Ilomon (Visitors/guests)

A typical Saturday in Maasailand….
After waking up around saa are inosu (the second hour and a half, or 8:30 am) we planned out our Saturday. We would try to write some emails, practice Maasai, work in the garden, maybe check out the adult literacy classes at the church and generally take it easy. I started writing my first email at around 1030 and just as I was about to start editing it, the doorbell rang. Three high school boys from the local boys school were here. Why? Who knows. We think they just wanted to hear stories of America. After Steph grilled them about their opinions on the inner-workings of a Kenyan school they asked to see pictures of the US so we got out our laptop and went through some pictures. By around noon they decided they’d had enough and left.
I go back to the office to start the email again and Steph calls out, “we have visitors.” Two women from the church had come over to say hello. The one was our good friend Paulina, the head of the women’s fellowship at church. She has been very friendly, offering to wash our house many times (and doing it about once a week when we let her), bringing us milk, and teaching us new Maasai words. The best part is she speaks slowly and clearly for us which increases our comprehension about 10 fold.
The women were heading to a women’s fellowship meeting at the church and invited Steph to come along. Since things probably wouldn’t start for an hour or so they headed out and promised to come back when the meeting actually began. As they walked out Solomon, the old field extentionist at POMC came in wanting to check in and hear a recap of the POMC board meting the day before. About 20 minutes into the conversation two more friends came over, Daniel (Lepayian) and Daniel (Saningo). They were also interested in hearing about the meeting, drinking tea, and talking about how things are different in North America.
During the chat with these three, a couple children came by (which Solomon shooed away) and then somebody looking for Solomon to pay for charcoal. Then, a woman came from the church to fetch Steph and Lepayian and Solomon had a meeting to go to. Saningo stayed and we talked further about POMC happenings and the most recent food distribution (he is the manager of the FFW program). By about 230 pm he also left, leaving me by myself. At this point I had yet to eat lunch or even finish my first email. After scarfing down some pizza and banana bread, I finally got cracking on emails. It was only a matter of hours however before we had more visitors, this time Solomon’s wife wanting to take us to see their garden (which is like the garden of Eden compared to the rest of the area). Amazingly, we had no visitors all night, which we spent turning back on our water at the POMC farm (people have been turning it off lately), cooking a whole chicken before it went bad in our no-longer-cold freezer, and burning all our trash from the week (one of my new favorite activities). This is life in Maasai-land. There is hardly a moment to yourself, but it is indicative of the relationship-minded people here

Feeding the Hungry

On Wednesday, POMC was transporting food from Nairobi to Maasailand for the next month of food distribution. I’ve always been interested in the nitty-gritty (logistics) of aid and was excited to go along to see how things worked.
Steph and I were told that the POMC vehicle would leave Najile between 6 and 615 am. We knew that it was unlikely that this timetable would actually be followed, but we were working with a new staff-member and wanted to at least be ready in the case that he had motivated people into punctuality. Neither of us felt particularly great, tired, queasy and just a little grumpy. At 630 I meandered to the POMC demo farm to see what the progress was, and nobody was there. The car was gone and I thought, “have they left without us?” While trying to hold back my annoyance and frustration I decided to simply wait and trust that they would come to pick us up. Steph and I sat down and prayed, prayed that we would be healthy during the long trip, that we would be loving in our words and attitude and that we could trust God to provide for us no matter what happened.
Soon after we prayed, the car rolled up to our house, they had simply gone to pick up other people first and were now returning. So by 645 we were off….sort of. There were still others to pick up and between trying to remember where they lived and where we were supposed to meet them, it was 730 before we were back at the POMC farm ready to go….I think….Yes! And we were off to Nairobi. The drive usually takes around 1.5-2 hours to get to Ngong and then, depending on traffic another .5-1 hour to Nairobi. The plan was to drop Steph off at Ngong so that she could visit with MIDI (our other partner) while we picked up food. The hope was that if they went to MIDI’s demo farm (3/4 the way between Ngong and Najile, on the Najile side of things) they could either drive her back home or at least drop her from a point where she could walk.
Well, we bumped and bustled our way down the Najile superhighway, encountered a entire squad of police/military dudes doing training exercises, stopped after one of the guys in the back puked, and finally made it to Ngong around 9:30. From there we dropped off Steph and headed onwards to Nairobi. Mind you, the loading was scheduled to start around 9 and just as we got going from Ngong we got a phone call saying the trucks and inspection people were at the warehouse and they were waiting for us…oh well.
So we made our way into town. We got to experience the “industrial area” of Nairobi (in the south east for those of you with maps) which is where most heavy industries are located and coincidently enough has deplorable roads. Nothing like following a massive truck filled with steel over a road that would make a US back-road look like the autobahn. Around 1030 we finally pull into the warehouse.
The warehouse was an interesting scene. It was run by Indians (from India-not the kind with peace pipes and wigwams) who clearly were 1. Disdainful of the “lesser Africans” they were surrounded by and 2. Clearly happy to be show off their prestige and power to others. As we entered the compound the owners were looking grumpy and wanted to get things moving asap. Unfortunately, the amounts of oil/flour/beans to be loaded onto each of the 7 trucks (going to 2 different distribution stations) were not yet calculated. Whoops! As Sam, the new field extentionist got out his calculator, the Indians were pacing about making it clear that they were unhappy and that we were wasting their time.
After some frantic calculations and a few signatures, the trucks were ready to get loaded around 11. Each truck was a “10 Ton truck” so smaller than a semi, but bigger than any personal pickup. Each was going to take about 9-10 MT of food in the form of 90Kg bags of beans, boxes of 12 1kg containers of cooking fat, and cartons of 12 2kg bags of maize flour. A normal load would be about 300 flour cartons, 75 boxes of “oil” and around 20 bags of beans. The trucks were loaded from massive warehouses filled with palates of food by a crew of about 10 casual laborers. Unfortunately, only 1 truck could be filled at a time due to space and laborers. Therefore, each truck took about 45 minutes to load and so the loading continued well into the evening.
Fortunately, Solomon and I got to skip out around lunch time (130) and head back home in the land cruiser. The others were going to drive with the trucks to help them find the appropriate distribution center. Solomon and I made our way back through the Nairobi traffic, picked up some seedlings at a local greenhouse, picked up some LPG for our stove in Karen (an outskirt of Nairobi) and then on to Ngong.
Unfortunately, Steph had not only went to the MIDI demo farm near Najile but, not hearing from us about timing (due to no phone reception), then came back to Ngong. This means she had already logged about 5.5-6 hours of driving. Bleh! We found Steph in Ngong and ate at a local restaurant while we waited for the Land Cruiser to get a new alignment. Solomon left us to check on the car around 430 and we sat in the restaurant and waited and waited…..and waited. Around 6 he rolls up with some new passengers and we were back on the road. On highlight of Ngong was that there’s an ice cream stand which Steph appreciated greatly!
The drive home was generally light-hearted. One of the people being transported with us (there are always people catching rides) was named Richard and a very loving and jokey person. We had a great time talking and laughing with him and took some great pictures of the sunset over the rift valley. As night was starting to fall, we approached the steep hills that the road crosses and we remembered the heavily loaded trucks of food that we had just passed. After we got up the hill we stopped and waited to see if the two trucks behind us had made it. The first one slowly climbed its way up the hill, smoke puffing, gears grinding, engine laboring. But, like the little engine that could, it made it.
The second truck….well…..that was one little engine that could not. It tried and tried to make it up the hill but it would inevitably stall out about a quarter of the way up. We went down to see if we could help them. It was soon clear that some of the food would have to come off the truck before it could climb the hill. First we took off all the beans, removing about 1 MT. The truck got momentum, started up the hill and……nope-stalled out. The truck comes back to the foot of the hill and we unload some flour. The truck ran up to the hill again but again…..could not make it. By now it was quite dark and we had accumulated a whole crowd of people watching, helping, and some making fun of the driver. Finally, after taking off a total of about 40 cartons of flour, the truck tried a third time and this time puffed its way up the hill. Now, the land cruiser ferried the unloaded food up the hill in 4 separate trips (since the road is quite narrow, it couldn’t ferry while the truck was attempting to climb the hill). We now reloaded the truck once more and were on our way.

One highlight of this moment was the stars. From the top of the hill you could see as many as your eyes could hold. The milky way was bright and clear and I thought of God as I looked to the heavens. Here we were tossing bags of beans and it truly was “feeding the hungry.” It was a real blessing to be literally serving those in need and looking at the stars reminded me that God always is on the ground, with us as we do the dirty work and He is with us as we reach the highest heights and lowest valleys.
It was only another hour before we got back to Najile. By this time we were beyond tired and, after inhaling some chocolate chip cookies (thanks to Mom Kleinert for sending us Chocolate Chips!!!) we collapsed into bed. It was a long day, but this is development work, and we saw God in the midst of it.