Compare and Contrast

We had a busy week. 

On Monday we walked 16 km to and from "work", a visit to our HIV/AIDS organization. It was wonderful to walk and to see more of the beautiful land, even saw some zebra and gazelle along the way. 

On Tuesday we drove a couple hours each way to visit a self-help group that is receiving some MCC funding to solve a water access problem they are having.  They are in need of creative engineering and Doug gave some of his insights.  

Wednesday, Doug traveled to see the site below.  

There is a conflict between two Maasai groups over the age old issue of land-grabbing- it means exactly what it sounds like. Since there is open land that the Maasai use for grazing, it is easy to imagine that you can just move in and set up house. The tribes hold differing ideas on this. One may believe that they should adhere to the old ways of open land to anyone to roam about and graze their herds, while others are more in tune with the current situation of the government distributing land to groups and tribes and therefore people actually own land and hold land titles. 

Also in traditional Maasai culture, there is a spiritual leader that sometimes gives tribes the go-ahead to attack and take land. In this case, it lead to 50 Maasai attacking about 23 various herdsmen and boys in the bush.  The local group that we live among actually hold titles to their land and they called in the authorities. However, as you can see, they are gathered in full war regalia ready to take matters into their own hands if the authorities end up being corrupt or not taking care of things as they hope. 

It is hard for us to comprehend the mindset of hand to hand combat that takes over in this otherwise extremely hospitable group of people. Join us in praying for peace and forgiveness and fair help from the authorities to prevent further violence.

In contrast to the scene of violence and division, on Thursday we visited the site of a sand dam building.  If you reference this earlier post of mine, you can read about how these work.  Though the land is currently green, it is rather short-lived as it will not rain again till October and this river will not run until that time.

A Kamba (Kenyan tribe) development organization that are experts on sand dams came to help our Maasai (another Kenyan tribe) development organization to build their first.  That alone was awesome to see; such investment in sharing of skills to build each other up. The Kamba group brought all 42 of their staff and also at least one self-help group that had already built a sand dam of their own (that whole group left at 4 in the morning, arriving at 8:30 a.m, worked all day and returned home that night). On the receiving end were two self-help groups; one that was building the sand dam in their community and  the one who would build the next one.  In this manner, the learning, enthusiasm, and teamwork is passed on from one group to the next.  Below are a few snaps of the action. 

The women are used to heavy work and they don't let it get in the way of their beauty. Many were loaded in their normal amounts of beaded jewelry. 

MCC Kenya representative Ron Ratzlaf (he and his wife are our supervisors) and Doug pose for a picture to be sent to one of the back-donors behind MCC- Food Resource Bank. Take note of all the school kids that are lined up watching in the background. It is a regular practice that the builders invite the local school kids; this way they will remember for years to come when they were at the building of this change in their village. It warmed my heart to see such care in the details of motivating change in communities.

Many Maasai men come armed with their sword hanging on the belt. This guy was extra ready with his Rungu (a type of club that you throw), as well. 

With close to 200 people involved, there was a lot of organization required.

This is the resident white lady who showed up to take pictures. Despite my instinct to be a worker, I only shoveled a few loads. I often get flack for doing work because they don't think white folks can or should do physical work. Its a rather uncomfortable thing for me who has high expectations about work and physical fitness. I'm trying to stay humble, yet push the boundaries when I can or really need to. For example, we walked to Ewuaso on Monday and it took us an hour and 50 minutes- really a nice brisk walk, I just broke a light sweat. Everyone had reactions of disbelief and shock and were wondering if we thought it was far and if we were going to make it back, etc. Part of me gets annoyed and part of me remembers that all the white folks they see are driving in cars and they genuinely see exercise as a necessity(which it is in their lives) and not a prerogative . Why walk if you have a car!?

By the end of this day, 300 bags of cement will have been mixed by hand.  Kamba, Maasai, men, women, young and old were all participating. I even saw a young mama with a baby on her back, moving rocks.

A short distance away there was an outdoor kitchen set up under the trees making huge pots of food to feed the workers.  We had to leave long before it was finished due to carpooling and distance to travel yet that day, but we hope to return to see the finished project.  It was exciting to talk to the MIDI staff that had put so much effort into this and were now seeing their dream ful-filled. Even though I had nothing to do with it, I was proud of them.