The Monkey

There is a monkey that lives at CCC. A small little monkey. Smaller than a cat with a longer tail and weirdly human-like hands with tiny fingernails. At first it seems cute. And like a sort of cliché of what life in Africa should be like. Of course our compound would have a pet monkey.

But, I've seen Outbreak. So even though I liked the idea of the novelty of a pet monkey, I kept my distance my first few weeks. I'd sort of carefully scratch her head sometimes. Give her bits of fruit. I was going for a sort of unspoken understanding--I don't mess with you, you don't mess with me type thing.

I appreciate how cute the monkey is with the girls. Especially the smallest ones. It's pretty precious how she'll sit on the five-year-olds heads and (literally) come running over when she hears them crying. They're little friends and that's cute.

What is NOT cute is how she eats beads. She eats the freaking beads! And loves to spill them. And will sometimes take whole strands and run up to the roof with them. And sometimes she takes the girls candy and makes them cry. One day the girls went in for lunch and the monkey went and spilled six cups of beads into the dirt.

She bites the girls sometimes. When they hit her or throw things at her. I get it. They don't treat the monkey well sometimes, so I get that she responds with biting. But one day she was trying to go inside the dorm and I was blocking her and she jumped on my leg and bit me really hard through my jeans and drew blood. This was the end of our cordial relationship. My indifference turned to distain.

And she noticed. She knows I don't like her. Maybe she hears the way I say "Stupid monkey!" each time she takes beads and knocks over the trash can and in general makes my life more difficult than it needs to be. So now she does this thing where, as I walk by, minding my own business, ignoring the furry trouble maker, she'll LUNGE after me and try to bite me!

Um, excuse me!? I still give her bits of food because she is a living thing, so what the heck?! More than once, several times in fact, I'll be walking by to go into the dorm or something and she'll start running after me. I run of course because I, uh, don't like being bitten by monkeys. And the girls will always laugh (it is funny, I suppose), but will stand between us and block her. Which is sweet. Dumb monkey.

A few of us would be ok if she, um, relocated elsewhere. I guess its good for the girls to have a pet? But they do abuse her sometimes. And she has gotten more aggressive. So I'll continue to keep my distance...and keep beads away from her as much as I can. Pet monkeys. Not all they're cracked up to be.

It Will Come

Last week did not go how I'd planned. I've learned to hold my ideas about a day or week very loosely on this continent. Everyday life is much more unpredictable here.

I was supposed to start training girls from the community this week. Girls who have dropped out of school and are between 14-18 and are living on the streets and are at high risk to turn to sex work.

Weeellllll. That didn't happen. I was supposed to start on Wednesday. On Monday I met with my assistant (that sounds so weird to say. Esp since she's more than twice my age!) and we made a loose plan of the first week.

It was raining on Wednesday morning. When it rains, people don't go out. Everyone always comes really late to work. So I sat in the training room, with other work, knowing full well that probably no one was going to show up. No one did, but I caught up on some things which was nice.

Thursday I hoped again people would come. The social worker and community mobilizer told me they would. ...But no one did. I caught up on more odds and ends and in the afternoon sat down to chat with them about the 25 girls they were supposed to have been mobilizing for the last month. Yeahhh.

A few things have also come up about the training I'm doing that I should have been told much sooner. Like, when discussing things on Monday I was told that if we can't provide food, I need to at least provide tea, sugar, bread, and soap to the girls. Well that's nice...but the budget is made, those things are not on it, and shouldn't I have been informed about this before the budget was approved?!

I was told it wasn't my fault, I should have been told sooner. But then it was left at that. So I said, "Um, ok, if that's true we need to find a solution. Do we have tea we can use in the storeroom? People/businesses who maybe could donate?" After a few emails and a few other failed ideas we still have no money or donations to cover it. But it will come. Things tend to work out one way or another.

On Friday I talked more with the two ladies who were supposed to mobilize the 25 girls I need for the training. The and others decided that I need to do a program instead in the afternoon, which means I'll be combining the CCC girls with the other girls which was not what I had planned on. Also, after already making the plan in the grant proposal people don't think it's a good idea to sell at the local market and we should just focus on selling to foreigners. Which is fine, really. Maybe even simpler. However this is wise counsel I needed before we finished the grant proposal! Now we're locking into certain things and I don't know how much wiggle room there is. Stress.

It will come. I still am excited about this and when I start to get worried that I haven't really started, I remember that I've already trained half the girls that I need to--the ones at CCC and we're already selling their things. This isn't nothing. We'll get there.

A Miracle

I go to the market usually once a week to get more beads, thread, fruit and things. I usually take a couple of the girls with me. They like a little break from the compound as much as I do, plus they know their way around really well and I feel very safe when I'm with them. These girls know how to fight.

When I went on Friday I only went with one girl. There are two girls that I would sort of classify as class clowns among the group and she is one of them. She's hilarious and fun. Hasn't learned yet when to stop or when people have had enough, but she's still a kid. She's about 12 and has been somewhat of my shadow lately. Which is really cute, and kind of tiring. But I love it. 

Everyone else was busy with their washing so just the two of us went to the market. I needed a few things and she wanted to buy new flip-flops and knickers. She'd been saving her bead pocket money (Yeah!!) so she could get the things.

As we were walking there, a few times, she pulled my arm so I'd walk less on the road and more on the side. She likes to play, and pulls on me with some regularity, actually. (Lately I feel like a doll for the girls. They play with my hair, and throw me around, and even pick out my clothes sometimes.) So I wasn't taking her that seriously. I mean, I know how to walk on a road. I'm an adult. But then later on she told me that she has been hit twice by bodas (motorcycles). She said one she fell on her head and it hit so hard that when she got up she didn't even know who she was.

She's a chatterbox and on the way she was telling me about the times she still lived on the street. We walked by one area and she told me about the time her and her friends were beaten there. A man broke bones of one of her friends and beat her. She talked about how they could never sleep at night. They had to stay awake because of the many criminals about. I look at her now and she is in school, can speak English. She dresses well and scolds me about my messy room. It's crazy, right? Just a few years ago she was running about on the streets. A kid without a future. Being abused. Surely would have children by now or very soon and, unless rescued from the streets, likely doomed to HIV, malnutrition, alcoholism, and eventual early death.

I've never noticed it on my previous trips to the market with the girls, but with it just being the two of us I noticed how she would keep and eye on  me. Make sure I was there, and even insisting on walking behind me in some parts to make sure no one stole from my bag. Every time someone would make a comment to me as we were walking she would tell me not to say anything back. It is a very humbling thing to have a 12 year old feel responsible for your safety.

She'll never have her innocence back. That was taken from her way too soon in life and it is not something that can be taken back. But she has been given a new life. Life! She is getting and education and opportunities! People love her and taker care of her. She is safe now and the girl can sleep at night instead of fearing the evil that lurked about around her before. So in spite of what she has been through she is a survivor. A miracle.

Her worth has not increased. She was precious as a dirty street girl and she is still precious now. She contains as much of the fingerprint of God now as she had before. So much wasted life out there. I rejoice in the work of my boss and the work of so many others who work so dang hard to make changes. Who act on the injustice and anger they feel. They're bringing heaven to earth.

Back

I was in Kenya for a week. (An interesting week to be in Kenya for sure.) I got back on Thursday. And came back to the warmest reception ever. I was assaulted with hugs, told how fat I'd gotten, and a few of the girls even picked me up and carried me. One told me she had a dream about me coming back and how happy she was it came true. They said they missed me and one of the girls dearest to my heart told me I am her best friend. My welcome back was one of the most adorable and heart-warming things I've experienced in a long time.

I was very happy to see them too. It is said often, and perhaps not practiced as much as it should be, in the ex-pat world that you should take a break before you feel like you desperately need it. I took a break just as tiredness was going into exhaustion. So I think I timed it just right. I left when I was still happy to be coming shortly back.

Now that I have been back a few days, I'm still happy to be here. There are a few grating things that I'm trying to find solutions for to take the stress level down and improve my quality of life. Like the small roach infestation in my room at the moment (so gross), and being a door keeper for the dormitory eating up sometimes as much as 45 minutes in my day. Drives me crraaaazzzzyyy.

The girls are delighted with the new bead colors I bought in Kenya and also bits so we can make earrings and other things. They continue to surprise me with their creativity. So happy they're starting to use ideas of their own. One girl told me a few days ago that if she can't find a job after she completes school she will make these things and sell them to earn money. Which, of course, is the whole idea. But for her to process it in her own mind that way and reach that conclusion on her own is encouraging.

This week my "assistant" also starts. I was nervous and intimidated to have to interview and hire someone and wanted to make sure it was someone I could be comfortable with. I prayed God would make it easy, and he did. A lady who works here suggested this woman, and she's awesome. Had a deadbeat husband so made crafts of her own to sell to put her six kids through school, who are all grown up now. She knows how to market and what to do. And said she wants to help girls like the ones at CCC, so her heart is in the right place as well. Which is important. I'm nervous about orientation and how to manage and be a person in charge. But someone told me recently that the best leaders are those who don't want to be. I don't know the truth about that statement but I like the sound of it. Let's hope it can be true for me.

A Life Long Question

Last week the social worker at CCC, as she returned from one of her visits in the slum areas, brought back a girl who used to be at CCC and left. She brought her back to take her to the hospital because she had several wounds on her body, many on her face, and a very deep infected wound on her head. When asked about them she said they were from her 'husband' (whichever man at present who decides to use and control her on the streets) who beats her whenever he is drunk. Which is often.

I see her face in my mind and I want to cry. How could this happen? How does a person arrive at this state? Where were the people in life who were supposed to love and take care of this girl? What happened? Where are they now?

The next morning the girls at CCC weren't doing their chores well and there was a lot of bickering and a dirty compound. Mommy (what the girls call the director), in her rant to get them to clean, asked who saw the girl who was there yesterday. They all know and remember her. She asked if they wanted to be like that again. She reminded them of when they were taken off of the streets and when they asked Mommy to take many toddlers and other little ones with them and they promised to take care of them. She asked what happened to those promises as the small girls walked around dirty and some only in their knickers that morning.

When you are so inside of a situation perspective is difficult to maintain. As I spend most of my day every day with these girls it is easy to forget that it is by His Grace that they are each alive, well, and have survived the things they have been through. Without an intervening hand these girls were on their way to death, prostitution, abuse of all kinds, child marriage.

I thank God for the grace on their lives and want to bop them on the heads sometimes to remind them of the great gift they have received and seem to regard to carelessly. But I think about the girls still left there. And wonder what will happen to them. And it makes me so angry the great injustices that exist. But I say that sitting in a comfortable chair, in a nice flat, in a wealthy part of Nairobi, here for a little r&r. And even as I sit here this country is in turmoil. 30 minutes away there was a terrorist attack on a shopping mall. A nice one. I've been there. It started Saturday and the situation is still going on. More than 60 people are dead. I had friends robbed at gunpoint in the middle of the day just at the other end of this street on Saturday. It makes you wonder if life can ever be easy. Tranquil. Serene.

I watched the news coverage and I cried. I think about one of the girls at CCC who was raped at 7 years old and I cry. For so many years all I wanted desperately was to come to this continent and do something. I'm here. Physical presence doesn't feel like enough, but it's something. Teaching the girls to make pretty things so they can maybe secure a future doesn't feel like enough, but it's something.

I'll never be one of them. No matter how long I'm here I'll never be fully relatable. I have been molded by an entirely different country and culture. I have never been poor and I will never be truly poor. If my life or health were ever to be seriously threatened I have family, community, people that would rally to protect me. So I have to let go of this notion that I'm still holding back or maybe doing something wrong if I'm not living just like they are or am not completely relatable to them. Henri Nouwen puts it well (as he does with many things), "I am not as poor as my neighbors are. I will never be and will not ever be allowed to by those who sent me here. I have to accept my own history and live out my vocation without denying that history. On the other hand, I realize that the way of Christ is a self-emptying way. What that precisely means in my own concrete life will probably remain a life-long question."

Our faith is a matter of continually learning, stretching, and trying to align our inner sanctums and everyday lives with the truth God is revealing. As soon as I think I've got it the light always shifts and illuminates areas I'd never noticed before. These few days to rest have afforded me some of the perspective I was hoping for. No new revelations or deep thoughts. But time to still my mind and reflect. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord, and the second to love our neighbor. The second flows from the first. So if I hope to love anyone well I have to focus my energies on God first. My neighbor will not be neglected if I'm loving the Lord well.

Even in all the darkness all around I look at what He has done. What He is doing. And I can't help but continue to marvel and his sovereignty and goodness.

"The real good news for humanity is that Jesus is now taking students in the master class of life...Eternity is now in flight and we with it, like it or not." Dallas Willard

 

Take the Hill

 I love this city less than the last one I was in. But one thing I can do here that I couldn't do there is run. I love that I have that freedom here. So four or five mornings a week I go out just as the sun has come up and I run. On the route I go there I can stop about 3/4mile earlier or go the long way. The end of the long way has a hill. It's not very steep, but it goes for awhile and ending a run uphill isn't fun per se. So each time I go running and see where I can stop early I have to decide if I'm going to stop or if I'm going to take the hill. Sometimes I stop. But usually...usually I take the hill. And I never regret it.

I like how I feel when I'm done. Like I did it. I like the burn in my legs because I know the burn means I'm pushing myself, getting stronger. When I take the hill I feel good. I'm tired usually and looking forward to being finished, but I feel better when I know I didn't stop early.

That's how I want to live my life.

After I got booted from my last home I did not relish the thought of starting over somewhere new again, alone. And even when I boarded the plane in June to return to Africa I did it in faith and some reluctance. I wasn't sure if I'd find a place or a project again that I could be excited about. But I wasn't ready to stop early. I didn't want to quit. Things hadn't turned out how I had planned at all, way more twists and turns than I'd anticipated, but...it wasn't time to stop. I wanted to take the hill.

And I am so, so glad I did. I sit here tired and stressed yet exhilarated. I think I have my dream job at the moment (even though it is apparently tiring and stressful) and I marvel at the fact everyday with how the Lord just orchestrated all of this. I never would have dreamt that all of this would be waiting for me over the hill. That in my despair God could still bring me a vocation and people and opportunities that I love. Just like that. Right over the hill.

As I do things that feel beyond my capabilities and live in a place that stretches me everyday; and as I miss my family and dream about fall and cozy blankets and an easy day in life I am still so glad I took the hill. It is a steep climb and I wish there were more moments to stop and rest but I keep pushing because I know in the end I'll be stronger for it. In the end I won't have any regrets.

Do it. Take the hill. Always take the hill.

Mean Aunty

Mean aunty. It is how the dorm mom and I refer to ourselves on the days when the girls require firm discipline and/or the days that our patience runs very thin. This weekend mean aunty came out. Because the girls have been on holiday and staff has been sick and I live here with them and therefore have little means of escape I have been run down this week. I am stressed and exhausted and have not had a day to rest in...golly...awhile.

So when I was informed on Sunday that the 100 rolls of yarn that I bought on Saturday for the girls crocheting was gone from the office I. Was. Mad. This is after 30 strands of beads went missing the day before. I gathered the girls and was basically like "Um, what the heck? Where did all the freaking yarn go?" I got a few rolls back, but with the exception of a few most of the girls didn't really give a hoot.

I was fuming. It was the first time in a veeeery long time that I have been this angry.  So I locked myself a way for a little while and simmered down. After some encouragement from the dorm dad I gathered the girls together and explained the situation. That I was upset. That 400ssp (about $100) of materials had gone missing in a day and that is completely unacceptable. I gave them 5 minutes to turn in the missing materials or no one gets any new craft supplies this week. Five minutes later I looked in the box and wanted to cry. There was one roll of thread.

Two of the older girls wanted to look through the girls bags and the dorm. I'd already gotten opinions on this from other staff and its an ok thing to do, so we did. A few more rolls, but still many missing things. I felt defeated. So now I have to be mean aunty and not give anyone any craft supplies. Punishment. I hate this part. So it's the ones who did nothing wrong and the ones who took still have their things hoarded somewhere. But what else can I do? And I am such a softie. And just want to believe the best about all of them. Individually I'd look at each one and think, "No, no...couldn't be this one." But it was someone. Gah!

Sunday night the dorm dad was still very upset about the whole thing--the girls stealing and lying. He wanted to cancel the trip the next day to take the girls hiking unless the yarn was returned. So he took it upon himself to talk with the girls and try to get the yarn back. I stayed in my room because I felt like I had said my piece. Twenty minutes later one of the girls comes to get me.

I walked in the room where everyone was and there were angry girls, shell-shocked looking dorm parents, yarn everywhere, and Mary, the South Sudanese lady who also lives here and works with the girls, screaming. I take it in for a moment and then Mary looks at me and in front of all the girls starts yelling at me. I have never been rebuked like this before. For me allowing the girls to waste like this and giving them more and how they can't take care of anything. [Most of the yarn was what each girl had been hoarding from when the Norwegian lady was here teaching them how to crochet.] But I stood there and took it, because what else can you do? And after several more moments of contention with all the girls and everyone I took alllll of the yarn into my room and we called it a night.

So now I have yarnpocalypse going on in my room. At least 700 rolls of yarn in there, because at present there is no other secure place to keep it. So the girls will be without  for at least the next few days while I work out a whole new system of storage and how to control the supplies. I don't like being mean aunty, but this has given me a unique opportunity to start from square one and devise a new plan of action. And it gives me a few days of relative peace without being bombarded constantly for new supplies. Silver lining.