My Thats a Lovely Mountain, or, Grandma would be Proud
For the first time since I was about 6 years old I went to church on Sunday (i guess this doesnt count weddings and funerals). Mr grandmother would be proud. No, it certainly wasnt voluntary, but there I went, and somehow made it out in one piece.
We left saturday morning-ish (nothing here happens in an exact nor timely manner) with Ronnie, our friendly Irish missionary neighbor in his land roving all terrain vehicle. Its quite exciting to see these vehicles being used as they were meant to be, unlike in thte US. All but 15 minutes of our 4 hour journey were off road (technically it was on road, but the road was nothig more than a glorified cow path complete with giant boulders, deep sinkholes, and steep shoulders. it was like riding the bone jarring space mountain at disney world for eternity, but lsightly more fun). We were headed to the place where ronnie had been stationed a few years ago called Oltia Sika. The ride was fun as we spotted lots of animals along the way and he was more than happy to stop to let us photograph them. We were followewd by another vehicle full of visiting canadian missionary types who were coming to see what their donations were being used for.
OtiaSika is part of the Masai Rural Training Center. The Center there is used to train local herdsmen on how to better their cattle and goat breeds, provide vocational training, and community assistance. The programs that they are working on are really fantastic as the community is about 2,000 members but speard far and wide and very isolated from any towns or services, however it seems that they dont involve community leaders as much as they would like to since there is not a lot of motivation in the different homesteads.
Oltia Sika is beautiful. The Center there also features several small guesthouses which are used to bring donors to show where their money is going. This is where we stayed. In the middle is a grand gazebo facing Mt Kilimanjaro. My that is a lovely mountain. In the morning light we shuld see the glacier glistening on top.
Saturday we arrived and were fed a proper meal with a bit more flavor than usual.
Sunday we were hauled out a bed for breakfast and then it was off to church. I wasnt terribly thrilled about this however it ended up being a very interesting experience. As I've said, instead of mourning their faith, the Kenyans use religion to celebrate life and give hope, and as such the service was full of postive lecture and singing and dancing and drumming. At the start of the service the men and women all dance and drum together , each playing different roles in the dance. During the service only the women sing and drum, and the sexes are seated on opposite sides of the church. I was sitting towards the back. AS the church began to fill up a small army of little girls came in. Slowly they began to surround me as i smiled at them and made faces, realizing that this was probably the first time most of them had ever seen a white person. Eventually I looked like Princess Leia surrounded by curious ewoks. They rubbed furiously at my skin trying to see if the white came off, and pulled at my hair since it was different from theirs and they couldnt understand why it wouldnt stay in place when put that way.
The service was well over 2 hours and by the end the novelty of being molested had worn off and I was ready to run far away. We were then taken on a long game drive up a rather steep hill seeing lots of the different breeds of antelope and many giraffes. We got to thike up through a rain forest to the other side of the hills that overlook the plains and the mombassa road.
Another goat was slaughtered for our eating enjoyment and I do confess thath i'll have to try this on my own one of these days-afterall making a turducken is infinitely easier.
Today we woke up to the magic of the mountain once again and got a tour of the surrounding community. Everyone got car sick on the way home since one car was not returning so we had 9 piled in the land rover-no air conditioning and the windows had to be shut most of the way since the dust was flying so bad. Home now for a day to recover before heading to Loitokitoik, a larger village area located about 7,000 feet up mt kilimanjaro. very much looking forward to this.
We left saturday morning-ish (nothing here happens in an exact nor timely manner) with Ronnie, our friendly Irish missionary neighbor in his land roving all terrain vehicle. Its quite exciting to see these vehicles being used as they were meant to be, unlike in thte US. All but 15 minutes of our 4 hour journey were off road (technically it was on road, but the road was nothig more than a glorified cow path complete with giant boulders, deep sinkholes, and steep shoulders. it was like riding the bone jarring space mountain at disney world for eternity, but lsightly more fun). We were headed to the place where ronnie had been stationed a few years ago called Oltia Sika. The ride was fun as we spotted lots of animals along the way and he was more than happy to stop to let us photograph them. We were followewd by another vehicle full of visiting canadian missionary types who were coming to see what their donations were being used for.
OtiaSika is part of the Masai Rural Training Center. The Center there is used to train local herdsmen on how to better their cattle and goat breeds, provide vocational training, and community assistance. The programs that they are working on are really fantastic as the community is about 2,000 members but speard far and wide and very isolated from any towns or services, however it seems that they dont involve community leaders as much as they would like to since there is not a lot of motivation in the different homesteads.
Oltia Sika is beautiful. The Center there also features several small guesthouses which are used to bring donors to show where their money is going. This is where we stayed. In the middle is a grand gazebo facing Mt Kilimanjaro. My that is a lovely mountain. In the morning light we shuld see the glacier glistening on top.
Saturday we arrived and were fed a proper meal with a bit more flavor than usual.
Sunday we were hauled out a bed for breakfast and then it was off to church. I wasnt terribly thrilled about this however it ended up being a very interesting experience. As I've said, instead of mourning their faith, the Kenyans use religion to celebrate life and give hope, and as such the service was full of postive lecture and singing and dancing and drumming. At the start of the service the men and women all dance and drum together , each playing different roles in the dance. During the service only the women sing and drum, and the sexes are seated on opposite sides of the church. I was sitting towards the back. AS the church began to fill up a small army of little girls came in. Slowly they began to surround me as i smiled at them and made faces, realizing that this was probably the first time most of them had ever seen a white person. Eventually I looked like Princess Leia surrounded by curious ewoks. They rubbed furiously at my skin trying to see if the white came off, and pulled at my hair since it was different from theirs and they couldnt understand why it wouldnt stay in place when put that way.
The service was well over 2 hours and by the end the novelty of being molested had worn off and I was ready to run far away. We were then taken on a long game drive up a rather steep hill seeing lots of the different breeds of antelope and many giraffes. We got to thike up through a rain forest to the other side of the hills that overlook the plains and the mombassa road.
Another goat was slaughtered for our eating enjoyment and I do confess thath i'll have to try this on my own one of these days-afterall making a turducken is infinitely easier.
Today we woke up to the magic of the mountain once again and got a tour of the surrounding community. Everyone got car sick on the way home since one car was not returning so we had 9 piled in the land rover-no air conditioning and the windows had to be shut most of the way since the dust was flying so bad. Home now for a day to recover before heading to Loitokitoik, a larger village area located about 7,000 feet up mt kilimanjaro. very much looking forward to this.
posted by -cn at 7:42 AM
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