Maywood Rotary goes to Kenya:

Making a Difference

By

Kelvin Williams

 

Part One (and more):

 

 

            We came.  We gave.  We made a big difference to 308 little children on the other side of the world.  And at the same time, we got so much more than we gave.  Here, in five parts, are some of the stories about the twenty ‘08 Maywood Rotary Kenya project volunteers. 

 

            Sudan Peace Conference, Fire Ants and a Pick Pocket attempt to Disrupt Maywood Rotary Trip: 

 

            All of us left on Friday morning from JFK on a fifteen hour flight to Dubai courtesy of Emirates Airline.  Perhaps I did not do a good job of trip preparation because when we landed, one anonymous trip volunteer said, “Welcome to Saudi Arabia!”  Of course, we were not actually in Saudi Arabia, but a different country called the United Arab Emirates. Three hours later, we left for Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, where Rose and Chris, members of our Kenyan family for five years now, greeted us.  We were supposed to stay one night in Nairobi at a modest little hotel after our long flights.  BUT, the government of Sudan was holding a peace conference and wanted to stay an extra night in the hotel, our hotel.  I have nothing against peace in the Sudan, but was annoyed that it disturbed our plans at the last minute.  However, we were “bumped up” to one of the most expensive hotels in Kenya, the Safari Park hotel at no extra cost. 

            As in life, a good thing can be a bad thing and sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which.  This leads me to tell you the first story about one of our volunteers.  Many of you know Maywoodian, Anne Quigg, who already was one of my personal heroes before she even arrived in Kenya.  She has always inspired me to get back up after life knocks you down.  We were eating our first dinner at the hotel and watching a Maasai dance presentation when someone stole her wallet, credit cards, hundreds of dollars of cash and most importantly, her passport. 

            Now I know this would have ruined my trip and be a cause for much complaining and whining.  But not Annie, she said, “It’s only money, it doesn’t matter, I’ve lost more important things in my life.”  Not one word of complaint left her lips and she still says it was the most wonderful trip of her life.  Almost all of the volunteers came up with handfuls of cash to loan her.  Rose and Chris arranged for Annie to get an emergency passport at the USA Embassy where she was treated in the most arrogant, rude and meanest way possible.  But trust me, if it takes me years, they will regret the day that they mistreated this Rotary trip volunteer.  That Embassy employee will be hearing from our congressman and state department very soon and often until a written apology is issued to Annie.            Annie was our group’s inspiration to understanding the true importance of our trip, helping the children. And she did this more than once.

 After Nairobi, we left on several tiny and terrifying planes to the Siana Springs tent camp near the school.  These planes are so small. How small are they? They are officially banned by the American Phobic’s Association.  We were warmly greeted by the staff.  One of the staff members is a waiter named Kennedy, who works from 5:00 am until midnight seven days a week, serving our group breakfast, lunch and dinner with the kind of service you rarely see in the USA.  And he is paid $70.00 a month for doing this.  We brought gifts for his two children (who he sees once every seven weeks for a few days), clothes for them and of course a big tip from the group. 

            All of our tents but one were wonderful, hot showers, comfortable beds with a hot water bottle placed in your bed each night. Each tent even had a dressing room area and front porch.  But Debbie Slevin, a drama teacher from Demarest, was Ann’s tent mate.  Late one night, they innocently walked into their tent to find Safari ants crawling over everything, including their feet.  Both ran out of the tent shouting while taking off their shoes and pants. Within seconds, the staff arrived to solve this situation; they emptied out the tent, sprayed and moved both the startled volunteers to a new ant less tent.  Both faced the whole thing with grace and courage, unlike me who would have wanted to go home to Maywood. And again, no complaints from Annie, she just moved on with the trip. She made all of us better people by coming on the trip.  If you run into her on Pleasant Avenue, tell her, “Way to go, Annie”.  Peace conferences, pick pockets and ants ain’t gonna stop us from making a difference for the children. 

 

            SHOWTIME: WE GOT PUPPETS!

 

            If Annie was our teacher on how to be a better person, her tent mate, Debbie was our Master of Creativity.  Often volunteers come to me with ideas on how to help the children that sound strange, wrong or won’t work.  Debbie proved to me how wrong I can be about that.  She bought ten very beautiful, professional quality puppets each representing the animals of Kenya and taught the children how to use them.  Of course, they have never seen a puppet in their lives.  Surprisingly, the younger children loved them immediately while the older children were a bit scared at first.  But all of them enjoyed Debbie’s puppets so much, they wrote their OWN play about them and presented the puppet play to us and the entire Maasai community on the last day of our work at the school.  Debbie taught all of us to have the courage of our own ideas even when Kevin doesn’t agree, because you can truly enrich the lives with something new and meaningful for these children who have no TV, no computers, no Xboxes. And yet, I think that Debbie has no idea how large and meaningful her contribution was to the children.  

            So many people in Maywood think they know our Maywood veterinarian on Pleasant Avenue, Dr. Jay Buchholz.  Trust me, you don’t. I’ve come to realize that you don’t really know anyone for sure until you’ve been to Africa with them.  Dr. Jay paid for and brought thousands of dollars worth of much needed medicines for the school children.  But you’d expect that from a big hearted guy like Jay.  But you wouldn’t expect that he has a previously undiscovered talent as a puppet master who can make you laugh long and hard.  I know I didn’t expect that until one night.  My tent was very close to the area of the camp where each night they have a bonfire, and guests from many different nations sit and listen to the Kenyan guitar player perform for them.  One night, when I was trying to sleep, I heard this singing and a loud, high pitched, Shari Lewis like voice screaming, “Yes, tell us about Africa!”  Jay was standing behind the guitar player putting on a puppet show that had all the guests enthralled.  When he wasn’t busy painting the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade classrooms, Jay brought us all together with his talent as a comedic puppet master.  He was so good at it that at times, I found myself listening to and answering the puppet as if it was a real and separate person, completely forgetting that it was really Jay Buchholz. 

 

            Government Grants, Bull Stuff and Teaching:

 

            You might also think you know our Maywood Mayor, Dr. Tim Eustace.  I know I thought I did.  In one way, he did exactly what you would expect of Tim.  For years, I have been trying to get several local and federal politicians to come to the school and increase the $1.42 per student per year financial support.  The Maywood Rotary Kenya Project is always working on ways for the school to become more independent, to stand on their own two feet as much as possible.  But these government representatives never answer my letters and invitations to come see the little miracle school in the Maasai Mara.  This year, they showed up and the Maywood Mayor gave them all a wonderful speech, a certificate of appreciation from Maywood Rotary and the gift of a Maywood Rotary polo shirt.  And when they left, we had an agreement that as of September 1^st, they will fully pay for three new teachers, build a new building on the school grounds AND purchase a school bus to transport the students to school and events.  I was afraid that if the politicians stayed another hour, Tim would have gotten a “Streetscapes” grant from them too! 

            Tim taught all of us in our group how to be a leader: don’t complain, work hard at hard jobs, and forget about taking credit for it.  Two years ago, Tim and that year’s trip volunteers built a mile long fence around the school to keep the wild animals away from the little children.  Unfortunately, since then, large elephants broke down certain parts of the fence because of me.  In an effort to encourage more independence, I pushed hard for the school to plant corn for the school lunches.  No one told me that elephants can smell corn up to three miles away, so the fence was in disrepair.  While repairing the fence with this year’s team of volunteers, several Maasai warriors near the worksite asked if Tim would help them slaughter and skin one of their cattle so their families could have some food.  If you want to know if Tim did or didn’t help, you’ll have to ask him yourself because I won’t tell you in this article.  

            Volunteer Kathy Palumbo, a middle school teacher in New Milford, is the invaluable kind of volunteer that every organization desperately needs.  The Rotary motto, “Service Above Self” is her middle name.  If there is a thankless, boring and detailed job, Kathy does it all without complaint.  She made sure that every needed school supply item, from flash cards to microscopes were purchased, packed and delivered to the school.  She also does all the boring, but necessary things like taking all the meeting notes at the school and back here in the USA when our committee meets.  And much more, she taught us all how to really help others. 

            But Kathy is a teacher and as a repeat trip volunteer well known to the  teachers at the school.  One day, a teacher asked Kathy to teach his class.  Some of the students were interested in the form of government in the USA.  Kathy moved up to the painted on black board and proceeded to teach the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government compared to the Kenyan form of government.  Then the teacher pulled out a hand drawn picture and said, “Now, Miss Kathy will teach us about the different parts of the human heart.”  Her head spinning, Kathy switched subjects and proceeded to teach about the four chambers of the heart as well as the major veins and arteries.  These diversified lessons continued to jump from one subject to another unconnected subject for over an hour but Kathy was a trooper and although dizzy, did a great job. 

 

They made me cry, a lot!

 

            We even had a spiritual teacher among our volunteers.  Maureen Timony from Rochelle Park is a nurse at Hackensack Hospital who works with adults who have Leukemia.  Since she was a small child, she felt a strong connection to Kenya after watching Kimba the White Lion, seeing Born Free and then reading Out of Africa, by Karen Blixen.  She even named her daughter Karen after the author who helped Kenya so much before her death in 1962.  She stumbled upon our project after reading about it in the Our Town last year, and decided she HAD to go.  After saving a few dollars each day, her dream came true.  It did.  Not only did Maureen teach first aid to the teachers, and provide medical services to ill and injured volunteers and students, but she was “picked” by the local Maasai to be honored in a name changing ceremony.  Maureen was baptized with her new tribal name, “She who is at home in Kenya”.  I cried, a lot, just watching how deeply moved she was during such an honor.  We also visited the home of her heroine, Karen Blixen, in Nairobi.  Although I must confess that some volunteers were not all that interested in this part of the tour, ALL the volunteers wanted to take a picture of Maureen standing on the front porch of Karen Blixen’s house. 

            I work all year full time on this project with no paycheck.  But watching Maureen gives me a paycheck bigger than any salary of any person in Maywood.  She inspired all of our volunteers to follow our heart to help our brothers and sisters, even if we never have met them and they happen to live on the other side of the world. 

            Please don’t think I am bragging, I am not.   Our son Corey contributed what he did not because I am any kind of great parent.  He did it because of who he is in his own heart.  Five years ago he fought me tooth and nail to help these children who looked like him but had so much less than he did; I told him we can’t possibly do it.  But, as usual, he didn’t listen to me and said, “What about Maywood Rotary?”  The rest is history. 

            It’s nothing new that Corey makes me cry.  I cry every time I look at his messy room or see his report card.  But this time in Kenya, I was crying for different reasons.  We brought a lot of needed clothes to Kenya for the children.  For hours on end, fourteen year old Corey was in the kindergarten classroom picking out children with no underwear (most all of them), badly tattered sweaters, worn out shorts and no shoes.  I watched him pick out new clothes, fit them for each child, dress them and after that each child walked out smiling with pride and gratitude.  And he did it all with an open heart. Several times, I just left the kindergarten, walked around the back of the building (not to have a cigarette) and cried shamelessly because I am honored to be the parent of such a good person.  Take it from me; you are one lucky and blessed parent when your own child can teach you how to be a better person. 

            You may wonder who brought all those clothes.  It was Lyn Ofrane, a repeat trip volunteer, and excellent professional photographer from Teaneck.  Do you happen to have a friend whom you love deeply but frequently want to kill her because she drives you nuts?  That’s Lyn Ofrane for me and she made me cry.  One day about a month ago, she asked me if there were some last minute things that the school might need. So I found out they needed underwear and maybe some soccer balls.  But only if we could find a few, and put them in our luggage and it was okay if we couldn’t.  But Lyn, who never has heard the motto, “there is too much of a good thing”, wrote an email to hundreds of her generous photography clients, and asked if they would like to drop off some clothes or deflated soccer balls at her home.  You can’t imagine the hundreds of soccer balls, underwear, and even new clothes that she collected.  Under pain of death, she bullied each of the 20 trip volunteers to take at least one of her 50 pound duffle bags of supplies. 

And the entire school is much better off because of this wonderful woman who has such a big heart.   She was our teacher and we are grateful she was able to teach us how to give. 

 

Maywood Rotary goes to Kenya:

Making a Difference

By

Kelvin Williams

 

Part Two:

 

            Many people ask, what is this “Empopongi” (pronounced “mmm Poe-Pong-e”) school we are helping?  It is on a Maasai reservation called the Maasai Mara, not far from the boarder with Tanzania.  There are nine teachers for 308 pre school to 8^th grade classes.  The school is ranked as fourth in the area.  The children study the same subjects in the same grades as our children do but they must take a national examination at the end of 8^th grade to graduate elementary school.  The government pays $100.00 per month per teacher, and they also pay $1.42 per student per year.  That amount is suppose to pay for construction of all school buildings, all textbooks and school supplies, food each day for the student, and school uniforms.  Even in Kenya, $1.42 a year doesn’t come close to paying for any of those needs in full. 

            We have helped in many important ways but to be honest, the conditions for the students are still miserable.  Since we provided a source of clean water in 2005, there is a dramatic decrease in the number of children who die from drinking polluted water.  But we need donations to insure the water flows every day because the pipes often break when elephants walk over them.  I hope to replace the PVC pipes with stronger metal pipes and install a solar powered water pump this year. Each child is so grateful for the beans, rice and corn we provide each day but it is often their only meal of the day and most students are always hungry.  We started a huge school garden and protected it with a fence but it is not big enough to feed all the children. Since the political unrest in December, the cost of beans and rice has tripled and we must work hard to raise the funds to cover this essential cost.  Although we provided anti malaria nets to each family and the deaths from malaria have gone down dramatically, many of the children are very sick with infections, ringworm, allergies, and more serious illnesses.  There are no doctors in the area and the nearest clinic is 87 miles away in Narok. We hope to raise enough donations to hire a local nurse to come to the school for one day every two weeks.  Every child is proud and grateful for the simple uniform we provide each year but long before the end of the school year, they are tattered and worn out.  It would cost $4,700.00 to give them a new uniform more often than once a year. Many of the children are also cold (it’s their winter when we visit) and we hope to raise the donations to give each child a sweat shirt to keep them warm in the cold months. 

            People often ask me “Why isn’t the government helping more?” and “Why aren’t the parents contributing more?”  Those are good questions with sad answers.  Why didn’t the United States government help Native Americans more when they forced them onto reservations like the Maasai have been forced?”  The Maasai are not liked, they have no political power in the government to improve their own lot.  And Kenya is a very poor country, it was only a few years ago they instituted a “Free Education Law” for elementary students.  But as you can see it’s really another unfunded mandate like we have here in the USA.  Free education has turned out to be very expensive for these poor people. As for the parents, the nearest real jobs are 87 miles away but they won’t hire Maasai even if they could read, write and speak the national language (Kiswahili or English).  But the parent’s can’t, so they can not contribute more to the school. 

            WE INTTERUPT OUR PROGRAM FOR A FEW WORDS FROM OUR SPONSOR: You can see we need more help.  If you, your family, your friends want to help us get more done for these children, please send a donation to: Maywood Rotary Club Foundation, 453 Golf Avenue, Maywood, NJ 07607 or make a credit card donation from our website: “maywoodrotarykenyaproject.org”  The children will be grateful to you.

 

            But enough sad news, let’s go back to our story of glad news about our volunteer trip. 

            Ridgewood Rotary President Lets Us Down & Wife Picks Him Up:

 

            On my five trips to Kenya, my Kenyan friends have brought me to other local elementary schools.  I think this was a mean and sneaky thing to do to me.  It’s emotionally devastating to see how bad the other schools are.  They have no sponsor like Maywood Rotary but deserve help just as much as Empopongi.  Because taking care of this one school is a full time job for me, I have always been looking for another Rotary Club to sponsor another school.  My prayers were answered with Jerry Kallman, president of Ridgewood Rotary who, with his wife Lorraine Kallman, started the Ridgewood Rotary Kenya Project this year!  Both came along as volunteers on this trip to work with us and to visit their newly adopted school, KISHERMORUAK (don’t ask me how to pronounce it) Primary School.  They spent two days at the school and told me that they felt the same overpowering emotions that I must have felt seeing Empopongi Primary for the first time five years ago. 

            Jerry Kallman is a big hearted, wise and loveable kind of guy.  He decided to bring some fun into the lives of the students by bringing kazoos and harmonicas for them.  He taught them how to play them and was surprised at how quickly they caught on.  The Maasai traditionally have great musically abilities.  However, Jerry (we call him Jelly) had both of his knees replaced this past winter.  While walking to a class, he fell down on the job and our medical volunteers decided he must go back to Nairobi to get an x ray to confirm or deny that.  It turns out he was fine and he made it back to the school to continue to bring the joy of music to the children. 

            If it is at all possible, Jelly’s wife, Lorraine is even bigger hearted than her husband.  She brought seeds from American and was a workhorse in improving the garden.  She even made signs for each vegetable in English and Kiswahili so that everyone knows what is growing where.  She worked hard each day in the preschool and kindergarten classes making sure that each of the 80 little children got a big share of her love and attention.  That was an exhausting job.  And you can bet that she will be the foundation of the Ridgewood Rotary Kenya Project, working by her husband’s side making sure that every little detail gets done right.  And whenever anyone was stressed out or had a problem, Lorraine was there to be supportive and nurturing to them.  The next time you have a project, find yourself a Lorraine, you can’t go wrong. 

            In know this is true.  I warn every volunteer that you must always keep an eye on your personal belongings even when you are sitting on the porch outside your tent.  But did I listen to myself?  No.  One day, I walked into my tent to go to the bathroom and left my personal bag outside on the porch.  In the middle of my personal business, I heard a loud warning from Lorraine Kallman, “Kelvin, get out here now, the monkeys are eating your diabetes medicine!”  I did and they were.  I am just glad that there were no monkeys needing anti depressant medication.  Thank you, Lorraine. 

 

            Smart Man, Wonderful Woman & Two Tireless Substitute Teachers:

 

            Each of the ten classrooms doesn’t look like any American classrooms.  They look like a typical Maywood garage but with a tin roof.   They have concrete floors, cinderblock walls and it’s very loud inside when it rains.  But the sixth, seventh and eighth grade students study each night for their graduation examination and it gets dark.  The nearest electrical lines are 87 miles away.  Trust me on this; if you need something at the school, it’s always 87 miles away.  So, we needed to install solar lighting for the night classes.  But the bare concrete walls would absorb the light if we didn’t paint the walls a bright color.  That job fell to Jay and an Englewood Rotarian named Eddie Hadden.  No offense to any other volunteer but Eddie was probably the most well educated volunteer among us.  He’s the kind of guy you just want to sit down with, shut up and learn from him.  We spent many a night sitting in the lounge watching Eddie debate with the local people the African American experience, slavery, the middle passage and history.  It was an education for all of us. So, if you’re going to Africa, take Eddie with you, you won’t regret it.

            Yet, he was stuck with getting the painting done and was a real trooper with the host of problems that came along with that task.  The rollers didn’t work, the paint was mixed wrong, the children helping never painted anything in their lives and of course the ladders we bought weren’t delivered from Narok (87 miles away, again!).  But as you would expect, Eddie got the job done.  Each classroom is ready for solar lights so the students can study at night.   But that wasn’t enough for Eddie, he went around, interviewed many students and teachers, and put it on video.  Soon, we hope to have the best of the interviews on our website so you can watch and hear the actual words and feelings they have about our help.  Thanks Eddie, despite what I’ve said, you are the best.

            You may think you know Diane Rhodes, the even tempered, efficient, model of mental health who is the director of the Maywood Public Library.  But you don’t.  She is not only our library director, but she has a second unpaid job as the director of the Empopongi Primary School library.  She catalogued countless books for the children and parents in the seven surrounding villages to read in the only library in the entire area.  She organized thousands of dollars of donated school supplies we brought.  But late at night, this mild mannered librarian turns into Wonderful Woman: hilarious, outrageous and fascinating.  It’s going to be very hard for me to go on the next trip without her.  I’ll miss her each day AND night.  So, the next time you go to the Maywood Library, give Diane a big “Jambo!” (Hello in Kiswahili) and a wink to let her know that you know she is an incredible woman who made a great contribution to our work.

            You might also not know that Diane has a great 24 year old daughter named Carolyn who also came a second time on our volunteer trip.  She, along with another volunteer named Maria Edmonds from Ridgewood; both had the hardest job of all of us.  You see the preschool and kindergarten, 80 children in all, used to have two teachers.  But one left and wasn’t replaced yet.  So the remaining teacher, obviously exhausted, was helped by Carolyn and Maria.  Both very shy women, you would not expect to see both of them open their hearts and jump into the chaos of caring for so many needy children each and every day of our trip. Yes, other volunteers tried to help Maria and Carolyn but couldn’t work more than an hour because it is so physically and emotionally hard to help so many needy children at the same time.   You’re the greatest, Carolyn and Maria!

 

            Soap on a Rope, Judge Prevails, & More

 

            Hygiene is very important in cutting down the rate of communicable diseases and the Maasai need a lot of help in this area.  Dr. Tim, Dr. Jay and Nurse Maureen taught separate health classes for the boys and girls on this subject.  But the school has no money even for soap for the children to wash their hands.  But Maria brought along her husband, Rich Edmonds, a macho, Marine, fighter pilot who creatively solved this problem with his wife.  It was a “soap on a rope” kind of solution.  They placed soap bars in each of the dormitories and at the main water faucet in the center of the school.  Rich engineered the logistics for a rope system where the soap can easily be replaced when it is gone. After installation, I was privileged to see Rich, standing in front of twenty Maasai children, washing his hands as an example to teach them how to do it. All of them promptly copied his actions.  It may not sound like much to someone in Maywood, but this little miracle that is going to have a big impact on the reduction of illness among these children.  And trust me; it took an innovative fighter pilot to solve the many logistical problems for this task.   And like with Eddie, we have Rich to thank for video taped interviews with many students as well as him videotaping the Farewell Ceremony that the Maasai performed for us.  Coming soon to the “maywoodrotarykenyaproject.org” website near you!

 

            Every volunteer project has a jewel in its crown and for us, the last three trips; it was Superior Court Judge Lois Lipton.  You may not know that our project is sponsoring fourteen graduates from Empopongi Primary so that they can go to high school.  It costs a total of $2,500.00 to pay for ALL the expenses for these four years for one child.  Lois spent hours eloquently explaining to our scholarship winners that we expect them the minimal requirements we demand for them to continue their scholarships; a “C” average, writing one letter a semester to their sponsors and other culturally different complex concepts.  You would think this would be easy, it was not.  It’s like trying to explain to the Maasai what snow is.  Or that we have been to the moon, concepts that are out of their realm of experience.  But Judge Lois succeeded, not only in her meetings with the students but also with our meeting with the school’s Board of Education explaining the complex rules of Rotary giving as well as doing individual interviews with potential scholarship applicants from the current 8^th grade.  It’s not just that she is a great communicator; it’s that she is a wise and wonderful woman who generously gave of her talents to make the Kenya Project even better. 

 

            Long after registration closed for this past year’s trip, Judge Lois called me and said we need to take one more person, Melanie Long, a DFYS worker in her court system.  I have known Lois since Kindergarten at MAS.  You don’t say “No” to Lois because it would be wrong.  And it would have been.  Melanie was described by another trip volunteer as “no nonsense, straight shooting, clear headed. You are a pleasure to be with, such a direct, upfront person. Our court system is so lucky to have you!”  That’s true.  Melanie worked hard in the hardest job of all, with the 80 children in the Pre School and kindergarten.  She also taught all of us volunteers how to face unbearable poverty with limits and class which helped all of us appreciate the limited help we can give.  We were lucky to have Melanie. 

 

            You would think that Judge Lois wouldn’t trade on our friendship again by asking for more but you would be wrong.  She called again to ask if her friend, Ron Smith, would be also able to go on our trip.  Again, I caved in to the wisdom of Lois and am glad I did.  How can I describe Ron?  A British citizen living in Kinnelon?  A doctor of Anthropology?  An invaluable asset to our group?  A 70 year old power house of wisdom and experience?  No, he is a lot more than that. As the head of the Maywood Rotary Kenya Project, I consider information to be as valuable as gold.  Ron took his wisdom and interview skills to Maasai families to find out how they really feel about the help from our organization.  His report will determine the direction of our project for years to come. And his wicked sense of dry British “humour” helped all of us cope with the stress of being in Kenya and trying to help. 

 

            See Samuel Run. Run Samuel, Run! Merciful Rotary House and ME!

 

            Our last trip volunteer came the farthest to help the children, all the way from Salt Lake City, Utah.  You may recall from past Kenya Projects that we brought two students from our school for needed medical operations paid for by Shriner’s Hospital in Utah.  Our volunteer, Cassandra Steel was one of the caretakers for the two boys.  Fifteen year old Samuel had his club foot surgically corrected there.  Before this, he could hardly walk on the bent food.  One day, Cassie was in our van on her way to a village to interview some parents of the school children.  They passed some Maasai walking in the same direction so Cassie asked the driver to stop and pick them up.  She then turned her head to see if the boys were catching up with the van and was stunned to see Samuel actually running!  If I were there, I would have cried.

             Another volunteer described Cassie as “a rose in the middle of the desert”, and she is.  This wonderful Mormon mother of three children has a deep love for the Maasai people and worked hard on gathering information on how best to help them.  She also interviewed current 8^th graders who would like to apply for a scholarship to high school and past scholarship students who needed to understand Rotary rules for continued funding.  Beyond that, Cassie researched the progress in the school garden and will prepare a full report on how we can improve it (with no elephant attracting corn, please). 

 

            People give me a lot of credit for working full time on this school project.  But I don’t actually get three estimates for each construction project, buy the paint and have it delivered, deal with medical emergences among the students or meet with the school board each month.  That almost full time job goes to our Angel in Africa, a woman named Mercy Purity.  She is the Front Desk Manager at our tent camp near the school where she works from 6:30am to midnight.  One day, I got an urgent phone call from her sister Rose, our in Kenya travel agent.  She was worried about Mercy doing two full time jobs, one for the tent camp and one volunteer job for Maywood Rotary.  “She is doing all the work for one school, but she works so hard she is loosing weight and very tired,” Rose said, “And now Ridgewood Rotary wants to adopt another school. She also runs the micro loan water bottling project for Rotary so the mothers can earn their own money. And I know you, Kelvin; you will get more Rotary clubs to adopt more schools. She can’t go on with this work without getting sick.”  And if we lost Mercy, the whole projects stops. 

            Rose was right, so we came up with a solution for our Angel in Africa.  We hired her away from the tent camp to work for us and all the Rotary clubs full time and we are building a modest building called Rotary House near the school so Mercy has a home and office for only one full time job.  Her $5,000.00 a year salary, worth every dollar, is being paid other Rotary clubs and by many past trip volunteers who see how hard Mercy has worked for us for five years with no salary at all.  When Mercy starts work for us on August 31^st, we will be ready for the future.  It will be a future of changing the lives of many more students in many more schools in the Maasai Mara. 

 

            Not that you asked, but for me, it was the best volunteer trip ever.  If I might get personal for a moment, dealing with clinical depression is something I won’t wish on most of my worst enemies.  After trying and continue to try all the medications and therapies, on many days it’s hard to get out of bed and do the family’s laundry as well as all the other tasks any stay at home dad should do.  But on even the worst days of depression, I can plug in my laptop and spend hours working to do some good for 308 children in Kenya.  So to everyone who thinks I give so much, it’s actually the opposite, I get more than I give.  I am not saving them, they are saving me. 

            Yet, being depressed comes with being constantly agitated and that’s not a good thing for any group leader.  For that, I apologize to the volunteers who put up with me. But I am good enough, at least until someone else wants to do this job.  But, on the volunteer trip when we walk up the hill to the school and see literally hundreds of children running towards us with joyful faces just wanting to welcome us, I am happy.  On those mornings, I am the most mentally healthy and highest paid person in Maywood.  And it’s cheaper than Prozac! 

 

            You interested?

 

            So many people ask me if they can share this life changing volunteer trip in either 2009 (filling up fast) or 2010 (filling up).  If you can save $75.00 a week until next July to cover the $4,000.00 cost, fill out a volunteer trip application (available on the website on August 30^th), and be interviewed by the volunteer committee, you have a good chance of going. 

            If you can’t go but want to be a part of this miracle, you can still help.  Ask your children to donate the cost of a slice of pizza each week to help feed the children lunch.  Instead of a Christmas gift, ask Aunt Martha to donate money so that the children have clothes to wear to school.  Ask your church or temple to raise some funds to keep the clean water running at the school.  All of this can be done by making out a check to “Maywood Rotary Club Foundation, 453 Golf Avenue, Maywood, NJ. 07607” or by credit card on our website, “maywoodrotatykenyaproject.org”

            And please remember; don’t leave your medication where the monkeys can get at it.