Pilgrimage of Trust in Nairobi

Mazzoldi House is "home" for the Apostles of Jesus, the religious order that hosted my stay in Nairobi. It is the order that has provided priests to Bomu since 1996, including Fr. Okech and Frs. Mutiso and Wanjala.

The brothers collecting for prayer.

The youth from Bomu at Taize. From left to right across the top they are: Crispinus, Baraza, Doreen, Thomas, Dan, Felilcia A, Steve (now chairman), Anne, host person, Edwin, Thomas (former chhairman), and Collins (starting the Dominican Seminary in the fall 2009). Seated are Caroline and two host persons.

My host family in Banana, in the Karuri district: Georgina being held by her Mom, Trizza, Antony holding a neighbor child, Mama Margaret, Rose, and Risper, being held by me.

The Icon on the right is a symbol of friendship. A copy of the Icon was distributed by the brothers to each of the nations of Africa represented at the Pilgrimmage.

Frank's Journal 12/6/08

Duffy's birthday! I called and sang happy birthday to my beloved. For the next two months she is only one year younger than me, which means she is catching up to me, right?

This afternoon we met with the "bore hole" driller, the individual who has given us the quote for the well. I now have an understanding of what he can do, what he recommends, and what he will charge. Essentially, he can provide a tower to provide water to the community, which has a lot of challenges in a place where people buy their water in 5 gallon containers, for the pice

Frank's Journal 12/7/08

Sunday. I attended the 8:30 morning mass, which is run by the youth group. They are the ushers, the readers, they bring up the gifts, etc. Fr. Mutiso was afraid that Fr. Wanjala would run into the next mass, since he likes to give longer homilies, but he finished by shortly after 10.

That was followed by the 10:30 mass, which they call high mass. You have to see the pictures of this! At the gospel, the woman who processed in with the gospel carried it in a plastic tub with her infant daughter sitting in the tub with it. There was, of course, lots of singing and dancing. These folks absolutley enjoy their liturgies. Maybe there's a lesson in there for us somewhere.

At 2:30pm, Consolata stopped by to take me to her small church community meeting. She was early, to allow us time to stop at her house, meet her three daughters, and spend a few minutes talking. She served me a Coke, which I have learned is viewed by your host as a blessing on her and her family. The jumalya (sp?) was a lot of fun. They begin with a rosary, then do the coming Sunday's readings, then whoever wants gets up and relates what that reading says to them. Even though they were talking in Swahili, you could get a sense of what they were saying and their conviction was very evident. They asked me to say something about the reading and I told them the story of Athanasius, the "black dwarf" who was so influential in the early church's Christology, and how he said you know that Christ is God because the people, who know there is only one God, pray to him. I told them they are the discerners of truth about God so I wanted to listen to them. At the end of the meeting they take roll. If you are absent, they try to find out why. They told me that Duffy and I were enrolled as members the last time we were here and that we have been absent with apologies since. They then collected dues, 100KSh per person per month. I paid up my share for 2008, but told them they would have to collect from Duffy themselves, since I am in Group A and she is in Group B. (The group has about 56 members divided into 2 groups).

Frank's Journal 12/8/08

Today I laughed, cried, was inspired, and was outraged, in the first 4 hours of the day.

After breakfast, Sylvester, the youth group chairman when we came to Mombassa in 2005, met me at the rectory and took me to the CRS nurse, Scolastica. We also met one of the Health Care Workers, the volunteers who assist Scolastica. We visited around 20 patients in their homes. We would visit 4 or so with one HCW, visiting the patients she saw regularly (usually several times a wseek and sometimes they visit the HCW at her home since they all live in the same neighborhood), then she would drop off and in 3 minutes or less another HCW was with us. We walked throughout most of the neighborhood that comprises Bomu parish.

The first person we saw was lying on her couch, unable to get up to greet us. She was extremely thin, literally just skin and bones. She was in fairly advanced stages of HIV when she first came to Scolastica, which limits how much can be done to help her. She had no food in the apartment, and she had not eaten at all today, and perhaps for an indeterminate time before that.

Scolastica explained that she needs to take food with the meds prescribed for HIV. Therefore, she had not been taking the meds. We did not have anything to give her to eat. Scolastica often has something at the parish, millet or maize flour or beans, etc., but she ran out last week. We decided to come back later in the day after getting something for her.

I guess the blog isn't big enough to allow me to describe each person we visited. Most of the patients are HIV suffers, although not all. Scolastica checks their meds to see if they are running low and to determine if they are being faithful to the prescription regimen, checks their general physical and mental health, and prescribes meds if they need them.

One woman we visited had had a "C" section in 2004. It looked like the doctors had not closed up the muscles and viscera when they did the operation. She was wearing an elastic girdle to support her abdomen. When she pulled it down, her stomach protruded as if she swallowed a soccer ball. The hospital told her it would take about 30,000 KSh to fix the problem (about $400). Listening to her describe how they kept putting her off when the problem first manifested, right after the surgery, you have to wonder if they could or would fix the problem if she had the operation. I certainly have no medical training but it looked to me that, after 4 years, they would need some fairly sophisticated surgery to correct the problem and taking her back to the same place that caused the problem would more likely cure the problem by killing the patient. That was my moment of outrage, a medical system that turns its back on its own mistakes.

We also talked to a young lady (late teens) who had an ulcerous infection on her leg. Her leg was pretty swollen and if she did not have blood poisoning, it sure appeared that it was going to happen in the near future. She told Scolastica that she had not gone to the hospital because she was afraid that when they tested her and found out that she had HIV, they would tell her parents. If her parents found out, she believed they would expel her from the family. Scolastica told her how to get the treatment she needed without that disclosure to her parents, and prescribed some antibiotics for her to take until she got herself to the hospital.

The saddest moment of several throughout the morning was a young man who appeared to have something like Parkinson's Disease. His head, hands, arms, legs and feet shook constantly, and he could barely walk. When we walked into his complex, he was sitting on a pile of rubble with his head on his hand and he would not look up at us. We went into his apartment and his cousin told us that he got malaria earlier in the year, and had been like this since. He had been to the hospital, and they could not find what was wrong with him. He could not answer our questions, though he tried and clearly understood, because he was shaking so badly. He sat in a chair facing me and after a few minutes of unsuccessfully trying to communicate, he looked up to me with eyes filled with hope, pleading, and despair, all at once. I held my head down and fought the tears. Scolastica said there is nothing we can do and asked if I would pray for him. So we all stood around him and begged God to help him.

Our last patient was like the first, an HIV sufferer who had no food and could barely sit up. The apartment was the worst I have seen. There were holes in the roof, an iron table with a large hole rusted through the middle, squalid living conditions and only one piece of furniture in the room, the couch/bed on which she was lying. She clearly had had nothing to eat. As we left I gave the HCW money (none of them carry money on their rounds) and she bought food for this patient and the first one we visited.

I have never been closer to a Mother Teresa. This nurse is firm with patients that are not following her advice, but she left almost every person we visited smiling when we left. She combined humor with a practical optimism that brightened their day, even in the suffering. Her faith is a taken for granted aspect of her work with the patients, as is their faith (Christians and Muslims). To everyone she introduced me as "brother deacon Frank."

I told Scolastica that I would ask our committee to come up with a system of sending her money through the committee to buy her own supply of food. That way, when she makes her rounds, which she does twice a week, she can have food on hand to feed the starving. A small amount of money can do a great deal of good in her hands.

At 4:00pm, Jack Odhiambo picked me up to go to his jumulya (sp?). We followed the same format that we did the evening prior, except that it was pretty short. One of their members was getting married this weekend, so they wanted to spend their time together planning for the wedding.

After evening mass, the youth group stopped by to say good-bye, followed by Consolata, Mary, and Elizabeth (the Mt. Philomena small church community, followed by Peter, Sebastian, and Jack. It's hard saying farewell to such good people with whom I have become so close.

Frank's Journal 12/9/08

This morning, after the mass concluded, I told the people, "Kwaheri, dada zangu na ndugu zangu," good-bye my sisters and brothers. After mass, Consolata came up to me and told me she had something to say but that she couldn't because she was going to start crying. I felt the same way.

Fr. Mutiso and I caught the bus to Nairobi at 9:30am. It was longer going back than coming to Mombassa. On the way there was the expectation of things to come, reunions with old freinds to make, and the excitement of the unknown. None of that was there for the return voyage. Mombassa temperatures are low 90's each day, so the trip was a bit hot, but not bad. We arrived in Nairobi at 6:00pm, the last 90 minutes of which were spent either stopped or crawling in Nairobi's rush hour gridlock.

Fr. Okech picked us up. After dropping our things in our rooms, we went out to eat. Fr. Dennis, head of the Apostles of Jesus seminary, accompanied us. It was the first restaurant prepared meal since coming to Kenya.

I must confess that it was real nice sleeping in the cooler evening temperatures of Nairobi. I perspired all night every night in Mombassa. Temperatures in the evenings are in the 60's, real pleasant.

Frank's Journal 12/5/08

Reviewing these posts, I apologize for the number of typos but these keys stick from use and the humid climate.

Night before last, I was talking with Collins and other young men. They were trying to brainstorm ideas on how to get into business for themselves. Jobs are impossible unless your family is connected somehow. Collins has been accepted into the Dominican seminary; he's not a dull light. In any event, a couple of ideas they had was an internet cafe, which have been busy every time I go, or a copycenter. They pointed out that the nearest place to xerox something was miles away and the nearby schools would be immediate customers. The problem, of course, is start up capital, for training (especially for a copycenter), for machinery, and for rent. Next to HIV, I think unemployment is Kenya's biggest problem.

This morning I met first with the HCWs (Health Care Workers) volunteers who minister to the sick, primarily HIV sufferers. There were about 30 of them at the meeting. The HCWs are trained, primarily by Elizabeth, parish chairperson (and a lady with her fingers in lots of pies), to provide medicines and other support to their patients. They explained to me that HIV carries a huge stigma. Apparently, the government initially denied disease, buried the dead in paper coffins away from the others, and otherwise ostracized the sufferers. There is also a vestigal culture of superstition and belief in evil spirits and minor deities that fuels the stigma. Those with HIV are reluctant to come into the clinics and the parish clinic because they fear people will know why they are there, so the HCWs go to them.

The HCWs shared the challenges they encounter in their ministry: people blaming them for not being able to do more, people who refused to take the drugs or who stop taking the drugs when they start feeling better, people so stigmaticized by the disease that they are rejected by their community and families (you can't understand the devastation of this until you experience the pervasiveness of family and community in all aspects of this culture), finding people dead on their visits (often from starvation). They also talked about the blessings: feeling that they are doing God's will, the training allows to better medically assist their own families, the children (particularly the orphans) run out to greet them as they come into the neighborhoods.

One of the biggest needs is food. As people get progressively sicker, they are unable to get money for food, they are abandoned by family and community, and they starve to death. If St. Stephen's wanted to do something to help in this area, I asked for the best procedure. They said to go through the parish priest. Two kilos (about 4.5 lbs.) of unga, the flour from which they make ugali, costs about 100 KSh (about 75 KSh equals $1). Something for the committee to consider.

They also wanted us to consider something to recognize the HCWs. They have a mostly thankless job, they are poor themselves, and they really don't get much recognition from the parish. I asked Scolastica to get me their names to bring back with me and told them I would present the idea to our committee for consideration.

The next meeting tore my heart out. I met with the Tekelezo Support Group, HIV sufferers who meet weekly to try to find ways to assist themselves. Most HIV sufferers do not belong to the group because of the stigma. The are led by a pretty, rail thin, young woman who matter-of-factly told me that their biggest challenge is getting food when they are down with opportunistic infections. She told me that mostly they die in their homes; as they are sick they are unable to get money or food and they die. She is the only person in the group who talked. The others mostly just averted their eyes.

One way they try to survive is by making soap. They make the soap then sell to any member who wants it at cost. They buy 3 or 4 bars and resell them at 10 or 15 KSh per bar profit. Try living on that. Forgive me for doing this without consulting the committee but I gave them enough money to make 2 boxes of soap, about 200 bars, and told them to insert them into the next shipment of carvings. I told them we would sell the soap here, then send to Sammy Opatta, their treasurer, the proceeds. They will use the money to loan to members to get them started in their own small businesses, to support themselves.

On a much more upbeat note, we met at the parish hall at night for a feast. Most of the parish committess and groups were present, including the partnership committee. It was, like last time, awesome. We (Thomas) took lots of pictures which Duffy will (I hope) be able to post when I return. If you are reading this and haven't been here, you really need to consider it. It is an absolutely awesome experience. I keep telling them that white men can't dance but they won't believe me and invite me into their celebrating. For our Kenya Day celebration at St. Stephen's I collected the names of all of the dishes they served - a lot of variety and all of it good.

Saturday I meet with the committee to discuss the well and other issues. I have no idea how long the meeting will last but I suspect it will be into the evening.

Frank's Journal 12/4/08

After returning to the parish, and after lunch, I told Fr. Mutiso that I was going to go to the Cyber Cafe that is about 8 blocks from the parish. He called Thomas, and Thomas and Charles went with me. Thomas is about 6 feet, and Charles is another 3 inches taller. I asked Charles what would happen if I were taking this walk alone and someone jumped out to mug me, would people stand by and watch. He laughed and assured me that the mugger would quickly get "roughed up" by the people in the neighborhood. I am safer here than I am dirving 95 to work each day.

Just before the eveneing mass, Consolata came up to me and I quickly called Duffy. The intense joy in her facial expression was amazing. Even over upteen thousand miles and an ocean, the love being shared as they talked was tangible.

At dinner night before last, we ate during a black out. They occur frequently, and this one affected the entire country for 7 hours. Fr. James talked about trying to deliver 3 homilies during a black out and spending the next couple of days voiceless as a result. It also means no light in the church in the evenings, and when the well is installed it will mena no water. We have had 4 blackouts since I have been here.

Today, Fr. Mutiso, Joseph, and I went shopping for a generator. We related our requirements to the staff at the place selling the generators. After they figured out what the parish needed, he gave us the price. Just by "coincidence," the price he quoted us is almost exactly the contribution I intended to give to the church, seeking and praying for guidance as to what to do with it. (When I preside at marriages and sometimes at baptisms, people give me monetary gifts, which I have been saving for this purpose. I brought it with me in cash, dollars, to use when I figured out what to do with it, which I have been praying about since I got here.) We had some difficulty in getting the bank to convert that much cash in dollars to Kenya Schillings, particularly since I left my passport at the parish, so we decided that we would wire the money to the parish upon my return. (Maybe it's the St. Stephen's Father's Club shirt I am wearing that makes them think I might be a drug dealer!)

This afternoon, Charles and I took a mutatoo (minibus/taxi) into Mombassa to get prints of the Taize and other pictures. That gave me the opportunity to make this entry as we wait for the pictures to be printed. The mutatoos are fun to watch. One person drives while another hangs out the side door looking for prospects. They are real hustlers as they weave in and out of traffic, picking up, discharging, and hawking for passengers.

Got to go for now. In case anyone is wondering, yes, I am homesick, but I am surrounded by lots of people who consider me to be part of their family too. And I have to say that I really do feel God with me as well.