Hello my friends and family!

By the time you read this message across your computer screen, it will be less than 6 weeks until my return. I expect to return back to the states some time around June 15th. I’m already making plans for my weekends…thanks to my mom, my aunt and my cousin’s wife who have included me on a special “girl’s weekend, the following week of my coming home! Since my last blog posting much has happened which is the reason I have not been to cyber in such a long time! I’ve included more pictures of the dormitory, which is looking great. Leah came for the first time since ground-breaking to see it and she said she had tears of joy. She seemed very excited and impressed. She says (often) how proud she is of Deb and me. Likewise, I am proud. It still blows my mind that I’m actually project managing a dormitory, something I know nothing about (or at least didn’t until last month). Although the building is looking good, we’ve had a few upsets in the last couple of weeks. We “fired” our main/leadcontractor (the one that actually organizes the other workers). This was an initiative spear-headed by Leah. You see, this contractor has really taken advantage of this situation by paying himself huge wages (3x that of any of the other workers. He pays them from the amount that we give him. We heard that he takes a huge share of this money and pays them with what is left after he pays himself.) We also heard that he has been going around to all the locals telling them that “wazungu” are building a dorm so when they need materials, “we’ll” charge them more so that he and the local can make a few extra shillings. Since all receipts are hand written and nothing seems to have a set price, we are at the whim of what he tells us things cost. We even “caught” him paying one of the guys 100ksh “under the table” for “help” with sand. I believe Leah gently let him go (so she said) by telling him we couldn’t really afford his wages anymore. This has caused quite an uproar in the community; a protest if I can call it that! As a result the rest of the workers stopped showing up for work. We went four days without work. On the fourth day we had 7 men show up at the site looking for work (and some of them were the original men that started the job. I’m not quite sure what Ngumbau (the lead contractor) was telling his men or the community, but apparently there were some that didn’t listen since we had an abundance of men looking for work. I will admit that I was pretty nervous about all of this. I feared this dorm would not be completed before I leave. I wasn’t quite sure that the right decision was made to fire the lead contractor. But now after this past week, I know it was a good decision. The new men are awesome. They work even harder than the first team. I’m also glad to be “sharing the wealth” with other people. Different people have the opportunity to make a few shillings and I like to be able to say we didn’t spend our money in one place! One (of the many) of the things that has been really bothering me as of late which has stemmed from this whole experience of dorm building is the idea of trust…specifically, who to trust or believe. It hurts me to say that I feel like I can’t trust anyone and that I don’t know who to believe or what to believe is true. We even heard that the administrator (David) was taking a cut from the contractor’s portion of the money, which is why (we were told) he never wanted to bring up the subject of wages. Each time we suggested we pay each man separately so that every person received his agreed amount of wages, David would advise us to just pay the lead contractor and let him handle the money. Was there a reason for this kind of advising? I am very sad and very much tired of this kind of behavior that I’ve been experiencing since the beginning of this project and even since the beginning of my stay here in Kenya. It seems that so many people have an angle, a hidden agenda. Maybe every one of us has self-interest and/or a hidden agenda in this world and it’s just more apparent because I am living as a different person amongst this culture. I will tell you that I won’t lose faith in human-kind, but I will admit that I cry and I meditate often for relief and wisdom. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the happenings of the dorm. Please send good energy/prayers my way for courage, strength and help in the completion of this building before I leave. Some of the other pictures that are posted are from a huge event that took place on Sunday at Terry’s Orphanage. I believe that I’ve mentioned before that Leah is not only the owner of an orphanage (which is not her full-time job, rather what she manages when she’s not working in Nairobi), she is the Vice President of a nonprofit organization called Child Life Trust. This organization helps orphanages by organizing charitable funding and supplies for many of the orphanages all over Kenya. Leah helps to organize events to raise money. She helps to organize food campaign drives. She puts on conferences and trains staff that work and manage orphanages so that they are educated on how to care for children and understand children right’s issues. Her most recent event that she organized was the coordinating of Billy Graham’s staff to visit the Machakos/Terry’s Orphanage community and hand out over 300 gifts to the community children. On Sunday, Terry’s invited over 500 community members (over 300 children and over 200 adults) to part-take in a ceremony, children’s gift opening and an afternoon meal to feed the community. It was utterly amazing and a huge success. The children felt so special to receive “American” gifts by Billy Graham’s representatives. (Note: Before someone here explained to me who Billy Graham was, I wasn’t familiar with him or his work. I was told that his organization collected gifts, had them wrapped and sent to Kenya for this event). The community felt very special to receive a full meal (perhaps the only meal they would eat for that day) of beans and corn (called githeri). Although it was a huge effort to coordinate, it was worth it. There were so many happy faces and I’m sure the children will remember the event for a very long time afterwards. The funny thing about giving Kenyan children American presents is two things: 1) Kenyan children don’t understand how to use almost everything they are given. And the parents are no help to teach the children because almost all of them are less educated than the kids. I can’t tell you how many things I saw that the kids had no idea how to use…simple things that we take for granted-bubbles, play-dough, balloons. Some of the older children were given deodorant and hand sanitizer. They had no idea what these things were used for. Imagine. I had to explain to James the reason a person would use deodorant. His questions and response was just as funny as my attempted explanation to a grown man that has never heard of deodorant. 2) The amount of trash that American gifts make is absolutely unsettling. After the event was over, the grounds looked like an American waste site. One of the staff said, “Renee, your country has much trash. We Kenyans have never seen so much American trash. Can you tell me, in your country, do you see just as much Kenyan trash?” Of course, he was just being smart, and it was a bit humorous the way he said this to me, but in many ways it was also very sad. Well, once again I thank you very much for reading my stories and looking at my pictures. I apologize to any of you that have not received email responses from me. Since this project has started, my time at the cyber café has been so minimal. We’ve had to remain at the worksite at all times to oversee the work. Please know that I think of all of you often and look forward to my return home which will be very soon! Love to all! PS For those of you that don’t know this about me, I LOVE my birthday and it’s coming up! 21 days and counting!!!