I had hoped to get caught up on the blog posts last night, but internet access at the AACC guest house was not working, so I'm behind on that by several days. More will come.
In the meantime, a quick overview from the last few days: a day and a half in Kisumu to meet children and youth involved in the Kenya Association for Advancement of Children. KAAC helps organize clubs in primary and secondary schools around advocacy for rights. We met three groups: young adults, high-schoolers, and primary students. We met them in groups, which makes it really hard to get to individual stories, but so many of them, even at a young age, show signs of being strong advocates for social change.
Also, we met with three different groups of women who have set up their small businesses with loans from UCC partners orgs. Some of these give new definition to SMALL business -- talk about a shoestring. But that shoestring is often supporting a whole family as well as a couple of employees. Yesterday I visited a number of them in Nairobi's biggest slum. Operating out of closet-sized premises, the squeeze out a living in the harsh climate of the slums. It had rained (we starting the rainy season) and the streets and lanes were swamps of mud, yet people carry on. It's awesome and humbling how gracious and hospitable they are, how honoured they are to have a visitor from Canada, from their sponsoring organization's partner. The requests to carry prayers back to Canada on their behalf - that they are praying for us are sincere and profuse. And the groups are not just about taking care of business, they seems to have become extended family, and even take on charity works of their own. One group collectively supports a very elderly widow, paying her rent, buying clothes and food, and visiting her regularly. She joined us, and was bashful and excited to have a picture with the Munguzu (white person).
I'm at Wilson airport, Nairobi's small-plane airport that serves a lot of the safari traffic. Fortunately they have a free hot-spot, so I can do this quick update. I doubt there's an internet access at the safari site, so look for updates later in the week.
Lions and Tiger and Elephants, Oh My!!
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