by Colette O'Loughlin

A letter from Colette O'Loughlin about how she and fellow-volunteer Leone McCool have been faring in the first two months of their time in Kenya.

It seems very hard to believe that we have been in this beautiful country for eight weeks…Time moved quite slowly in the beginning but now that we've settled into a routine it seems to be rocketing along at a very swift pace…We have set up a timetable for ourselves and work with several different groups at different times and on alternating days. This means that we have a varied and interesting working week while also giving us the opportunity to get to know a wider variety of people.

It feels great to be able to walk around the village and surrounding areas and be greeted by people that you know by name. It really makes us feel like we are part of the community, fantastic!

Currently we are working mainly with Kisima, which is the school for young people with intellectual disability. We both absolutely love it there and really feel that we're getting to know the group. We usually spend an hour and a half in the morning working on a selected art or craft activity, followed by a break and then we move to the nursery or the elderly group (depending on our timetable) to work until lunch time. We make a point of getting all students to sign all their work and display it for a week or so on the walls before they bring it home. Bringing their artwork home is such a novelty, its great to see them rushing off clutching their latest masterpiece… We've been told that some parents have been sticking them up on the walls at home. Their rooms are usually very sparsely furnished so I'm sure these bright pictures are a welcome addition.

In the nursery we usually organise an activity based on their current curriculum (yes they have a curriculum for 3-5 year olds!), for example: plants that grow in our environment, clothes we wear at home etc…We both have found it fascinating just how academic these children are expected to be at such a young age. Even art activities, which are about having fun and experimenting, are turned into a more formal educational lesson often with teachers wanting to draw or paint the image 'properly'! I find this quite challenging, as I believe children learn so much painting or drawing and using their imaginations… The culture here with regard to education is just so different from what we are used to in Ireland. In Kenya, only children who attend a nursery school are eligible to apply for primary school and only then if they have passed the entry exam (aged 5). The fees for primary school are small by our standards (3 or 4 euros a term) but are often out of reach for families living in this area. If the children turn up without their 'fees' they are sent straight home again…Like many, many things we experience here this is something that has opened my eyes and realise just how many things in life we take for granted….

We work with two different groups of elderly (usually 15 people) on Wednesday and Thursday mornings from 11.30 to 1pm. This is a fantastic group and I get a lot from working with them despite the language difficulties. They arrive around 10pm, have tea and they do sitting exercises with the help of the physiotherapist, Sylvia. We arrive at 11.30am and do alternating weeks of hand and foot massage. We've bought some good massage oils here and lots of smelly candles and relaxing music! The women particularly have such calloused hands from working physically their whole lives while the men have surprisingly soft hands. I still find it incredible the vast gulf of difference in the roles of men and women in comparison to developed countries. Every day here we come across women (often elderly) bent double digging in their shambas (vegetable gardens) or carrying enormous loads on their back while large groups of men hang around street corners and bars doing very little. While there are men that do work in the fields or other jobs, they do seem to be in the minority.

The sisters here have also told us that there is little respect in Kenya for the elderly, they are often abandoned by their families and helped very little in general. I think this is the main reason why this particular group has proved to be such a success for Sister Ailish who set it up a couple of years ago. Leone and I also accompany the postulants on Fridays when they visit the members of the elderly group in their own homes. This is a real experience, not only making you appreciate just how long they have to walk to attend the group but also giving you a good sense of their lives and just how little they have. They are delighted to have visitors and often see it as a blessing, wanting to pray or sing for you! It is a humbling experience to sit down in a tiny mud hut filled with smoke while a tiny woman in her nineties sings a prayer in your honour…

We recently completed workshops in silk scarf painting with a women's sewing group who attend classes on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and I also spend some time in the Physio clinic, helping and observing. The silk painting was a huge success, so successful in fact that we're almost out of scarves and paint! In general we've been really busy, rushing from one class to the next, cleaning up, changing materials and doing prep work for the next class. It's a challenge but we're loving it…

We're still going on our daily walks and have discovered some new routes that are particularly scenic and quite safe. It is quite difficult to get lost here as most roads seem to connect at some point and you will inevitable end up back to familiar territory. We still get stared at frequently, particularly at weekends when there are more people waiting for taxis etc. We're starting to understand what it must feel like to be celebrities! We've even had people trying to take photographs of us and that is a totally new experience ha ha! I've also had the interesting experience of getting a taxi from Thigio to Ndoma, a townland about 10 minutes away. The taxis over here are ancient rust encrusted cars that don't leave until they are full and by full I don't mean just four or five people… There were nine of us squashed in when we eventually left but the driver stopped to pick up another two people who somehow managed to squeeze in! I genuinely don't understand how the driver could even reach the gears as he was pressed right up against the window. We broke down twice and had to wait while he fiddled with something under the bonnet and before we knew it we were off again. I giggled to myself for most of the journey, it was such a strange and funny experience… definitely one to tell the grandchildren!

Something I've come to realise over here is that people don't have the same need for personal space that we do. Even in church they insist on sitting in pews that are already crammed with bodies…sometimes you end up shoulder to shoulder with kids practically sitting on your knee! Mass in Kenya is completely different to what we have become used to in Ireland – it is a colourful, vibrant affair with beautiful singing, clapping, and even dancing up and down the aisles…. It is hugely entertaining! Last Saturday evening we went to the Easter vigil that was three hours long… We entered the pitch dark church with candles and realised that it had been decorated with bunting and flashing fairy lights on the alter! The choir was particularly good, the whole church bursting into singing, clapping and dancing at every available opportunity and the congregation regularly whooping and screeching…It was an incredible experience, the nearest thing to a party we've experienced for a while!!!

We recently spent the weekend on safari in the Masai Mara National Reserve – wow what a place. We flew there from Nairobi and stayed in luxurious tents overlooking a river literally heaving with hippos and crocodiles! The noises that could be heard outside the tent in the middle of the night were something else…. We went on four game drives into the Mara and saw every type of wild animal wandering around, seemingly oblivious to our gaping mouths and clicking cameras. I don't think I will ever forget seeing elephants in their natural habitat…awe inspiring. The scenery in the Mara is equally magnificent. The flight home however was an experience like no other, the plane being the size of a small car and sounding like a hairdryer with wings. We flew up and landed three times to pick people up before returning to Nairobi…. Never have I been so terrified or felt so sick in all my life! The runways were mere dirt tracks and we seemed to hurtle towards them at terrific speeds. (the plane was so small we could see out the cockpit windscreen from the last seat) Needless to say we were both sick as dogs and spent the hour putting the complimentary travel sickness bags to good use! The amusing thing was that the flight was full of elderly retirees and they weren't bothered in the slightest…how embarrassing J Neither of us have never been so glad to get out of an aircraft. We must have made such a sight hobbling across the runway in Nairobi with pale faces clutching our white plastic bags…what an end to a wonderful weekend!

Things like electricity and water are commodities, which I will never again take for granted. Just last week the mains water was cut off for five days, but luckily there was still rainwater left in the collecting tanks. As a result of no water we were unable to wash our clothes from our weekend away, then, when it finally came back the electricity was cut off and when that came back on it started pouring rain on our freshly washed clothes! To top it all off, the washing line broke and our clean clothes fell onto the damp mud….oh dear things are never simple!

We've had a good Easter here, lots of nice food and chocolate…yum J We even made papier mache eggs with Kisima and had an Easter Egg Hunt with some chocolate eggs that we were sent over from Ireland (Thanks Weavers! They arrived just in time) Kisima had never experienced anything like that before but really enjoyed it once they realised what to do…Eileen, (another volunteer who is working here at the moment) Leone and myself have taken to baking on Saturday mornings! Eileen is great craic and makes fantastic brownies and other goodies….with cd player belting out Simon and Garfunkel (that & Norah Jones are our only cds!) and the kitchen to ourselves its brilliant. We'll miss her a lot when she goes home at the end of April…

I hope I haven't bored you all too much and apologise for not being in touch sooner. The Internet here can really test your patience but I'm able to access gmail again now so that's a relief. We'll be heading off to work in Chanzo (Nairobi) for a week and a half on the 9th of April while the children here are on annual holidays. We will be running workshops on feltmaking, card making, origami, marbling etc with the seminary sisters there. The hope is that they will be able to pass on what they learn to a woman's group they work with locally. They have Broadband in Chanzo so hopefully I will finally be able to update my Facebook account with photos! After that, I will be flying home on the 20th of April for two weeks and back here again on the 7th of May. Looking forward to catching up with everyone, thanks so much for all the encouraging emails and letters. I really appreciate it.

I hope you all had a lovely Easter break…

Lots of love,

Colette