Kenya's Energy Feels Comforting!

Thank you for joining us on our three week journey through Kenya!

This adventure is unlike the several I have been apart of over the last several years.  I find myself turning to by liters of water, carrying some twenty granola bars in my backpack, visiting all rooms to make sure each participant is in bed, seeking out areas for morning runs or stretch sessions, quieting the loud chatter about media happenings back in the States, or balancing a large budget in a currency that exponentially adds thousands of zeros to the confusion! Currently I wake up and fall asleep with one 'participant'.  A woman who is not only a mentor and a mother in my life but also is acting as a barometer and brainstorming partner in my vision of working as an ambassador between folks yearning to step in to new and possibly challenging cultures, environments and experiences.  The goal of our adventure this time around is not to carry as many Nature Valley bars as possible, but to scout the best options for a new kinda of adventure travel for individuals and groups. Each day provides new revelations about ideas for future groups including possible discussions, environments to walk and hike in, wine and dine, serve and share, and finally experiences that will lead to growth and development both interpersonally and as a group!

The last few days Jenet and I have stayed at an oasis we found on the outskirts of Nairobi.  A deleuxe safari tent with a deck facing a lively lawn, acacia trees and pond home to many different species of local birds is equipped with our own bathroom and even hot water :)! The days have been filled playing with orphaned elephants at the David Sheldrick Elephant Reserve, feeding giraffes, skipping through Karen Blixen's home from Out of Africa and touring a local bead collective called Kazuri who hires 350 single women since the 1970s.  Today we are on our way to Kibera to stay with my ol' pal Mark, a co-leader from ARCC.  We are running to our taxi now.  We will write soon!

If you or anyone you know may be interested in trip with Pamoja Intentional Travels for the future please feel free to email me at jenae.sienna@gmail.com

Thank you for much! Asante Sana and Nakupenda.  Sending all of our love home!

Thanksgiving: Maasai Style

Thanksgiving in Meserani: Maasai Style

            Bumping up and down, knocking foreheads and cheering Mark on while he violently shifted gears, our small group found our way to a small Maasai village in a 1960s, totally gutted “Bashman” Land Cruiser.  Our Thanksgiving Day was not spent in pajamas, and was miles away from any televised sports; but explode out of the small car we did singing and dancing, excited to start our second day building a play structure and visiting rural and dusty bomas filled with women and children.  It was a day of sharing cultures and serving this area we have learned to feel, once again, at home at.  Each hut we visited we entered with wide eyes, observing the dynamics of family life.  The women wrapped in colorful fabrics and beads go for water with unruly mules, the children play in the sand and look after the animals of the compound and the environment is cruel: dry and hot.  Where there is hard work and what seems like endless chores, these families welcomed us in, smiling big and willing to engage about the new learning center that has recently crept in offering English classes and an early childhood center.  At a shaded and jovial lunch of good ol’ American peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, our group shared how much love they felt from the Maasai, and we thus sent this love back to our families who would be celebrating their Thanksgiving in the next several hours.

            Back at our camp four hours later, we tumbled out of the steaming Bushman truck with a tight schedule planned in order to enjoy hours of cooking for an African Thanksgiving meal.  Just inside the gates we found four men squatting around a growing fire, Ole a modern Maasai welcomed us to our traditional goat roast ceremony.  We ran to gather around the small goat they had slaughtered just before our arrival to watch the presentation and ritual of cutting and gutting the main course.  With knives straight from their belts they worked together to create meticulously sized pieces of meat, then stretched and speared the meat then nailed the spears into the sand next to the fire standing like a tepee around the flame.  Eventually the head was put straight on the fire, skinned and cracked for the brain and eyes.  Gooey and “gross” for our culture for we are not used to being apart of this section of what it takes to enjoy meat, although if you can respect it as the ceremony and part of the cycle, the process is quite interesting and rather beautiful.

            Each member of our team then took out our knives and known traditions of cooking, and together we created a colorful and bountiful meal.  With local steamed greens, mashed potatoes, grilled pumpkin, sugared sweet potatoes and home-made fries we matched the Maasai barbeque and enjoyed together, like Queens and Kings!
            When you are away from home, out of the country at that, during a holiday that is solely yours as an American the meaning behind it becomes magnified.  This one has not been made by Hallmark and isn’t based on Christian traditions, it is to remember, recognize and respect our family from all walks of life, to come together for peace through food and celebration.  To understand and take the time to listen to others and what is important to them, and their history.  During our meal with some twenty Maasai folk, we not only shared our styles of eating but also different cultural stories and what we are thankful for.  On the top of the list? It is unanimous, our group respectively is appreciative for the support of our family, health and the opportunity to adventure and see this beautiful region of the world.

            After dinner the Maasai men performed their traditional song a dance.  The song: a gutteral humming with an edge of beat boxing and the dance: lots of head bobbing, bumping into one another and high jumping.  It becomes a friendly competition between the men to jump the highest, jeering and smiling at one another as they move in and out of a consistent beat and harmony with one another.  The presentation ended their presence with us that night and left us all giggling  and smiling.  Together as a group of seven we did an art project decorating turkeys, sang our favorite song “Little Talks”, and summed the night with the poem “The Invitation”.

            This is a Thanksgiving to remember, we felt blessed to celebrate with the family we have formed while traveling together in a tight posse of seven, and we also thank our lucky stars for manifesting a Thanksgiving with vibrant, kind and inclusive Maasai warriors.  I was almost as surprised to see them eating our French fries as I was when several of us tried their most prized entre: Blood! Eek! “Tastes like chicken” :)

Building a playground!

                                                

Cooking greens with the ladies

Maasai time

Thanksgiving main course: Goat

"Help your selves!"

Giving thanks together!

            

Love in Maasai Land

Love in Maasai Land   

         In the harassing Amboseli heat we found a shaded space under a bushy Acacia tree to rest. Through our local Maasai translator we thanked the small community of four men and some twenty women and children who welcomed us into their home this last week. Our group built and finished a fence to protect their livestock from lions and hyenas.  The men also took this time to vocalize their appreciation and to stress the peace in their lives that will result from the fence. The fare-well setting allowed time for both groups to engage freely and soon we entered a conversation about culture, lifestyles and traditions in our homes.

            One thing is for sure in Maasai culture, cattle and livestock are a man’s wealth, it is not only his bank account but represents his status in society.  It is said that if you run over a goat or a cow in East Africa there is an anger that erupts in a Maasai warrior you would never want to see. Don’t worry getting your wallet out, it is not about the amount you can pay him or how many times you apologize to make up for the incident, it means much more and the palpable anger will turn to sadness and ultimately disrespect.  Lesson: never run over or hit livestock in Africa!  Thus, life in a traditional Maasai home revolves around cattle, homes are oriented around the herd, gardening happens when animals are safe and eating, time with family happens after livestock are safe and full and their food comes mostly all from cows mostly including the milk and blood, sometimes including the meat.  Livestock are also given in exchange for a woman’s hand in marriage. 

            With some ideas of the Maasai tradition already in our minds, we inquired more about the lifestyle,

            “What are the roles of men in this village?”

            “To care for the cows.”

            “What are the roles of the women here?”

            “There are three main roles of women” the group of ladies respond after some quick bantering amongst one another “One is to gather firewood, the second is to collect water, and third is to tend to the children.” 

            This precise answer stunned me, to hear it from their mouths in such exact terms triggered a colorful patchwork of millions of thoughts in one single nanosecond.  I stumbled over the answers that come to mind when someone asks about my role as a woman in my society, all of the things I think about and strive to achieve, being a role-model and a teacher, helping humanity, focusing on positivity, respect, kindness, intellectual ability, friends, family, safety, security, culture, love.  Just because they name these three main responsibilities, they must engage with other aspects, right?

            I tuned back in as one of our students asked about marriage traditions.  Samson the elder answered, “it depends on the dowry, it depends on a coming of age ceremony, circumcision and wealth.”  It is said many Maasai families marry their daughters off to an elderly man in order to ‘save them from lives of poverty’, thus traditionally the man marrying the young woman must show his wealth by providing a healthy bride price or dowry, many goats or cows will due.  Now times are changing and I have found it is more than unfair to make such blanket generalizations about a group of people, although this is the tradition that has been alive for many years.

            The elderly man of the group then asked us about marriage in our home.  We explained the traditional ceremony, he responded as if we didn’t answer his question, “Why do people get married, what are people looking for?” Our group listed off the usual response “compatibility, love, sense of humor…” The old man almost interrupted, “Do people marry for wealth?”  We all stopped and looked at each other, one answered “In our society it is not encouraged to marry for money, although some people do, most people marry for love.”  The old man stopped, seeming to blame the translation for his misunderstanding.

            I looked over to the women and children sitting next to us on the ground, do they know love like I do? Do their families love each other like I have known? Do they love their partners like I have known?

            It is not for me to judge weather they know love like I.  I understand there is a life beyond what I have observed, and heard through the words of our translator.  I trust that there is love in their life, but I also simply take this interaction to give thanks for all of the love I have been blessed with.  How my family respects me and what I think as an individual.  How people in my life have encouraged my plans and goals without stubbing my growth due to expectations or traditions.  I give thanks I can be my own woman, be free in my expressions, my health, and my choices.  

            Through my time spent throughout Africa I have learned layers of love and freedom.  It is here I am challenged beyond the best schooling or continual failure, it is here I have experienced smiles, laughter and heart more vibrant than all the money spent on holidays and birthdays.  I don’t want this story about Maasai women to represent a lack of love in Africa, for it is here love is flowing through every pore, it seems to simply take a different form here in a land of complex change and deep seated traditions.

"Sister, Sister!"

Each week we pack up our tents and our kitchen set up and load our overland truck.  We wave goodbye to the people we have befriended and the environments we have come to know with sadness in our hearts and doubt that the experience on the horizon will provide as rich of an adventure as the last.  Each and every week we are pleasantly surprised.  The experiences and the relationships only seem to flourish, we are never let down by the love and the positive impact people are making throughout East Africa. We have been utterly blessed to spend time with the change makers of this world, getting to know them and sharing in their systems, their failures, their successes, learning about the world they thrive in, and those who prosper from their actions.  A common theme I have witnessed throughout is the heart each individual has, they speak from their heart, act from their heart and in response they are met with support from others honoring the heart of the matter. 

            You say “orphanage” and my mind creates images of dark and musty halls with tables of noisy children hastily gobbling leftover food.  Thoughts of abuse and corruption; I shy away from entering, based on the bad rap I have been fed, stationary in the assumption I have built up over the years about this culture.  On our drive to Saint Vincent’s home for orphans I clung to the somewhat doubtful thought I have every week, “This experience will be different, it can’t top the last one, we will get through this and whatever transpires we will learn from it.”

            The moment our truck entered Karen, Nairobi and roared into the quiet neighborhood we would soon feel at home in my heart calmed and my interest was perked.  Over the gates we looked for the “orphans”.  From the front doors burst a petite African woman, cloaked as a nun, with a spirit of a rambunctious character you might find in a children’s cartoon.  She ran to us laughing and giggling, hugging us while calling us by name; she had been studying our profiles upon our arrival.  The truck dropped us for the week; there we were, our group of seven piled into a small room in an old mansion, we trotted downstairs to welcome the children home from school.  It was too quiet, how could twenty African children live here?  We have started to learn the ways of St. Vincent Maisha Bora Center.  There is freedom, there is respect, there is education, and there is love!  All of this is combined with a traditional yet contemporary faith that God will provide.

            Sister Mary Jane is a Catholic nun, well she used to be, she has known since seventh grade she has wanted to be a nun and her life has revolved around her commitment to God and serving the less fortunate.  She is one of the hardest working women I have ever met! Something that individualizes this woman is her “Little Engine That Could” character, her strength is palpable, she moves through the hard times, she manifests each moment, and she has a relentless spirit I am still trying to grasp.  During challenges that any other person would feel defeated, stressed or impatient, she is able to laugh, to hoot and holler, to shout to the heavens “Jesus come down!” with a smile on her face that lights up every pristine tooth in her mouth and eases the tension.  In the beginning it can even be a bit uncomfortable for if it were anyone else they may respond like Eyore, (from Winnie the Pooh) just trying to get through the hard times.  Something you recognize in areas when despair is constant, the positives shine through even more brightly in each sparkle of life, this it how Sister, and her some twenty children dance through life.

            During her time in the convent Sister Mary Jane attained her Masters in Human Resources, and worked as the Director of HR at Nairobi’s Catholic University.  Her stories are rooted in giving to the poor although the stories are mirrored by the church’s constant questioning of her desire to give.  In short she left the convent to start a children’s home, no one supported her from her faith and everyone thought she was crazy (which she is but in a VERY good way!)

            Sister has a house full of children, ranging from eight to twenty six.  Many are in college learning skills she believes they will need in life, others have been transitioned out of the house and the younger ones are learning English and how to be loved again.  Many of the children have been orphaned because their parents have died mostly from HIV/AIDS.  Typically children who become orphans in this area of the world will be brought into the extended family, although in some cases the family will outcast them or push them out because they cannot afford to keep them.  Sister receives children from Kenya’s Children Services, each child here has their own story drenched in despair, although once again their ability to overcome and see the gems of positivity in life is overwhelming and humbling!

            Not only has Sister created a space to house at-risk children, she has created an astounding network and supporters.  One of her endeavors has been to cultivate the possibilities of a 140-acre piece of land given to her by the Masaai tribe! A green house and a large generator have been donated along with equipment to start a farm.  Yesterday we harvested one boxes of tomatoes and local greens, the day before that green peppers and today we will go back to plant trees.  With the veggies we harvested we then take it to the large grocery stores in Nairobi to sell at competetive prices.  This money goes straight to paying the mortgage on the house and feeding the children.  The most important piece here is: The stores would like to buy solely from Sister, and her land is productive although she has yet to create the capacity due to lack of funds for material.  The last several days I have been searching for grants and loan services to provide Sister with the capital to actualize her plans on the farm.

            Our time spent with Sister has not only re-engaged my commitment to helping those hit by the multifaceted effects of poverty, but also with the higher spirit.  Also Sister has reminded me of the importance of stay young in the mind, treating every human with kindness and respect, helping every person I can.  She is a model citizen, a dear friend and a vibrant spirit.  I have faith in her methodologies and find solace knowing that her plans will unfold, for miracles are on her side! This petite African woman is indeed an agent a change and an angel I feel blessed to have spent time with!!

Harvesting Tomatoes

"Many hands make light work!"

Jam sesh at Maisha Bora Center!

The kids performing Swahili songs

Daraja

Daraja means Bridge!

      “I will continue to stress the need to educate the rural girl.  There are many dangers for our students when they travel up to 10 kilometers to our school.  For girls there is the opportunity for an older man to see her and track her maturation.  Here, even at the age of ten if a girl is “mature” a man even in his forties can go straight to her parents and offer a goat for the girl.  Often times the girl will come home from school and be sent to live with the man.  If the girl even cries a little they will say to her, ‘we will disown you’.”

      Coming from a headmaster of a rural and forgotten school at the base of Mt. Kenya we have only started to comprehend the harsh reality of what it means to be a female in these areas.  As we moved through the classrooms the headmaster showed us off to the students just like the trophies in his office representing the highest achieving students in the area.  You would never assume high scores would grow from these soil floors, mismatched wood siding and clanking roofs that make up this rank school.  There are some five hundred students here with fourteen teachers, ten pit latrines and no food.  In Kindergarten the gender ratio is fifty fifty, by eighth grade: we counted eight girls in a class of fifty students. 

       “In most parts of Kenya, families don’t have money to send their children to school, and if they do, they send their sons and marry off their daughters or keep them in the home to take care of the chores and other siblings.”  Down the road five minutes, Jason Doherty explains to us the surface issue once again, “the girls who attend this school are students who would otherwise have no means of continuing on to secondary school.  They must also show strong academics and a strength for leadership”.  Jason and his wife Jenni moved here from the Bay Area and started The Daraja School four yeas ago, this year they are graduating their first class of twenty-six young women.  These women are bubbling with palpable integrity, warmth and hope!

      This is where we have been staying the last several days.  Our first hours were greeted not by handshakes or shy eyes, but with hugs and warm greetings from many of the girls who met us on our path.  This campus is an oasis.  Established in the 80’s as a school for inner city boys from Baltimore, believe it or not, the school has everything it needs to sustain a peaceful and educational community.

      Our first day here we each shadowed a student, we sat in on nine classes.  Needless to say this school is much different from the school just five minutes up the road.  There is organization, structure, light, books, love, smiles, supplies, infrastructure, laundry, beds, food and capable teachers.  The teaching style is innately different from what we are used to in the States, it seems to trickle down from the old British system, severely stuck in wrote learning, memorizations and heaps of standardized tests.  Jenni and Jason focus on the whole person, the project based learning.  This was obvious in class.  In English they were learning about space, five minutes into our first class I was interviewing another girl as if she was the astronaut, she replayed her knowledge by acting out her role teaching me about life on mars and how it is to eat, and even braid hair while floating! 

        Students here still have to take tests, in fact the Seniors will sit next week for their “SATs on steroids”.  It is what they all work for their whole lives.  It will determine their future.  Jenni said today, “We want to help reinvent education here, to raise students who become creative thinkers, who will change this country, rather than get stuck in the system like a cog, only to be dissatisfied once they are in the workforce.” There is nothing easy about education in this country although from the moment we entered the gates to The Daraja School outside of Nanyuki Kenya, we knew we had stumbled on something unexplainably special.

The Olgirigiri Primary School

 A Daraja classroom

       

Nandi

Nandi, the Rhino!    

            Our first rhino monitoring session started at dawn.  The three of us followed a young Ugandan ranger named George; we gripped our toes tight inside of the hot gumboots protecting us from the mud, and dreamed out loud about our nearing first encounter. 

            We rounded the corner to see Nandi, the matriarch of the reserve, with her youngster Maliaka, and full with another one on the way.  She was grazing nearly one hundred feet away.  Her body solid as steel, her horns breathtaking, and her eyes soft, but there just above her left eye the sun caught a foreign mark.  She has been wounded, badly.  As the ranger stepped closer he reprimanded the ranger just relieved from duty asking when this happened.  He didn’t know.  During the five-hour shift we had that day sitting in the shade and following Nandi and Maliaka’s every move, head rangers came to take pictures of the wound seeping blood and accumulating maggots.  The vet was called instantly to come from Kampala, it was now this animal was in need of human intervention for the possible infection could be fatal.

            For the next twenty-four hours the rumors and anxiety levels flew between the some seventy rangers working day and night shifts, monitoring every rhino throughout the sanctuary.  The Executive Director, Angie, a South African woman who is hard as nails prepared us as we would be on the scene at the darting and tranquilizing of the three ton animal.  There was palpable worry in her actions and tone, she had us resign our consent waivers and repeated several times that our time working with the doctor and Nandi could be extremely dangerous.  “Why exactly?”  In order to inspect and clean Nandi’s wound we would have to first dart her with a possibly lethal injection, as the injection found its way to her blood she could do anything in the ten minute window it takes for her to drop, this meant charging the humans.  After Nandi would fall we would only have twenty minutes to clean her wound.  The variables: falling on the wrong side in which case we would have to roll her over, Maliaka’s need to be with her mother and her possible charge or even worse the presence of other, larger rhino’s, charging the scene.  We strapped on our gumboots, welcomed the most notable vet in Uganda to the farm and closed our mouths-ready for action.

            Ending our long and bumpy drive through the park, we entered Nandi’s territory.  The vet opened up a tackle box filled with a doctor’s office worth of boxes and syringes.  In the zone he methodically measured and filled, practiced and specified, finalizing his preparations by assembling the dark gun.  The troops moved in, spotting Nandi they waited for the right moment.  He shot, hit her, and the waiting game began.  Our group waited on the outskirts, holding cleaning materials and jugs of water with gloved hands.  Eyes darted back and forth to each other, down a line from the doctor to Angie, to the rangers down to us.  A telephone line of information, letting us know Nandi was stumbling and angry, running deeper into the bushes- at the piercing sound of snaps and breaking trees we assumed she was down.  “Go, go, go! She’s down, start the time!” Angie yelled.

            We entered the scene.  There she was, a tank.  Massive and obviously sedated, her tree trunk legs twitched noting her sensitivity.  Eyes covered by a towel and ears stuffed with a sock reminded me of an earlier conversation about her ability to see, and hear during this procedure.  Snapping back to reality and my role, the Doctor yelled at me to use the water I was holding and flush out the wound.  He reached his ebony hand deep into the crimson depth of blood, moving through the maggots and flies he swiftly worked with the water to clean out the softball sized issue.  “Good. Stop!” 

            On the other side, our students dove under Nandi’s rump, as some ten African military rangers pushed the rhino’s spine and side up off of the ground.  They were instructed to find where the dart went in.  In the same hole they were ordered to stick another needle and insert an antibiotic so that wound wouldn’t become a problem.  No hole found.  Mud clustered every pore, covered every glove and clothing, sweat pounded down each face and neck.  “She’s been down for sixteen minutes, we need to get out of here soon!”  Several needles were stuck into the large grey body to keep her sedated.  Back at the head I watched as a gauze roll the size of my fist, drenched in iodine, was stuck into the wound.  I glance down at my hand, I was holding Nandi’s horn, this is the reason Rhino’s have been extinct in this country since 1983, this precious horn, it was huge, the twinge of danger reentered my reality, I glanced behind me.  Maliaka was staring at me, coming toward me.  A ranger rushed her, waving braches at her and whistling.  Again, the Doctor yelled at me “Bend her leg, this position will pain her when she wakes!”

            With another firm voice from the back, “Were at twenty minutes, time to start getting stuff out of here, we need to give her the reversal drug soon.” Our group gathered the trash, empty jugs of water, first aid kits and dart gun to bring back to the truck.  As we relocated and started sharing our shock and stoke, the rangers and Angie came flying out of the bush, “Get in the truck, and don’t make a sound. She is up, coming this way and pissed.” 
            We peeked out from the back of the truck; there she was, full of life and running past the hood, Maliaka in tow, looking for us.  Followed by a ranger with an AK47, the two agitated animals disappeared into the thick bush and thorns.  We did it.  We cleaned the wound, survived, and as the colors of the falling sky seeped into dusk we gave thanks for our timing.  We met Angie, the Doctor and the rangers at the lodge for a soda, a laugh and an instant replay of the recent excitement!  Needless to say this is an unusual and heart wrenching experience, we were thankful we could be there to witness and support the staff.  Our connection to the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary became more of a family bond after that, and thankfully Nandi’s wound is healing nicely, besides the thousands of flies calling it home at the moment.  It is still unknown weather it was caused by another rhino, or was a preexisting wound.

Maliaka, Nandi in the background

The Scene!

The Rangers, our group and the Doctor in the middle

Service work at the sanctuary: fixing roads

African skies

            

On the Farm

On the Farm 

         Sitting in a small open courtyard, trying to engage my brain to take a mental picture swearing, “I wont forget this week!”  In front of me, as every morning in this home we are presented with four thermoses: three with an herbal tea from the garden and one filled with porridge, my favorite.  There is an assortment of sugar, peanut butter, teaspoons and instant coffee, with a side of bananas and bread.  This morning there are small homemade, fried dough pockets, filled with rice- go figure. The troops just started filling in, wiping their eyes on this early morning.  As the fog rises from the hills and the sun already gains intensity, we are bound for the community center at the farm, where we will put the finishing touches on a mural we have painted over the last two days.  This mural encompasses the area we are, the skills we have learned, the people we have befriended, animals and crops we pass and interact with and most of all the weather prevalent and important to this area.        The community center on the farm has been built by the Ugandan Rural Support Foundation; spear headed by our warm-hearted and inspired host Peter and his partner program Groundwork Opportunities based in San Francisco.  A mile away from where Peter grew up in a small village outside of Masaka city in Southwest Uganda, there is a farm on a hillside, from a birds-eye view it may look just like all the other farms in Uganda, for sustenance.  But this farm is a model, a new idea, a spark in an area dried out by poverty, hopelessness and ambiguity.  Here on this farm there are clean and established pens filled with hundreds of producing pigs, goats, ducks and chickens.  And then: a nursery to produce a seed bank, a tree farm for fruit and shade, and a eucalyptus farm to produce timber for building.  The key is, this farm is sustainable, a cycle exists to feed and thrive from its bi-products.  At the top of the hill is where the animals are kept, when they are cleaned and when they defecate, the materials follow an irrigation system down to the plants, establishing an essential fertilizer, equivalent to gold (smelly, yet priceless).  Another bi-product irrigation system, much more complex, enters an underground system to capture the gas- creating even more rich sustenance, used to power the growth of plants, but also electricity.

            Near the animals, where the humans work side by side, is another model, tied to the idea of creating a safe and infectious place to work and grow as a community, sustaining each other just as the animals and plants do.  Peter believes that the first thing people need to get out of poverty is food, and once food is on the table people are able to focus on education, skills and other forms of economic growth. After establishing a working farm Peter has created a place for milling maize and cassava root, training for sewing and sweater machines, a micro-loan system with pigs and seeds, and now he is introducing a micro-finance program, soon to be sponsored by Kiva based in San Francisco.

            Living in a village is a unique experience, as a group we are welcomed into Peter’s home, and treated like royalty.  I have learned how to be a host from this family more than ever before; hospitality has a whole new meaning! At the same time there is a rough edge to the “royalty” piece.  Sure, as guests our guides want nothing more than to treat us: cooking for us, doing our laundry, driving us everywhere, providing evening tea and snacks.  Although as a band of traveling, able and willing beings, this treatment becomes overwhelming.  How do we bridge the gap? We set up cook crews, but with the fetching of water and the unknown dish cleaning system, we start to understand helping almost adds to the duties of the women in the home.  As we wash our laundry in a system of eight different water buckets, each with different levels of soap and water, the women watch in unsurprised doubt that our hands are weak, and we don’t quite understand the meaning of hand washing.  Often they ask:

            “Do you have a machine that does this?”

            ”Um, yes” we say.

            Its not just with the house duties we notice this “royalty” treatment.  When we walk, when we drive, when we make eye contact, when we listen, people are watching us, people create a way through a crowd, offer seats at the front of the church, at the podium of community meetings; waving enthusiastically while running toward us through fields they yell “Muzungu, Muzaungu!!” 

            The white color, especially in a village, is not only a color and not only another human being, there is something larger, something that attracts the eye at first and then it enters a psychological pattern of thought, different for each individual.  What are they thinking under those eyes, in those conversations we only wish to understand?  The royalty feeling, although undyingly appreciative of the respect, is something I feel undeserving of.  Maybe it’s not my skin, maybe its simply being an honored guest, although I have a very tumultuous time remaining in this mindset.  After studying colonialism in Africa I cannot let the dust settle that my color represents a whirlwind of humanitarian issues.  Rather than grappling with this elephant in the room, effects of colonialism are often welcomed rather than questioned, and instead we are shown respect and kindness.  I cannot fight this abundance of kindness, it is refreshing and a model of how everyone should be treated.  Although at times the whiteness is tangible and our group is in debate about how it feels and why. 

            As in any relationship, it takes a period of time for individuals to feel comfortable being completely honest with each other, although these are the moments our group is seeking, the ability to engage in deeper conversations.  What are the layers of history, of poverty, of African lifestyles, of Western idealism? These are the gems when people can get to the core, and ask the questions enabling us from moving forward toward change and positive development.  As a group we are fostering individual research and observations to establish ideas of how people who are stuck in a cycle of despair, move forward to care for themselves and their family, on a basic level as well as on emotional and intellectual levels.  This goal is not only posed to the people of this village, or the people of Uganda or East Africa, this goal is for all of us.  How can we come together as a community to support each other in positive systems that enrich our experiences here on earth?!

            This is the soul of Peter Luswata, our guide.  He has taught us through love and kindness that it is important to build a community, to provide a space, a home, and a place for people to come and feel honored no matter their skin or level in society. The vibrating colors we placed on the wall in the community center represent the heartbeat we have felt in this village.  The mural symbolizes the palpable conversation of moving forward and embracing the horizon, full of human and agricultural potential, moving away from a painful past. Because just as Peter says “when people have food in their stomachs, the opportunities are endless”.

Peter and is "urban" chicken coop

After church in the village

Peeling Matoke

A typical home in the village

Fetching water, many walk several miles a day

Mami checking our final mural project!

The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu!

Puma, our leader and guide for the Inca Trail and surrounding areas of Cusco is a traditional healer, trained by his grandfather as a shaman.  I dont know what you think of when I say Shaman but I think of someone who is pensive, quiet, intunned... although Puma embodies these specifics, he also has an incredible audacity, one that latches on to America slang ("tots", "besty", awesome") in the valley girl twang we all love to impersonate.  He quickly turned into our best friend, and spiritual guide.  Day one we were in Cusco, the hub of the Inca Empire, he welcomed us into his family¨s home to show us the traditional style of spinning wool, dying it, and weaving.  He inspired us to know more about the Incan symobolism, above us lives the Condor, on this human planet is the Puma and in the underworld is the Serpant.  This three fold stair step is mirrored by the Suns evolution between night and dark and this pyramid figure is then reflected by the balance between female and male.  As he introduces us to his wife in traditional dress with a red skirt to her knees, embroidered top and a lofty hat he says "this is my princess, although I must remember just like everything in this world, she is not mine, nothing is yours, but everything is made for you".  In preparing for the Inca Trail he took what I have known from the History lectures I have given and shaped them into a new conversation, the Inca Trail is a spirititual pilgramage, we never do it for ourselves, we always do it for someone else.

On the Inca Trail there were more people than I had expected, dotted with several skin tones and various languages, the Incan ruins stood tall and impenetrable.  Here for hundreds of years, they insist of proclaiming thier tribute to the sun "Inti", the Incan god.  Despite the destruction by the Spanish in the 16th century, the stones placed strategically for the historic messengers of the Incan Empire suite more than 500 hikers a day, including porters.  As our group climbed Dead Womans Pass slowly slowly, hundreds of porters carrying loads three times my backpack with tire shoes on their feet passed us constantly.  In a group now of thirty due to the parents presence, we assumed some thirty porters, equalling sixty all together.  Every stop there was a tent big enough for a circus filled with fruit, veggies, hot drink, silverware, multiple courses, chairs, salt, pepper and dessert.  The "spiritual journey" was naturally indundated by the social inequiaty felt in this circumstance.  How to let in a form of servitude when you are taught to be self sufficient and able?  When do you accept the reality of income inequality to take over and "give" to others who are working.  Simply put - they are earning their share to feed thier wives and children back home.  Why is it like this? Is it fair, even though it feels most unfair?  How do you cope when you are yearning to bridge the gap, and you feel overwhelmed by a past wraught in colonialism, imperialism, industrailization, servitude.  At a point we have to give in, and where we can share a smile and work to engage in conversation, wondering where our thirty plus supporters came from, their names and their aspirations.

As we leave our more than helpful suppoters we wake at three in the morning to rush the Sun Gate of Machu Picchu. The journey was one I held seperate to the famous Machu Picchu, until I reached the apex of the climb, hearing the screams and laughter of our group and those we had been leap frogging at the top.  This was it, we had reached our goal.  I ran with my pack through the ruins and there, peaking through the escaping clouds stood the sight, the one we look at in all those coffee table books, the mountain, the ruins, the perfect photo.  My heart leaped, and as I looked down there was the swich back path of the buses coming to meet the scene.  As we had trecked through storms, sweat and a spiritual jounrey, there was the "disneyland" we heard whsipers of.  Despite this feeling of world expanision into what was once a sacred and un-touched temple of the Incan Emporer Pachacuti,  walking into the ruins was unlike the pictures and the idea.  Machu Picchu is unlike any other.  It is among the gods, it exists on the top of unreachable mountains, the sacredness is ubiquitous, despite the people, despite the feelings of globalization, I felt still, in love with people and their ability to build what is true to them.  If we believe in something, we can build it.

Although life is unfair, and there are imbalances, I think as we hold them close, there is an amount we must let lay.  Work for equality and connectedness, but when we sink into the darkness we perpetuate guilt.  Continue to reach out, to be real and kind and open. Seek the spirit, Embrace the wilderness though at times it may not be the "untouched" it once was.