Today was the day the Yvonne was to give her presentation to the Franciscan Sisters of St Joseph and I was going to listen in on one of their meetings and do a session on organizational decision making. So we were up and at St. Claires Hostel by 8:30 so we would be ready for the 9:00 meeting. But African time prevailed and thing got started after greetings and tea about 10:00. Yvonne asked me to leave the room and go do a blog during her presentation. So she will have to write this portion of the blog.
Yvonne here:
Well, I was pretty intimidated by the Sisters. What did I have to tell them about Spiritual Gifts and Ministry. But here I was in front of their expectant and encouraging faces, so I began. Although they were a little hesitant to answer questions and join in discussion, I cajoled them into it and all went well. I presented them with the exercise of the Spiritual Gifts Inventory that we did at the Women’s Retreat. I had to translate most of the questions into something that related to them and not Americans, but they all participated. Thank goodness we have been here a couple of weeks and are beginning to have a little understanding of how things work here. They worked in teams to score it and were amazed by the results. We talked about the many unique gifts we each have and how, in an organization like theirs, it was important to honor their own gifts and support the gifts of others. This is new thinking for them, but they all really liked it and wanted to know more about it. So, maybe on the next trip I’ll do a follow-up and present some other ideas.
At 3:00, after lunch and the finish of Yvonne’s presentation, everything stopped and they had a Harambee. Now Yvonne and I had no clue what this was about but Sister Margaret told us that this was to raise funds for the completion of the hostel compound here at St. Clares. That includes a convent and three more dormitories. This Hostel is right next to the Catholic University of Eastern Africa and serves as a safe place for the women students to live. The Rotary would be put to shame. They started out by being strongly requested by students who currently live in the hostel to buy a ticket to get in (it bought you nothing else but a seat). There was great fun when I bought some of the Sisters without tickets a ticket so they could come in. I guess no one had ever done that. Then our very own Sister Pauline became the master of ceremonies and the fining began (for laughing, talking out of turn, standing up, not standing up, for being the oldest sister, for being a sister who graduated with Superior General, etc. This continued for about 2 hours and then they got serious. Each Region had pledged money to the completion of the project and several parents and local organizations presented their donations. By the end of the day they had raised 360,000 Kenyan Shillings. This was the first of several Harambee’s that were to happen. They are still well short of what they need to raise (16,000,000 Ksh) but……
Finally about 7:00 we broke for dinner and then back into session for their committee meeting. This went to 12:30 am when they finally decided they had done as much as they could do. During that time I worked on some issues around meetings and organization structure. Then back to Savelberg to bed.
Sunday we were up again and on Safari. We were treated to a lovely day by Father Steve Okello (Margaret’s other brother from her second family). We got on the road and drove to Naivasha along the Escarpment road (we have driven this road several times but always at night). The view from the top of the Escarpment into the Rift Valley is amazing. We traveled on to Naivasha Lake and had lunch at the Safari Country club on the lawn. It looked like something from the movie “Out of Africa”. It was a wonderful meal with discussion about the development of the new Constitution, hippos, and the fact that the economic status of some Kenyans has improved and more Kenyans can eat at this club and most weekends you will find more Kenyans than tourists using the facilities. 
After lunch we traveled to Nakuru National Park where we had the experience of a life time to meet the animals up close and sometimes personal. We arrived late afternoon, the best viewing time, and Steve is very familiar with the park. We immediately ran into a group of baboons with their babies romping on the road. We were very excited even though Kenyans view baboons as a pest. Next up on the list of animals were zebras, a whole herd of them. Then in order of appearance, a group of large storks, a flock of flamingos, several herds of several sizes and types of antelope, a family group of rhinos, a pride of lionesses with their cubs jumping and playing with the mothers, an enormous herd of buffalos (nothing like our buffalos), a rhino who nearly joined us in the car, and finally a lonely hippo out grazing in the meadow. What a day!!! The only thing we did not see that Steve thought we would see were giraffe. There is no way to show you all of this so you will just have to come to the animal show with all 1000 photos. By then it was really dark and we headed back to Nairobi and Savelberg. 
No comments:
Post a Comment