A few trip favorites!

What's a trip to Kenya actually like?  Well it starts weeks before with figuring out how to maximize everyone's weight allowance.  The two main items we take are books, lots of books, and sanitary kits. This year I get 3-50 pound bags for an international flight.  That's a lot to push around!

I started out this marathon trip with a cough and cold.  Luckily I only had a cough and a hoarse voice for the whole 2 weeks but felt just fine.  The 1st flight from Salt Lake to Amsterdam was 10 hours and 5 minutes. The 4 hour layover there is perfect for relaxing a bit and enjoying some delicious food, then it is an 8 hour flight to Nairobi.  I was lucky to have really great seats on an exit row.  It is amazing how nice it is to have that extra leg room, even for short little me! In Nairobi we had to clear customs, take all our luggage across the parking lot to the domestic terminal and to catch a short 1 hour flight to Mombasa.  Needless to say bed at the hotel felt really, really good!

Lots of rain on this trip!  Traffic in Mombasa was crazy and the roads looked like rivers 

The rain meant that we saw lots of people out working in the fields trying to get crops planted now.  So often they are in drought conditions and if you are a subsistence farmer, that isn't good!  We stopped and asked permission to take photos of this young woman working in her field.  At first her husband said that she couldn't stop work but Kelvin, our driver, was pretty persuasive, so he finally agreed.

After I took a turn, the husband said that he'd like me to stay and work for 3 days.  I am pretty sure I'd be unable to move, if I did this for more than just a few minutes for the photo.  He told Kelvin that I looked like I knew what I was doing!  Ha Ha! 

We received skirts with matching turbans!  I didn't realize until later just how high my turban actually was 

I've been to Taru often enough now that I get to see old friends like Madame Roca, the mother of super reader James.  I met James on my first trip when he was a 5th grader who had read every book in the community library.  Now he's a secondary student on a full government sponsorship to one of the best schools in the country.  Readers are leaders! 

The Bahakwenu women have also become friends.  I enjoy seeing them on each trip.  They have hard lives yet they live with such joy!

Two of my favorite young women are Gloria Hope and Lydia Buyaki.  Gloria was sponsored by Kenya Keys and has become somewhat of a local celebrity as she fights for girl's rights.  She recently went to Cairo for a Nassar Leadership conference.  Lydia is a university student, also sponsored by Kenya Keys.  Both of these young women exemplify the "We are the future leaders of Kenya" chant! 

I finally got to meet the mother of the student we are sponsoring at the University.  She is a single mom who was struggling to keep her son in secondary school when we decided to help him.  She is extremely grateful as his education will change her life and the life of her daughter.  Soon David will become the 1st college educated person in his family. 

And here is our new student Clement.  He has just started at the university.  Although his marks were high enough that he could have chosen engineering, he decided to be a secondary school teacher because he loves mentoring young boys and wants to make hard subjects like physics and chemistry easy and fun. 

I love taking pictures when I'm there and jumping pictures have become my calling card!  The kids love being in them and I love taking them!

Just a sweet mom and daughter team selling their vegetables in the Sunday market. 

 Kenyans are often very shy but once they start feeling comfortable, watch out!  The teenaged girls love posing.  These cute girls share my Duruma name of Mupa, which means, cheerful giver! 

Speaking of photography, this is the first time that students were using the government issued tablets to take photos.  These two girls are the school historians and they were documenting the opening ceremony. 

And cutest of all, this little angel caught my eye during the ceremony at her school.  I asked the teacher to get her and let me take some photos of her.  She attends one of the poorest of the schools  which is in an area where many children are both hungry and thirsty all day and early marriage is a common occurrence.  I feel sad thinking of how her life might be but also hopeful realizing the progress being made to educate girls.

A trip to Kenya is filled with the highest highs and the lowest lows!

And I love it!

Library Update

Often I use the old starfish analogy when talking about Kenya Keys and the work we do. Throwing a few starfish back into the ocean can't save them all, but it can make a huge difference to the one! We can't save/educate all of the kids in Taru but we can save/educate a few.

And the few that we influence or educate can have a huge impact for good!

Take the libraries we support in Taru area.  When I first went to Kenya in 2012 most of the libraries were sad places.  When I say 'library' I am using the term loosely.  Only one of the schools that we help has a dedicated building for a library.  And it was built with Kenya Keys funds. Most of the primary school libraries are just a couple of shelves set aside in the teacher's work room or in a closet.  We have started a community library but it has been located in a dark, windowless rented space.

Some of the school libraries are still sad places. But there are a few that make me so happy. And that is because of the influence of a few excellent teachers who have dedicated themselves to developing a 'culture of reading' at their schools.

Here is the library at Egu Primary School. Abdallah is the teacher and the student is his library prefect. Egu has 802 students. His careful records show that there are 765 books total in the library and the shelves show that most of those are checked out. 

As I walked around the campus, I saw students reading for pleasure. Abdallah had organized a short program for us so that we could listen to dramatic readings of popular books.  The library is bright and organized and best of all  - USED!  Children are reading! 

When I first visited this school in 2012, the books were all kept in a box in a storage room.  Today, thanks to library teacher, John, the library is an organized, even though it is just some bookshelves in the work room. John even knew exactly what type of books he would like to add to the collection.  

The records show that a good number of the 975 students do check out books.

The library at Nyari, one of the poorest of the schools, is being well used. The teachers were so excited about the new books we brought.

Wow just wow over the changes in the community library!  The new building is all I had hoped it would be!  It's bright and airy and oh so clean and organized! 

I give these two wonderful women all the credit!  They are Kenya Keys sponsored students waiting to go to university and serving their community as librarians as they wait.  Now there is a weekly story time!  That's a first for Taru!

Kenya Keys is sponsoring a non-traditional education class for adults who don't have a high school diploma.  These men and women work hard to support their families and still find time to study and attend class with the hope of one day achieving the equivalent of a GED. Guess where they like to come to study? You guessed it - the community library!  It is a great place to work together and ask questions.

What a difference a few dedicated individuals can make!  A reading culture is starting to be developed in the Taru area!

Lions

I've been on quite a few safaris.  They are lots of boring moments of driving around interlaced with some really exciting moments.  This last safari had a really exciting lion encounter.  The first night, just as we arrived at our lodge, we heard that there were lion cubs at the entrance.  They were adorably cute but it was too dark to get good photos.  We hoped that they would still be there in the morning but at breakfast, Mbotte, our guide and driver, said that he had heard the lioness calling for her cubs during the night.  They make a sort of 'whooping' sound that the cubs recognize.  So, nope they weren't there under the same bush.

Mbotte heard that the lions had made a kill quite close to where we were.  The guides communicate by radio to let everyone know when they see something exciting.  We raced to the spot and got some good views of the lion pride who had recently killed a zebra.  I know, poor zebra, but happy lions!  There were two lionesses and 3 cubs and one male.

This photo isn't the best since it was far away but you can see the dead zebra, two lions and a little jackal trying to sneak a bite!  He was never successful as far as we could see! 

Here's another one that is a bit better.   

And here is the big male.  And the determined jackal who seems to be thinking of a sneak attack!

After watching them for probably close to an hour, we decided to leave.  We hadn't gone far when Mbotte heard that the two lionesses were walking towards the road so we raced back (at 60km/hr on the dirt road) to see this. 

Both lionesses enjoyed a drink after their breakfast of zebra.

This shows just how close we were to them. Such an amazing experience! 

I finally completed my sightings of the Big 5.  Actually on this trip we had seen 4 of the big 5 before lunch - lions, Cape buffalo, leopard, and elephant!  I hadn't seen a leopard before during my Africa trips so I was pretty excited!  Unfortunately the leopard was too far away to get a decent photo but trust me, we did see her.  There are a few rhinoceros in the area but they keep them as far away from the roads as possible and each has her own dedicated guard, who carries a gun to shoot poachers on sight. So my rhinoceros was seen on our South Africa safari.

 We did see Cape Buffalo 

And lots of elephants, including this pair who were greeting each other very politely! 

A day that I'll never forget and I couldn't resist buying myself a 'Big 5" t-shirt.  Just in case you were wondering, the Big 5 are so called because they were the most dangerous African animals to hunt on foot.  Not so dangerous in a Land Rover equipped with Wi-fi!

I'm back!

Time to start making some posts about my extraordinary month of October!  I survived all the travel and made lots of memories in Kenya and at Zion National Park.

First a big shout out to Kenya Keys Team October 2019!  Such a fun and talented group of people with whom to work and travel.

Bill and Linda Allen - Linda is a fellow Kenya Keys Board member and both she and, her recently retired husband , Bill were terrific.  We got lots of laughs at Bill's expense with our theme of "Bill can do it" which covered anything from teaching sex education at the secondary schools to teaching the macarena to a Primary school audience.  And we'll never forget Linda's automatic 'foreign language' response of 'Si' when she was bombarded with Swahili!

Dynamic mother/daughter duo of Alisa Herbert and Alayna Herbert Crane were enthusiastic teachers of life skills to secondary students and math facts to primary schools.  It was easy to find where they were teaching....just follow the laughter and cheers!  Biggest problem with Alayna, she wanted to touch and feed every animal!  No Alayna, you can't get out of the van on safari to take a better photo nor feed the monkeys!  You have to love her enthusiasm and admire her fantastic photographs!

My roommate the famous "Kadzo" which means 'Beautiful lady' in Duruma.  She's known in the US as Michelle McMurray but greeted with love by school children yelling, "Kadzo, Kadzo" at every school we visited.  She isn't just another pretty face either, as she gave a top notch speech at the Girl's Conference, kept our inventory organized, and learned more Swahili every day!

And our two fearless leaders - Mark Friess and Brent Hayes.  Brent and his wife Rinda are the founders of Kenya Keys and Mark is the newly appointed US Executive Director.  Can't ask for more capable, talented leadership...or a better soccer star than Mark or a crazier dancer than Brent!!!

Of course when talking about leadership,  I can't forget Kenyan Executive Director, Joseph Mwengea, a brilliant man who works so many hours on behalf of the students sponsored by Kenya Keys!  He and his wife Mwaka also are the perfect host and hostess to every American ambassador who comes to their home.

Clemence, Alex and Stephen, the rest of the Kenyan Staff, who do all kinds of little things to assure that our visit is productive and that we all get to do all the things we have planned.  Couldn't do it without them!

Last but certainly not least, Joseph and Kelvin our 'pilots' who keep us safe in the crazy traffic, lead our safari and answer tons of questions on subjects from politics to agriculture to construction to bird identification!  They are simply the best guides in all of Kenya!

What a fantastic trip with such a capable, fun team!

October

Crazy times for me!  I do love being busy and I love traveling but this may even be a bit much for me. A recap and a preview...

September  26 - Drive 431 miles to Portland

• Fun visit with our good friends Martha and Larry.
• Our traditional fall lunch at Skamania Lodge
• And traditional burgers at Burgerville
• Uneventful visit with my cancer doctor - no news is definitely good news!
• A chance to spend time with Scott
• And the Downton Abbey Movie - It is magical!

September 29 - Drive 431 miles back to Eagle, Idaho

September 30 - Finish getting ready for my trip to Kenya

• Stuff 4 bags to the brim with books, sanitary kits, and other supplies plus a few clothes
• Organize all my 'to-do' in Kenya Lists and supply inventory list
• Bake George a birthday cake and also 4 loaves of bread; put a roast in the crockpot.  Matt and George are thrilled!

October 1 - Happy Birthday George! - Drive 353 miles to Salt Lake City

• Check everyone on the team's bags to be sure they have maximized their weight limit
• Add more books if possible
• Spend the night with my friend Carolyn

October 2-3 Fly 9374 Miles from Salt Lake to Mombasa Kenya

• First to Amsterdam - then Nairobi -then finally Mombasa
• Hopefully sleep some 
• Read and watch movies!

October 4 - 19  Be an ambassador for Kenya Keys

• Visit schools 
• Pass out almost 300 books
• Give several hundred sanitary kits from Days for Girls to the most needy young women you can imagine.  Without these supplies, they have to stay home from school during their periods.
• Participate in a conference put on by the Kenya Keys Kenya staff for the International Day of the Girl Child- they are expecting almost 500 girls!  Can't wait to see this unfold!
• Take 1000's of photographs - probably closer to 3000!
• Enjoy a two day safari
• Help the team to be safe and happy

October 19-20 - Fly 9374 Miles back to Salt Lake - This time through Paris

October 20 - 23 - Rest and Recuperate at Tammy's house in Provo

• Laundry
• Get over jet lag
• Write trip reports
• Visit with family

October 24  - Drive  279 miles from Provo to Zion National Park

October 25-27 - Enjoy being with all George's siblings and spouses 

• Hiking
• Eating
• Visiting
• Hopefully a 'bucket list' hike to Angel's Landing

October 27 - Drive 279 miles back to Provo

October 28 - Drive 353 miles home to Eagle

Sounds kind of crazy but I am excited too!

Isabella's First Primary Program

For years, I've watched my friends go to their grandchildren's Primary Programs.  This year it was finally my turn.  Primary is our church's program for children ages 3 - 11.  They meet together to sing and learn the gospel.  Primary music is simply wonderful.  I remember telling the children in our Ward in Spain that 'Everything you need to know about the gospel, you learn in primary songs.' It is true.

I Am  a Child of God

I'm trying to Be Like Jesus

Search, Ponder and Pray

I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ

I Feel my Savior's Love

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam

I Will Follow God's Plan for Me

He Sent His Son

Jesus Once Was a Little Child

Jesus Has Risen

When He Comes Again

I Love to See the Temple

Families Can be Together Forever

Scripture Power Keeps me Safe from Sin

Seek the Lord Early 

Follow the Prophet

Keep the Commandments

Little Isabella did great! 

Isabella was hesitant to walk up to the front until her Daddy walked up with her.  She stayed sitting with the other children until the program was over.  She sang some of the songs but really shone on two of them.  The chorister had made yellow circles with face cut outs for the littlest children to hold around their faces when they sang, "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam".  They were very enthusiastic and jumped in the air on the 2nd syllable of 'SunBEAM'.  So cute!  Their last song was, "Scripture Power" and on the chorus of "Scripture Power keeps me safe from sin.  Scripture Power is the power to win" the older children who had their scriptures held them up in the air.  Isabella wasn't happy just to hold her hand in the air.  She found a hymn book and lifted it proudly on each 'Scripture Power".   We also enjoyed her interpretative dancing to some of the songs!  And smiled when occasionally she seemed intent on helping the chorister as she waved her arm to lead music.

I am so happy she has parents who take her to church each week.  I love them!

Grandma and Grandpa are so happy that they were able to be there and look forward to many more years of Primary Programs! 

Room For One More!

More joy for the Reynolds family started with a call from social services to ask if they would foster another new born baby boy!  Only 1 answer to that question!  A very big YES!  I was so lucky to be able to go with them to the hospital to enjoy a few moments with this bundle of joy. I love seeing the look on Mary's face as she held him for the first time.

Even though we don't know if he will be a part of our family permanently, we know that we will just love him to pieces.  If he goes back to his birth mother, we have given him the best possible start in life.  The goal is always reunification with birth family.  We'll just pray for the best outcome for everyone.

We can't show his face on-line, so I have blurred it out.  Mary looks happy huh?

Talk about busy!  These two little boys are 1 year and 1 week apart.  When George was almost 3, his mother had her 3rd baby.  Karen and John are 1 year, 3 days and 35 minutes apart in age and George's mother survived.  I think Mary will too.  I wish I could have stayed longer to help her but I'm gearing up for leading a team to Kenya.  Luckily they have wonderful support from their church family and from Mark's mother.

 This is how she rolls these days!  And she is still rolling to story time at the library!  Lucky for her the community library is just down the street from her house.

When I asked Mary how Jackson was doing with the new little guy she said that he was alternately clingy and naughty.  He has figured out that when Mom is busy with the baby, he can get into all kinds of things!  Sounds like he is on the verge of turning into a toddler!