Easter Season

The Stations of the Cross walk -- returning back to the church



Dancing around the Pascal Fire
Easter Season was really beautiful in Kenya. The season here is kind of the end of summer, soalthougthe time does not match up with new growth of plants, it didn't seem to matter.
For the "general population" (those who are not Sisters???) the school term finished on Holy Wednesday or Thursday - Easter was early this year otherwise they would have had the whole week. On Good Friday, the Makuyu Parish does a Stations of the Cross walk, or Jia ya Msalaba in Swahili. It was certainly an experience! Around 10 o'clock (African time, so it was a bit later) the people gather at the main parish. Then, following a tractor with a trailer the congregation begins to walk. For each of the stations, there is a certain stop where the Senior Youth act out the event. I was really impressed by their costumes and seriousness. The path goes through several of the outstations/prayer houses, and the whole walk ends around 3 when everyone comes back for the Passion Service. I was very grateful that the weather was not so hot -- although it rained and so at some points the mud almost got your shoes (roads in the bush are definitely not paved). I guess when the weather is really warm by the end some people struggle a lot, especially volunteers who are not used to the event as it is a 5 hours walk! The people sing and pray the Rosary while they walk. It was all in Kikuyu so I couldn't understand much, but really beautiful to see so many parishioners, even the elderly, completing the long journey.
The Passion Service was fairly similar to those at home (I think, again it was not in English so I'm not entirely certain). For the Veneration of the Cross, however, all of the people come forward and kiss the cross -- something I hadn't seen before.
On Saturday evening, the Vigil is held. It begins outside with the lighting of a bonfire. Some years they even send a ball of flame from the belltower to light the fire! The Pascal candle is then lit, and the children dance around the fire. Then everyone proceeds into the church for the service. It is a "bring your own candle" procession. The Baptism of older children takes place at this time, while babies are baptized on Sunday morning.
Sunday morning was certainly a joyful experience! Many people come to the Mass, but it's not a time of wearing fancy clothes and hats -- more a celebration. The Priest saying the Mass was very lively, and turned on a CD player with music so everyone could have a little dance party in their pews. He had a whistle and was right up there blowing it and dancing along with everyone. So lively.
In the "Motherhouse" we made decorations and had a beautiful feast after the Mass. The afternoon was relatively quiet as everyone had been up late the night before because of the vigil and being with the young people at their "Easter Experience."
The Easter Experience is like a retreat for the senior youth -- they come and stay in the school and have various talks and activities. It's wonderful to walk down to the school at night when they are there and be able to hear singing and clapping and laughing from a distance. Really, if I could sum up Easter here in a phrase it would be "joy in the Risen Christ."

A Trip to the Hospital

Today I needed to run errands with one of the Sisters, and this included taking a young man to the hospital. I have heard what the government hospital in Thika (the nearby town) is like, but it was still not what I was expecting.
Apparently this boy, Reuben, broke his leg a month ago, and when he went to the hospital they sent him away without doing anything. It is a fairly severe break -- it looks like right now he has two knees because of how the bone is sticking out. I'm not entirely sure how the Sisters came upon this case, but I guess no one is his village is willing to help him and the parents aren't capable.
Reuben is somehow "not okay" -- I believe there is a problem with using glue, but I'm not sure if that started/increased because of the pain he must have in his leg. Regardless, this young man is not capable of telling even exactly how he broke his leg.
The Casualty Section of the hospital (I think it is the equivalent to ER/Walk in Care) is first come first serve. There is a sign posted with the prices, and if you cannot pay they will not treat you. Services like resuscitation, however, are free. Major emergency surgery costs about 5,000 shillings (less than $100 direct equivalent, but a little less than half of a worker's monthly salary). Being in the waiting room made me want to become a doctor just so I could help all of the people. It's really not even a room -- a covered area with benches to sit on.
Like the dispensary, there is a lot of waiting involved. When you first arrive they check on you immediately to determine the seriousness of the problem, but then you have to see the doctor/nurse, who sends you to the x-ray, who sends you back to the doctor, who sends you to the place of plastering etc. All of these places have lines.
Because it has been so long since the injury, Reuben has to come back for surgery in about 10 days. 10 days! He can barely walk, and judging by the way his leg looks must be in a large amount of pain.
What really struck me is the fact that unless you are literally dying, if you don't have money you will not be treated. If you are admitted to the hospital, someone from your family/a person you know, must come to clean you and feed you etc. That means that many people go without treatment for severe injuries. It actually upset my stomach a little to see all the people in pain, and knowing they have to wait hours just to see a doctor. I know the American health care system has a lot of problems, but here not only the quality of treatment you get depends on how much you can pay, but whether you are treated depends on if you can pay at all. The private hospitals are generally much better taken run than the government, but that costs more money.
I wonder how the staff of this hospital feels and thinks. Are they so used to seeing all these people that they are "used" to it? I would guess they are given more work than they can reasonably do, but I wonder how much they care. It seems blunt to assume that they are only in it for money, which I'm sure is not exactly the case, but in order to have reasonable service you must really speak with them, for lack of a better way to put it. I know when you are overworked the break you get for lunch is important to take care of yourself, but when the workers leave for an hour for lunch and just leave all the people there to wait for another hour -- without lunch -- I think it must be something that affects a person.
So please pray for all the people in Kenya who are sick with no one to take care of them, and also for the health care workers!

A Little Humor

I read a lot of compositions, and as English really is a second language in "the bush," the students make some mistakes that do make me smile. I thought I would share some in hopes of making you smile as well! (I am in no way attempting to make fun of my students, because I know I make equally ridiculous mistakes in Swahili!)Incidentally, I finally made my high school students laugh today by telling them my aspiration to be a matatu conductor (see section on transportation)... I figure I could set a good example by never cheating the people, and being on of the few women conductors, but apparantly it is one of the most stressful jobs in Kenya, but where else to you get to hang out the window of a vehicle driving past the "jam" on the "shoulder" (aka dirt siding, where in areas of construction they show a road sign of cars falling over the edge)???

The people started drinking bear.

[On using bhang(marijuana)and then being hired to work in someone's garden] If you could have come in front of me I could have even digged you.

He went to his bedroom and opened his wadrope.

...and took a blood curdling shower.

I will be very gland if you understand me.

When the boat overslide in the river, a big whale caught my leg.

It was a remantic weeding ceremony.

We cleaned the clothes and hugged them.

A few minutes later the bride and the spinster arrived home from church.

The preacher preached the Bible to the people, bride and even the spinster.

[From an exam] Define fable: The toilet is clean

[From an exam asking to fill in the blanks with the spelling rule 'i' before 'e'] I before pray except after God.

For the Greeks were not insane when invented a dage that states: stength is unity.

Eventually, let us pull our hands up together and say like Dr. Martin Luther King Juniour "we have a dream that one day Kiswahili will be a language in Kenyan cities, that in the streets of Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu, where the young and the old, the Luo and Kikuyu will all humble ourselves and share our experiences -- using the Kiswahili language"

Angeline Manthi

I am just so amazed about one of my friends here, that I wanted to write about the amazing things she is doing!
I mentioned Angeline before as the young woman whose family sold all their cows in order to educate her.
She is about the same age as me, and trained as a dressmaker. Angeline works for the Sisters at Don Bosco Mission in the production area, and has recently opened her own shop.
Late last year, her family's home area was struck very hard by floods, so her parents had to leave their home and go to temporary housing for awhile. After their return, instead of just sending them money, Angeline taught her parents (subsistence farmers) how to sell their extra produce to earn some income.
In order to open "fashion store" as they are called here (provides tailoring, stitching, clothes, accessories and toiletries) she took out a large micro-loan of 80,000 shillings -- about $1,000 US, and has rented a store-front just off the main road passing Makuyu. She has hired her younger sister to run the store during the day while she is at work, and has really worked hard to have beautiful things. It has been great to notice the huge increase in the amount of customers in just the couple months she has had it open!
I am just amazed that at the same age as me she is already an entrepreneur who basically supports her entire family (she was also helping to pay school fees for her younger siblings) and has such a positive outlook on life and so much wisdom to know how to use money! Imagine being able to not just support your parents financially, but to teach them how to learn to support themselves! As the oldest in her family, she also is an inspiration to the younger siblings -- the sister who works in the shop now aspires to open her own shop someday and has started saving money to do so.
In addition to the hard work she does, Angeline has a wonderfully friendly and hospitable personality, and deeply rooted faith (she even attends morning Mass every day!). In my first weeks in Kenya she was kind enough to show me how to take the matatus (crazy method of public transportation) and around the Makuyu area. As they say here, she is my "very nice friend."

Links to a few photos

I haven't been able to put up a ton of pictures due to internet constraints, but in lieu of having them in my blog I have posted some on Facebook. The links are as follows (you shouldn't need an account to view them)
Enjoy!
Lauren

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2091499&id=32503907&l=594bf295af

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2089045&id=32503907&l=ff4cc63138

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085714&id=32503907&l=07512bb1e2

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2081939&id=32503907&l=9d43ac21c7