical wonders here are bold, big, and beautiful.

A different standard of living

Making a living in rural Kenya is a precarious matter. Once the breadbasket of Kenya, the valley below us is a bare, arid plain. The slopes just beneath the Kijabe escarpment were once forested, and rains came predictably and abundantly. In order to feed hungry bellies, poachers cut down precious, moisture-giving trees to make charcoal. The deforestation then results in gardens that dry away -- leading to more hunger.

People who are the "haves" share with the "have-nots" -- family members, friends. That is the heart of African culture. The local church has a food pantry and many other local believers do what they can for the poor, especially the children in Kijabe and down in the displaced persons camps in the valley. Here at RVA, we contribute all we can.

From our arrival, we are urged to hire housekeepers and gardeners or handy-men. Rift Valley Academy staff members are major employers in the local economy, and our employees make a whopping 65 cents an hour (maximum) -- but no more than that. Too much prosperity breeds jealousy and resentment among peers -- and sometimes harassment of one sort or another.

The pay is hardly charity. These people more than earn their shillings. Each twelve-week quarter has a jam-packed, round-the clock schedule of ministry to these children, in classroom, in activities, in Sunday School, and on weekends. If it were not for Gladys, the Holts would hardly eat, the kids we host in our home would have no cookies, our shopping would be left undone, and we would wade through a mounting pile of dirty laundry and debris. If it were not for Ben, we would be cold, without milk, and left with a host of unresolved household matters frustrating us both.

Insightful friends have helped us understand that midway through the month, a bag of maize meal, flour, or sugar will help our workers make it through until payday; that often a worker could be cooking our meals on an empty stomach. We have found that we are not only helping these two. We are also helping Gladys' s aging mother and, we suspect, others as well. Our fruit and vegetable peelings no longer go into the trash or compost. They go to feed Gladys's cow, because there is very little grass. Gladys is up way before dawn, feeding and hauling water from a creek for her precious livestock, before she comes and ministers to us and to the Carpenters.

It's an humbling reality.

Downtown Kijabe









Both shots taken from a van. I don't want to be a gawking tourist.








Once the breadbasket of Kenya, after three years of drought.

Home for the Holts

Here is home for the Holts. It's a snug little duplex adjoining the best of neighbors, the Carpenters. Our yard boasts its very own ficus tree -- not in the foyer--in the yard. We have a master bedroom and a guest bedroom (hint, hint) and one and a half baths. The bathroom light switch is outside the door and there are no outlets for blow driers, because the house is not grounded. I blow dry my hair at a mirror in our bedroom. Yes, we have a refrigerator and a stove, but we have to flip a switch on the wall in order for the ignition on our gas stove to work. We have dial-up internet, which makes us spoiled Americans grind our teeth in exasperation, but given that missionaries in the past might have gone years or months without communication, we really don't have a gripe coming. All of these features makes our home well nigh palatial. Our campus, filled with such staff housing, is known as "Little America."


Our only heat in the African winter and early spring is our fireplace. We use it at night and early in the morning and pile on blankets and sleeping bags to keep toasty at bedtime. Montana taught us to layer clothes and use sweaters and hoodies. Our water is partly heated by a solar water heater on the roof; on rainy days, we may have cool showers. We try to remember to flush using water collected from our showers and we only flush after "number two." We water our shamba (vegetable garden) with gray water from our washer. We hang up our clothes, because clothes driers are very "dear" to use.



Our Caring Community boys, who join us three times a quarter, declare this a cozy home and we agree.



Here is our water barrel and it will water our shamba which is in the lower right hand corner of the next picture. Our cozy jersey knit sheets are drying on the line.


Here's one of our first sprouts --zucchini







and the master gardener in our kitchen.








And here are our Caring Community boys and Jim in our cozy living room.

Learning and Serving at RVA

Christian service is not theoretical at RVA. It's practiced vigorously. On Saturday, September 4, Jim, seven students and two other RVA staff members joined a local Kenyan school teacher and her students in clearing trash from the roadside between the school and the highway.

That was not the only Christian service that day. On the highway on top of the escarpment above Kijabe, some of our young boys were helping and ministering to the young men selling roasted maize to passersby. At the RVA gate, young people were cleaning and painting the guardhouse.

Left behind to take care of a dozen matters for my English class, I took a break to check on an injured friend. As I crossed the campus, there on our elementary or "Titchie" playground were RVA children and staff hosting children from a nearby orphanage. The girls and the female staff wore skirts in respect for local customs as they led the children in play on the swings and jungle gyms. Later, I heard lyrical young Kenyan voices echoing sweetly on the covered Titchie court behind our home.

Later, I saw some of my seventh grade girls with wraps over their jeans off-loading from a school van, fresh from ministering to still more children down at the displaced persons camp. A little "Brit" explained, "We played 'Duck, Duck, Goose', but we couldn't call it that, because there is no word for 'duck' in Swahili." They then led the children in another game in which they were supposed to sit in a circle, but my young friend said, "They sat in a squashed, sort of o-vally thing, shaped like an eye."

The needs are great in our community, but no one is judged too young to minister.

Our kids

The classroom is a different world at RVA. Jim and I teach missionary children from Kenya, Finland, Germany, Korea, New Zealand, Great Britain, as well as USA. These children are bright, inquiring, funny, and fun. No sullen stares, no monosyllabic, grunts. These young folks actually greet and carry on conversations with adults

They are still kids. Seventh grade boys are not totally above horseplay in the libary. One ninth grade young man in a good natured way wanted to get a rise out of his English teacher. "I'm not so sure Poe meets RVA standards. Looks pretty dark to me." I told him that Poe fits biblical literary standards -- blood, mayhem, and sin.

These young people still have an amazing awareness of popular culture -- thanks to the web, I'm sure. They also have a personal awareness of gritty realities: poverty, disease, regional unrest. They tell stories you won't hear everyday in West Virginia, or New York, or Texas. How many US students do you know who have ridden camels or climbed "Kili" (Mt. Kilimanjaro)?

Dinner in Kenya

Jim's preacher tummy is disappearing and my slacks are getting longer, because there is less to hold them up (smile). We walk everywhere, to school, to church, to the local stores called dukas. Also, we are eating a very healthy diet, mainly beans, grains, and vegetables.

We get our vegetables from the local veggie ladies who sell their wares at a church-sponsored market. We start at a different end of the market each shopping trip and buy a little from each lady, because they each need the income badly and they do have a strong sense of fairness. A papaya from this lady, a bag of beans from another, a bag of English muffins from a lady near the door.

Once we take our produce home, we get out a large metal bowl and soak every last fruit and vegetable in water and a small amount of bleach. Otherwise we risk a nasty case of dysentery.
We've been careful and we haven't been ill once.

We've come to enjoy many foods. One favorite is Sukuma wiki, a dish of sukuma (similar to collards), spinach, tomato, and onion. It is well nigh a miracle drug. I feel better just writing about it. We also have enjoyed an Egyptian rice and lentil dish, Kusherie. We still have our odd piece of meat. No worries, we're feeling fine.