Yesterday we have had the opportunity to meet and spend time with some extraordinary people. We spent part of the day at Emmanuel's Place, home to dozens of beautiful children, from babies to high school graduates. Sister Louise is a Catholic nun who has been loving and advocating for children who have lost parents to war, AIDS and other circumstances for the last 20 years. Many of the kids we had an opportunity to meet spoke of her as their second mother, and while you can imagine there would be need for some strict routines in caring for over 100 kids it was immediately apparent that love and being loved shaped the children there.
Many of the kids have spent their whole childhood with Sister Louise, while others have come more recently, escaping SPLA (Sudanese People's Liberation Army) where they had been forced into lives as child soldiers. Regardless of where they have come from, Sister Louise advocates for, and strives to ensure, education and the opportunity for a future, shaped by the dreams and ambitions of the kids she is caring for.
It was very cool to spend a little time with some of the kids, as they proudly showed us their rooms, talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up, or what sport they excelled at (Dana and the kids had the chance to give some of the Soccer balls and skipping ropes provided through the Alex Aitken fundraiser). What struck me most about this place and these kids, is that they were kids, given the opportunity to be kids again... to be loved, to belong and to dream.
Today, Mom & Dad drove Noah & I 56 kilometers in a mere 2 1/2 hours (it is difficult to describe the road conditions, and might be best to say at times we drove on nothing that resembled a road!). Our destination was the town of Najile, where Noah and I spent the day with Solomon, a small plot farmer, who has resiliently established a sustainable farm that feeds his family in a place that is currently suffering from the worst drought the Maasai people can recall in their oral history.
With one 1/2" water line he has cultivated about an acre of corn (for maize flour), beans, cabbage, collards and indigenous fruit such as mango and papaya. After touring their land, Noah and I set to weeding the collard patch with Solomon, his daughter and some neighbor kids curious about the muzungos (Noah and I), pink and sweating under the relentless African sun. Solomon was a farmer to the core, saving seeds, nursing next season's seedlings along, while praying that this years crop would not fail. Nothing is wasted, with weeds going directly to their goats, chicken and cattle, while the livestock' 'fertilizer' goes back into the soil around the hand watered & weeded plants.
Noah and I plied Solomon with many questions around his farming practices, family life, and Maasai culture while we worked. He in turn asked about our life in Canada and we wondered at all that we held in common, despite our very different lives. It was a truly amazing day, in which Noah even learned a little about herding goats... a transferable skill even if we don't have leopards and baboons to contend with at home!
