Summer 2011 About to start...

Yeah, summer time trip to Vermont less than 24 hours away. Fly out of San Jose and get into Boston about 5:30am east coast time. Hopefully we will all sleep. My lovely honey has been kind enough to spoil me with a new MacBook and I am so darned happy with it. Let's see if it keeps me going on the summer blog. Only time will tell....

Maddi's Surgery and cast experience

1:48 in the morning right now. For the most part, things have gone pretty smoothly. There are some nights, like tonight, where Maddi wakes up in pain. We keep trying to see if she can go through the night without any pain medicin. Usually, those are the nights like tonight. It seems that she has pain breakthroughs with out her pain meds. Luckily, most nights she can get by with just Tylenol. Ultimately, she is a super tough girl. She has been happy for the most part and seems to enjoy herself, no mater the circumstances. She is always my hero in life...2:02 and she is ok, it seems. Good night...

DRIVING ACROSS COUNTRY!

Flight from Cali went great. We had no delays and both planes landed early. The wonderful people at AMS vans picked us up this morning and we are now the proud owners of a beutiful new VW Routan wheelchair-converted van. 400 miles later, we are eating BBQ and oysters at Silky O' Sullivan's on Beale St. in Memphis! We are driving another 300 miles tonight to Van Buren, Arkansas...

A special thank you to those that donated

We have been lucky enough to put together another cash donation to George and his family. We are still on our projected pace of donating $500 every five months. It is especially important now, as Kenya has been suffering a severe drought. It has rained very little since we left. They normally have two rainy seasons, but the one that happens over the winter never fully realized. In a country that subsists on rainfall for most of it's irrigation, a lack of rain can be devastating. So, hopefully the money will allow George the opportunity to supply his family with what he needs and hopefully he is saving some towards having his own car. This last bit may be the most important, as we still do not know if George will keep his job at the Manor or not.

It is very important that anyone who reads this understands that most of the donation came from friends, acquaintances, and even distant acquaintances who donated because of what they read on this blog. We would like to thank Valerie Masey, Robin Nash, Pat and Bitz Haley, Monica O'Niel and Mark Habib for their generous donations. It is when people chose to help perfect strangers that makes the world a much smaller and better place.

As they say in Kenya, Asnate Sana.

Update

Since November, we have had the opportunity to communicate with George via e-mail and a couple of very expensive phone calls. He was very grateful to receive the $500 that we sent him. For him, that was the equivalent to about five months salary. He told us over the phone what a difference that it has made for him as he was able to pay off outstanding debt to the manor for the loan he took out to buy his land, buy household items that had been looted from his house in the post-election violence last year, and put money towards getting his children into a better school. For most Kenyans, they send their children to public schools that have classroom sizes of upwards of seventy to eighty children, often times taught by a teacher who has what we would consider to be a high-school diploma. Additionally, those teachers are given no supplies to teach with, so they instruct the children according to what the children bring to the classroom.
Knowing that, we also set out in November and December to get money and school materials to Julius' family, one of the other drivers at the Manor. It was his children who we had such an incredible time with at the play date on the Manor and the trip to the Rift Valley. We set out to first get some school materials to them. We ran around Chico and found some spectacular sales on backpacks, notebooks, pencils, etc. We then culled trough the kids books and magazine subscriptions and took some donated books from Justin and Carob, Julie's brother and his wife. We put them together with some clothes, sushi rolling mats and some supplies for the cooks, some blown up pictures, and a few hard to get items for Rudy (cigars are incredible expensive in Kenya...) and shipped them off to the Manor. We waited to hear if they got the package for about two weeks and it appeared that it was not going to get there. We finally heard that they got it (Rudy had to pay a very large tax to get it...). Here is a copy of the e-mail that we got from Julius:
"Jambo sana everybody! How are you doing? Iam sorry i took long to write you i went home to see my parents in western Kenya. They are fine doing well. Much greetings from Teddy' Sylvia' Linda and there mother. They asked me to say hallow to you and there friends. They also asked me to thank you. They opened school on 6th and they took there new school bags and story books. they were so happy. I told my parents about what you are doing to us and they were so happy. They asked me to thank you very much. They wish you were around they could have come and see you and say hallow. I wrote you when i got the money hope you got the email. I will always say thanks for your saport. We have two baby giraffe one is two and half weeks and the other one 5 days old. Wish you all the best God bless you thanks. Asante sana karibu tena Kenya. ( thanks alot and welcome back to Kenya"

What Julius was also referencing was the fact that we were able to send him $500 the day before Christmas. Julie, myself, and numerous family and friends had made stuffed giraffes and sold them around the schools that we work at and with some incredible individuals gave us some rather large donations and we were able to send the money the day before Christmas. Again, Julius:
"Hallow to you all ! Asante sana sana.( Thanks alot ) I got 36200 shillings in the account on 30th.. thanks so much.I told the children and they jumpt up saying thanks thanks. We are so happy. You are really busting us. Iam going to buy them school uniforms and shoes. Then i will pay for there tushion buy them studying table becose i want then now to work hard in school to be able to write you and there friends. I will always say asante sana.We are so happy to have you and carering friends. We will always remember you in our life.Wish you a happy new year and hope to see you when you come back to kenya. You took our children like yours that is great we are proud of you. say hello to everybody bye bye."

We have been in contact since then, getting e-mails about every two weeks. We have made a committment to them that we will try to support their education and eventually figure out a way for the kids to come to America to go to college. Here is how Julius responded:
Juilius:
"Hey to you all. Much greetings from Teddy, Sylvia. Linda and us. We are also very happy and proud. Wen i red the mail i was with my children i went to get them from school. We were all happy for sure. We have never been out of Kenya even in the plane. So we are so happy. I asked them to work hard in school so that they can go to collage in united state of america.So they promised me they will work hard. Im still training to use computer so please bere with me. Im working hard to know more. I will send you pictures for my chilren in there new school bags and uniforms. They are proud of you and they say they have Wazungu friends in America.( wazungu ) Is white friends.Say hey to everybody. Tell the chilren hallow from Teddy, Sylvia and Linda.God bless you and guide you all thanks and bye bye."

So, all in all, we could not have hoped for the last two months to have gone any better. We were distressed to find out that the teachers in Kenya went on strike, but were joyed to hear that Julius was able to pay the kids' teacher privately to keep them coming to help the kids.

We are trying to put together more giraffes and are planning on sending $500 to each family in April again. Lots of friends are interested in helping and we are just going to incorporate this process as a natural way of doing things. There are few times in life where you absolutely know that what you are doing is positively helping someone out. Hopefully, this will have a ripple affect and better things will come from it.

Asante Sana for now

Contact!!!

Well, it has been 25 days (wow! I can't believe it has already been that long...not sure how to think about that. On one side, it seems like just yesterday that we were there, but on the other hand, it feels very lonely to have been apart from those wonderful people for so long...) since we have been back. There is still no way to go a single day and not reflect back on that most magical week. With the election last week (OBAMA!!!OBAMA!!!OBAMA!!!...I will never get tired saying that...) we felt an urgent need to re-connect, but were having a terrible time with not hearing from anyone. Then in a matter of a few days we have gotten one e-mail from Cosmos (our incredible server/giraffe handler), two e-mails from Rudy (our host, who is coming to stay with us in April!), made a connection with an UN Aid worker who lives in Kenya who may be able to help us (Emmett does karate with her nephew), and finally received a call from George! Well, a partial call...The cell phone rang but when I answered, nothing happened. From the number, we realized that it was a Kenyan county code. We checked the Manor number and confirmed that it was a Kenyan number, but not the Manor. We made the call and got to hear George's dignified, distinct voice on the other end. It is nearly impossible to express what feelings that it inspired hearing him. He is well, but very busy. He sounded like he has not had time off to go to the Cyber Cafe. Regardless, it was what we were waiting for. We really needed some contact so that we could tell him that we needed to change our plans. We have planned to send him $100 per month but were shocked to find out that it costs $30 a pop to wire money to Kenya. So, having heard from him, we told him that we will put in $500 in his account.
For some, an explanation may be needed now. George, like all of the workers at the Manor, work 16 hour days with one,maybe two days off a month. His family lives about two hours away. He has three children which he must pay to send to school, has no medical insurance, and has no means to "get ahead". His monthly salary is 9,000 Schillings, about $120. That must pay for his food and lodging, his families, and any other costs. His elder brother died last year (the average life span is 45), which means he is now financially responsible for his brother's widow and his three nephews. Additionally, since his elder brother is dead, he must now look after his parents as well.That's not it...his younger brother is going blind and has needed medical procedures this last year. To boot, in March, during the election violence, George's wife and kids had to flee their home and while they were gone, their house was looted of all of it's possessions. This was not information that George gave to us willingly. It took about three days of incessant questioning on our part to find out his "story". Part of this was his natural sense of honor, but also he put himself at risk divulging any information to us. If the Manor found out, he could be severely reprimanded or fired. With the country at 40% unemployment, this makes him a very cautious man.
So, maybe, you can understand that we are very interested in making a difference for him. All he needs is a chance. For us, we went to Africa with the intention of finding someone that we could directly help. Going through an aid agency means that nearly 90% of your money goes to overhead, graft, and corruption. This way, we got to develop an intensely personal relationship with someone and now get to be a positive force in his life. Hopefully, his children will grow up educated and have a chance to give something back to their country. Better yet, hopefully our children will grow up knowing his children and all will have a better idea that giving is always more important than getting. We have been so fortunate in our lives: being born white, in America during an era where education, technology, and wealth are all available to those that take advantage of it. As Warren Buffet said, we were born with "the lucky ticket". So, our money going to George is trying to send him a piece of that "lucky ticket".
Look for info on stuffed Giraffes that Julie, the kids, and I (with already our dear friend Diane offering to help) will be selling as a means of raising more money for George and two other employees at the Manor.
Enough for now...
Asante Sana

Parker's Get another piece of Africa

How many times have you heard of someone going to the pound and not coming home with a new dog, let alone an adorable Fox Terrier/Basenji mix. For those of you who don't know (like us until about noon today...) a Basenji is a "barkless" African herding dog. As I knew would happen, everyone fell in love with little "Oswald" as the Humane Society had named him. He was very friendly and when I brought over Paisley, they seemed to get along very well (Paisley was very happy being the only dog...she insisted that I put that into the official record...) With little discussion, we decided to operate exactly as we usually do, and that was to adopt him on the spot. Once home, we looked for some names and found two Swahili words that we liked. So, his official name is now "Baraka Busu" which means "Blessing Kiss". Also, for some reason we like the sound of the name....kinda fitting, don't you think??? He is currently passed out on the chair and has blended into the home perfectly. He can sit on command and understands the words no, come, and sit. He can really jump, but does not jump up on you. He is about two years old and the breed mix is usually long-lived. We are really happy that we made the decision and the kids love him.