Thinking back to my time in Ethiopia reminded me that this is normal and helped to bolster the patience while we waited. We were trying to arrange a visit with our sponsor boy, Stephen Odhiambo. He, we found out upon arrival, lives very far away from the city at boarding school. We requested to go out and see him if possible and it was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for my emotions as we could, couldn’t and finally could go see him. The next problem was transportation. They asked Melissa and I, "Do you think you could make it out there by yourselves by bus?" "Do you have someone that could go with you?" We were overwhelmed at the confusion and wondering if we were really going to meet the 17 year old kid that we had come to Kenya to see in the first place. One thing slowly led to another, as they always do in Africa, and we had ourselves a tenative plan. 
I only believed that we were really going to meet him when we loaded into a black Land Rover with army style bench seats before sunrise one morning. We were going to travel out West with Gideon and his sister Alice who were going to see their father who was sick in the hospital in the same area as Stephen's high school. What began as a convenient coincidence turned into a most authentic and intense African experience.
We bounced along, half asleep, and made our way out of Nairobi before the morning traffic. I peered out of the back window to watch the sun come up over the tin roofs and market stalls of the city, excited but worried about the lack of information that I knew about our journey. I didn’t know where we were staying or how to get back to the city in the likely event that Gideon was going to stay with his family longer. All I knew was that we were going far. An hour after sunrise Gideon said to us, “look over that way, the Rift Valley.” I jumped over to the other side of the car and pressed my face up against the window. I had no idea that it was so huge! The Great Kenyan Rift Valley! My mind raced trying to remember the geological history I knew I had learned in my Rocks for Jocks course at the UW. I enjoyed the next half hour as we descended alongside the valley, looking out at craters and flamingo dotted lakes. The road however, was horrendous. My prize was given for More Potholes Than Surface on a Major Highway. We picked up Gideon’s cousin and uncle and made a couple more stops, to pick up some fresh tea from the plantations in Kericho and some vegetables people sold us through the windows along the roadway. 7 hours later we reached the Matata hospital in Oyugis with sore bottoms and a feeling of being way out there.
Gideon went straight inside to the men’s ward and we followed to find his dad looking really, really sick. He had suffered from infections from a previous knee surgery for years, making it difficult to get around or walk. There were maybe 12 beds in a large concrete room that must have been 100 degrees and painted with gray and white paint. The beds were of bare, saggy metal wand tattered wool blankets. The equipment was very basic and family members were taking care of their patients, who also looked very sick, and very hot. My introduction to Kenyan medical care was a little bit abrupt. I couldn’t believe that this was the better, private hospital. I noticed that they performed surgeries and I shuddered at the thought of it. The wards opened onto a gravel courtyard and Melissa and I excused ourselves to wait on a simple wooden bench while the family spent some time with their father. We were sitting outside watching patients shuffle by and nurses in old-fashioned outfits with hats making their ways between wards. An hour later, I saw a family going into a room opposite the courtyard, and come out a few minutes later led by two nursing aides carrying a body wrapped in one of the gray wool blankets, headed for the morgue. It was a disturbing sight as we waited and prayed for the health of Gideon’s dad.
After the visiting hours were over Gideon told us that we were going to meet Stephen at his school that very afternoon. Back into the gas guzzling beast, which I had mentally nicknamed Frank (ie. Frank the Tank). There was another hour and a half drive to Kisii, where Stephen’s school was. Along the way Melissa and I stared at each other and talked about how we couldn’t believe what was about to happen. Stephen is a boy we started sponsoring 6 years ago along with our friend Brynn through Homeless Children International. My sister in law had worked in Nairobi with the organization for a year, and had met our boy in the past. Stephen was 12 when we started writing letters and receiving cute drawings and Christmas cards from him. I had wanted to meet him from the first day, but the opportunity to travel to Kenya had not yet presented itself. Here I was, 6 years later, on my way to meet our boy, who was no longer a boy but a young man of 17, around 6’ tall. I was getting a little emotional already looking at the boyhood sponsorship photos that I had brought with me to embarrass him and show him I had been thinking of him over the years.
We arrived at his school, via another terrible dirt road rutted beyond access to normal vehicles and were escorted into the headmaster’s office. We knew the visit was going to be very short because it was a weekday and not visiting hours. The boarding schools in Kenya are needlessly very strict. Apparently, we were lucky to be able to see him at all! The headmaster talked to us briefly and then sent for the boy. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the guy from my photos just walked in and sat down in the chair next to us! Here he was! Stephen! We talked for a half hour about how it was being a city boy at this far away school, what he enjoyed studying, and what he wanted to be someday. He was feeling a little lonely at his school, but trying hard to make good grades on his exams. He was interested in computers and wanted to go to a different school where he could learn computer engineering. HCI is hoping to get him into a more challenging school, since his grades are so good. He was the nicest, mildest and most pleasant young man. It was a thrill to be able to talk with him and I was so annoyed when time was up and we had to leave. We went outside and took some photos and said goodbye. He was happy that we had traveled all that way to visit him and I was too. Worth it.
I was crying as we exited the gate of the school and sniffled for the next half hour. Not because I felt great about myself for sending the money all those years, but more for the miracle that places like HCI exist and boys like Stephen who are living on the streets of Nairobi can get a fair chance at life. Giving money to humanitarian organizations works and I feel convinced more than ever that there is no excuse for not sharing the money that most Westerners have been able to aquire, through birthright. I think about how many $35 lumps of money I waste every month in my gas tank, on phad thai or on cute sweaters and wonder how many other kids could be in school dreaming of becoming computer engineers. Its easy to ignore poverty from the comfort of my sofa and DVD player at home, but these kids are real and its easy to help. I hope that meeting Stephen will help me to remember to do more, not out of guilt but of joy for his future.
We returned through a spectacular rainbow, sunset and lighting downpour to the hospital where Gideon was going to stay through the night. We picked up his sister Alice and another uncle and headed out for Gideon and Alice’s parent’s home, where we were to spend the night. Driving again, on a rutted, bumpy, dirt road in the rain and darkness for 2 hours brought us to their village. We were greeted in the dark by a group of Africans standing in a line in front of the doorway to a small clay house with a corrugated metal roof. I knew that this was going to be intense. After we went in and sat down, everyone walked by and shook our hands and also sat in the many seats in the living room. We sat in a room lit by a single kerosene lamp looking around at the shadowy faces of 15 relatives. They were waiting for news from the hospital of their loved one. After a few minutes of visiting, everyone walked back to their houses and we were left with Alice, who began setting out some foam and pillows for us to sleep on the floor with. Another cousin went around to the back of the house and began to make a fire, for our dinner. We watched her in the dark mixing the maize and flour with boiling water, over the fire, to make a loaf of ugali. Ugali is the bread that other stews are eaten with all over Kenya. It doesn’t taste like much alone, but with the sweet cabbage stew or beef, its great. We were fed and sleepy and ready to spend our first night in an African home, in a village, far away from anything I knew.
We were treated so well. A special bread breakfast of bread and Kenyan tea (that I have become addicted to) was served just for us and Alice took us for a walk around the village where she grew up. We spent the next two days with their family, traveling back and forth from the hospital, eating ugali and meeting kids from the village. We never knew when we were leaving or when we were eating. It was an incredible thing to trust completely in the hospitality of this family and to see their life, as an example of life all over rural Kenya. The most difficult aspect was when I had to eat a stew made of little fish. Not bits of fish, but whole fish. I crunched their little tiny bones and eyeballs and laughed at how impressed with myself I was back in Bolivia, eating the meat off of a fish with eyes. Ha! This was a whole new level. I couldn’t get very far with it and as the nausea rose in my throat, I had to tell Alice that I couldn’t finish. Pansy.
Returning to the home our second night took us through pouring rain, and mud. Mud is bad for driving, even for Frank. We attempted one road, spun around and out and had to back out to try another. I was praying and praying that we wouldn’t have to walk through the dark in the ankle high mud a mile to reach the home. The suspense was terrible as we slipped and slid through backroads and arrived within a 5 minute walk of the house. In order to get the car out in the morning, we walked the rest of the way. I continued praying through the night amidst torrential rain that we would be able to get out in the morning. We did get out (praise God!). We traveled back another 2 hours to town to receive the bad news that Gideon and Alice’s father had passed away during the night.
Melissa and I didn't know what to do as the family members began to wail and cry over their loss, so we just prayed together. I was so sad for their loss and frustrated at the medical care the father had received. He passed away from something that could have been treated. I felt so ackward standing there, being the burden that I was, while they dealt with this. Gideon came over after a few minutes and told us that his uncle was going to be taking us to a bus station where we could catch a bus to Nairobi. Since we have been back, several Kenyans have said, "Thank you for being there with Gideon." Or, "Its good that you were there with the family during that time." I can't imagine that it was any help at all for us to be there, but there we were. I feel humbled to have shared that experience with them, and to have seen how this culture shows grief.
Staying in a rural Kenyan home without electricity or running water was incredible. I feel a bit closer to understanding how the majority of the world lives. I was most struck by the strength of their family life. The kids stay close to their parents and raise their families all together. They always depend on each other and share everything. I considered this in comparison to average American family life and wished that the commitment to living with your own people could return. What lessons we can learn from those who have little and hold other people's welfare as their top priority. It was beautiful and felt right.
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