Kindle

As ever, slightly behind the people making the pace at the forefront of technology, I have made another game changing discovery in the information and ideas hoarding stakes. I have probably said before that I am something of a hoarder of sources of information. Computers made it possible for me to accumulate vast numbers of books without making our house a candidate for a reality show about hoarding. The Kindle takes the whole concept to another level. I bought one about a year ago to make it possible to take my ‘library’ out to Kenya on a portable device that satisfies our ‘Apollo 13’ approach to saving electricity. (For those of you who wonder what this involves watch the movie).

One of the frustrations of the Kindle is that it’s difficult to take notes from it straight onto a computer. My current projects over here involve a lot of training so it would be helpful to be able to cut out the middleman, (a notebook), and take useful texts from source into my word processor. I remember reading at some point about using the Kindle on a laptop and have managed to install it on my laptop over here. I usually find downloading and installing software from the Internet very tedious but on this particular occasion it really ‘did what it said on the label’ and installed without any fuss. I now have the luxury of a vast amount of training material at the click of a mouse. The computer nerd in me has had a happy day. Hopefully the trainer in me will be able to say the same throughout next week.

Tomorrow people

Today has been a Skype day. I have probably waxed lyrical about this major communication revolution before but it still amazes me every time we use it. On the first of our Skype calls today we made a link with a primary school in England. Our Class 4 pupils have been writing letters to a year 5 class in Welford First School. Our children sang a song for the Welford class and later listened to a song that the Welford children recorded for them and emailed over. Later in the afternoon Judi was able to join the first part of a meeting of all the teachers in our primary school. It was great being able to hear her share her thoughts with us. Skype definitely shrinks the distance between us. The third call we made today was a more personal one. It is my son Tom’s twenty first birthday today. Tom has been very understanding about the number of times either his mum or I have been over in Kenya for his birthday. This year was the first time we have been able to have much of a chat between Kenya and home on his birthday. Tom’s sister Ellie is over here with me so we managed to sing Happy Birthday and catch up with his news for the day. On occasions like this I do wish that cloning or massive distance hopping, (as demonstrated in The Tomorrow People many years ago), was possible.

I’m sure Jess, (one of our very recent visitors who started her journey home in the early hours of the morning today), would have the same wish. In addition to having a very long wait in Nairobi for the first leg of her return journey it sounds like she had a very long delay in Istanbul before starting the last bit. She won’t be home until well past the time her flight was due to land in Birmingham.

Our current visitors, (Ellie, her boyfriend Andy and an old friend from Kenya called Winnie), have had a very silly time in our house this evening. Winnie and Ellie have remained friends since Winnie stayed with us during the year that we lived in Kenya and started our work in Kosele. We were joined this evening by a young man called Collins who was also with us ten years ago and got on well with Tom. At the moment he is being a great help to us working with the Agriculture College teachers and students.  It was almost a reunion. Winnie is incredibly funny, and one of the worst cheats at cards I have ever met. It is impossible to do anything but love her. It was great to see the three of them and Andy having a good time together.

For those of you who remember The Tomorrow People follow the link below – don’t you just love the 70s (The cool looking belts the cast are all wearing at 8:00 on the clip are the key to avoiding jet lag, delayed flights and 21^st birthdays!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YzTWxjdWPU&feature=related

Pushing uphill

One of the hardest things about the work that we do over here in Kosele is working out which cultural differences are worth challenging and which are really sacrosanct. I have spent some time during this visit trying to build up our older children’s confidence and communication skills. Very basic body language and eye contact lessons that are routinely delivered in primary schools in the UK. Young children in English schools are taught ‘good listening’ and ‘good sitting’. I don’t think these basic skills really feature much in the Kenyan primary curriculum. There seems to be a lack of willingness to engage adults in eye contact and, with a few exceptions, a decreasing amount of enthusiasm for answering questions in class as the children get older. I guess this isn’t unique to Kenya. It’s something I’ve often observed in English secondary schools. It’s almost like the will to engage gets sucked out of these older pupils. The will to learn often seems to head off in the same direction at the same time.

I had some fun tonight with our ‘candidates’, (the oldest pupils in our primary school who will be sitting the Kenyan Certificate of Primary Education in November). To their credit they are very conscientious at doing their ‘preps’, (homework). When I joined them for preps this evening I couldn’t help noticing that the classroom was a bit untidy so launched into a bit of an ‘environment improvement for the benefit of learning routine’, linked with a bit of a good listening, good sitting theme. It took a while to get them warmed up. Once they realised I was being serious there was a marked improvement. By the end of the session we had pretty good sitting, listening and answering and a very tidy classroom. The class is planning to surprise their teacher when he comes in at 7 a.m. by being sat confidently in their places and leaping up and greeting him first thing. I can’t wait to see the look on his face.

It’s all part of a serious attempt to start moulding characters and personalities that will be able to make a difference in their communities and their country as they grow up and become adults. Whilst it is important to celebrate differences and personal preferences there are some basic rules of conduct that apply to everybody. Words like integrity, self-discipline, reliability, honesty, hard-working, loyal and dependable often seem to be devalued by the current, increasingly, global culture. It was interesting asking the children about corruption and dishonesty. They all understand those words very well and, when pushed, were adamant that they did not want to have anything to do with them. They recognised the ways in which corrupt practises and dishonest behaviour damage society on many levels. I don’t think its wishful thinking to believe that our children can make Kenya a great country. It will be hard work though. Being in the world but not of it is a tough ask of anybody. A great prize really does await those who achieve it and we are going to push on towards it.

Mixed blessings

Today has been a day of mixed blessings. On the plus side we’ve had rain so most of our water tanks are topped off again and all the crops have had a good soaking. Oink and Annabel, our new goats, are settling in, despite an escape attempt by Oink, the bigger of the two, last night. This was thwarted by our night guards who hastily put an old gate over the top of the penned area that they spend the night in. Oink, it would appear, had managed to get over the dividing wall from her pen and into one of the other ones.

We had a nice meal with the children this evening. Chapattis and green grams, (mung beans), plus sodas to drink. It was particularly gratifying eating the green grams. They came from our own farm and are extremely tasty. We have harvested about 45 kilograms of green grams so far, (enough for about 8 meals). There are still plenty more left in the fields that have yet to be picked. The harvest from our farm so far is very encouraging.

The chapattis are part of a tradition we have when visitors are returning home. Jess and Dan, who have been with us for three weeks, will be starting their journey home tomorrow. Because of the way their flights have worked out they have a very long wait at Nairobi for their flights back to England. During their time with us they have made a great impact on the children and on our work. I know that we will all miss them. It’s always a sad occasion saying good-bye to new friends. My daughter Ellie and her boyfriend Andy will be taking the baton from them and continuing to encourage the children and their teachers. I know that everybody here will want to express their thanks to Jess and Dan and wish them a safe journey home. We all hope that they will come back and see us again in the future.

The children here are well fed and very happy tonight. As another part of the tradition we let the children watch a video or DVD of their choice and tonight they have enjoyed the added bonus of popcorn, prepared by Mary, our manager, and served up by our visitors. We have built up quite a collection of DVDs and videos over the years. The children never cease to surprise me with their viewing choices. Recent favourites include the video of one of our teacher’s wedding, a special church service recorded at the church Judi and I attend in England, The Sound of Music, (usually in two sittings as it is such a long film), and Tom and Jerry. Tonight they are happily sat watching The Teletubbies, the well known educational series for young children reviled by teachers throughout the UK, (and possibly the rest of the world). For those of you fortunate enough to have avoided the Teletubbies until now but keen to make up your own minds about the show follow the link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cX91qycCTI

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Ten years later

One of the neat things about young children is that they are usually fairly easy to bribe.  As I’m writing this blog from Kenya I wouldn’t want anybody to take that the wrong way. It might be better to say they are quite amenable to being incentivised. When we moved to Kenya for a year with our family in 2002 to start the work in Kosele it was important to my wife Judi and I to make sure our children Tom and Ellie, (then aged 11 and 8 respectively), were happy to make the journey, Judi paid a short visit to Kenya during Easter 2002 to finalise the details of our longer trip from July. She brought back a lot of photos, among them pictures including donkey carts and goats. Ellie developed a real fancy to having a goat. As most good parents would Judi and I encouraged her and said that we were sure it would be possible to have a goat. Like most parents do at some stage in their children’s lives it turns out we were being a bit overambitious. We didn’t exactly lie, (as we did have every intention of getting a goat), but for one reason or another it just didn’t happen. Ellie has reminded us about this every once in a while. I don’t think it has exactly left her scarred for life but somewhere in her subconscious a deep seated sense of goat deprivation has developed.

Today, two weeks short of ten years to the day that we first came to Kosele, Ellie’s childhood disappointment has been made good. This afternoon we welcomed two new residents to the project – Oink and Annabel the goats. Just before lunch time Mary, our manager, told me that a local guy who breeds quality goats had some young ones for sale. She rushed off with Duncan, our farm manager, to find out more. Mid-afternoon Duncan called me to say that I should come down to the goat enclosure to see the new goats. Sure enough, in the pen, there were three goats, our two does and a young billy goat. Mary had bought the male for herself and the two females were for us. They have settled into the enclosure we have built very well. We will keep them penned, rather than letting them graze as our neighbours do. We have a good supply of fodder crops for them and they seem to have good appetites.

Ellie was very excited and has now, I hope, forgiven us for letting her down when she was eight. She has fallen in love with the goats and is already very good at handling them. They are very cute animals. I would not normally associate the word cute with goats as most of the goats I have come across have been anything but. I tend think of goats as grouchy and smelly. Oink and Annabel are beautiful animals. Dark tan with a darker stripe down their backs. They are certainly from quality stock and we are hoping to successfully breed from them in about four months time. Ten years on I sometimes find it hard to believe how much our work here in Kosele has grown and thank God for it. The arrival of the goats today has been wonderful. The look on Ellie’s face when she first saw them was priceless.  All the money in the world could not buy a moment like that.

Hoping Jesus comes soon

As I am focusing on our school and management during this visit I haven’t really got out into our community very much. I made a rare foray outside the gates today to see our elderly neighbour who isn’t very well. His wife came round to say that he wanted me to pray with him. I took James, one of our security guards, with me so that he could translate and went to see what the problem was. Our neighbour must be one of the oldest members of the community. Every time I come back to Kosele I am pleasantly surprised to see him. He has looked like he won’t last the night on a number of occasions but so far he has always managed to come round and live for another day. Today he didn’t look too good. He seemed very tired. James and I sat down to have a chat with him and to pray for his health. It’s always hard to know what to pray for in these situations. There is a tendency to pray for miraculous healings as a demonstration of God’s power. I felt it more appropriate to pray that our neighbour would find relief from his suffering.

A few years ago we conducted a survey amongst our church members to find out more about their hopes and plans for the future. The community around Kosele is really very poor. Mostly subsistence farmers eking out a living and waging a constant battle with the climate. One of the elder church members wrote a sentence that I found both moving and challenging. In response to a question about his main desires for the future he wrote “I hope Jesus comes soon”. It is very difficult, as an affluent Westerner, to fully comprehend such an approach to living. It is a very different take on being a Christian to my own, reflecting our vastly differing experiences and life chances.

I don’t know whether our neighbour has the same wish. I could understand it if he did. All of his sons have died and he and his wife have buried grand children and great-grand children. In the ten years since we first came to Kosele he has become much frailer. He finds it hard to raise himself above a sitting position and looks like he would topple over face first if he tried to walk. He is a very dignified man and you can still, occasionally, see a twinkle in his eye when he tells you about his past exploits. I hope he has a comfortable and peaceful night tonight. I hope that his health takes a turn for the better. It’s kind of reassuring seeing him every time I am in Kenya. On the other hand if he really is ready to meet his maker, after a long, hard life, I hope that he enjoys a peaceful end. Like I said, sometimes it’s really hard to know what to pray for.

Day of rest II

Having said that I would try to keep the Sabbath properly, (which sounds old fashioned, obsessively religious and distinctly ‘uncool’), I have, for the first time in ages, managed to have a really great day without having to feel that my to do list has gone down. I’m sure many of you will have read variations on the theme of “all work and no play makes jack a dull boy”. Like most well worn sayings it is true. Without wishing to wax too lyrical about the benefits of stopping, reflecting and catching your breath I really hope to make it a habit. It’s too easy to charge ahead with any number of projects to the point where they control you. If resting on the seventh day was good enough for God it’s got to be right for me. Especially if it means I can ‘do good’ on the other six days.

It looks like we will have to arrange another ‘hospital break’ tomorrow. Last year I wrote about the case of one of our girls who was kept in hospital for some time after she should have been discharged because of an error in processing the paperwork to enable the hospital to reclaim the cost of her treatment from the government health fund. One of our young people who is now boarding at a local high school was admitted to hospital at the beginning of the week with ‘strong’ malaria and typhoid. This is not particularly encouraging as he must have caught them at school. He was due to be discharged from hospital today so we sent one of our staff down to pay the fees and take him back to school. Unfortunately it turned out that the doctor who was to sign the discharge note was not on duty today so the sister on the ward refused to let our patient go. This is doubly frustrating as it means we will have to pay for another fare to Oyugis and back for a member of staff tomorrow and will have to pay for another night’s stay at the hospital for our patient. It looks like we will have to get Mary, our manager, on the case.

I would appreciate it if anybody who is disposed towards praying could offer up a prayer for my wife Judi. She continues to remain amazingly upbeat during her course of treatment for breast cancer. She should have had her fourth chemotherapy session last Thursday. Unfortunately one of her blood counts was too low for the treatment to be given so she is hoping to be up to it tomorrow, (Monday 16^th). My thanks for all the prayer support that Judi and I have received to date. It’s easy to be sceptical about prayer but I know that I start running on empty if I neglect it. The idea that “all things are possible with God” has been so overworked or misapplied that it has become, for many people, a cheesy Christian cliché. Despite this it remains a powerful principle and one that has kept both Judi and I going through the challenges we are currently experiencing. One of my favourite comedians of old, Dave Allen, ended his TV shows with the mischievously oblique phrase “may your God go with you”. I’m very thankful that He promises to, whatever circumstances I find myself in.