Last weekend I got a short break from language school and headed to Voi, for our Maryknoll Lay Missioner (MKLM) Kenya Region Lenten Retreat. The retreat was graciously rescheduled to better fit with my school schedule. Last weekend was the break between classes (for me between the level 1 and 2 classes) and so there were no classes scheduled for Monday. Yes, only a one day break between classes! I actually made it a slightly longer break by also taking the preceding Friday off. As we had our final exam on the Thursday, which I thankfully passed and was thus allowed to take the second level class, Friday was just a review of the exam and class wrap up and I didn’t end up missing any new material. I got an opportunity to review my exam when I returned to the school.
Voi, is about 189 miles or 304 kilometers straight line distance (“as the crow flies”) from Nairobi – obviously longer if you drive or take the train, as I did. I’m still trying to get used to kilometers and kilograms. Remember when the United States was finally going to convert everything over to the metric system? What ever happened to that? I think we got as far as introducing two litter bottles of soda, but that’s about it. It turns out that the United States is one of only three countries left that doesn’t not currently use the metric system. Look it up! For those of you dying to know, the only other two countries in the whole world that don’t use the metric system are Liberia and Myanmar. Even the British, who invented the “Imperial” system we currently use in the US, have mostly abandoned it in favor of the metric system. Given how divided every issue is these days, the conversion to the metric system is not going to happen anytime soon, certainly not in my lifetime. This is really too bad as the metric system is so much easier to work with (as everything is based on factors of ten), however, I just don’t have a gut level feeling for it. Being trained as a scientist/engineer, every course I took in college used the metric system, I just never have had to apply it to everyday life. Living in Kenya, that will now change for me along with getting used to cars driving on the opposite side of the road. I can’t tell you how disconcerted I still feel riding in a car that is driving on the wrong side of the road :0). The other big thing that messes me up here is telling time in Swahili. In Swahili, the first hour is what would be equivalent to 7 o’clock our time. So when I have to say the time in Swahili, I not only have to remember what the numbers are in Swahili, but also do the time shift in my head at the same time! In Kiswahili, to say 5 P.M., you say “saa kumi na moja jioni”, which literally means “hour eleven in the evening” with eleven being written literally as ten (kumi) plus one (moja). Try that at home.
With my skipping the last day of class on Friday and Monday being the one scheduled break day between classes, I was able to use these as travel days to and from Voi and spend the weekend with the rest of the Kenya MKLMs at the retreat. Dee and I took the train from Nairobi, which takes about 4.5 hours each way. This is a vast improvement over the 10+ hours I understand the trip took before the new train service was launched in May of 2017. The railway, which currently spans Nairobi to Mombasa (we only went as far as Voi on this trip) is the largest infrastructure project in Kenya since gaining independence from Britain in 1963 and plays an important role in Kenya’s tourism industry and economy in general. Construction is already underway to expand the rail line past Nairobi, with the ambitious goal of eventually expanding to provide travel to and from neighboring countries.
Dee and I took the train from Naibobi Terminus, the new train station here in Nairobi serving the new rail line. The security at the train station is much tighter than train stations in the US and closer to security you find at an airport. We had to pass through two separate security checkpoints, in which both we and our luggage were scanned, in order to enter the waiting area of the terminal. At the terminal, we met up with Pat and Ilona, MKLMs who live in Voi and were hosting the retreat, but who were in Nairobi for a few days and now heading home. The train has assigned seating and Dee and I sat together. We had to buy our tickets together, in a single transaction, to get seats next to one another. The trips to and from Voi were nice. We got to see a few animals out the window on the way, but not as many as I had been told to expect. This might have been due to the fact that Dee and I talked most of the way and weren’t really paying great attention to what was going on outside the train. Although Dee has been boarding at Consolata since I’ve been here, we don’t really see each other that much. The women’s hostel is separate from the Consolata Fathers’ House where I stay, as well as from the men’s hostel, where most of the other male students stay. We also eat separately – separate dining areas and at different times. As Dee reminds me all the time, I live a privileged life here at Consolata :0) In addition, Dee was taking her second level Swahili class with a private teacher outside of Consolata, at a location a 45 minute walk each way from Consolata, so she is away most of the day on weekdays. Thus, the train gave Dee and me a good opportunity to catch up and talk. Dee is now finished with language school and is moving into her own apartment here in Nairobi and starting a ministry job. Dee will be working with refugees with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). I will hopefully visit her apartment and see where she works before I leave Nairobi and head to Mombasa in April. Where Dee will live and work is closer to the Maryknoll Sisters’ House, where I stayed the first few days when I arrived in Nairobi before checking into Consolata.
When we got to Voi, it was great seeing Kathy and Mike again for the first time since they “abandoned me” at the school when I first got here. :0) I also finally got to meet and get to know Coralis, our Kenya regional director, in person after numerous phone calls, emails and texts both at home while getting ready to leave for Kenya and since getting to Nairobi. Also as the train down to Voi was fairly crowded and we weren’t sitting together, this was the first meaningful time I got to spend with Pat and Ilona. I had a wonderful time eating, talking and spending time with everyone during the retreat. Our dinner meals tended to be very long affairs as the wait time for food after ordering was extremely long (and I mean measured in hours), but this gave us more time to talk and be together. As I mentioned in previous posts, the concept of time in Kenya is different than in the US. This is another case in point.
On Saturday morning, we toured St. Agnes Primary School, the Catholic school were Ilona works helping preschool children. I don’t yet completely understand the educational system here in Kenya, but it is very structured. Comparable to Nursery School and Kindergarten in the US, there are a few years of early childhood education in Kenya before a child enters primary school. In Kenya, the school year begins in January and ends in November. Students get three school vacations during the year – in April, August and December (between grade levels). There are a little less than 300 students at the St. Agnes Primary School. The student to classroom ratio is about 33:1. However, as I understand it, there are two teachers per classroom who alternate between teaching and assisting students.
After our visit to the school, we headed to the Voi Wildlife Lodge, which is located at the edge of the Tsavo East National Park. The Lodge overlooks a watering hole where animals come to cool off and drink water. This is where we spent most of Saturday relaxing, talking, meditating, praying, snacking and watching the animals – elephants, giraffes, hippos, zebras, warthogs, baboons and other assorted wildlife. We also spent a little time in the pool at the lodge cooling off. Watching the animals was quite an experience for me. I’ve been to plenty of zoos in my lifetime, including big ones like the San Diego Zoo, but nothing compared to this. Seeing animals in the wild like this not far from where we were watching was incredible.
On Sunday morning we left for the Tsavo Children’s Village (TCV) Project site, arriving at the Marungu Outstation before 8:30 AM for rosary and prayers followed by a Eucharistic liturgy at 9 AM. There was no Mass as there is no priest available to celebrate Mass at this outstation. The liturgy was led by a member of a local parish, who also gave a very nice homily – given what I could understand as all the prayers, liturgy, readings and homily were in Swahili. At the end of the service, we all took turns introducing ourselves and saying a little bit about what we are doing in Kenya. I did my introduction all in Kiswahili. It wasn’t perfect, but I did well enough to at least be understood.
After Mass we toured the TCV project site a bit. TCV is a planned village for orphan children in the coastal area of Kenya and their caregivers. In addition to home care, the project will include programs to empower the children and caregivers to be self sufficient and integrate into the larger Kenyan society. At full capacity, somewhere on the order of one orphan per week will enter the program and another re-integrate back into Kenyan society. This is the ministry project that Pat works on.
At the tail end of the TVC project site tour, it started to pour. This was the most significant rain I’ve experience since being in Kenya. As part of the retreat, we each prepared a reflection to share with the rest of the group. Each person chose something from a reading upon which to reflect. The reading which we all chose from was St. Mark’s account of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-13). We ended up doing our reflections at the project site standing under umbrellas in the rain. This actually made it even more special for me.
I based my reflection on Mark 9:4 – “And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus”. My reflection tied this back to Jesus saying ”Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to complete them.” as well as Jesus also stating that “not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the law until its purpose is achieved”. Although His teachings were considered radical at the time, and still are by many today, Jesus emphatically states that His teachings are not meant to undermine the moral values in the Law of Moses, as these are absolute values rooted in the nature of God Himself, but rather to complete them. Tying this back to my previous discussion of the Beatitudes and Jesus desire for us to share eternal happiness with Him, I talked about how Jesus completes the law by teaching us transformation of the inner person, not simply the following of a set of rules. Jesus presents his teachings as virtues which will ultimately lead to happiness. Jesus teaches us that love should be the motivation for all that we do. In the Transfiguration, Jesus manifests His divinity, but roots His humanity in the fulfillment of the prophesies and law that are all part of God’s plan for us to be happy with Him forever. Rather than constricting us, the law is in reality the way to life. Jesus told us that He came so that we may have life and have it to the full.
After the Reflections, we visited World War I (WWI) Historical Exhibit at the Taita Hills Lodge. Having read and watched many documentaries on WWII and not much on WWI, I have to admit that I didn’t even know that there was an East African campaign in WWI. In WWI, Kenya (then British East Africa) fought alongside the British and served as a fighting ground between the Germans and the British from 1914 to 1916. A series of battles that began in German East Africa (what is Tanzania today) resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people. The lodge where the exhibit resides is next to the battleground area where the fighting took place
After the WWI exhibit, we visited the home in Voi where Pat and Ilona live, which was very nice. Pat and Ilona treated us to snacks and drinks while we were there. We also had a brief regional business meeting to discuss a few items that we needed to talk about as a region.
On Monday morning, Dee and I headed back to Nairobi on the return leg of our train trip. We arrived back at Consolata in the late afternoon. Like my trip to Ruiru last weekend, this was another special weekend for me – this time with my Maryknoll community. I’ll end this post by sharing a quote from Fr. John Horn that I came across this week and pondered a bit – “The great paradox about Christian maturation is that it depends upon growing in childlike trust. This is how we come to mature and grow in stature within Jesus’ heart.”
God is good. (I hope by now that you know the response. See previous blog posts for help. 0:)
