Here's looking at you!

Anyone seen Tarzan??

Hello faithful reader, your correspondent is live from the Animal Kingdom! And the animals didn't wait for the safari to begin. Taking the 8 hour bus ride to Nairobi (which took 10 hours) -- there -- on the side of the road, were hundreds and hundreds of baboons, looking like a scene straight out of Planet of the Apes! I'm told that two weeks ago, someone hit a baboon with a red car. For the next several days, baboons threw stones at every red car that passed -- and yes --

they have good aim! 

Today wraps up safari time, and while I'll bring home lots of film, you gotta believe it was really cool to be 10 feet away from lions, 20 feet away from zebras and wildebeests and even giraffes and elephants! All that was missing was the unicorn--which I hope to see tomorrow. Blessings on you faithful reader and peace.

Saying Goodbye

An African oil painting of mother and child coming home to Hawaii

The day has come to pack and go; I scarcely remember a month that passed so quickly. Today wrapped up the AIDs education with the college young men and women, all had a rollicking good time with the 25 peni followed by a group test with lots of arguing and debate and laughing ---all followed by, what else, chocolate cake! Tomorrow it's the 8 hour bus ride to Nairobi, then a few days of Safari then up to Milan to join Ida and the kids, who thankfully arrived safe and sound, although quite tuckered out, after two full days of flying to the other side of the world. From here on out (except maybe for a lion blog or two) get ready for a view of the original Last Supper by DaVinci (it's in Milan), churches galore (Italy is FULL of them!) and maybe an update on my heart to heart chat with the pope. (I warned you, don't believe anything you read here......) God bless you, faithful reader; please keep us in your prayers; you are in mine.

The Short Timer's Club

Sad to say, faithful reader, that time in this wonderful country is drawing to a close for your's truly. Tomorrow will wrap up the 5th and final community group meeting (3 groups of micro-businesses and 2 of HIV/AIDS Ed). We are in the midst if AIDS ED at the Red Cross in Bungoma, with a class of 30 college students all majoring in public health, social work or community-based needs. It's a very bright, very articulate group and we can do the whole thing in English. It's good fun to be back in the mix with young folks just starting out in life, so full of insight and hope and desire to make a better community.

On the home front here at the farm, the water that has kept us in cold showers and a working actual toilet gave out, so it was off to the outhouse shed for the first time, only to discover, to my great joy and relief, that next to the three "long drop stalls" (okay, for those who may not be familiar with this particular form of waste disposal, a "long drop" is a hole in the floor that one squats over and that which the squatting expels takes a loooonnnng drop into the poop pit.)

However, in the other stall, there was not a long drop hole but an actual, honest to goodness, white, porcelain, seat intact, water flowing, you got it, toilet.

Sometimes life seems like it can't get any better!

Anyway, we will wrap up tomorrow with the famous condom demonstration on the 25 wooden sculptures (word has it my mom's sewing club has put in an order for 50 of them, purely for decorative purposes I'm told....) and then off to the Masai Mara Game Reserve for 2 1/2 days of looking at wild animals.

A house Wedding

A lovely wedding in Bungoma featuring a lovely bride, a beaming groom and lots of food and cake for the dozen or so in attendance! 

Something Sobering

As you, faithful reader, have no doubt observed in reading these ravings, the people of Kenyan have so impressed me with their kindness, hospitality and warmth. This morning however gave a glimpse of another side of life here, something best left to the shadows. Heading into town this morning we encountered a crowd of maybe 40 people standing in half the road. As we passed, there in the street was the body of a man, and folks were tossing green stems from nearby plants over his face. I thought it was a traffic accident because of the obvious trauma on the body and given the chaos that are the roads here, with Mac trucks and speeding vans and cattle and bicycles and pedestrians all sharing the same ten foot wide strip of asphalt, not a big surprise. But I was wrong. It seems this man stole a bag of fertilizer, .... , and encountered what is called here "mob justice." In short, he was confronted -- and blow by blow -- was beaten to death....A life for a bag of fertilizer....

I couldn't help but recall that when the Older Testament counsels an eye for an eye, it wasn't promoting revenge. In those days, like these days in Kenya, small crimes were often met with extraordinarily harsh punishment. An eye for an eye was intended to impose proportionality into the justice system. Proportionality that it seems my Kenyan friends may wish to consider as well...May this departed man, and all the dead, move from glory to glory in the nearer presence of God. RIP.

A Visit To The Cathedral

Sunday had your's truly and a bevy of priests taking the 2 hour ride to the Cathedral of the Charismatic Evangelical Episcopal Church, waaaayyyyy out in the north western part of the country. The Mass was wonderful with so much singing and dancing and nearly everyone having some sort of welcome speech to give.

There were at least 10 priests in attendance as well as the bishop and a congregation of say about 65.

In the midst of it all, a reporter from the Kenyan national TV station arrived with camera in tow and -- somehow in the midst of the service -- managed to interview several of the clergy for a 1/2 hour special on this church.

This denomination is rooted in the Anglican church and seeks to converge, as they say, the three most popular elements in Christianity today: the liturgical/sacramental; evangelical; and charismatic.....It seems to be catching on and seems a particularly natural fit for Africa where the spirit is often moving in people's lives....

I just get a kick out of bringing greetings in the Lord from the place Obama was born!

To bee or not to bee

Sorry, couldn't resist....the bee folks decided to hold off harvesting for a few days so (sigh) won't be there when 7 boxes of angry African honey bees are interrupted and unleashed....;)

It's Saturday and I'm sitting in a small living room with another priest, a transitional deacon and some other folks waiting for a Kenyan wedding to begin. The walls are covered with lace and this lovely young thing is dressed and ready to go! I'm told the party happens later, so no boogying today. (You know how I love to boogie!) a beautiful day today, maybe 79 degrees and light breezes in a sky as blue as blue can be. 

some photos

                                                         two of the local boys

                              see, I'm not secretly in Miami Beach.....

Condom Day Today!

My question is, what did the guy who was hired to make 25 of these things think?

And no, you cannot buy one!

Condom day!

So on the 4th and final day of AIDS training, out come the wooden peni (I'm sure that's plural for penis) and everyone is required to properly remove from its packaging and place on said peni a condom -- all to the laughter and embarrassment of all concerned! Hopefully a picture will follow! 

After the fun, we enjoyed a bite of cake, graduation certificates were presented, healing prayers with oil said, and then lunch featuring not only a recently killed chicken, but a green veggie that was introduced as a local bitter veggie -- and whadayaknow, it turned out to be taro leaf! 

A taste of home at last!

This group of 20 disabled folk told us of their relationship with 9 other groups of disabled, and that they will take what they learned about AIDS to each of those other groups. 

Tomorrow it's bee harvesting day. Only one problem. Vincent, the Jedi knight of bee harvesting, is out of town. "I'll send you an email explaining how to do it," he helpfully said yesterday!

These are, after all, African honey bees....if this is the last blog you see, probably the bee harvesting didn't go as well as we hoped....

Making furniture

June 19

Okay, if you or I want to get some new furniture, it's simple. 

Save your money, or better yet, wait for one of those "take it now pay us later" sales, and in a few days, your newly decorated living room is a reality.

As you may have guessed, things are slightly different here.

This morning as I was leaving for our day trip to the AIDS education program, there, in the compound, was a fellow up in a tall tree -- cutting 2 foot thick branches with a machete.

Cool.

But when we got back, OMG.

Several trees were down, about 50 1"x 6' boards piled up, and from those boards, the bishop will have new furniture made and will sell what's left to pay for the tree chopping and furniture making....

Amazing!

Dawn in East Africa

June 19 already, and the dawn is filled with crickets and roosters and some kind of insect that sounds like a Sammey squeak toy and a wild pig off in the distance and birds that sing like they’ve never seen a sunrise. 

Africa seems most alive at dawn.

The pump for water is going strong, someone began at 4 am and it will go on through the day.

Breakfast is waiting in the next room, instant coffee and maybe some Kenyan style malasadas, without the sugar coating, but just as good!

Then it’s an early trek to the AIDS class since today is the last instruction day. 

Yesterday, maybe 6 of the folks shared that they found the courage and the opportunity to talk with their children about this disease....

Today we will push to open conversations between spouses, a harder sell in this, and probably most, cultures.

The time here is growing short and I am already missing the kind people, the relaxed pace and the incredible beauty of this place.

AIDS Ed Day

Monday June 17, 2013

Into Bungoma town, through the ever crowded streets, then into yet another skinny red dirt road, but this time just a few minutes, until we reached Peter’s house and the community group of disabled persons who make up our HIV/AIDS class this week.

Some of the folks present have polio and some shriveled legs from birth and others wounded feet, an array of physical challenges that seem to make an already hard life in Kenya that much more difficult.

But, you wouldn’t know it from the smiles, the laughter, the participation and just plain joy as we sat under yet another tree and engaged folks who started out as strangers and ended up as friends.

The discussion about sexuality, blood transfers, men’s and women’s sexual secretions and talking with our youngsters as well about such things was lively and funny at times, then turning quite serious indeed.

AIDS kills here, and there wasn’t a person present who hadn’t lost several family members or friends to the disease.

This is a four-day seminar, with the hope that each of the 20 folks present will take what they learn to 5 more, as the word is slowly spreading about how to effectively prevent and/or treat this disease.

AIDS/HIV education is the first project started by Bishop Ruben in the late 1990s, when he began by pushing a wheelbarrow with TV, VCR and generator to villages for this education.

Remarkably, (or sadly, maybe not such a surprise), his superiors in the Anglican Church forbade him from continuing with these classes, reasoning that immorality caused AIDS so those who get it shall suffer the consequences...

Not terribly different from the attitude in the US during the 1980s, eh?

And Jesus weeps.

The night came with a torrent of rain – it felt like living on the inside of a Rock ‘n Roll drum for several hours last night as the skies seemed to be sliced open and water like a monsoon crashed to earth.

Fortunately I did my laundry and hung it on the line to dry -- it should be well rinsed!

Pictures to follow soon!

Some friends

Cooking in Kenya

Is that saimin cooking over a charcoal stove?? You betcha! Lunch today.....

A Story

Bishop Ruben told us the story of his then 11 year old son who had a bone marrow disease that left him unable to produce red blood cells. After over 40 blood transfusions, the doctors told the family the boy needed a bone marrow transplant or he would die soon. Except, the transplant cost $100,000 and the family made maybe $100 per month. The boy, on the return trip from Nairobi to Kabula, reminded his dad, then an Anglican priest, of Jesus throwing out the demon from the epileptic boy. "Dad, when Jesus cured the boy, he told the spirit to never come back. When you pray for me, you pray for a cure but you don't order the disease to never return." When they arrived home, Ruben told his elderly parents the grim news that their grandson would likely die within the month. That night, thinking more of the boy's comment about prayer, Ruben and his brother Robert stood at either end of the boy's bed,  and prayed their hearts out that the illness killing the boy leave him and never return. The boy went to sleep as did the rest of the family. The next morning the grandfather opened the chicken coop to let the chickens out.  The young boys, like Ruben's son, were charged with keeping hawks at bay since the hawks often waited for the chicks to emerge -- breakfast. Ruben's boy had been too weak for months to take up this task, but something changed that morning. The boy came running out into the yard, picked up stones, and kept the hawks away. He then went back to lay down. A few days later, taking the boy to the local doctor to test his red cell count, the doctor asked if the boy just received a transfusion. No, he had not, came the reply. Why do you ask? Because his red cell count is nearly normal. A few more days pass, another test, and his count is normal. The boy is now 34 years old, in his third year of university in Turin, Italy. Stories like these remind me that while God always heals, restoring those who surrender to peace -- sometimes there are also cures. Amen.

Good morning!

Yesterday we travelled to a very remote village, maybe two hours into interior red clay roads. The countryside, all rolling hills and corn and thatched homes with elderly brightly clothed women carrying jugs on their heads....simply gorgeous. We went there to have a Mass and to baptize a total of 10 folks, ages 9 months to 90 years! About 50 people came, among them about 20 children with runny noses, torn shirts, wide eyes and smiles, who, it seems, saw their first white man! Sometimes I feel like a combination celebrity and three headed monster!

The Mass was held in a place that would make the finest Cathedral blush: waving corn fields, banana trees in full fruit, blue skies and warm sun, the people sang and prayed and smiled. What a day!

Another Best Day

Beautiful kids in a remote village

Internet Delays -- Sorry!

Wednesday June 12, 2013

Last nite was a no internet nite and perhaps today will be the same. The local provider is Safaricom and it seems they’re having some troubles....

The side roads in Bungoma town are something to behold. Holes are simply filled with large rocks and huge bricks in any old way. Driving on these roads is something like those old fanny shakers – you know, you stood up, put that big rubber strap across your butt and shake baby shake! Such are these roads!

The people continue to be beautiful and surprising and sweet.

Our current co-op of barely post-teenage women, all with small children, found half a dozen ways to skin the cat of a cheaper chicken roof (cheaper than corrugated iron), many of which were ingenious, like using locally weaved mats or corn stalks. My bride’s suggestion of chicken wire covered with banana leaves was also a winner!

Tuesday June 11, 2013

The most persistent sound at the farm here in Kabula is the water well hand pump.

It starts and stops intermittently at say 4 am and maybe rests around 10 at night.

Now, in the mid afternoon, it’s never given a rest.

What a luxury piped in water is!

I particularly remember this luxury as I haul two buckets of water from the well, one for wash, the other for rinse, of the last few days clothes.

This morning, as we met with the third and final micro business of my short tenure here, I learned of bats with bodies as big as human heads that swoop down on unroofed chicken coops and carry off whole, squawking chickens!

Do they turn into Bella and her dead guy boyfriend when they get to where they’re going??

Maybe I better put off star gazing until daylight hours....

This conversation came up because the gals have started a poultry business and have a bunch of chickens, but, the chicken house is roofless and corrugated iron for a roof is very expensive.

Tonight’s homework: figger out a cheaper roof!

The Bees Have It

Monday, June 10, 2013

Today got off to a slow start, as poor Bonaface, our trusty driver, had a flat in a town that had several folks who thought they could repair flats, but alas, thinking didn’t translate into reality.

So with gum and duck tape, Bonaface somehow made his way home, the flat got fixed and we were on our way.

First to a meeting with the bee master, Vincent – a bee keeping expert for 15 years; a slight, soft spoken older man, he told us of the bee keeping co-ops in the area, the educational support available and, best of all, he has bee keeper clothes for harvesting hives – a sort of white nylon space suit.

Gentle man, his biggest concern in harvesting honey is ensuring no bee dies in the process...

With bee uniform (and smoker – an ingenious combination of tea kettle and accordian bellow -- used to put the bees in a sleepy state) we at last headed to the project where we were greeted with singing and hand shakes and smiles.

The group reported its decision to reduce its many projects to just two, with the men doing the bees and the women the poultry.

The money that will come from the bee harvest of honey will first be used to buy roofing material for the poultry hut and some disease resistant roosters and fertilized eggs.

The group came to see that doing one thing well is far better than doing many things poorly.

When business was done, each person stood and shared something of their own life, the size of their family, what education each has, and, most movingly, their own experiences with God.

We ended our time with healing prayers and anointing with oil of maybe 40 people who were sick, from smallest children with fevers to the elderly with sore stomachs and everyone in between.

All through the anointing prayers, the whole group sang songs of thanks – and I can only say thanks too for being allowed to be present among this gathering of so much pain, yet so much joy.

A Singing Sunday

Sunday June 9, 2013

And what a Sunday!

The Mass began around 10:30 am and featured, in the tiny converted classroom, a local church choir of maybe 25 men and women – and boy can they sing!

I’ll try to download some audio onto tis blog, but if cannot, when I get back I’ll show you – particularly the gospel procession which had boisterous music, and 6 children dancing back and forth as the deacon carried the gospel book! Fantastic!

Just wait til we tweak OUR gospel procession, not to mention Francis and Harold shimmering up the aisle with the collection plate!

The Mass was followed by a local lunch of ugali and steamed kale and I believe an entire glass of unfiltered water (hoping not but suspecting so) and then an afternoon listening to the choir practice under the trained ear of Fr. Patrick, an Anglican priest and music director from the next town over.

All in all, a lovely day!

Saturday June 8, 13

Happy happy B-Day to Teatuahere!!

On to the travels!

Today we took one of the local transports, a Toyota van reconfigured to hold 30 people (okay, 20, but still...) to the city of Kisumu, which sits on Lake Victoria, which lake is, you will remember from 8^th grade history, the headwaters of the Nile River.

It was about a 2 hour ride spent with my left leg wrapped around my neck.

Kisumu is the city next to the small town (about 10 minutes away) where President Obama’s dad’s family is from, the town where his grandmother still lives.

Nope, we didn’t stop by for a visit, but we did spot Donald Trump hot on the trail of some really big stuff.....

All in all a very cool day spent buying souvenirs at the Masai Market, eating, of all things, pizza, at an ex pat restaurant and cramming 8 of us in a 3 passenger converted motorcycle to get around the city.

Who needs yoga when you have transportation like this?!

A local beauty with her 4th child!

A Week Gone By

Friday June 7, 2013

Hello again intrepid reader! A week has passed with 2 micro businesses visited and talked with at length under now not one but 2 mango trees – and why not – the days are gorgeous, the breeze cool and the swapping of stories and cultures a delight.

Folks arrive as they might, some a little early, many quite late – they laugh about African time the same way we do about Hawaiian time.

Joyce and I met with a government official who knows the bee hive uniform man in Bungoma, and for about $50 we’ll get this group the where with all to harvest the honey next week.

The gov’t guy will come with us and train how to grab that honey, which, once done, should lead to a long and profitable relationship with the bees.

I’ll do my best to buy a jar and bring it home!

Medicinal you know!

Tonight I’m planning to stargaze.

John, one of the Indiana Univ. students here, suggests the schoolyard at night for a magnificent view of the Milky Way.

Since there’s no electricity to speak of in this entire corner of Kenya, it should be dark enough for a great view....I just hope to be in and out before the bats come out for dinner!

Tomorrow marks Tea’s 13^th birthday, happy birthday sweetie!!

 some of the folks:

Still here and loving it!

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Today’s journey took us to the bee people.

Another micro business is, bravely, raising African honey bees.....yes, the same African bees that escaped a lab in Brazil and slowly made their way, Jaws like, up the Americas into California.

The only problem these folks have is that while they have 7 hives producing honey for 2 years, they don’t have the protective gear needed to harvest the honey.....they know this because they tried to harvest it au natural and were quickly reminded why these are African bees.

Ouch.

$100 buys the needed equipment......

But, they may not need the cash – they just may need to figure out a way to better run their 6 other projects, that range from banana growing to cow raising (as in 1 cow) to chicken and kale raising to a small nursery with 7000 tree and flowering plant seedlings.

Tomorrow they will tell us what projects they may abandon and which they will focus on.

I’m betting on selling the cow to raise the money to buy the bee uniform, put on the uniform and collect the honey, sell the honey and buy more chickens....

Who knew business could be so much fun?

BTW, did you know that honey is medicinal here – they say it’s got natural antibiotics....who knew?!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Okay, $200 bucks gets me a months’ worth of gas or maybe a fancy dinner out with the loverly wife or even a few days worth of wine (okay, I can stretch it to a couple weeks....)....AND....  $200 can get 20 co-op folks (who look after 200 dependents) an acre of land, an acre of watermelon seed, fertilizer, pesticide, and a return of $1800 per crop.

Today was a day of humbling priorities as we had our third and last day (for me, not for community organizer Joyce or ICODEI) with these fine folks who also told us their individual stories.

The average family size seems to be about 5 children, with deaths among children not uncommon.....But each family group almost to a person also takes on 10-20 other relatives, neighbors, orphans and widows with help for shelter, daily food and medical needs.

Listening to folks who may earn only dollars a week explain, one after the other, the care they give to loved ones and strangers makes me stop in my tracks and marvel....

We got a tremendous demonstration of the skill at farming this group has, with tomato plants yielding 150 tomatoes per plant (the lead man counted off buds and fruit on video to prove it!), and they proudly pointed out their various fertilizers, pesticides and US AID Manual on farming, not to mention the school kids who come by and are taught the basic of farming by this intrepid co-op.

The other day we learned that pesky moles were eating the plants (they attack from the root -- under ground (hence the name mole, duh!) -- thus one mole lunch = 150 lost tomatoes. Okay, if you’re squeamish or against capital punishment, skip a few lines, but for you hardy folks, I’ll whisper it.....we got some mole arsenic yesterday and this morning, voilá, one dead as a doornail mole!

We finished the morning with each person giving something of their encounters with God.

If you were a stone, you’d weep as one after the other spoke of tragedies (a dead wife, a husband who went insane, dead children, severely disabled children) that they encountered, only to find in faith a way through; even a way through with something like a smile; with something like joy,,,,

These last three days, faithful reader, were journeys into the kingdom of God.

A Meeting Under The Ole Mango Tree

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at around 1 pm

This morning marked our second trip to the village we visited yesterday to talk more about their current projects and future plans.

Not strangers this time, we were greeted with singing and dancing, smiles and friendly handshakes as the powers that be decided today’s meeting would be under the mango tree and not in the house.

The furniture got moved outside, chairs borrowed from some invisible place and before long all 20 members of the co-op were ready to go.

Their hope is to rent two acres of land and grow watermelons, a valued cash crop. Person after person walked through the proposed project step by step, figuring the cost of everything from land to seeds to fertilizers, figuring where they can save money (like doing every ounce of labor themselves) and figuring the expected yields and costs received at market.

In short, a $350 investment is expected to return $1800 per acre per crop.

That’s crazy!

And we talked about other stuff too – like expanding the tiny chicken coop so that the poultry end of this co-op can also grow – with their tiny coop (coop, not co-op) they sold 30 roosters last Christmas (buying time for roosters here) at, I wanna say, $7.00 a rooster.....and they’d like to build a much larger coop and eventually, through breeding, get to 500 total chickens)....and using the same system of walking through it all one step at a time( who knew there was so much detail to chickens??? – corrugated iron sheets of x size, the price of a large tree that would then be cut by the folks into posts and a door, nails, chicken wire, vaccinations), the cost estimate  for a 29’ x 16’ coop came to under $400.

Wow.

At the end, the spokesman wanted to say why they started the co-op.

He explained each has their own farm land, but all wanted to do more for their family than they could manage alone, like send the kids to school (it’s not free here), buy them food so they can eat more than once per day (the average for most folks here) and see if together they could do together what they cannot alone.

But it didn’t stop with their immediate needs or immediate family.

They wanted to have resources to help widows and orphans, a sad epidemic here due to AIDS/HIV; and they wanted to improve the larger community.

I filmed much of what happened today. You’ll see some of it when I get back.

The presence of God, in the company of people who do so much with so little, under the shade of a mango tree, was, today, palpable.

A New Week And Some Help From Our Readers

Sunday, June 2, 2013

What a wonderful Sunday! A deacon’s mass was held in a converted classroom – the church for the compound is under construction, currently a red brick foundation maybe 5 feet high – and about 25 folks, form newborns to elderly, men and women, sang, clapped and prayed during a service lasting maybe 2 hours.

The deacon lives on the grounds in a cow manure walled home with corrugated iron roof, a simple bed, a rattan table and 4 chairs. It is a simple life indeed.

The Bishop and his wife are gone for the day. It seems a family member died and another, in her grief, swallowed poison....so sad....

More positively, I plan on stealing a few of the women who sang at church today to join the various, wonderful choirs at St E’s!

Monday, June 3, 6:15 am

Good morning faithful readers! Are there any of you?

Dawn is slowly breaking amidst a chattering of beautiful yellow birds in the nearby tree. They hang upside down from their nests and sing all day long.

Hoping that all went well yesterday at St E’s, that supply folks remembered, and toilet paper got filled (a rector’s first order of duty) and that all is running smoothly. You are all in my prayers.

Today is orientation day, so I am patiently awaiting my marching orders. Anything that gets us out with the folks will be great.

I learned that cows can be purchased for about $200, and more than that, a single cow can support a family for many years with it’s milk, it’s babies and other parts that are still a mystery....soooo, maybe our heifer fund drive can come here next year?? Whaddyasay?

OK, just back from the first micro business visit and what a trip, literally! 

Over many miles of dirt roads, through tiny clusters of mini-villages, as school kids and grownups on foot, on bikes and on motorcycles pass by – only to see a elderly man fully dressed in a three piece suit walking next to the corn fields....

The 20+ members of this particular micro business banded together three years ago, raised a few hundred dollars and now plant corn, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, beans and raise poultry.

Sitting in a darkened hut made of cow dung, the only decoration an old calendar, the few chairs quickly filled so most of the 23 folks who came sat on the dirt floor – but in the midst of all that lack, out came a tattered ledger book with the listing of the names of each co-op member, the monies raised and spent and profits earned.

Out of all that need came eager discussion about how they can improve on what they are doing and earnest questions about our micro-businesses in Hawaii.

One thing our friends are anxious to learn how to do is how to raise tilapia in tanks (land is a premium here and tank raised fish can be placed on existing holdings) AND the wherefores of aquaculture.

Sooo, I’m hoping that you, intrepid reader, may have some skinny on these two issues for me that I can pass on to these wonderful but struggling brothers and sisters.

If so, please shoot me an email, which I can check every night for about two hours thanks to the miracle of a generator and a router.

In Kabula at last

Saturday, June 1, 2013, around 9:15 a.m.

When last we left dear reader, yours truly was camped out in drizzling London where the people there say things like “Go ahead, my sweet," "move right along my precious” and “courageous choice, sir” when selecting the beef over the chicken.

I’m happy to report that as of this writing and many miles later, I sit in a wicker chair in the home of Bishop and Betty Lubanga on a warm, sunny morning in Kabula, Kenya. Children from the primary school are playing and shouting during recess. A rooster as big as a peacock started off the day, anticipating the sunrise by at least an hour.

The trip from there to here was, as it were, long, as well it should be. This is a far place.

Downtown Nairobi looks very much like lower Manhattan with its mix of crowds and 100 pound bags of potatoes and corn being delivered and traffic and dust and generally a whole bevy of folks, everyone in a hurry. 

The bus ride from Nairobi to Bungoma was an adventure all of its own.

The roads are narrow and the drivers brave as trucks and busses and bikes and even a witch or two on a broom vie for traffic space, honors for arriving first and a general sense of having been born for, but passed over by, alas, the Indy 500.

And yet, the Kenyan countryside is a marvelous blend of valleys and farms and lakes and rivers. Here and there wild stands of zebra look as mellow as farm cows, and then the gazelles a short distance off....It is Africa!

The tiny villages dot the landscape, most looking beyond desperately poor.

Wood that had lost its color decades ago holds together row after row of this butcher shop (featuring today’s just slaughtered goat) the cell phone shack, the concrete store and an always ubiquitous Coca Cola stand.....Far away from everything? Never too far for a Coke!

We arrived after nearly 9 hours of bussing purgatory in Bungoma, very near the Ugandan border (just 30 minutes up ahead, I’m told), in a rain that seemed to redefine rain. You’ve heard of cats and dogs rain and buckets of rain and driving rain – well, how about sky is falling rain? As if the sky was sliced in two by a magnificent carving knife allowing every drop of water stored from the moment of creation until 5 pm yesterday afternoon to pay a visit not simply to the earth, but to the 100 sq yards surrounding the wayfarers from Nairobi; 25 Nigerians and one Pole. (Funny how Joyce, the program director kind enough to meet me, had no trouble figuring out which bus rider was her charge!)

After quiet introductions, a welcome shower and a long night’s sleep, today begins the month-long journey in this place I have visited by photo, now seeing in the flesh... The Bishop is soft spoken, kind, with a great passion for the poor he serves. His wife, mama Betty is simply a sweetheart who quietly works away, contributing from time to time to the conversation, but always working away. They look like a couple in their early 40’s: who would guess they have 9 children and 4 grandchildren!

A note to my children: I love and miss you, and btw, the kids here go to school 7 days a week.....hmmmmm, now there’s and idea worth importing....

A note to my wife: I love you and miss you!

All for now....