Raw

With regret, this is a follow up to my last post.

What happened to the boy in question?

On the last day of September we buried Lopir Kiambati. His grave may be unmarked and a simple pile of stones, but I'll never forget him.

The second teenager to be lost to us in a month. Needlessly. In the land of no hospitals and no doctors, the tragedy of teenagers moving on to the next life just becomes part of life.

How I would love to see just one qualified doctor in Korr. 

It's hard to believe it's really true. His passing had been announced to the school staff just after 11am and by 6pm he was committed to the ground, with his shell-shocked classmates shuffling home.

I grieve for the loss of a warm-hearted lad who I've been teaching for over a year. I can't just shrug my shoulders and pretend that his death means nothing to me.

I'm comforted by the words of Jesus:

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” (John 11:25)

I was looking for a photo of Lopir and found this one of him in happier times. He's in the middle, holding the cup with his right hand. One of the lads! 

Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die

You hear stories of places where there is no doctor. I used to imagine places where huts cling to the edge of a forgotten volcano and yes, there's no doctor. Why would there be? Only a few people. Insanely remote. 

But what about Korr? 

There are a few thousand people here. They have mobile phones, education, churches and can even watch the English Premier League at the weekend... but there's no doctor. It's a ready-made situation for a skilled physician. The people are waiting. And they're dying.

Just over a year ago a child passed away due to not having the basic medicines for diabetes. 

This month a teenage girl died of tonsillitis in a nearby school. How is that even possible? Dying from tonsillitis. Let me paraphrase the local procedure. 

"You go to an old man who cuts your baby tongue (tonsils) out at the back of your mouth. Then you have to sit inside your home for a month or so. Don't socialise. You must drink no water."

Why did the girl die? Apparently because she drank water. 

But it doesn't end there. 

There's a boy in my class who hasn't turned up this month. He's had his 'baby tongue' cut out. And he's sat in his home, in the desert heat, under the instructions, "Don't drink water." He's weak. He's scared.

And I wonder if you can hear him today? 

In the words of Jesus:

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

Uncomfortable with your own culture

A wise man once said:

“If you don't like the way the world is turning out, then there's no point shouting at the TV. Try this instead: Go and live in a major city and start to exercise some kind of positive influence. Cities are culture factories. Culture is made in the large cities of this world. Do what you can to influence the culture around you by living in a city. Raise a family. Create a legacy of culture-changers who influence media and politics.”

So what's that got to do with Korr?

This may take a little while to explain...

Let me take you to one of my favourite places in Korr – the TV cottage (okay, I don't know what to call it). There is a small rectangular building in Korr that regularly houses some fifty or so passionate football fans, for the latest offering from the English Premier League. Ahhh, the wonders of television. For ninety minutes each week I have a window into my own culture.

Last weekend, with Manchester United 3-0 up at half-time, I sat back on my plastic chair, looking forward to more of the same in the second half. Ali Abdi, the proprietor of the establishment, likes to flick through the channels at half-time and on this night he settled on a Hollywood blockbuster for fifteen minutes.

Not such a comfortable half-time break for me.

The blockbuster in question played out the usual kinds of scenes:

-sleazy moments, where a man makes sexual advances on a woman and she provides little resistance;

-swaggering 'bad guy' who makes evil appear like a whole lot of fun;

-a wide variety of gruesome ways to die, in glorious technicolour;

I was the sole representative of Western culture in the room. Of course, no one turned around and blamed me for the film, but I couldn't help feeling a little ashamed. Guilty by association? After fifteen minutes of squirming (watching 'my' culture), the football was back on and the film was forgotten. But I wonder what people from Korr must think when they consider my culture, when they see the Hollywood approach to life. Sure, the special effects were impressive, but the morality?

To your average Englishman, I know that I'm sounding prudish right now, but keep in mind, most people in Korr go to the mosque or church where purity is preached and they may see very little or nothing of the world of television, magazines and the Internet from one day to the next. I heard a guy comment on this once,

“The majority of teenagers in Korr are a bit like clean cotton wool. They are not corrupted by mass media like we are.”

They say that plastic bags are one of the great evils that the West have shared with the world, and I'm not denying that, but consider the effect of the 'entertainment' Western culture shares with the watching world. 

Maybe it's time to go and live in the city after all...

I do take heart from the words I find in the Bible that we can make a great difference wherever we are. Check out the words of Jesus, from the book of Matthew. 

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth... 

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

It's not all work, work, work...

When I came to Africa in August 2013 it was not to travel, or find myself, or run away (tried all those before... as a little lad I only managed to get halfway down the garden). 

It was because I felt convinced that God wanted me here for this year. 

But it's not all work, work, work. There are just too many wonderful places in East Africa for me to avoid them all.

Shameless tourist

On the way up Mt Kenya

Anyone for tea?

Wonder of the world...

That abandoned beach feeling

Bashful baby leopard

Almost at the summit of Mt Longonot

Psalm 148

⁷ Praise the Lord from the earth,
    you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
⁸ lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
    stormy winds that do his bidding,
⁹ you mountains and all hills,
    fruit trees and all cedars,
¹⁰ wild animals and all cattle,
    small creatures and flying birds,
¹¹ kings of the earth and all nations,
    you princes and all rulers on earth,
¹² young men and women,
    old men and children.

¹³ Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for his name alone is exalted;
    his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.

All the boats are leaving the island

There's a funny feeling at the end of a school term. I'm talking about transport.

Some of the students and school staff in Korr are actually from a different part of Kenya, or have to go for further studies in the holidays. And everyone wants to head south during the same few days. The problem is that there are only a handful of vehicles available, so there tends to be a mad scramble to secure a place on the back of a jeep/lorry/bus... anything.

Some of the people I work with in Korr.

It feels like a whole bunch of people on a desert island, all waiting for boats - but if you miss the boats, then you remain on the island, scanning the horizon hopefully. In some ways, Korr still has that feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world.

In my case, I had been told that if I paid a set amount, I would be able to join about a dozen of the other teachers, to travel in comfort all the way to Nairobi. If I was up at 3am then I would be "picked" from my house ("pick up" rarely gets used around here. It's much easier to just say ' pick').

A little after 3 o'clock, I heard some full-throated beeping from the gates of the compound (the concept of 'noise pollution' is not as widespread as you might think). My ride! Within two minutes, I was riding in the back of a medium-sized jeep, under the cover of tarpaulin, stretched over the steel frame of the vehicle. I felt like Harry Houdini trying to find a place to park myself, as the jeep was already overloaded with luggage and adults. Ten sardines. Well, at least I didn't need a seatbelt - I was tightly fastened in between two colleagues, who didn't grumble, even though we were basically crushing each other. And then the bad news: we still have five more people to pick. In the words of John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious." Amazingly, under the cover of darkness, we folded another five people into the air pocket.

For four or five hours we lurched around, as the driver did the necessary off-roading to take us all the way to Isiolo. After we had counted our bruises and nursed our dormant legs back to life, a few of us decided to find a shuttle to Nairobi (a shuttle is a refurbished matutu with more leg room than your average matutu. The teachers marvel at the wonders of the 'shuttle'. I've got to admit - I like a good shuttle.).

As we continued on our way to Kenya's capital, I did a lot of looking out of the window and I couldn't help noticing a few quirky little differences. I kept thinking,

You don't see that very often in England... 

For example:

1. A truck with a deployment of soldiers parked at the side of the main road, and about thirty guys lined up to empty their bladders, in the broad daylight. In their defence, they were wearing plenty of camouflage. Furthermore, I haven't seen a service station for months, so, what were their options? Also, I appreciated that they were stood in a relatively straight line - regimental, orderly, efficient.

2. A shepherd herding his goats by launching stones at his precious flock. (I am told that goats can be particularly disobedient animals.)

3. Police stopping your vehicle and asking for ID from everyone. This happened at least five times.

4. Zebra crossings and mountainous speed bumps on a motorway. The Thika Highway looks just like any ordinary motorway until you hit one of the 'sleeping policemen,' followed by very long zebra crossings (across maybe eight lanes of traffic) and, even more amazingly, people actually using these black and white crossings. Who needs extreme sports when you can cross the road for FREE?

On a serious note, I'm thankful for a safe journey, I really am. Only this week, a young Headteacher from Korr lost his life on these roads. God gives us the days we have. Let's use them wisely. 

I love the advice at the start of Ephesians 5:

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 

Exile

Almost twenty years ago, a guy called Peter Shaw said to me, with complete conviction.

"You should live in another country for at least a year."

And I remember what I thought at the time.

"No."

Funny how life turns out. Funny that I never forgot what he said.
The power of some words: lasting.

So what's it like, leaving your own culture for a year?

Let's go with the positives.

There's a lot of deep stuff I could say about the Rendille people and God's goodness (perhaps another time). However, for this post I've mostly just had a bit of fun, by skimming memories from the top of my head, which means that what follows is predominantly random, light and fluffy. 

This has been a year to make the most of the daylight hours. Apparently, 9pm is "missionary midnight" and this rings true for me. I'm often in bed by 10pm. My parents both grew up on farms, where milking hours were early, so surely they can swell with pride that I've been waking at the crack of dawn on almost every day. Make the most of the day and all that...

I am now a walker. Every day, I take the trip to school on my feet. Imagine that! No car. No visits to the petrol station (what petrol station!?). I'm really hoping that this habit continues back in the UK.

My appreciation of fruits and vegetables is at an all-time high. That has to be good, right? When you go for weeks without either, your body rushes to meet that fresh tomato. Nothing like a big, red tomato! Cabbage becomes exciting. No. Really.  Given my new appreciation of the humble vegetable, I have to agree with Proverbs 15v17:

"Better a meal of vegetables where there is love
Than a fattened calf with hatred."

Notably, the middle-aged belly has gone. The "Korr diet" (core diet?) really works for me. No cake in the staffroom for people's birthdays helps enormously. There's no McDonald's in the entire country, so I can't just nip out to 'top up the tummy' with a few cheeseburgers. One bowl of getheri (beans and maize) for the 12 hours between breakfast and the evening meal really deals with any lingering folds of flesh. Marvellous.

I don't have to flush the toilet for months at a time. Think about that for a minute! (Being free from having to pull the flushing lever has saved approximately 17 minutes 15 secs over the course of the entire year... ... !?) The cockroaches deal with everything for free. Yes, cockroaches are the misunderstood good guys!!

I have not had a cough or cold all year. Now that is something to be thankful for. The ongoing hot, dry weather really clears up the snivels. I've not had that miserable combination of feelings of blocked sinuses, competitively-thick cough, rain pouring down, dark outside, driving to work with your wipers swishing wildly in front of your nose, wet playtimes all week, and kids cooped up inside.

Random. Light. Fluffy.

Although I am now curious as to how 'one year away' has affected other people, for those who've been mad enough to try it.

How was your year away?

Death-bed delight

Picture the scene. It's your death-bed and you think to yourself: What did I do with my life? Was it worth it? Did my life make a difference? Too many people are caught with the same thought:

"I wasted it. Oh, how I wasted it."

Let's change the scene to a different, but related scene.

I was able to be part of an extraordinary prayer meeting on Sunday night. Emotional. Inspiring. One couple, nearing the age of retirement, shared their thoughts, looking back over 35 years of work in this part of Kenya. God has used them to reach a people group who knew nothing of Jesus, so that now an 'unreached' people group has become 'reached' in their lifetime; on their watch. They have been able to write down the Rendille language for the first time and translate the New Testament into this local tongue. Checking still has to be done, but the majority of the work has been completed.

And to think, for the first 13 years of living in this remote area, not a single person became a Christian. I think that a lot of people, people like me, would have packed up and gone home. You can only take so much. I'm glad they stayed! Today, the church is thriving and changing lives.

Another couple in the prayer meeting had never been to Korr before. What were they, tourists? Far from it. The guy began to open up. It turns out that they'd been praying for the work and supporting the projects in Korr for about 30 years. They have done what many Christians do: support and pray for places that they may never visit. For decades. Visibly, they were overwhelmed to actually be in the place they had spent years praying for. They were seeing for themselves what all those prayers could achieve.

Let me encourage those of you who have prayed for years and you question yourself:

Is it worth it?

I've seen it with my own eyes. It's worth it. Keep going. God is faithful and He will do it.

And one day, as your life ebbs away, you can rest peacefully in the knowledge that heaven is smiling down on you now.

1 Thessalonians 5

²⁴ He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.