Communion and Community

Right now I am sitting in Madame Karo’s living room watching her daughter Margaret un-braid her thick black air with a comb. In a little while we are going to head to Malindi to go to the beach -- it is a beautiful Sunday afternoon here on the coast, warm and humid as always but with a nice breeze that lifts my hair, cooling the nape of my neck.

I just got back from church at St. James Anglican Church, which is situated right here on the school compound. I took communion for the first time here in Kenya, and I did not realize how much I had missed it until I took the wafer into my hand. I missed this sacramental connection to the community of Christians, the physical representation of my presence in the body of Christ. I began to miss the church I left in MA, the church were I was first introduced to the beauty of traditional liturgy and (gasp) taking real wine for communion!

But then I realized how wonderful it is to be taking communion here in Africa, another side, another picture of the worldwide community of believers. As I knelt down to accept the elements I thanked God for my opportunity to be here, the opportunity to worship in a simple grey-stone church with a tin roof, open to the wind and the smell of African mothers cooking Sunday lunch.

There is so much to see here – and everything is fascinating. The mosque that I pass every day on my way to the office, the Masai people who walk around in their traditional bright red clothing, the tiny shops (kiosks) that line the asphalt/ dirt road that runs through the center of town, the brooms made of dry sticks, traditional Kenyan dishes like ugali, the sign language that the deaf children speak here at the school, the rickety mutatus and tuk tuks that barrel down the road (the real mystery is how in the world they still run), the woven baskets that hang from the shops ….oh the list goes on an on!

One of the most interesting things are the long pieces of bright cloth that women tie around their waists, which have Kiswahili phrases written along the bottom. Apparently women will buy them not only for the pattern but also for the message so that they can talk to the other members of the community through their skirts. So if a woman is angry with her neighbors, she might buy one that has some rather nasty message on it so that she can send a passive aggressive signal…. It is the Kenyan way.

I find this extremely amusing, but I had to be careful when I bought one to make sure that I did not say anything nasty or rude!

On a completely different note, the work that I am doing here is really exciting an interesting. I have already gone through several books on Kenyan disability policy and made an outline for the handbook of rights that I am writing for people with disabilities and their parents I now need to go back into my notes, paginate everything and make sure that I have cited the sections correctly. The next step is to go into the court records to actually see how this policy is being carried out.

That is just one of my projects, I have several others!

I have also been updating the Child Sponsorship database with new children/ information, and then doing some number crunching based on the data we have there so far. During my time here I will hopefully be filling up some of the gaps in the information. It is really hard to gather information here because communication and travel are so difficult.

I am also reorganizing the way that all of the information is filed here to make it more efficient.

I am also going through the research that a university student did her last summer on the attitudes of parents towards their children with disabilities. She did a really good job qualitatively analyzing the interviews she did with the parents, but I am now trying to break it all down into an excel spreadsheet so that we can quantify the results of her research and use them for Kupenda’s own files. Reading all the stories that were told during the interviews is interesting, as is the fact that a good number of them attribute their child's disability to witchcraft or evil spirits. I have not finished going through them all yet, so I don't know exactly how many of them think this, but I think it is an interesting cultural attribute.

My final big project has been planning a sibling awareness day -- we are holding an event next Saturday for a small group of siblings and parents of children with Down Syndrome (about 30 people in total) to discuss what Down Syndrome is (many of them do not even know what it is at all), what people with Down Syndrome are capable of, and how to address the challenges that go along with having a sibling with Down Syndrome. We invited the parents because we did not think they would let their children go by themselves, and it is important for parents to be involved as well. The overall hope is to actually create support groups for siblings of children with all types of special needs, and to hold events like this one for family members of people with different types of special needs, but this is kind of a pilot project for that. Kupenda has held disability awareness days in the past, but they have never focused on addressing a specific disability, or tried to reach out to siblings. So I am really excited for that! This work is especially important to me because I have a sister with Down Syndrome, and I am excited (and nervous) to share my experience with siblings here in Kenya.

I have also been working on some other minor projects, like writing a story for this month's newsletter, writing a scholarship application for Kupenda supported children who would like to get a degree from a vocational school and a few other little things like that. Those kinds of things crop up every once in a while and I like working on those as well!

I really enjoy it all, and it is challenging in a very pleasant way. It is much different than school work, more hands on and applicable. I can see the people I am talking and writing about every day! It really keeps me motivated. Like the communion I took this morning, in my work I am participating in a different side of humanity -- the same humanity that lives and breathes in America, fleshed out differently and placed in a different context.