Baraka=Blessing

As circumstances have changed a bit at First Love, my time during the day has become almost exclusively dedicated to working at the Baraka Women's Centre, and I love it. I work on assorted tasks: working with Rochelle to compile a catalog of the products the women make, writing curriculum for the sewing program (which was finally finished last week--yay!), researching ways to enable sustainability for the women after they graduate from the program, and my favorite, teaching/leading greeting card making! You can check out the Baraka Center's website at www.barakawomenscenter.com and see the products for sale at http://barakawomenscenter.com/?page_id=98 (do you recognize the model ;-)?)

Shosho Rose, Lydia, Matilda and Rose hard at work sewing aprons

Working at the Baraka Center is not at all what I had imagined for myself when I came to Kenya for my internship. I'm living at an orphanage so it only makes sense that I would be working with the kids, right? Unfortunately the very long school days (we're talking 7 am-4:30pm) make it difficult to have any constructive time with the kids, and I have to have something to do all day. Thankfully the Baraka Center is right on First Love's compound, so I work there all day (9:30ish to 4:30), hang out with the kids when they get home from school, do devotions, eat, then an hour of homework help and it all wraps up at 9 pm, at which time I try to stay awake to stay in touch with home via the internet, but I usually fail at making it past 10:30.

Rochelle and I often joke to each other that we fall asleep on our desks at night and just wake up in the morning and keep working. And sometimes it feels like that, that when I'm at First Love all my time is completely consumed. But that's something I am okay with: I love the kids, I love the women at Baraka, and I am fully okay with spreading myself a little thin for the limited time we're here. We have an adventure or get-away almost every weekend, and then I come to USIU for a day or two and go to class and rest. My roommate here told me a few weeks ago that she thinks my hobby is sleeping because I'm always napping on Monday afternoons. I explained to her that I'm always just catching up from a crazy week!

I feel like I and the women at Baraka have hit a turning point in the past week: I've become part of their community, and that feels great. We don't always understand each other (my Midwestern accent has been voted "hardest of the wazungu to understand", haha) and they're mostly 10-30 years older than me, but nothing beats being greeted with hugs and huge smiles every morning and sitting down for tea time with them.

Lydia, Florence, Fanice, Tabitha, Farida and Matilda inspecting a
huge pile of repair work to be done for the First Love kids!

I've started talking a bit about when I leave just so everyone is prepared, and last week Fanice was having none of it:  "Oh Ann, you cannot leave! You are our daughter and we are your mamas. Kenya needs you, not the United States." (Everyone here calls me Ann, Anna has been voted "too difficult to say"....whatever that means!) Oh, my heart. I explained to her how sad I would be to leave but that I haven't seen my family in 3 months. She thought about it and decided that I am allowed to return home because "your mother is missing you, oh is she missing you."

Rose and her granddaughter, Naveyl, who
often comes to Baraka with grandma. We
all take turns holding this beautiful baby so
grandma can get some work done!

There are things about working at Baraka that should be intimidating to me: I don't sew, these women are all older than me and have such difficult lives in comparison to mine, I knew nothing about curriculum or micro loans before this semester. But these things haven't really mattered: I can't sew, but I can definitely make greeting cards and we have a blast while doing that, the women and I have developed a mutual respect and love, and I am definitely using my research skills this semester (shout out to Research class!)

Every Friday afternoon we have Bible study at Baraka, and we've taken to beginning or ending by walking a circle around the building and praying, usually out loud--the grounds workers at First Love probably think we're all crazy, but God doesn't! Would you join me in circling this place and these women in prayer this week? Please pray for:

• Money to come through for the women to all receive sewing machines for graduation--we're about halfway to the goal!
• All 9 women to pass their final exam and be able to graduate
•  A way to get the women and their products to market each weekend
• These women to continue to thrive after they graduate

Karibu Zanzibar: Paje (Paradise!)

Monday evening of spring break we drove about an hour or so to the other side of the island to spend the rest of the week in a town called Paje at Teddy's, which was separated from the beach only by a few palm trees! The entire place was just sand, even the floors where we stayed, and most of us opted to go barefoot the entire week--such a freeing experience!

The girls' home for the week

Inside our hut

A short walk to the beach

Paradise.

Tuesday we lounged and read and slept on the beach and it was absolutely wonderful. While the pace of things here in Kenya is slower than I'm used to (no more late night cram sessions for this girl!) I am still busy, and it was oh so nice to have some time with no responsibilities or obligations.

I have also decided that swimming in the Indian Ocean is the cure for any and all ills; it was absolutely magnificent.




Wednesday we went on a "spice tour". Zanzibar is known as the Spice Island because spice trade routes used to pass through here. We visited a spice farm that had dozens of different kinds of spice-producing trees and plants and it was...kind of interesting. The tour guide kept trying to make us guess what type of spice each tree produced and we would all say "Seriously, we don't know." He was shocked that we truly had no idea...I guess that shows just how spoiled we Americans are that our cinnamon and cloves come in jars and we have no clue what they originally looked like. We ended the visit with a delectable lunch cooked with many of the different spices we had seen: pilau, cassava, cooked bananas, and salad. Yum!

Thursday was by far the most exciting day of the trip. We departed Teddy's at 6am and drove about a half hour to another beach. After gearing up with goggles, snorkels and flippers, we climbed into a pair of fishing boats to go in search of dolphins! I have never been a big animal aficionado (besides the fact that I don't want to eat them) and have never had a specific desire to swim with dolphins, but this was an absolutely amazing experience. We would motor around until we saw dolphins flipping in and out of the water, then the boat would get as close as possible to them and we would jump in and look down as quickly as possible. I'm telling you, there is nothing like floating in the ocean and looking down below to see four dolphins...incredible.

Later that morning we took a walk out to the reef off the beach and IT. WAS. AMAZING.

We were able to walk probably about a half mile out and the water never reached deeper than our knees. Along the way, we saw tons of starfish, little tiny crabs, sea anemones, coral, and all different kinds of fish. As we walked we also carefully dodged what I began to call "minefields" of sea urchins. This walk was by far my favorite part of the trip: I was literally stepping over creatures that I've only ever seen behind glass in the aquarium. I would do it again every day if I could.

Unfortunately on the walk back in I stepped on a sea urchin and got some spines in my foot. There were a  few minutes of panic after some guy on the beach told me I was going to die, but we dripped some fresh papaya juice on it and plucked those spines right out. It's all part of the adventure, eh?

Friday we had another beach day and we took the opportunity to relive our childhoods and build the best sandcastle ever (the Coke bottle is a nod to a movie we watched earlier in the semester in our African film series, The Gods Must be Crazy).

Our trip to Zanzibar was a perfect mix of touristy learning experiences, exciting sea adventures and plenty of time to catch up on a good book and soak up the sun.

Best spring break ever.

Karibu Zanzibar: Stonetown

I have been looking forward to our spring break trip to Zanzibar for about exactly one year, since last year's group shared their amazing adventures via Facebook and blogs with us poor suffering souls back in the Midwest cold.

Somehow spring break was suddenly upon us last week, and we set off for the airport at 6:30 am on Saturday for a quick flight to Zanzibar! We stopped for a (literally) hot 10 minutes in Mombasa to refuel and exchange a few passengers. Maybe it was my total lack of sleep the entire week before this or the early morning flight, but I thought it was hilarious that we disembarked and hung out in this hallway for 10 minutes. Maybe it's just me. Actually I'm confident it's just me, but whatever.

We stayed in Stonetown Saturday afternoon through Monday evening, and what an adventure it was. I love exploring new places, and it was refreshing to allow myself to act and feel like a tourist here. I think I have had this idea in Nairobi that I don't want to be the stereotypical mzungu taking pictures of everything and acting like I don't know what I'm doing, but I fully embraced my tourist side in Zanzibar and I'm glad!

Saturday afternoon I was tempted to give in to the temptation of a nap, but am glad I didn't because I would have missed out on some prime adventuring! Tyler, Makenzy, Nyseku and I set off to explore and ended up coming across an old bath-house that were able to tour. It ran for over 140 years, up until Tanzania's independence around 1964.

A fire was kept burning in here to heat the hot baths.

Nyseku on the roof of the bath-house.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday we tried our hands at bargaining and all purchased probably a few-too-many of our new favorite clothing items: ZANZIPANTS!!


(photo credit for both of these to the beautiful Katie Shea!)







We visited the site of the old slave market on Sunday. The slave trade in East Africa was very small in comparison to West Africa, but slaves that were taken from the East were routed through Zanzibar and kept and then sold at the slave market. Once slavery was abolished, the site of the market was transformed into an Anglican church. The designers of the church incorporated many elements that acknowledged the former slave market and there was a lot of symbolism of redemption: turning this place from one of horror and pain into a community of hope.

On Monday we took a boat to the nearby Prison Island, named so because it was originally meant to be a prison but was never actually used as one. There is also a tortoise sanctuary there which was definitely an educational experience!

I promise that I like animals more than this
picture reveals!

Prison in paradise?

The best part of Monday was going snorkeling after visiting Prison Island. It was my first time in the Indian Ocean, and I loved it--the water was clear and warm and I could have spent the rest of the week just swimming. We swam above a small coral reef and were able to see some fish and mini jellyfish, but most of the sea life stayed too deep for us to get a good look. Thankfully we would get many more opportunities to swim with sea creatures later in the week!

There's so much more to share about Zanzibar that I'll have to do so in another post!



A few more random photos from Stonetown:

A White Woman Smoking in Kibera!

The first week that I was serving at First Love there was a team here from the U.S. who were putting on a VBS-style program at a school in Kibera, the nearby slum. Rochelle and I joined them each day to help out. We would make the hour and a half drive both ways each day with one of the directors (a Kenyan), another intern who is from the Czech Republic, a Kenyan intern, and two of the high school-aged kids from First Love. Needless to say, we are all very very different and come from very different cultures.

Kibera is a pretty rough area; there is deep poverty and suffering there. It is an area that we are careful in and even Kenyans familiar with the area approach with caution. It is very rare to see a mzungu in Kibera.

One day on our drive home, we were all exhausted and no one in our very-full car was talking. Suddenly, all at once, we all exclaimed in unison "A WHITE WOMAN SMOKING IN KIBERA?!?!?" There she was: a middle aged white woman with dark hair, wearing all black, walking down the sidewalk with a cigarette in her mouth. Everyone immediately burst into uproarious laughter; we were literally doubled over in our seats. I think it was especially funny because we all found it funny: the ridiculousness of this bold mzungu woman casually hanging out on the street in Kibera spanned all our cultures and generations.

That was the moment that I knew I was going to be OK here in Kenya: yes, the culture here is very different and there has been so much to adjust to, but finding the common humor in a ridiculous situation comforted me that I would find my place. 

I do feel that I have found my place here but there are still ridiculous things that happen daily or just things that I once would have found strange that I've now gotten used to. Laughter expounds around here on the daily for many reasons, including:

• Reading essays of the junior high students...I suspect that they've been told to use similes and "common" English phrases, but in practice this often just turns out ridiculous. Some of my favorites: "Tears rolled down his cheeks like fat elevens." "I could see the tomatoes bloom on his cheeks as he became embarrassed." "He stared at me like I was a rich piece of mahogany."
• Talking about de-worming: When was the last time you were de-wormed? How often do you de-worm? How often should we de-worm? Uncomfortable? Maybe it's worms!
• Getting hit on/proposed to, over and over again: A little of this I've brought upon myself, but I can only laugh at the boldness of men here. Walking down the street the other day, I had the typical "hello, how are you, fine, how are you?" conversation in Swahili with a shopkeeper. Naturally, his next question was "Would you like to be my fiancee?" I wonder what his success rate with that one is.

I am glad that as weird as things can be around here sometimes, laughter knows no age or culture or language. Sometimes I get through the day on laughter alone, and that is something to be thankful for.