Kenya dreams

I found an older Bible the other day. This picture fell out of it.


Summer 1991 Njeri, Wshera and me outside the KCITI/ Eastleigh C of C gates in Nairobi, Kenya. Njeri (in-Jerry) was 5 or 6 and Wshera (Wa-she-ra) was 3 or 4.

These two stole my heart. I must say they were the favorites of all the interns. They had a baby brother named Zoom! He was only one years old and so cute. Wshera and Njeri lived in a two room shack just outside the church compound gates with their mother and at least four other siblings. They, along with half a dozen others, were always waiting for us at the gates so we called them the gate kids. I never understood who or where their father was. I'm not even sure of their tribe..Kikuyu maybe. But for two summers of my life these were my kids.
Njeri & Wshera

Many a Sunday night Wshera would fall asleep in my lap at church. Njeri would sit beside me doodling forever. I brought something for them everyday in my bag. Food, sweets, small toys, soap. I think they actually called me the Swahili version of "the bag lady" for a time. I had so many nicknames during my brief time in Kenya.

The second summer I brought them each two outfits from Wal Mart and some tennis shoes. It was the first time either of them had ever worn new clothes. Most of the people I knew in Kenya bought second hand clothes. I am not even sure that you can buy new clothes in Kenya unless you can afford to go to the newer expensive shopping centers. Almost none of the people I knew could afford this. Anyway Wshera and Njeri were thrilled with their clothes. Their mother was too. Wshera and Njeri wore their 'merica clothes with great pride.

A month into my second stay in Kenya, Njeri did something awful to her hand. I am not sure how it happened but the skin was just hanging off her little palm. I was not there the day it happened. I think I had been on Safari for a few days. When I came back, Njeri was no where to be found. Finally a guard told me she had really hurt her hand. I told one of her sisters to bring her to me. She looked very sick. Her little hand was wrapped in dirty torn fabric and was burning hot to the touch. My fellow intern Tonya and I were appalled. But we knew her Mama was doing the best she could. She lived in a corrugated shed, with dirt floors and no running water or electricity. What was she to do?
Mama Zoom and family in front of their home.

Tonya and I had no car that day so we set off on foot to take Njeri to a neighborhood clinic about two miles away. They refused to see her even though we were willing to pay. My Swahili was as bad as their English. We made the trek back to the church in disgust. The workers at the church said the best we could do would be to bandage her hand and give her some chai. Chai! She needed an antibiotic and maybe some stitches.

So Tonya and I rebelled. We took Njeri down to the main street, hailed a proper English cab...Hard to find in those parts.. And asked the driver to take us to the nearest hospital for Wazungus. (visitors or White Men) I didn't care how much it cost. I don't even think I asked her Mom. We just told the guards at the gate where we were going and we were off. God put us in the right cab. The driver took us to a nice clinic miles away on the nice side of Nairobi. It was like a regular western hospital.

We saw an English speaking doctor who never asked us who Njeri was or what happened to her hand. Njeri was so excited and amazed by the clinic and the big x-ray machine that checked for broken bones that she never cried. She would not let Tonya or I out of her sight though. Her eyes were as big as saucers. It wasn't until later that I realized how big of a culture shock that must of been for her.

The doctor said that nothing was broken but her cut was badly infected. He gave her a few stitches and a shot of antibiotics. He asked me if she had had her inoculations. I had no idea. He went ahead and gave them to her anyway. I think it was a tetanus shot. He said she would be fine with little scaring but that her hand had to stay clean for the next two days. He wrapped her bandaged hand in plastic. He also said something about her being lucky to have good friends like us as she could have lost her hand if gangrene had set in.

By the time we were ready to go, we had reached the missionary to let them know where we were. I think Scott Sewell came to pick us up. The whole visit cost less than 50 dollars. Tonya, Scott and I split the cost. Fifty dollars to save the hand of a precious little girl. I would have gladly paid ten times that. This was my second three month stay in Kenya. I had trudged through the filth of Mathari Valley, seen kids play in sewage streams, watched mothers line up at the trash cans behind the meat shop to get the fat cut off of meat by the butcher, yet it never really hit me what poverty was until that moment. Poverty is not the absence of plenty, it is the absence of enough.

The fifty dollars we spent might have been more money than Njeris family would see in a year. Her little hand could have been lost but for fifty dollars, roughly what I pay for a good pair of shoes. That is poverty. Many families in Nairobi had it much worse. Luckily, I was too young and naive to dwell on such things. It would have been too hard.

After we returned to the church, Tonya and I decided that to keep Njeri's hand clean and safe she would have to come home with us for a night or two. We should have asked someone if that was Ok culturally, missionally, ethically, and politically, but I don't think we did. So that Njeri wouldn't be too scared, we brought Wshera too. Her Mama, Mama Zoom, was grateful and never hesitated to send her children off with us.
The gate kids loved to crawl and climb all over us!

I learned more about Kenyans in those two nights than in the six months I was in Nairobi. The kids acted as though we were taking them to Disney World! They had never been outside of their working class lower income neighborhood of Eastleigh. They couldn't speak much English and we couldn't speak much Swahili, but we had so much fun.

As you can imagine, after feeding them, the first thing we did was give them a bath. They had never seen a bath tub. They were a little afraid to get in. They feared the water would be too cold. They were amazed at the warm water and the bubbles we made with shampoo. They slashed and laughed and talked really fast in Swahili to one another. When it was time to let the water out, they were amazed! They kept looking under the tub to see where the water was going. They talked to a missionary on the phone later that night and told him that we had taken them to America where the water goes down the house and disappears.

Every little thing we did was a total thrill. When it came time for them to go to sleep, they were amazed at the bed with white sheets and the pillows. Wshera kept wanting to lay under the bed. He thought Tonya and I would lay on top of the bed. When we showed him our beds in another room he asked were all the other people were who lived in this village? (It was a three bedroom two bathroom apartment we got to stay in because the owners were in that states for a few months. )

Since Wshera and Njeri had no electricity in their own home, they were used to going to bed when it got dark and getting up at first light. Our lights fooled them into going to bed a bit later, but not into waking later! It was a wonderful day and two nights! I learned more Swahili from those two than from all the books and classes.

When we returned to the church/school compound with them, Wshera & Njeri were super stars among their little friends. They told everyone that they had been to America with us, even though we told them we had only gone ten miles away. Ten miles, and two worlds! Looking back I have worried those days may have been too much for them, but at the time it was great. I pray their time with us was positive in the long run.

I have no idea what happened to them. I know a tender hearted intern who paid for them to go to school (no public schools in Kenya) for several years. As cute as they were and as close as they lived to the church, they had a better chance than most to get an education and do well. Wshera would be 16 or 17, almost a full grown man by Kenyan standards. Njeri would be 18 or 19, a woman who might have kids of her own by now!

Sometimes my time in Kenya seems like a far away dream. It seems I was someone else back then, a lifetime ago. I wonder if I will ever go back to Kenya. I would love to see the kids and others I came to love while I was there. I would love to take my family. I would love my kids to see what life is like for these people who are just as good and hard working as we are. People who have a much harder life than we do only because they were born in a poorer part of the world. People who are happy with out what we Westerners deem necessary. I was so shocked to find joy in the midst of proverty. Shocked, ashamed, and comforted all at the same time.

I would love to go back to Nairobi to see if there are any lasting sign that we were there. I know the church has grown by leaps and bounds and there are several other churches that have been planted. I wonder if the youth camps and the VBS we did there had a lasting impact? Or our teacher training sessions? Or our hours and hours of teaching new songs, crafts and BASKETBALL? One of our main focuses was to grow strong leaders in the Kenyan Christian teens that participated in the Boys and Girls clubs operated by the church. I wonder if those kids grew up to be church leaders? I hope so.

I wonder if my going to Kenya helped anyone as much as it helped me? There were times that I felt selfish for going to Nairobi because I gained so much more than I gave. I hope and pray that somewhere in Nairobi there is a Christian man or woman who came to know Christ better because the work God did through us so many years ago. And, I hope someday I will meet Wshera and Njeri again, if not in Africa, in Heaven where we will all be in awe of the marvelous home God has prepared for us. Cu la la!(Swahili for go to sleep!)