WOW! What a day. (collin)

Today was a huge day. We had some truly fantastic experiences.

We started out our day by visiting the Vocational Training Center. I have been excited about this day for an entire year now, and let me tell you, I was not disappointed. 

The center is the location used for the sewing program that Lindsay and I planned with Terry last year and that VCF (our church, Vineyard Christian Fellowship) is sponsoring. Here is a super quick refresher for new readers. It is a 2 year vocational training program with government certified teachers. There are 30 students. Participants will graduate with a certificate and with job placements. VCF is funding the first batch of students through the first 2 years but the tuition is considered a loan of sorts. When those first students graduate, they will be certified to teach, and they will repay the "loan" by teaching the next batch of students.

It is hard to put into words what it felt like to visit. We had spent so much time planning with Terry last year, but nothing was up and running by the time we left. To walk into a center filled with students all working and being taught a valuable skill that they will be able to use to support themselves was just so moving. 

We were introduced to all of the students. Everyone is so grateful for the program. Hearing this expressed and seeing all of these people working so hard was just really cool. When you contrast this with their previous lives, and the lives of so many others in the villages, you just see how much this means to them. 

Here are a few pictures from the sewing program.

Here is a short video of one woman talking a bit about the program. (sorry for the bad audio. It was not a good environment for capturing sound and we haven't done any real post production. This is just from the camera).

Next we went to Pamoja Children's Center. We spent a fair amount of time there on our last trip, so it was wonderful to be back.  It is just such a beautiful and serene location. The kids there are so exuberant, the teachers are wonderful, and the program is amazing. 

This year they have 69 kids (19 more than previous years) who attend every day. One thing that the program does is feed the kids twice per day. Due to increased enrollment and an inflexible budget, it looked like they were not going to be able to feed all of these kids. They were trying to figure out how to send 19 of the kids home. Obviously, this isn't something that anyone would want to do, so they were dreading it. THEN, they received a substantial boost of money that was just enough to allow them to keep all of the kids enrolled and feed everyone each day. This money came from "The Alternative Christmas Catalogue" at VCF. Several individuals purchased meals for these kids at christmas time as a gift for someone else. That gift has allowed all of these kids to receive food that, otherwise, they would not.

We left the Children's Center and walked to a nearby village to meet with the chief of the whole area (he is the head chief over 28 villages). I don't usually stress out about much, but I was pretty nervous about this meeting. We didn't know we would be invited to meet him until partway through the day, so I was totally unprepared. I was just wearing a band tee shirt and ripped cargo pants and I had nothing prepared to say to him. When we were invited inside, I took a deep breath and stepped through the door.

The meeting was actually one of the most positive interactions I have ever had in a Digo Village. At first the introductions and the conversation were very formal. We started out by thanking him for the honor to meet with him and for welcoming us into his village. He was very gracious and thanked us for coming. After the nervous beginning, it didn't take long for things to unfold. Terry was with us and she has a very good rapport with the chief. He actually sits on the board of a couple of her projects (one of them being... OUR project, Jameelah's Vineyard, that assists women and infants). He said that, if we are with Terry, then we are free to come and go as we please. He said that she is one of the most valuable members of the community because of everything she does. He told us that anything we wanted to do in a partnership with her would have his blessing. He actually offered to write us a letter granting us official permission to pass through the villages and film anything we want (that is NOT a common thing here).

Before long we were laughing and talking about many things. We had told him in our introduction that we are from the U.S. but apparently he missed it. He asked us where we are from and we said "We are from the U.S." Not many people from the U.S. visit this part of kenya. Upon hearing that, he almost jumped up and he said "The U.S..!?!?!? OBAMA!?!?!? You my friends are KENYAN. You can do ANYTHING you want while you are here. WELCOME!!! Be free!!!"

After this meeting, we were feeling pretty fantastic. We were riding our motorcycle back down out of the hills to town just taking everything in. We were on one of the rare stretches of that road that is fully paved, straight, and relatively free of holes. I had eased the bike up to about 55 MPH when... the back tire blew out.

I have been riding a motorcycle for years, but I have never experienced anything like that in my life before. All at once, the back of the bike was sliding and swerving and pitching all over the road. To make matters worse, it has just started to rain, so the road was slippery. In case you are wondering, this was an absolutely terrifying experience at 55 MPH. Here is a recap of what was going through my head.

"We are going FAST and I can't control this thing. We are going to DIE!!! OK, we are slowing down a bit... we might not die now, but this is going to HURT... I might rather die. OK... we might get by with just a few broken bones. Wait... I stopped us. How on earth did I do that? How are we not dead?"

And this is what was going through Lindsay's head, and directly into my ear at full volume "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Incidentally, my dad and I had just taken the PA Motorcycle Safety course about 2 weeks before this trip. They didn't teach you to go through that macabre thought process in that situation, but somehow I recalled exactly how they DID teach us to handle the bike. I was able to do what I had to do to avoid a really bad crash.

We called the guy who we rented the bike from. He was incredibly apologetic and came rushing out (that's a relative term... we were pretty far away) to meet us and to pay someone to fix it. Lindsay made some friends with several residents of the Matuga village on the premise that they thought her shrieking was funny (once they realized that we were okay). They also were very impressed with my driving skills as they witnessed the whole event. 

After 3.5 hours and a HUGE monsoon-like thunderstorm, were were back in Diani, safe and sound.

So, I can safely say that this was a day packed full of excitement.