Circumcision

We took a road trip with Katrina in early August to Jinga, Uganda. It is so interesting to travel in Africa because you never know what you will see.

Although Kitale itself has a mixture of many tribes, this area is Luhya territory. They are the second largest Bantu ethnic group in Kenya. Being Bantu means that originally their ancestors came from western Africa and migrated eastward over the years. Traditionally, they are agriculturalists. Depending on where they live they grow cassava, sugar cane, maize(corn)or wheat.

Circumcision in Kenya is an important event in Kenyan culture based upon your tribe. The procedure is not done at birth as in the United States, but rather when a young man enters adolescence. It is considered to be a significant rite of passage as they enter adulthood. These boys are being escorted to the ceremony. Notice the rattles, whistles and cow tails. They are creating a lot of noise so that everyone is to notice they are on their way.

The Lyhya still practice the traditional male circumcision ceremonies. We saw several young men being escorted to the elder’s place for their circumcision or returning from the operation.

They only circumcise their young men every other year in even numbered years during the months of August and December. The boys range in age from 11 to 15 years. An elder performs the ceremony and cutting of the foreskin. Then the boys must enter into a period of seclusion where they are not allowed to see their mothers or any other females. These boys are wearing dress like garments because the ceremony has been complete.

Once the time of seclusion is over, a feast is held in the village to honor the young men. At this point, they begin counseling by the elders on skills, appropriate adult behavior, and tribal ceremonies and history. They are no longer able to live with their mothers and sisters, so a bachelor hut is built for them on the family compound.
Not only are they wearing dresslike garments, but the boys in back have had their faces painted with mud during the ceremony.

Note: Most people today have their sons circumcised at a hospital by a doctor between the ages of 10 - 15 years old.

Click here to see more photos of typical Kenyan sites.

Mount Elgon

The town of Kitale is located in the foothills of Mt. Elgon, about 40 km away. Mt. Elgon was formed by volcanic activity at least 12 million years ago. It is now an extinct volcano that was once higher than Mt. Kilimanjaro. It is located in both Uganda and Kenya with the majority in Uganda. It is huge being 80 km in diameter with five major peaks, the highest being 14,140 ft above sea level. This photo of Mt. Elgon is taken from Kitale, about 40 miles away.

The rocks forming Mt. Elgon contain sodium. This has caused elephants to form caves on the mountain. They dig into the softer rocks behind waterfalls with their tusks to be able to eat the salt found there. What they leave behind on the floor of the cave is then eaten by smaller animals like buffalo, bushbuck, hyrax, leopards, hyena and monkeys. The last known cave-in caused by elephant mining was in 1982.
We spent a day at Mt. Elgon National Park hiking to two of the caves, Makingeny and Kitum, and viewing the wildlife there. Kitum Cave was the inspiration for the movie “The Hot Zone” about an Ebola virus outbreak. Two people became ill with Ebola, one in 1980 and the other in 1987 after visiting this cave. However, the US Army’s Infectious Diseases Unit and Kenya Medical Research Unit examined the caves. They found no evidence that there was any connection between the caves and the disease.
One of the many waterfalls on Mt. Elgon.

We had a wonderful day. Since it is the rainy season we hired a 4WD vehicle to tour the park. I’m sure glad I wasn’t driving! We needed the 4WD many times. When you enter the park, you must take a park ranger along with you. He/she carries a gun in case you meet wild animals. Fred, our park ranger was a great help. I still don’t know how he was able to stay clean when I got so muddy! During the day we saw zebra, baboons, colobus monkeys, velvet monkeys, bush buck, water buck, deer, and guineas.

Standing at Elephant Platform.

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Victoria Nile

Here we are standing at the source of the Victoria Nile. Lake Victoria is to our right and the Nile River is to our left.


The night before rafting standing at Bujagali Falls.


The Nile River is 6650 km (4132 miles) long making it the longest river in the world. There are two major tributaries: the White Nile and Blue Nile.

Last week we traveled with Katrina to the source of the Victoria Nile in Jinga, Uganda. There it begins with a spring at Ripon Falls at the end of Lake Victoria. It empties into the White Nile after passing through several more lakes. The White Nile and Blue Nile converge in Khartoum, Sudan. There it continues northward toward its mouth in the Mediterranean Sea. The water travels at a rate of three km per minute. It takes 3 months it to travel from its source to the Mediterranean. Incredible!

Katrina wanted to white water raft on the Nile. Previously we had rafted on both the Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers which have level 3 rapids. Rapids are rated on a scale of 1 to 6 based on their difficulty. I must say, the Nile was much more fun and exciting. We spent a day on the Nile traveling a total of 30 km. Locals call the Nile a “pull down river” meaning it flows at one level, the rocks pull it down to a lower level where it is nice and smooth before being pulled down again several kilometers later. We were pulled down five level 5 rapids, five level 4 rapids and the smaller ones were too insignificant to count!

While there we met people from Belgium, Great Britain, Turkey, Slovenia, Germany, South Africa and Uganda. It was a great day. We started near the Owens Falls dam where the water was nice and calm. There we learned the commands we would need throughout the day. We flipped the raft to practice getting back in and getting into the crufix position in case we got separated from the raft and needed to float downstream.


Kayaks and two oar rafts accompanied us in the river as safety precautions. If you got separated from your raft these boats were there to pick you up. At three different points when the water was calm, we could leave our raft and swim or float downstream. That was great fun. Even though we were all just a few feet away from one another it was amazing to see how we would get in different currents that would take us at different speeds down river.

They provided all three meals for the day. Lunch was half of a pineapple and biscuits (cookies). The fresh pineapple was wonderful! The evening meal was a BBQ back at our campsite. The beef shish kabobs had the best meat we have eaten since we’ve been in Africa! Vegetables, fruit, rice, potatoes, and chapatti completed our meal.

It was a wonderful day!

Click here to view pictures of our rafting adventure.

School Visitor

Our friend, Mary Oldham, came to visit last week. Mary is a fellow Maryknoll Lay Missioner, class of 2010. We along with twelve others joined MKLM in September and attended a three month orientation in New York. That’s when we first met Mary, a fellow Midwesterner. She was also assigned to Kenya so we traveled on New Year’s Eve to our new country. We were together in language school in Nairobi until April. At that point we moved to Kitale while Mary moved to Mombasa. We were delighted to see her again and get a chance to visit about our ministries.

Mary is coordinating a project called Maryknoll Fathers AIDS Orphans Project in the Archdiocese of Mombasa started in 1999. This project addresses the educational needs of children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS. They come from marginalized families who have very limited economic opportunities and live in slum areas surrounding Mombasa. Many of the guardians are living with HIV/AIDS and have other children to care for. Some of the orphans in the project are living with HIV/AIDS themselves.



She also deals with schools, but in a totally different way than we do. She is involved with finding schools that will accept her children, placing them, the admissions process, paying fees, etc. She was very interested to see how schools function on a daily basis and what education looks like in Kenya.

She was able to spend one day with John at St. Anthony’s and the next at St. Monica’s. Unfortunately, the boys were taking exams so she was only able to meet the teachers and other staff and see where John works. Since we were still holding class at St. Monica’s, the girls were thrilled to be able to talk with her and ask her questions.

Although she isn’t a teacher, she is a natural in the classroom. She started off each class telling a little about herself and then opening it up to questions. The questions ranged all the way from: Tell us about your family. Are you married? What are you looking for in a husband? What are your traditional foods? Where did you go to university? How is life different in Kenya from the United States? What are some of the challenges you face in Kenya?

Of course, the girls were thrilled to have another visitor from the United States. Mary continued to reinforce the importance of studying hard and getting a good education. Education is the way out of poverty and to reach Kenya Vision 2030 economic and social goals.

Report Card Weekend

This is report card weekend. School in Kenya is divided into three three-month terms. This past week has been Final Week. John especially has been swamped with >marking (grading) exams. Do the maths. Each class at St. Anthony’s has 85+ students. There are four classes. That’s 340+ students. He reported about an hour ago that he has marked over 4000 questions. It took him about 20 hours to finish mark his exams. He will be so glad to be finished and be able to think about something else.

Here are a couple of examples from his Form I (freshman) maths exam:

1. A large scale farmer uses ½ of his land to plant maize (corn), 1/5 for grazing, 1/3 of the remainder for horticulture and the rest for beans. If he uses 20 hectares for horticulture farming determine how much land he uses for beans. (Worth 4 marks/points)

2. Matthew bought a suit for sh 2400. He is going to resell it and marked it a price that after allowing a 10% discount he would make a profit of 20%. Calculate the marked price. (4 marks)

3. A cylindrical tank whose diameter is 2.8 metres and height of 80 cm is initially empty. Water whose volumn is 985.6 litres is poured into the tank. Determine the fraction of the tank filled with water. (4 marks)

I’m luckier. I only have to mark (grade) my own students. That’s 148 exams. My exams don’t have to be marked until we return to school in September. However, I must have the Oxford Dictionary on the desk beside me as I work. It is probably the best money spent since we have been in Kenya. If fact, I have two: one to use at home and the other is kept at school. There is a real difference between American English and British English not only in word usage but also in spelling. I am constantly having to double check to see if what I think is an error is in fact correct. Here are a few spellings that I need to count as correct: realised, colour, travelled, practise, mould, offense, labour, and foetus.

Here is an example from my Form I exam:
Read the following story. Fill in the blanks so that the story makes sense. (10 marks)
Ogre Stories
There are many ___________________ narratives that depict ogres. Ogres are ___________________ characters who disguise themselves to deceive foolish and gullible _____________________. These evil characters do __________________ things like killing people and ______________________ them up. Ogres have nothing _____________________ in them, and indeed they never change their evil nature.
Ogre stories present the contest between ___________________ and evil in the world. As we have said, ogres disguise themselves as good and well meaning, but in the end their _________________ nature reappears. Their aim is to destroy. In some stories they kill and get away with it. Yet in others, the ogres are eventually _____________________. Such stories reassure us and show that good ____________________ over evil.



Maths answers:
40 hectares, sh 3200, 1/5

English answers:
oral, evil, people, evil, eating, good, good, true, destroyed, triumphs

Everyday Necessities

Several weeks ago I showed you our house. I thought today I'd show you things in our house that are different than homes in the United States. These are things that we couldn't do without.

We don't have near the electricity problems that Katrina has in Nigeria. However, it isn't unusual for the electricity to go out a couple of times a week. Tonight for example while I was cooking supper we lost power for about twenty to thirty minutes. If it is daylight it isn't a problem. However, if it is dark, it is really dark. This is a rechargeable lantern that puts out quite a bit of light. We keep it in a special place so we always know where it is at. There are also several flashlights kept in strategic locations in the house and candles with matches in every room.

If we would drink the water here we would get sick. There is bacteria and other impurities that our bodies aren't used to. That means that we might get sick if we drank tap water. That problem is solved by having a water filter for drinking water and for brushing teeth. It works by the simple process of osmosis and gravity. You fill up the top compartment with tap water. Inside is a clay filter to get rid of the impurities. As time goes by the water passes through the filter and into the bottom part of the filter. Now it is drinkable water!

There are four dogs on the compound for security reasons. Copper and Dino are two that are outside all day long. They are quite tame and friendly (to us). Dino is the father of Copper. Copper is younger and more energetic. John feeds her our bones and scraps of meat. She really likes that. Due to the treats and warm concrete, she hangs out near our house during the day. We often hear her tail hitting our door at night. It's not a bad thing to know that there is a guard dog right outside your front door!

We don't have and don't want a hot water heater. We don't have room for one and they are too expensive to run. However, we have three small ones that give us hot water just when we need it. Each shower has a hot water heater on the top of the shower nozzle. About three to five minutes before you want to take a shower, turn on the switch outside the bathroom and you've got a warm shower. Likewise, we have another larger hot water heater in the kitchen above the sink. We plug it in while I am cooking. Again within three to five minutes there is hot water. Boy, is it ever hot! What hot water isn't used doing supper dishes stays warm overnight and is still lukewarm the next morning.

This is high malaria season. Since it is the rainy season, there is a lot of water sitting around. We take a drug to prevent us from getting malaria every day. In addition we sleep under mosquito netting. Our bed has a special frame for the netting so it isn't right in our faces when we go to bed. It's almost like sleeping in a canopy bed.

Click here to see a few more pictures of things that make our lives a little easier.

Sunday Walk

We go for a walk on Saturday and Sunday mornings. John gets plenty of exercise during the week since he usually walks two to three kilometers every day to and from school. I on the other hand don’t get much exercise. Walking in our neighborhood gives us a chance to explore and learn more about our new home. We try to take a new route each time we go. This morning we took our camera along to show you what we see in our neighborhood.

This road is a mirum road. It’s the next best thing to being tarmaced (blacktopped). I don’t know what it’s made of, but it sure doesn’t hold water. Even after a heavy downpour there are no mud puddles. There might be an area holding water for a few hours, but it is soon gone. On this type of road you don’t have to worry about getting stuck. The road to John's school isn't nearly this nice. He won't let me take him all the way to school because he's afraid I'll get stuck.

Click here to see more pictures. We are surrounded by hills. The Cherangani Hills are to the north east. To the north west is Mt. Elgon amid the Cherangani.

All houses and most building are located in compounds. There is a wall surrounding the compound and usually a hedge of some type. It’s not at all unusual to see cattle, goats and sheep eating grass along the edge of the roads. I’ve had to stop several times on my way to and from school to wait for them to cross the road. The shepherds are good in that if they see cars coming, they will try to get the animals to move over. At times there is no person with the animals. In that case they seem to be local animals with long ropes tied around their necks. They must belong to a compound nearby and are out grazing for the day.


Notice the lady walking with her small child in this photo. If you look carefully you will notice that she is carrying firewood on her head, a baby tied to her back, and a shopping bag on her arm. How does she do it?

Homes in our neighborhood run the gamut from large, multistoried homes for several families usually owned by Indian Kenyans, British colonial homes built in the early 20th century, modest stone homes similar to ours, to small homes built out of timber, corrugated tin, even mud.