Living Positive and Calvary Baptist

Today (Tuesday) is our first day of classes outside the training. We have two stops. The first is at Living Positive, a center for women who are HIV positive. The center helps with job training, counseling, facilitating medical care, and community support for the women. Ginger and I visited the center in 2019, but had not been back since. We are making three visits to LP this trip.

We arrived a few minutes early. I went inside and visited with Tabitha, the director of the organization. She knew we were coming, but didn’t really know what we were going to do. When I explained it, she got excited and wanted to participate herself. Tabitha and I are below.

The center is several small rooms. You can see in the above pic that there are colorful bags and hair ties on the wall behind me. The women at the center make these. They also make blankets, jewelry, and other items for sale.

Below are three of the members of the center. They are at the treadle sewing machines. You can also get an idea of their mission from the poster behind the women.

We held the class outside in the parking lot. Below are Cedric, Cyrus (who works at the center), Wangari, and me. Late May through mid-July is considered Kenya’s winter. You can see that Wangari and I have different wardrobe approaches to dealing with it. Cedric stripped off his jacket for the occasion, but doesn’t appear convinced that was wise.

Wangari and I are holding Maasai walking sticks. We have started to incorporate use of these as a defense weapon in some classes. In the more rural areas, the walking sticks are common. Not so much in the urban areas.

We had plenty of time for the class, and it was only about 20 women, with 4 instructors. That lets us cover more ground than we usually would, which is nice. Every class we do has to be somewhat manuscripted on the fly for the specific situation. We rarely know how many people will attend, or where we will be. We often don’t know in advance how much time we will have.

Below, we are practicing breaking my fingers again. This is a very effective and versatile defense technique. And painful to be the attacker. My hands swell quickly from this and will remain so until after I get back to the US.

After chatting with Tabitha, she and I went outside to get the class started. There was a group of 7 young women standing there, clearly not local. It turns out they were visiting from Illinois State University and had been there a few days. We explained the class, and asked if they wanted to join in. They readily accepted.

This presented a slightly new challenge for us. The Kenyan girls in the schools typically know English. But the women out of school regularly forget, if they ever learned it. So I’m used to waiting for someone (Wangari or Virginia) to translate everything into Kiswahili for the women. They will often explain things and add things themselves. This time, we also had people who didn’t speak Kiswahili so Wangari sometimes had to wait and translate into English. It works fine, but not a challenge I would face in a normal US class.

After we left Living Positive, we went to Calvary Baptist primary school. This is a relatively small private school. It appears well run, is well maintained, and they have a lot of extracurricular activities.

Below is part of the school. Grades 6 and below are in the building on the right. Grades 7 and 8 are in the building behind me. The kitchen and eating area are in the building on the left. Behind the school van is a blue jug on a white stand. This is a handwashing station. The bathrooms have no running water, so these are regularly found at many schools.

We were there on “club day,” which is the day for the extracurriculars. Below is the ballet class, which was adorable.

The class we taught included about 70 girls from classes 2 through 8. So at the bottom end, probably 7- or 8-year-olds. Top end is teens. I usually don’t have that big a spread. But I reinforce with the teachers that I’ll take whatever groups I can get. So we work with it.

Afterwards, there was a group of girls who attached themselves to me. Some of them had some fantastic questions. We all went for tea together. This is the dining hall.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Claudia and Virginia had gone to check out a new school with kids in need of sponsors: Kibiko Primary. Below is a group of the kids from the school.

A while after they arrived, they took a tour of the school. The littlest kids were having nap time. Packed in like sardines!

After the school visit, they did a home visit for one of the new kids up for sponsorship, Angel. (As I write this, I believe Angel is already sponsored.)

Below is the family compound. There are multiple generations, with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and a number of children living there. Along with goats, turkeys, chickens, and other farm animals.

Below is another residence on the compound. Notice it does have electricity running to the house. On either side of the power line are strands of barbed wire used for clothesline.

Angel, in the school uniform, with her mother and sister.