On Saturday, I met up with Dee, my fellow Maryknoll Lay Missioner here in Nairobi. Dee lived and took Kiswahili classes at Consolata at the end of last year and continued to live in the Consolata women’s hostel, but take private Kiswahili classes, at the beginning of this year. Dee was a Maryknoll Lay Missioner in Cambodia for eight years prior to arriving in Kenya. She has now completed her Kiswahili studies, moved out of the Consolata hostel and into her own apartment, and has started her ministry work. Dee will live and work in Nairobi, while I am destined for Mombasa. I already have my “one way” train ticket for Mombasa leaving on April 17. I will miss being in Nairobi with Dee, but new adventures and my other fellow Maryknoll Lay Missioners await me in Mombasa. I’m sure I will get to visit Dee periodically as well as see her when she visits Mombasa and at regional retreats that we have during the year in which we all get together for spiritual reflection and relaxation.
Dee’s ministry work is at Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS). JRS advocates on behalf of refugees and other displaced people – many of whom are living in camps, but also in cities – in the areas of emergency assistance, education and social work. The JRS East Africa branch, where Dee is working, serves not only Kenya, but also Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan and South Sudan. There are over five million refugees and other displaced people in just these five countries. Although the JRS regional office is in Nairobi, within walking distance of Dee’s new apartment, she will be traveling to camps and cities in these other countries as part of her ministry job.
On Saturday, I took a matatu (minibus) to meet Dee at the Crossroads Mall in Karen, which is about half way in between Consolata and Dee’s apartment. Not only were there things within walking distance of our meeting point that we wanted to visit, but meeting at Crossroads Mall also eliminated the need for me to take multiple matatus required to get all they way to Dee’s place. I’m still challenged when it comes to matatus, but I’m learning “pole pole” (slowly). Dee and I had visited the Crossroads Mall together before, so I knew approximately where it was. All I had to do was walk from Consolata to the Galleria Mall, which is up the street, and get on a matatu outside the mall to take me to Karen. The trip by matatu took about 20 minutes and Dee was at Crossroads waiting for me when I arrived.
The first thing we did was stop and get coffee. Both Dee and I love coffee, but my coffee consumption has been reduced to almost zero since I’ve arrived in Kenya. The reason being is that unless you go to a “western” style coffee shop, in say a mall or shopping center, pretty much all the coffee served here is made from instant coffee – just add hot water and stir. This is what is available for breakfast at Consolata as well as during break at the school. I tried to adjust to instant coffee when I first got here, but soon decided that, for me, no coffee was better than instant coffee, and have switched over to tea. Kenyan tea is made with milk rather than water, but as I usually put milk in tea anyway (the little tea that I did drink prior to Kenya), I’m fine with it. There is usually also hot water and tea bags available to make just tea with water. However, in fact, except for breakfast, I don’t drink much tea either and mostly just drink water during the day. Given that fact that I have not been sleeping very well since coming to Kenya, I’m surprised that I manage to get through the day without coffee. Dee has her own place now, so she can have real coffee all the time! I will mostly like go back to drinking coffee regularly again once I have my own place in Mombasa.
In addition to Crossroads, there are several other new malls in Karen, such as The Hub andThe Waterfront. The Waterfront is to me a misnomer as the only body of water in sight is a man-made lake that is part of a small water park within the mall complex. I had visited The Hub previously with Kathy, Mike and Dee when I first arrived in Nairobi, but had not been there since. The malls in Nairobi are small by US standards, but include some version of a food court (more like a group of restaurants) – many times containing American fast food like Burger King, Pizza Hut, and KFC. Some malls here even have arcades. However, with so many new shopping centers and more being built or planned to be built, there appears to be an oversupply. I do not find the malls to be very crowded and they seem to cater, in any case, more to foreigners than to average Kenyans. Excluding this trip with Dee, in which we managed to visit all these malls in one day, and my occasional trips to the Galleria, which is the easiest shopping in walking distance from Consolata, I don’t frequent the malls in Nairobi very much. Not only are the pretty expensive when compared against what I’m used to paying for things in the US, but also more prone to terrorist attacks.
After walking around Karen, Dee and I took a matatu to her apartment. Before we actually went to her apartment, we visited and bought food at yet another shopping mall called The Junction, which has a market and is in convenient walking distance from Dee’s apartment. Dee’s apartment building is about ten floors and her apartment is said to be on the sixth floor, but is in actuality on the eighth floor (as the first two floors are not residences and are not included in the floor designations). I mention this because, these apartment buildings, which are dotted in and around this area of Nairobi in proximity to The Junction, have no elevators!
While walking around on Saturday, we both had a craving for American fast food, of which I’ve eaten none since arriving in Kenya, even though it is available at most shopping malls. While at the Hub, we decided to eat at Burger King. OK, not the healthiest meal choice, but we were looking for something familiar and comforting. While the menu, with some modifications, particularly in the beverage department, looked ostensibly like the standard Burger King menu you find in the US, the food and drinks themselves were not the same. They did not live up to what our taste buds were expecting. The food didn’t have a lot of flavor. We were expecting that Burger King taste that we all know and love (or at least love when we have a craving for it), but were unfortunately severely disappointed. 🙁 Maybe I’ll try some of the other fast food options in the future.
Other than the fast food experience, I had a great time with Dee. I stayed over at Dee’s on Saturday night and we took matatus together back to Consolata early on Sunday morning. Dee came back with me to Consolata to go to Mass as that weekend’s Mass for the Consolata seminarians was being held at the Brookhouse School. Usually, a few students from Brookhouse come to the Consolata Seminary Chapel, where I usually attend Mass, for Sunday morning Mass. This was the first time Consolata has said Mass at Brookhouse and it sounded like this is something that they hope to now do a few times a year. The Mass was held in an auditorium at the school.
The Brookhouse School is a private, co-ed boarding school, consisting of about 800 primary and secondary school students, that is adjacent to Consolata. Classes at Brookhouse are taught in English. Brookhouse is one of the schools in Kenya where the elite, rich, and powerful in Kenya send their children. The school also hosts a number of international students. Although the fee structure varies by grade level, the fee per term for boarding and tuition maxes out at about the equivalent of $7000 (USD) per term. There are three terms in an academic year, so you can do the math. Needless to say that this is well out of the reach of almost all but a very few Kenyans.
Fr. Deo, one of the Fathers with whom I live and eat while at Consolata, celebrated the Mass. All the Consolata seminarians where there and they led the singing as well as served at the Mass, while Brookhouse students did the readings, the Psalm, and the Prayers of the Faithful. During his homily, Fr. Deo stressed, in what I thought was a very non-judgmental way, how privileged the students were to have the opportunity to attend a school like Brookhouse and that with that privilege came a responsibility to give back to others. He exhorted them, as they go forward in life, not to forget their love of God and to express that love in works of mercy to those in need. He told them that they need to work to improve the quality of life for all Africans. Most of the students at the Mass were from Kenya with a few from neighboring countries. After Mass, Fr. Deo gave a blessing to those students who were in their final year at Brookhouse and asked them where they would be going to university after leaving Brookhouse. Everyone of them answered that they wanted to go to college in either the UK or the US. The unfortunate thing is that most of them will probably never return to Africa to live, work and help make a better life for the people here. If they do return, I pray that they become part of the solution and not part of the problem. Here’s what I mean.
Fr. Deo’s homily along with a few other conversations that I heard in the past week, got me thinking about life here in Kenya. Of course I’m an expert (or not) on the subject now having lived here a whopping total of three months. Kenya has a wealth of natural resources and its people are, in general, well-educated and hard-working, but the country is not anywhere close to reaching its potential. One of the primary reasons is corruption. Corruption is so rampant in Kenya that the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) names it as one of the four problems addressed in its Kenya Lenten Campaign – along with Environmental Conservation and Protection, Family Values, Socio-Political Inclusion, and Respect for the Rule of Law.
The Kenya Lenten Campaign was put together by the KCCB to increase awareness and inform the public of problems affecting society. Through the Lenten Campaign, the Kenyan bishops ask people to join them in addressing these problems and advocate for change. During Lent, we are all called to examine our own lives and transform ourselves. If each person does their part, through prayer, we are confident that God will do the rest.
For the Lenten Campaign, the KCCB put together a very nice booklet that tackles each of the five issues addressed in the campaign. Each week, one of the issues is supposed to be examined and reflected on. The campaign booklet gives a story of a concrete example where each issue has occurred in Kenya, analyzes the situation in light of the Church’s social teachings, and gives readings, a spiritual reflection, reflective questions and questions for examination of conscience. For example, with respect to corruption, the bishops ask each individual to truly examine the ways we often overlook the role we play in sustaining systems that reward dishonesty and scheming. The campaign is intended to be used by parishes, families, Small Christian Communities and individuals, so that each person can do their part in helping to address these important issues in their individual lives and in the lives of the communities in which they live. Several of the Small Christian Communities in Kibera, with which I have been blessed to worship, are using the campaign material as the basis for part of their weekly gatherings during Lent.
The Kenyan bishops state that corruption is a disease, eating away not just at Kenyan politics but at the economy and society in general. They say that the theft of public resources keeps food away from the needy, medicines from dispensaries and siphons off funding needed for public services. The bishops go on to state that corruption in Kenya is growing at unimaginable levels, with the situation getting worse by the day through shameless thefts of public and private resources by those charged with safeguarding them. Many people have been disenfranchised and the economy and social life of Kenya has been compromised. The bishops see the root-cause of corruption as impunity, which has led to a select few highly connected individuals who believe that they are untouchable. Stated pretty directly, wouldn’t you say? But what disturbed me even more was the fact that the bishops concluded by stating that Kenyans seem to have now accepted corruption as a way of life. In other words, that the Kenyan people have lost all hope.
I ask that each of you please keep the Kenyan people in your prayers, especially during this Lenten season as we prepare ourselves to commemorate the passion and death of our Lord and the good news of His resurrection. Pray especially that the people of Kenya will have hope in a better future. As echoed in these words of the prophet Jeremiah, God will bless those who trust in Him.
Blessed are those who trust in the Lord; the Lord will be their trust. They are like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: It does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; In the year of drought it shows no distress, but still produces fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8)
God is good.
