Final Nairobi Days

It seems that most of our days in Nairobi have been packed with so many things to do. As you know, Mary is also a Maryknoll Lay Missioner that we met during orientation last fall. That means we have been together since September. She has decided to go to Mombasa while we are going to Kitale. So, once we finished language school we decided that we wanted to do some fun touristy things before we parted ways. Click here to see some pictures we took.

First we’ll start with graduation. The ACK Language School offers courses in many different languages including Chinese, Japanese, French, and tribal languages. However, most students are African learning English. We met people from Somalia, Southern Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Korea, Indonesia, Sweden, Turkey.

The final day of school was graduation. Each class was presented and asked to speak a few words. The advanced English class presented a skit about the importance of being able to communicate with one another in a common language. The most touching part was Jackson, a refugee from DRC. What is left of his family is currently living in Rwanda in a refugee camp. Because he finished secondary school, he was allowed to study English, but money has run out so he was forced to return. He wanted to sing a solo to us. Many a tear was shed.

Now that obligations were completed, it was time to play. Saturday was a trip to the David Shedrick Wildlife Trust Elephant and Rhino Orphanage. They rescue and care for baby elephants and rhinos who for reasons of poaching, accidents, droughts, etc. have no mothers. The public is only allowed to visit for one hour each day. While we were there, they brought out two different groups of elephants for a half an hour each. First they drank a bottle of milk. We’re guessing that there was probably about two gallons of milk in those bottles. Then they played in the water and finally threw dirt on themselves. Only a tiny rope fence separated us from them. At times you could reach out and touch them. Several times we had to back up so they wouldn’t step on our toes. Mary even got "kissed" by one of them. He left a dirty mark on her nice clean pants. The youngest was only 2 months old while the oldest was about 2 ½ years.

Sunday we met Dr. Susan, a MKLM who has been in Africa (Tanzania, Sudan and Kenya) for 25 years. Due to health reasons she has been in the US for the past year and just returned this week. We had heard so much about her. She is quite the MKLM icon being recognized by President Obama this winter for her service to humanity. She is moving to Mombasa and will be Mary's roommate. We immediately felt at ease with her and look forward to seeing her again in the future.

Monday was spent at Amani ya Juu. It is a sewing project for women from many African countries. Once a woman is accepted into the program there is a four year training program where she is taught sewing skills. The first six months are intensive, but after that time she is able to begin sewing and earning money for her family. She pays for half of a treadle sewing machine to use at home and the organization underwrites half. You can see from the photos that they do have electric machines and even a quilting machine in their workshop. Their beautiful handcrafted items are very high quality. They do their own silk screening, tie dying and batiking. Of course I asked if it was possible to purchase some of the fabric. I came home with two pieces.

The tour of their facilities took much longer than we expected so we weren’t able to make it back to Flora for lunch. That was no problem because they had a beautiful coffee garden that served lunch. It was a beautiful place, and a delightful way to spend the final day together with Mary in Nairobi.