Jambo from Chogoria!

Jambo! (hello!)

It is currently 10:27pm on Tuesday May 15th in Chogoria, Kenya. I am alive, I am safe and I am having the time of my life... That's all for now. Goodbye..... Okay, I'm kidding. There is SO much that I want to tell you all about... I have 10 pages in my journal just about the last two days. This is crazy. But that is a lot of information so for today, I am just going to share with you what happened today... because that is what is the most important.

So here we go:

As many of you know, while in Chogoria I am working with Village HopeCore International along with Morgan and Darla. Today we had our first adventure. VHI is a micro-enterprise non-profit organization adn it also has a community health branch. We were initially told we were going to be picked up at around 10am this morning... The first vehicle for VHI showed up to pick up Beth and Cindy to bring them to the community health day, the teachers and Chris left for the school and the three of us remained at the guest house... 40 minutes later, our ride showed up. Welcome to Africa time ;) However, we did not care and enjoyed exploring a bit of the grounds and waiting for our driver.

Our drivers name is Micheni, and I probably spelt that wrong but that's okay. Micheni works for VHI and brought us up to their office. Carlo, a Californian peace core volunteer, joined us at the office and was our guide for the rest of the day. I was personally very grateful for Carlo because although Micheni speaks English very well, it is still heavily accented. Carlo was able to explain to us what exactly we were going to be doing and answer any and all questions we had throughout the day.

We traveled out of Chogoria to six applicant's homes. VHI currently has about 10 merry-go-rounds (a group) for clients and each merry-go-round consists of 12 people. The homes we were visiting today had all just gone through the education and necessary training before they could receive the loan and today was all about discussing and creating business plans and essentially performing a risk analysis. For us business/business communication kids-- this was super interesting! To begin the interviewing process, Carlo asked some basic questions: names, spouses names, children's names & ages, expenses (school fees, personal expenses), etc. He then dove into questions such as: income, profitability, and any asssets that they had. He would also ask what businesses are currently established? All of the homes in the merry-go-round we visisted today had: a dairy farm (by farm I mean one maybe two cows), banana plants, and tea plants. Others had pumpkin plants, pineapple plants and coffee! Pineapple and coffee plants were really fun to see, as well as tea, because I have never seen them before! I knew that pineappples grew in the ground but had no idea they sprouted up out of the center of a plant. Neat!

One of the families- the ones with all of the forementioned plants, took us to see those plants which all grow on, get this, the side of a mountain. No lie. We hiked down the side of this mountain to see where these plants were. He pointed out his brother's coffee plants and then to his own which were located in the valley below us, about 500 yds, we decided we weren't going down there! Nevertheless, it was so cool to see & the view from the side of the mountain was absolutely breathtaking. This family also had a little boy following them around as we walked around-- not sure if he was their child or their grandchild, but we are positive we were the first white people he had ever seen. He was very shy and kept his distance despite our smiling and waving. Although-- right before we left, Morgan dug into her purse and found a fruitsnack package and held it out to him. Without hesistation he ran over, grabbed the bag and returned to the saftey of the legs he was hiding behind.

Returning to the interview-- if the families had cows, Carlo would ask how many liters the cows produced per day. Ideally, VHI wanted these cows to produce between 6 and 12 liters per day. Cows in Kenya cost about $340 US dollars and goats cost $20 US dollars... quite a sticker shock (positive) compared to the US. But nevertheless, this is something that these families need loans for as well as to repair the pens for the cows and to feed them. Because the majority of Kenyans drink tea and drink their tea with milk... milk is in high demand and obviously calcium is good for the body... Cows are encouraged!! Along with the feed, each home is required to have a 1/2 acre of this special grass, my mind is slipping the name of it, per cow... so two cows-- 1 acre. Again, this is the ideal situation. If the families are approved for the loan, they are given the money (we get to participate in that on Thursday!!) and VHI will return two weeks later to make sure that they have followed through with their business plan and that they have invested where they said they would invest. The merry-go-rounds and families that are a part of them have two years plus a 2 month grace period to pay back their loans at a 9% interest rate (most of the banks in Kenya that do micro-enterprises have a 20% interest rate and a much shorter payback time). They are also required to put away 100 ksh (shillings) per month in a "savings" account that they will receive in return when and if their loan is repaid in whole.

Okay... so that's VHI in a nutshell. I know, you're thinking really Jacie, a nutshell? Yeah- that is how much has gone on today! So returning to the rest of the day. We were done around 2pm and decided to take a little adventure to the primary school on the hospital compound. Hands were immediately thrust out just to get a touch of our skin (we are truly an attraction to these children). We found the rest of our group in the teacher's room having tea and joined them. After tea we ventured back outside to where all the children were playing. I took my camera out and began taking pictures and the kids seriously swarmed me! It was overwhelming, but for many of them- they have never seen themselves through the lens of a camera... so fun to show them! But after awhile, the camera needed to go away. haha. After the camera came the hand holding. Once you let your arms down the kids latched on-- they fought off their friends just so they could be the only one to hold the mzungu's hand (white person). My left arm was held by an 8 year old little girl and my right hand was held by a 9 year old little boy.

Before the kids gained the courage to reach out to us, Morgan had pointed out the pure joy and happiness that the kids were showing while simply running around a big open field/ dirt area with nothing but themselves, a few sticks and well... that's it. I found the same thing to be true of us (the white girls ha ha) when the kids were all holding our arms. As I looked around the field I saw each of my group members surrounded by a hoard of children and their faces were absolutely glowing. My cheeks legitimately hurt while we were playing with them. The kids sang songs to us, danced (they have some awesome moves, seriously, those kids can get down), and laughed & warmed my heart to the core.

What a beautiful place this truly is. I am starting to realize what everyone else who has traveled here meant when they say that they cannot put into words their experience. There are no words to adequately describe this feeling or to even make it comprehendable. Africa has truly captured my heart.

Well, that is all for now. There are so many things I want to share with you all but that will have to wait-- limited internet and quite frankly, I'm exhausted. We visit more homes tomorrow and will learn even more. I am taking a LOT of pictures, don't worry! You'll all see them soon. Thank you again for continued prayers.