Beam of Hope

Yesterday I had the privilege of having Ruth, a deaf girl from our church, here for the afternoon.

I have been wanting to learn sign language so that I can better communicate with her. A few months ago, the school she attends offered free language classes. I jumped for the opportunity only to be disappointed. The Kenyan’s method of teaching is so vastly different from I’m used to, that it was difficult for me to retain anything I learned.

So, I decided I’m going to learn the language from the person that I want most to communicate with. And that person is Ruth.

Ruth is able to read and write English. If it weren’t for that, it would be almost impossible for her to teach me anything. She can also hear just a bit, and speak a few words.

The afternoon was absolutely fantastic and I learned so much. Combine that with the fact that we’re building a relationship and it more than doubles the enjoyment of it.

When I first met Ruth, I felt so sorry for her. She seemed very quiet and reserved. She was withdrawn and insecure around people. I rarely saw her smile, and even making eye contact was difficult for her. I wondered how I could reach her, because I knew deep inside there was a longing. A longing to be accepted, to be loved, to be needed. Sure, she had her parents, her siblings and her deaf friends at school…but that wasn’t enough. She needed church friends.

June is the first time I really interacted with her. We had her and her family at our house for lunch. It was then I saw her in a way I had never seen her before. I saw an outgoing personality, a girl with a deep desire to have a close friend and person full of potential. Of course this only increased my desire to be able to communicate with her in her language.

Well, yesterday that dream began to become reality. It always feels good to have a dream become reality, but the most enjoyable part was the interaction. Going to school to learn is fine. But there’s just something about learning from her just adds a whole new dimension. For once, she felt needed. She was the one opening someone’s world. She had a chance to give.

As always when one learns something new, the chances of forgetting are very high. So of course a number of the words she taught me, I forgot. And Ruth always knew when I forgot. I sat there with this clueless expression, staring at my hands trying to figure out how I’m supposed to sign. About then she’d start laughing. I couldn’t help but join her. Another thing she liked to do was point to a word she knew I didn’t know. She wanted to see if I could figure it out. Most times I came out pretty far off which brought another round of laughter.

When we see someone with a physical handicap, it’s so easy to look at them as being less. Someone who is just here, existing. We fail to see them as a person that God has made for a specific purpose. And the worst part is these people feel this attitude. Ruth asked a question that confirms this. She asked, ‘When we get to heaven, will the deaf be separate from the other people?’ I take this as a challenge. A challenge to make her feel as much a part of ‘normal people’ as possible. I want her to feel like she belongs and is needed. Not just someone who is merely existing.

Imagine if you were in her shoes. She’s locked in world of quietness. Unable to hear the sound of the birds, or the wind whistling through the trees. Her language barrier is so  great because very few know her language. When she wants to express her feelings to someone who doesn’t know what she saying, imagine the frustration. And then, if all this isn’t enough to leave her feeling left out and discouraged, other people look at her as less. Simply because she doesn’t have the gift of hearing. Trapped inside are feelings, emotions, thoughts and struggles…just the same as ‘normal’ people.

And here’s my challenge to each one of you. Find someone with a handicap, and make them feel loved, needed, and accepted. Someday you will be blessed for it!

-cynthia

This past Saturday mom and I had the native youth girls over for the night. Wow. things get rather interesting when you have 13 of them together.

We left them stay in the guesthouse. The guesthouse has only 1 bedroom, a kitchen and a living/dining area. I’m not sure where they all slept, but I’m thinking they jammed about 8 in the back bedroom. A few of them got almost no sleep. which wasn’t hard for me to believe.

The next morning bright and early, we headed to Lake Nakuru Park. . Besides the fact that there were 16 of us packed in one van, we had an awesome day.

One of the first things we saw were two rhinos going at each other. The one guy had hooked his rival and was going around in circles with him. It looked rather hilarious. The ‘hooked’ rhino finally got away and took off running down the road. He never stopped until he was far away and deep in the brush.

Our next highlight was 3 young male lions. Unfortunately for us they must have already had breakfast because all they did was lay around and stare at us. Actually the staring part didn’t even last long. They very soon saw we were rather harmless and laid back in the grass. But not before I put my camera to work.

About now I’m thinking, ‘He’s cute and rather harmless.’

On second thought…maybe not.

Makalia Falls was another highlight, especially for the girls. They had me take all kinds of pictures of them in front of the falls. It’s rather interesting the poses they come up with.

Here’s the group we took. This is all the native youth girls.

The falls was just a kilometer or 2 from where we saw the lions. Some innocent campers had parked their tents just up from the falls. I wish I would have told them there’s lions just over the hill. My brothers about couldn’t have it that we didn’t tell them. lol

Sadly the rest of the day didn’t produce anything out of the ordinary. I was secretly hoping to see a leopard, but those are so hard to find.

We did see plenty of cape buffalo and even got one a little annoyed at us.

He was taking a mud bath and sure wasn’t in the mood to be disturbed.

And for one last photo. My favorite hyena shot.

stay tuned for the rhino fight video.

-cynthia

Here are a couple of videos that Merle took while at the Masai Mara.

the last day that our visitors spent here in Nakuru was spent doing a few of the ‘must do’ things.

one of those was hiking menengai crater. this is a dormant volcano and it seems no one knows anything about it. some people think it may have erupted over 4000 years ago. it’s obvious that this was a rather substantial mountain. the area of the crater is over 55 sq. miles.

We hiked to the highest point of what’s left of the mountain. The distance from there to the lowest point on the crater is over a mile. The small group of trees at the top is where we wanted to go.

On the way up, we saw some goats grazing on the side of this steep mountain.

We followed the rim around since that’s the easiest and safest way to the top. It takes 45 minutes to an hour to the top, but it’s all uphill.

Here’s a shot into the crater.

Looking back to where we came from. Our starting point is just to left of the middle of the picture. right where all the trees are.

We’re getting closer to our destination.

and then we were at the top. the scenery is so beautiful there. and I’m always amazed at how desolate the crater is.

and it seems I can never leave without taking at least one photo of this thing.

notice New York -middle left- the distance is in kilometers.

the mountains of lava inside the crater. aside from all the lava rock, the crater floor is covered mostly by dense forest. there are also hot pots down in there somewhere.

coming down the mountain is almost as bad as going up. it really works on some of those muscles that aren’t used very often. Jeremy and Toby decided to run all the way down. I wonder why they complained of being so sore the next day?

After we arrived back at the vehicle, we just sat and looked at the mountain for awhile. The mountain really does look huge from where we started. so after all the work of climbing and descending it’s pretty awesome to sit there and know that I’ve conquered that mountain.

and someday soon I want to hike down inside the crater.

-cynthia

the first saturday in July we took the guys to the home of Zipporah. Zipporah is one of our youth girls. She lives with her mother, brother and sister (her father abandoned them when they were small). Their home is in a very beautiful location.

Zipporah’s great grandmother lives just behind her, and we thought the guys should meet her.

I love the old people around here. Many of them do not know English and some barely know Swahili. I really don’t like the language barrier, but for the old people, they’ll speak to you just as if you knew exactly what they are saying. It was no different for her.

She was so delighted to see us and made sure she properly greeted everyone. And the whole time she was rattling away in Kikuyu.

notice Zipporah on the left.

I think Toby was rather amazed at this old lady. She just couldn’t stop talking the entire time and most of us didn’t understand anything she was saying.

I wish I knew how old she is. I’m guessing mid-80’s.

Oh and I almost forgot the little bridge.

To get to Zipporah’s great grandmother, we had to cross a small river. The bridge was rather rickety and Jeffery was kinda freakin’ out.

Some people preferred just to jump.

I wish we could have stayed there for a whole day rather than just a couple hours.  The boys had so much fun playing by the river and exploring the place and were not ready to go home. But since it gets dark around 7 and us not wanting to be out much after dark, we just had to cut it short.

We finished the visit with a cup of chai.

well, it looks like I took the photo before they served the chai but at least you can see the inside of the house. and of course all the lovely faces

-cynthia

wow. Its been a long time.

The beginning of this month we butchered chickens. It’s expected that everyone that can, helps. Even visitors. Mervin and Kevin were very excited about it. But I wasn’t sure how Toby felt about it.

With the amount of people we have, we can have kind of like an assembly line. maybe more like a dissemble line in this case.  I’m not sure how/why, but Toby got one of the nastiest jobs to start off with. holding the still warm chicken by the feet so someone can skin it.ugh.

But after all the chickens were skinned/plucked, he got into the real thing!

yea, get that hand in there.

I know it’s rather gross. not really my favorite thing in the world. but we do have good meat this way. a blessing we wouldn’t have otherwise.

And around here, nothing goes to waste. The gizzards and hearts are saved to give to church members and the rest is taken out to the main road where it’s gone through until there is almost nothing left.

and that sums up chicken butchering. stay tuned. I hope to get you up with all the latest, even if it means going back almost 3 weeks.

-cynthia

wow. this past week went by way too fast! And it looks like the next 5 days are going to be the same.

We had a fantastic time at the Mara.

Here’s a few hippos that we saw along the Mara River.

Our lodge was deep in the heart of the Mara, and since we hired two vehicles, we parked our van at the main gate. About halfway through the trip back to the lodge, the one vehicle ‘broke’. I’m not sure what was wrong, but something with the clutch. Our only option was to cram everything in the other vehicle for the remainder of the trip. So pack tight we did. 14 people, plus mounds of luggage all over the place.

Our driver, William, hired another vehicle. but with the distance to the lodge, the other driver would not be there until later in the evening.

We decided to just take an evening game drive in one vehicle. It really wasn’t bad after all the luggage was unloaded at the lodge.

One of the first animals we spotted was a number of lions. They seemed to be watching a few gazelle that were happily grazing.

Thompson Gazelle

We also found plenty of striped donkeys. aka zebras.

Robert, a friend of William (our driver), was also along.

He is a Masai warrior. It was interesting to talk to him about what he believes and also what it’s like to live on the Savannah with lions, cape buffalo and other beastly creatures. In the course of the conversation we asked him if he’s ever killed a lion.

He said ‘Yes I did’ and told us he even has a claw and tooth from the lion.

The most amazing thing is he killed the lion with only a spear. By law they are only allowed to kill lions if they become a threat to their livestock.

And then we saw a little less violent animals.

It’s always spectacular to get up close an animal in the wild, but the massive ones are especially breath taking.

This has gotta be one of my favorite elephant shots.

And speaking of getting up close to wild animals..This cheetah was walking on the road for several kilometers. A few times it was just a few feet from our vehicle.

Getting so close to a cheetah was definitely a highlight.

During the time we were there, the wildebeests were migrating. We were hoping we would get to see them cross the Mara river. And we got our wish.

The zebras and wildebeests migrate together. The zebras seem to be stronger and I think they use their brains a bit more as well.

There were thousands of wildebeests gathered at the bank of the river. And as far as we could see there were more stampeding toward the river.

One of the biggest dangers for these guys is the crocodiles.

We saw at least 2 wildebeests meet their end because of these ugly critters. The boys were all into it though. They got a few ugly looks from surrounding vehicles.

After surviving the treacherous river, the wildebeests are again faced with another challenge. Making it up the steep river bank without being stampeded by fellow wildebeests.

For the big guys this isn’t too big of a problem, but it can be challenging for the little guys.

a mother waiting for her calf.

I still feel very privileged to have witnessed this. Most likely we won’t ever go this time of the year again since it’s more expensive.

And some various shots of the different animals we saw.

a giraffe roaming the savanah.

hyena = scavenger

topi standing watch against predators.

a lizard doing push ups.

vultures along the river. there’s a very rare vulture in there somewhere.

the crazy spider monkey that tried to take off with someone’s lunch.

we also got to cross into Tanzania.

here’s the whole group.

we had an awesome time. even though there were things that weren’t so nice, it all worked out and we got to see a lot of animals.

-cynthia

wow! we had an awesome time at the mara. we got a little lucky. the wildebeest migration happened early this year and we got to see it!!! normally it’s end of July. this is something I’ve seen on film numerous times, but never thought I’d actually see it in real life. It’s incredible to watch!

we also saw a lot of lions. in the one area we saw over 14. we also saw a number of cheetahs. the one was walking along side the road and we got to follow it for 5-10 minutes. I think that was Toby’s highlight.

And of course elephants, giraffe, gazelle, baboons, hippo and a few more I can’t remember at the moment. The main two that we did not see were leopard and rhino. Both of those are very difficult to find. I’m hoping maybe we can go down to Nakuru Park gate and see a rhino from there.

Pictures to come later. All the traveling we did today has got me exhausted.

-cynthia

Saturday was spent visiting two of the native’s homes. When we have visitors, we like to take them to at least of few of the homes so they can get a truly Kenyan experience. And the natives are beyond delighted to have visitors from a foreign country. Most of the Kenyans that we associate with, do not have access to any technology (other than a cell phone). So in that respect they know very little about the day to day activities of the rest of the world.

First we visited the home of Samuel Njogu. He and his wife Caroline have 3 children. Boaz, Mary and Ruth.

Their home is just off the road a bit, so we took the foot path back to their house.

Samuel took us on a ‘tour’ of the shamba (garden) and the rest of their property. This picture is taken in front of their house. In the background to the left you can see part of the Menegai Crater (we plan to hike it sometime later this week if we have time).

And here’s Jeremy and Toby in front of the house. Notice the water tank on the right.

I was very hungry and knew we were going to get some very good food. I also knew I would most likely get more food than I could put down…a regular occurrence when we eat at a native’s home. Just check out the serving. And yes there was one bowl for each person.

I was afraid Toby might freak out a little, so I warned him ahead of time that it is not offensive if he does not eat all his food.

Not only are the servings huge, but the food is very heavy. The dish they served us is called mukimo (not sure if I got the spelling on that one). It’s a bit like mashed potatoes, only this is the pure potato. No milk added. There’s also maize, peas, and bananas mixed in.

I kept telling Toby that he doesn’t have to eat all of it if he doesn’t want to. I could tell he was almost at the point of not being able to stuff down another bite. But I guess his parents taught him well. Either that or the fact that he didn’t want Jeremy to finish and him have some food left.

After he managed to finally to get that last bite down -he looked at the last bite for almost a minute before stuffing it in his mouth- I told him they will serve chai yet. He gave me this ‘you gotta be kidding me’ look.

And to top it off they brought sweet potatoes to take with the chai. The sweet potatoes are delicious, but all of us were plump and full from the mukimo.

Toby enjoyed the chai and actually drank 2 cups. The mixture of  milk, black tea and sugar seems a bit odd, and to be honest. I really didn’t think he would enjoy it very much. I was impressed at how well he responded to the different food and everything that goes along with the experience.

Before lunch the boys were playing with this calf. I fell in love with this shot.

Oh, but that was before I saw these yellow monsters.

They were awesome!!

Here’s the whole group together with Samuel and family-except for their oldest son Boaz who was in school.

From Samuel’s we went to the home of Cecilia. Cecilia is a young girl who comes to church.

From R to L – Cecelia’s parents, Cecilia, George, Susan, Tabitha. and don’t ask the rest because I can’t remember.

Cecilia and George always have many, many questions about the Bible. Some of them are very difficult to answer. Right now their main questions have to do with evolution vs. creation. They are taught evolution in school. Both of them know that evolution is false, but it’s still difficult for them.

By observing Toby, I could tell he was fascinated at how they ‘decorate’ their walls.

They use newspapers. It’s always funny to see what kind of news they have there. The one paper had an article about the bulls beating the jazz. I found that a little interesting. Not sure why sports news would travel to this side.

And then as I had figured, they wanted to serve us chai and food. Before they serve food they come with water so we can wash. Here’s a shot of Toby washing his hands. It’s not very clear. I wasn’t sitting at a good spot.

Here’s Josiah washing his hands.

They served us biscuits (a bit like an animal cracker) and juice. I was still full from lunch and was relieved they were only serving us biscuits and not a big meal.

And then they brought this.

It was delicious, but I was still so stuffed.

Then they brought out chai. Wow. I haven’t been so full in a long time!

As you can tell by now, the Kenyans are very generous people. They are very hospitable and will do everything they can to make you feel at home.

I always enjoy visiting these people. I think we are the only white people that have ever stepped foot inside that home. Every time we come the children get so excited and the mother almost can’t stop laughing.

And as usual I have a few photos I don’t know where to put.

The boys were playing/harassing the girls. I think the girls enjoyed the attention

‘oh no she saw me’

Ripstickin!

And Kev got his wish. Fresh corn tortillas.

It still needs a bit of perfecting. But the flavor is just incredible.

Everyone standing around wanting to be the first to snatch the first bite.

Tomorrow morning we plan to head to the Masai Mara. Pray for safety as we travel. I’m hoping I can at least update while we are there, but no guarantee.

-cynthia

Today we were able to visit two native homes. The natives are always overjoyed when we bring our visitors to their house, and today was no different.

I’d love to post pictures, but it’s been a long day and past my bedtime. I’m hoping I’ll have some free time tomorrow to post at least a few. Early early Monday we head out of civilization and into the land of the lions. The Masai Mara. I’m not sure if we’ll have free internet there but sure am hoping we do.

-cynthia