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