Collateral Impact
We had a wonderful evening debriefing with Megan Steele Friday night and it was so great to hear her report on the Kiang’ombe feeding / preschool program. In short, things are going remarkably well and the children and community are deeply grateful for the huge impact they are seeing. Megan is putting together some inspiring [...]
Ameena thoughts
Ian laughs every time he sees the picture of this little girl. We wondered tonight what she might have been thinking when this picture was taken. Do you think she was thinking, “Go away, I don’t want your help”? I can’t imagine that she was. I imagine that she was wondering what this white person [...]
The nitty gritty of Ameena Project
It started the moment we arrived home from Kenya. The usual calls from friends, former employees and acquaintances in Kenya. “Can you help with school fees? A new business? Food for my family? Building a house on land that was gifted to me?” And in our relative abundance, we have given, knowing all along that [...]
Ameena & Aurellio. One month & a world apart.
Ameena & Kenyan friend Aurellio in our Kenyan home Ameena Project was born out of the heart-wrenching, true-life experience of seeing how 2 children, born just days or months apart, both in Kenya, can have such a different outlook for life. The stark reality is that Aurellio will struggle to make it past his 5th [...]
Introducing……Kenya Part 2!
It hasn’t escaped our notice that our blog title has read: “Our journey to Kenya and back” and that the title has seemed awkward since we have been back home here in the United States. Ian and I have discussed if I should change the title, but there has been something in me (and him) [...]
Mama Eli’s Duka aka “my Kenyan garage sale”
So months before our departure from Kenya I told Ian that I had hatched a fabulous plan that would allow us to fairly distribute all of the things we had accumulated that would not be returning to the US in our alloted 8 suitcases. That’s right. No shipping things home. I’m about reducing and recycling [...]
Farewell continued
A farewell at the Centre usually means a tea party planned by the staff. In the past this involved light food: boiled eggs, biscuits, queen cakes and chai. Ian and I decided about a month before leaving that we would like to throw the staff and residents a nice lunch for our farewell….with good food…..so [...]
Farewell
Goodbyes are a big deal in Kenya. Through out the 15 months that we were in Kenya our family was able to learn about the importance of a proper farewell to Kenyans. Of course we’re talking about a going away aka tea party. Of course there will be presents. Of course a ridiculous amount of photographs will [...]
Self Portrait
I had a post on facebook a while back about Eli’s self portrait drawing done at school. It’s a pretty accurate drawing, except for the skin color. When I asked him why he made himself black, he corrected me saying, “Mom! I’m not black, I’m dark brown!” If only he had seen his class picture that [...]
Therapy
Ameena is now [gulp] 10 1/2 weeks old (I think?). She had her 8 week doctor’s appointment last week at 9 weeks. We had the usual developmental checklist. All fine. She’s gained plenty of weight…..getting pretty close to doubling her birth weight, which isn’t nearly as hard when you start out so light (6 1/2 pounds). [...]
