Dear loved ones,
I pray this letter finds you well. I have been in Kenya for seven months now and have been working for the past two months in the informal settlement of Kibarani at St. Francis Primary School under the guardianship of the Kiltegan priests. We serve 226 little ones from age 3-15, kindergarten to 6th grade. I started out in charge of building up the library and thanks to donations from a local private school and individuals, we have accumulated quite a selection of fiction and non-fiction texts, though hands down, the students’ favorite books are about Barack Obama and a bug that somehow finds his way into space. I have had quite the battle with illness the past few weeks and have been advised to stop eating the food at the school because we use rain water to cook and nearby battery factories apparently release lead into the air that settles on our rooftops and in our gutters and gets into our water. My students have bravely been pushing on in teaching me Kiswahili, even though the fruits of it have been minimal. Though we laugh and play and learn together, I go home to my nice cool shower every night, put on clean clothes, make my dinner, and realize that my students do not have this luxury.
Kenyans lean into discomfort, tragedy, and pain. “Ni maisha,” they say. It is life. I have heard people say this phrase in the States, of course, but it takes more faith to say it here because life is so damn hard. I found out recently that one of my boys in 5th grade must collect scrap metal from the garbage dump across the street in order to buy pens for school. Another one of my girls who is in 4th grade was accused by the women of the village of sleeping around with their husbands and was subsequently being harassed heavily. One of our students in kindergarten, who literally lived in the garbage dump with her drug and alcohol addicted father, has been limping all around the village because she has a huge festering sore in her foot from jiggers that were popped out of her skin and left untreated for a month. This is life. It is jiggers and trash, harassment and shame. To be so close to all of this violence and this pain makes my heart ache, but it also wakes me up out of my sleepwalking indifference, shocks me out of my numbness and forces me to FEEL the world around me.
Some of you already know that one of our students was raped a few weeks ago. She is in third grade, described as bright and shy by her teacher, a small thin girl with huge chocolate eyes. Her name is literally Joy Peace. I have met her a few times in the library; spunky in Swahili and collected in her grasp of English, she is a leader. I couldn’t look at her for weeks afterwards without my eyes tearing up, my heart swelling, bearing witness to her perseverance to keep showing up, to keep going on. Susan, a fellow Maryknoll Lay Missioner and doctor, told me that her patients treated for rape have been between 10 months and 83 years old. This violation happens all of the time in our village, especially because of the prevalence of alcoholism and drug addiction.
Because of my girls, because of the way men look at me here, I feel the chains of my gender so much more than I ever have before. Just yesterday, a gentlemen asked me how many cows he would have to pay to marry a girl like me. And keep in mind that this man is old enough to be my grandfather. I have the benefit of a college education, years of positive reinforcement, and a legion of strong female mentors…and still these men are still able to make me feel so small and helpless. What then, will happen to my girls? How can we help them to see their femininity as a gift rather than a curse? Here in Kenya, if you have large breasts people say it is because you have allowed many men to touch them. If you have your period, you are unclean. In fact, sanitary napkins are incredibly expensive here and sold in small packages of 5-10. Our girls cannot afford sanitary napkins at all so they skip school when they are menstruating or use leaves, rags, scraps of paper, whatever they can find to keep the blood from showing on their uniforms.
Judy and St. Patrick’s Dispensary in the informal settlement of Bangladesh recently started a project and our school is the pilot. There is an organization called Days for Girls International (http://www.daysforgirls.org/) which teaches local women how to make reusable sanitary napkins that are effective for 2-3 years. We plan on making this an income-generating project for the single mothers of Kibarani so that they no longer have to pick scrap metal from the garbage or make the local brew or sell their bodies in order to provide for their families. A social worker and a nurse from our mother parish will be coming to the school on a monthly basis to talk to the girls about feminine hygiene and their changing bodies. These sanitary napkins give the girls dignity in their femininity. We hope to provide free kits to our girls once they reach the age of menstruation. The cost of each kit is $7 to cover supplies and the work done by the women of the village, but the reality is that the people who really need these products cannot afford them because a whole family lives on less than a dollar a day. If you would like to partner with us on this project, please email me at [email protected] and I will give you details.
This September, we will be starting Taekwondo classes for girls as well, so they can know the basics of how to defend themselves. They say that in mission, you just go and you will find out what the needs are. Your ministry is where your skills and the needs of the people meet, it is the cause that makes your heart ache and keeps you up at night. Friends, these girls are our mission. These are our little sisters, our daughters, our students and they are sacred, just as I am, just as you are. May we help one another to remember that vastness within us that is unnameable and unknowable and yet so clearly us. All of us. Together.
I pray this letter finds you well. I have been in Kenya for seven months now and have been working for the past two months in the informal settlement of Kibarani at St. Francis Primary School under the guardianship of the Kiltegan priests. We serve 226 little ones from age 3-15, kindergarten to 6th grade. I started out in charge of building up the library and thanks to donations from a local private school and individuals, we have accumulated quite a selection of fiction and non-fiction texts, though hands down, the students’ favorite books are about Barack Obama and a bug that somehow finds his way into space. I have had quite the battle with illness the past few weeks and have been advised to stop eating the food at the school because we use rain water to cook and nearby battery factories apparently release lead into the air that settles on our rooftops and in our gutters and gets into our water. My students have bravely been pushing on in teaching me Kiswahili, even though the fruits of it have been minimal. Though we laugh and play and learn together, I go home to my nice cool shower every night, put on clean clothes, make my dinner, and realize that my students do not have this luxury.
Kenyans lean into discomfort, tragedy, and pain. “Ni maisha,” they say. It is life. I have heard people say this phrase in the States, of course, but it takes more faith to say it here because life is so damn hard. I found out recently that one of my boys in 5th grade must collect scrap metal from the garbage dump across the street in order to buy pens for school. Another one of my girls who is in 4th grade was accused by the women of the village of sleeping around with their husbands and was subsequently being harassed heavily. One of our students in kindergarten, who literally lived in the garbage dump with her drug and alcohol addicted father, has been limping all around the village because she has a huge festering sore in her foot from jiggers that were popped out of her skin and left untreated for a month. This is life. It is jiggers and trash, harassment and shame. To be so close to all of this violence and this pain makes my heart ache, but it also wakes me up out of my sleepwalking indifference, shocks me out of my numbness and forces me to FEEL the world around me.
Some of you already know that one of our students was raped a few weeks ago. She is in third grade, described as bright and shy by her teacher, a small thin girl with huge chocolate eyes. Her name is literally Joy Peace. I have met her a few times in the library; spunky in Swahili and collected in her grasp of English, she is a leader. I couldn’t look at her for weeks afterwards without my eyes tearing up, my heart swelling, bearing witness to her perseverance to keep showing up, to keep going on. Susan, a fellow Maryknoll Lay Missioner and doctor, told me that her patients treated for rape have been between 10 months and 83 years old. This violation happens all of the time in our village, especially because of the prevalence of alcoholism and drug addiction.
Because of my girls, because of the way men look at me here, I feel the chains of my gender so much more than I ever have before. Just yesterday, a gentlemen asked me how many cows he would have to pay to marry a girl like me. And keep in mind that this man is old enough to be my grandfather. I have the benefit of a college education, years of positive reinforcement, and a legion of strong female mentors…and still these men are still able to make me feel so small and helpless. What then, will happen to my girls? How can we help them to see their femininity as a gift rather than a curse? Here in Kenya, if you have large breasts people say it is because you have allowed many men to touch them. If you have your period, you are unclean. In fact, sanitary napkins are incredibly expensive here and sold in small packages of 5-10. Our girls cannot afford sanitary napkins at all so they skip school when they are menstruating or use leaves, rags, scraps of paper, whatever they can find to keep the blood from showing on their uniforms.
Judy and St. Patrick’s Dispensary in the informal settlement of Bangladesh recently started a project and our school is the pilot. There is an organization called Days for Girls International (http://www.daysforgirls.org/) which teaches local women how to make reusable sanitary napkins that are effective for 2-3 years. We plan on making this an income-generating project for the single mothers of Kibarani so that they no longer have to pick scrap metal from the garbage or make the local brew or sell their bodies in order to provide for their families. A social worker and a nurse from our mother parish will be coming to the school on a monthly basis to talk to the girls about feminine hygiene and their changing bodies. These sanitary napkins give the girls dignity in their femininity. We hope to provide free kits to our girls once they reach the age of menstruation. The cost of each kit is $7 to cover supplies and the work done by the women of the village, but the reality is that the people who really need these products cannot afford them because a whole family lives on less than a dollar a day. If you would like to partner with us on this project, please email me at [email protected] and I will give you details.
This September, we will be starting Taekwondo classes for girls as well, so they can know the basics of how to defend themselves. They say that in mission, you just go and you will find out what the needs are. Your ministry is where your skills and the needs of the people meet, it is the cause that makes your heart ache and keeps you up at night. Friends, these girls are our mission. These are our little sisters, our daughters, our students and they are sacred, just as I am, just as you are. May we help one another to remember that vastness within us that is unnameable and unknowable and yet so clearly us. All of us. Together.