Kenya Sunday & Monday 6/27-28/10

We are trying to get caught up because we know what the next couple of days look like. Lots of traveling.

Sunday we were up for the 7:00 mass at Nandi Hills in Sister Pauline’s parish church. The church was filled with two schools worth of students and the local parishioners. At least 200 at this early service with two more services to go. After church we went to Sister Pauline’s sister’s (Anne) house for breakfast and met her husband (David) and their children. David is a teacher and Anne works as a secretary in the school district office. Once more Stan made the children cry and run down the hall to hide. Later in the morning all of the kids climbed into the back of the truck and just like home were in hog heaven. By the end of the morning they were even willing to let Stan help them out of the truck. They were still sure that if they rubbed hard enough on his hands maybe the white would rub off and Stan would be better.

Once more back into the truck and on to Ahero where we had lunch and Sister Margaret had a meeting. During Margaret’s meeting Yvonne, Pauline, and I continued to improve the decision making chart for the Sister’s organizational structure. The reason that the organizational chart is so important is Sister Margaret was trained in the US in leadership and management and has brought a new style to the organization of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph but the Sisters need a visual representation of what Margaret is talking about to internalize the change. Also on a more immediate basis Sister Margaret met with several granting organizations in Germany and they were unwilling to continue the process until the Sisters could show a clear organizational decision making structure and how the grants would be managed. To just say “trust us we are Sisters” did not work. So we keep clarifying what they actually do and discovering how decisions are happening away from those who should be making decisions. Sister Margaret and Sister Pauline really understand this theoretical change and will be the people, when we leave, who will put it to use.

Back into the car and drove down the “dancing road” greeted everyone, had dinner, and crashed.

Back up on Monday and off to Homo Bay for the celebration Mass for the new leaders of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph, Margaret, her council, including the local and regional leadership. The Cathedral at Homo Bay sits on top of the mountain overlooking Lake Victoria and Homo Bay town. The Mass was glorious. The 40-50 person cathedral choir sang and danced to all of the liturgical music and hymns. Yvonne and I were introduced and when the choir was told that she was a Minister of Music she got applause. After the service Yvonne was introduced to the director and the choir and was able to make plans to get Xerox copies of some of the music which was composed by the director.

This was another all day affair with speeches after the mass. (And again Yvonne and I were introduced and expected to speak. Stanley gave the mike to Yvonne and Yvonne did a great job. When Stan was asked to speak he passed the mike to the MC without speaking believing that he could not do as well as Yvonne had done. This got a laugh from the audience as in this culture only the man would have spoken. One of the choir members later said, to explain the incident, “When she (Yvonne) speaks, you (Stanley) have spoken”. This meant that she understood our explanation of what happened and was teasing us about it.)

After the speeches, we were invited to the Primary School Auditorium just down the hill, for entertainment. The choir sang, the primary students sang and recited poetry, the vocational school students sang and danced, gifts were handed out and then the cake was cut. We were invited onto the stage to assist with handing out the gifts to Margaret and her leadership team. After the gifts, there was the ritual of the cake-cutting and serving it to the audience. Now we had seen this at the Ordination at the very beginning of our trip, but we didn’t know that this is a customary thing to do for celebrations. They asked me to cut the cake, but I somehow knew that there was more to it than just cutting, and when I hesitated, Margaret stepped up to help me. Then everyone on stage put their hand on the knife and we cut the cake into long strips. Then Margaret took the knife from me and began cutting small pieces. Serving plates appeared and were filled and we took them to all the people and to the children waiting outside the doors after they had performed. The last part of the day’s celebration was the awarding of the goat. Now, I don’t know who was giving the goat, but everyone on stage had to receive it. This entailed having one of the students drag the poor goat across the stage so everyone could see it and then we all held onto the rope, symbolically accepting the goat. This is also a ritual gift-giving in celebrations such as this one. But sometimes the goat doesn’t come and so one is presented with just the rope.

We left Homa Bay about 3:00. Margaret had managed to have a meeting with the Bishop and Pauline saw to it that we had some time to visit with him. (We are getting quite cozy with several Bishops in Kenya.) We drove to Kisii in order to visit a sick sister in the Order’s hospital there, Christine Marianne. We also wanted to get a tour of the hospital. Stanley has an idea to try to link that hospital with some people in Salinas and wanted some pictures and information about their needs. That put us home in Asumbi about 8:00 (an early night for us.) The Sisters had dinner waiting and we went to bed.