The beauties of Kenya

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Are you real sisters?

Are they real sisters?
How much did you pay for them?
Don't you hate to do their hair?
Why can't you be more like your sister? (one still gets that one regularly)
And my all time favorite, "Why didn't you pick Chinese babies, and then at least people will know they are adopted." (you know, because you would never want anyone to think you've been with a black man)

We have heard them all. Thankfully we don't get them quite as frequently as we once did. I think it's because I am not as visible with my girls all the time. They now travel in their own circles. And, I just don't leave myself open to questions from (stupid) strangers.

Now our conversations are about how to stay safe, how people perceive you and if something goes down when you are with your white friends, you will be blamed. No matter what. You are to call me, text me or do whatever you can to let me know where you are and I will get there. I am acutely aware that I will not always be around to get there, but for now, it's my life.

None of this is for sympathy. It's reality for us. As cool and awesome as my girls truly are, they will one day leave the bubble of our awesome community and figure this crap out on their own.

http://www.epicdash.com/woman-adopts-two-chinese-girls-comments-people-make-children-horrendous/

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Lift off in 10 hours

Kwaheri Kenya!

Today is our last day.
Much more to write,
Much more to tell,
For another day,
and another time.

Thanks for following us on this journey...

it's just the beginning.



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Monday, August 30, 2010



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Top Ride School




Three years ago the girls and I were in Florida and met a woman who had a friend who had a project in Kenya sponsoring girls through school. I looked up the organization (http://www.beadsforeducation.org/) and decided we would sponsor two girls to go to school. In return, I knew it would be a great chance for Aggie and Lillian to have pen pals in Kenya. There are so many "good causes" I invested the money in the organization with a good feeling that the money was going to their education, since we received  regular letters, but I was eager to have in person confirmation. So when we were coming to Kenya I called Debby Rooney, the woman who founded the organization to let her know we were coming. She was delighted and immediately connected us with the representatives for her organization in Kenya.

Of course, nothing in Kenya is as easy as getting in the car and going to see someone. I was told the school was about one hour south of Nairobi. Immediately I knew that meant a two hour minimum. We set off at 8:30 this morning and found ourselves with our new driver, at a filling station checking the tire pressure. We weren't clear on exactly why he was checking the pressure and it didn't help that we were a bit skittish about the tires since we had spent a few hours roadside on the way to Mombassa with a flat in the same vehicle. After watching 8 Kenyan men stand around the right rear tire for 30 minutes our driver popped back into the car and we were off again. He apologized and told us that he is pretty sure the tire has a slow leak but he couldn't find anything. Nice. He and Kihiu had a few conversations about which way to go and the next thing we knew we saw some police at the side of the road and we were pulling over. Of course we naively figured they were stopping for directions, and must be unlike American men and the whole direction thing, only to find out we had been flagged over for bald tires. In Kenya that is code for wanting some money to let us pass. I'm not sure what was exchanged but we were on our way, bald tires and all, pretty quickly. It took about another hour to find the school.

We were just expecting to see the two girls we sponsor since school doesn't start again until September 1st. Imagine our surprise when the gates opened and about 120 7th and 8th graders in red uniforms were waiting to greet us along with all of the school personnel. They came back early to prepare for exams. Peter is the founder of the school itself and was a great host. The children sang songs to greet us and generally giggled a lot.

They returned to their classes and we had a great chance to meet with Lillian, the girl we sponsor, and her grandmother. Both are pictured above. Lillian is 10 and doing well with English and Swahili. She went outside to play with Aggie and Lillian for about 1/2 an hour and then we went on a tour of the school. We brought a Polaroid camera so she would have photos take home so the three girls had great fun taking pictures of each other and many of the cows in the barn. During the tour we got to spend some time in each of the classes talking with the students. It was impressive to see what they were learning and find out their aspirations.

Many of the students are from the Maasai tribe. The women dress traditionally like Lillian's grandmother. In previous generations it was common to be married between 10 and 15 years old and to start having children right away. Maasai men often had more than one wife. Lillian's grandmother told us she was the second wife (as in while the first wife was still on the scene, not as in there is an ex-wife) and she has 8 children. There are some other traditions that are extremely oppressive to women and BEADS is working to change that by providing a quality education to the girls and having different passages into adulthood rather than circumcision and early marriage.

The funniest part of the visit happened when the students were let out of class on break. A group of kids immediately ran up to Aggie who was in the field. The next thing we knew she was surrounded and talking to all the kids. They were asking her lots of questions about "America" and delighted in her accent. Lillian had been in the van for a few minutes and when she heard the laughter she came out and was surrounded by another group of kids. The hilarity went on for about 20 minutes when the kids had to go back to class so the said their good byes. Our picassa photos from Top Ride have some great shots of the girls all interacting.

All in all, it was a great experience. I was able to confirm that this program indeed exists, has happy kids participating in school and seems to be invested wisely. If you have any inclination to support a girl through school I'd encourage you to contact BEADS.

So that was our adventure today. Only two more days here which include another trip to Missionaries of Charity, more shopping and a hunt for bubble wrap to make sure our treasures make it home safe.


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Friday, August 27, 2010

Bargaining is fun for some of us.

We love the shopping and have found more local artists than I ever remember seeing. The girls really don't like the bargaining. They don't get it quite yet. In this picture we met the guy who painted these great pictures and the girls picked some out for their school and their rooms. Aggie has decided (for today) to do a zebra theme for her bedroom, "If I ever get my own room." Tomorrow we are back to Nairobi and more shopping. Ha. We have several people to meet up with to start a few projects I have in mind. Aggie has also told me we can add Kenya to the list of approved trips...only Boston and Florida have made that list in the past. Lala salama rafikis (sleep well friends).

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Wednesday, August 25, 2010


Mombassa is so beautiful. It's very relaxing. We sit on the balcony and watch the sunrise when we get up and full moon when going to bed. In between we have been swimming in the pool and shelling on the beach. There are beach boys along the beach and they haven't been a bother. Two of them took us out at low tide and it was our best adventure here. We found lots of beautiful shells and saw lots of sea life like starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea worms and hermit crabs. It was fun to watch all of our reactions to the muck between our toes as we sunk into the ick up to our ankles. It only took about 20 steps to get used to it. Okay, some of never really did get used to it but it was fun nonetheless.

This place reminds me a bit of Arurba on a much smaller commercial scale. No drunk tourists or water craft and shopws everywhere, just people enjoying the beauty of the untouched beach. The garden keeper is Casim and he is going to show us how to climb a palmtree to get coconuts today. There is a pool table outside and yesterday Aggie played volleyball in the pool for a few hours with kids from Italy, Nairobi, Isle of Mann and South Africa.

We took a day trip to Malindi and saw the coast there. It is a smaller version of Mombassa with many tourists from Italy. Today we'll venture into Old Towne Mombassa for some shopping and site seeing. I'm sure I'll have the camera too.
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