Just a glass of water, thanks.

Just some water, thanks.

We're so fortunate if we're among those who have access to plenty of clean water.

Essential to life and health, to cleanliness, to comfort, to crops, to herds, everything.

Without clean water though, it's a difficult task ahead for us.

Access to clean water is a continuing problem for much of the world, and the demand is increasing everywhere.

Time for a new approach?  A new technology?

Meanwhile, simple solutions are available for most places where it's needed.  Places where a well and pump will make all the difference.  Take a look.

"No other humanitarian intervention produces a more dramatic effect on life than access to clean water and sanitation." 
~ World Vision
(I so enjoy these folks.  Dad introduced me to WV decades ago.  They're the ones that really impressed him. ) 

And just today in Kenya ...

  These are our kids in Kenya today, or at least some of them.

They're in school, so they get to eat.  It's a simple mid-day meal, but for many, that's all they have.  We're doing our best to help out the families.

Just a few miles away is the home of these three little girls; the photo is from June.  Their mom died and their dad abandoned them.  Grandma and three granddaughters, in a hut of mud and rocks with literally nothing.  We bought a few things for the house, mattresses so they wouldn't be sleeping on the dirt, and some food.  We bought school uniforms for the girls and got them enrolled.  Their future is dependent on education to a great degree.  Africa is hungry for educated workers.

It doesn't take a lot to help someone who has so little.  Much like our grandparents during the depression years, they're just trying to survive, but they hope for better things for their children. 

Our boys (right) in Guruguru; in the middle with a red t-shirt showing under his uniform shirt, that's Wakili.  I know his name because he was the first and well ahead of a crowd of thirty to run home and say thanks when I visited.

Some of the girls (left) in the same village; in their new uniforms at school, they're on a path with a future.  It's a difficult one, to say the least.

Times along the African coast are deadly.  For many, just surviving and perhaps keeping the kids in school as well are the simple focus of a family's efforts. 

Want to bring extraordinary joy to a family?  Help them provide for their children.

In Kenya, a couple hundred dollars will pretty much keep a kid alive and in school for a year.  It's not enough by itself, but it's a beginning.  Feel free to ask me how it works for the folks we know.

Africa isn't

Africa isn't a country.  Kenya is.  Ethiopia is.  Benin  Ghana, South Africa, Gabon, DRC, Mozambique, Sudan, Liberia, Cote Ivoire, Benin, the Gambia, Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria, ... all countries.  But Africa; the place is monster huge.

Africa is much too large to summarize.
 

That's the US and China and Europe stuffed into Africa's outline ...

Larger than the USA, China, India, Japan, and all of Europe. 

Combined.

And now for the interesting part... Africa is broadly diverse in culture, history, ecology, climatology.  Folks from East Africa and West Africa and South Africa are different; surprise, surprise; and folks from the Mediterranean coast often refer to themselves as other than African.  Folks from Sao Tome & Principe laugh and say, "... but this isn't really Africa."

I've seen just a little of five African countries.  Only almost fifty more countries to go.  :)      
Understanding the world is a difficult task, but what a joy to see even just a little of it up close.  What say we pick one and go?

 Algeria  Angola  Benin  Botswana  Burkina Faso Burundi   Cameroon   Cape Verde  

 Chad   Comoros   Cote d'Ivoire   Democratic Republic of the Congo, 

 Republic of the Congo   Djibouti  

 Egypt   Equatorial Guinea 

 Eritrea   Ethiopia  

 Gabon   Gambia, The 

 Ghana   Guinea    Guinea-Bissau   Kenya    Lesotho    Liberia    Libya    Madagascar 

 Malawi   Mali    Mauritania   Mauritius   Morocco   Mozambique  Namibia  

 Niger   Nigeria   Rwanda  
Sao Tome and Principe   Senegal

 Seychelles   Sierra Leone   Somalia    South Africa   South Sudan

 Sudan  Swaziland  Tanzania  Togo  Tunisia  Uganda  Zambia   Zimbabwe

"Africa is a diverse continent, with each country, or even each part of a country having its own unique culture. While it is common for people in the West to refer to Africa as if it was a single country, one should remember the sheer size of the continent, and that Africa is not one country but 54 different countries, meaning that it is impossible to make generalizations of Africa as a whole.

... misunderstood by many people as a land of poverty, corruption, war and famine, and simply as a land of suffering—a misconception only bolstered by the media and the numerous NGOs on the continent—Africa today is a vast continent with many bustling metropolises, friendly people, and amazingly diverse and beautiful landscapes. While there are plenty of places resembling the stereotypical Africa of war, famine, and poverty, much of the continent is peaceful, well-fed, and of working class" ~WikiTravel.org

OCT '11 - Kenya Good & Bad

OK, so I'd never seen a termite mound in person before. Huge, to say the least. On a short walk from my lodging for exercise, I found this next to the roadway. People have to walk around it as they make their way to and from school, work, etc.

Speaking of school, I walked by a class meeting under a tree. The Ministry of Education says the national student/teacher ratio is 46/1. I've not seen classes that small. Our elementary school kids are in classes of 100-200 with one teacher.


In Kenya for work but hindered by broken ribs, I had a couple of days in bed followed by cautious mobility until I was able to fly home. I had a parade of visitors from the local community while I was laid up. I deeply regretted missing the work opportunity; good folks, good work, useful stuff.

 
Walking carefully, feeling my way along as the ribs let me know what my range of movement should be, I got a little fresh air in an attempt to stave off the boredom of bed rest and recuperation.

On the northeastern side of Mombasa, the Shanzu area is coastal and gets rain during a couple of seasons during the year. It's just enough to encourage gardening and small crops, but it's unreliable enough to preclude dependable harvests. Much of the produce sold in the area comes from the northern territories.

The beaches are gorgeous and there are numerous resorts and hotels along the way. Tourism is a large part of the local economy, and variations in the season are felt directly by the day workers. Political turmoil this summer has lowered the number of tourists, and local folks who depend on them are struggling to feed their families.

Christian and Muslim families live side by side and are proud of their ability to do so with tolerance and grace. They'll tell you about it if you're interested. 

Most folks are polite, gracious, and worth knowing.

The rich and the government seem to be more bizarrely corrupt than can really be grasped. Crooked as a dog's hind leg, my dad would have said.

The average middle-class Kenyan pays 17 bribes per month in the course of their normal affairs. Construction managers bribe government inspectors rather than provide safety equipment for their workers. Indigenous folks are evicted from land on which they've lived for generations (centuries) so the rich and influential can take the land for their own use.

Pirates from Somalia make people nervous, but related crimes span the gamut from human trafficking and drug smuggling to neighborhood violence, theft, and kidnapping. It's not a safe place if you're poor. The rich have walls and guards.

The gap between rich and poor is widening in Kenya, perhaps even more rapidly than in the developed world due to the youth of their constitution and democratic process. The photo (right) shows the city where wealth is centered and the countryside where the majority of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day. The same moral dilemma that provoked the world market corruption in '07-8 pervades the Kenyan government and market place. For now, they can make themselves wealthy at the expense of others and do so without visible restraint.

Aid projects to improve education, governmental accountability, business process transparency, have spent billions with formally reported unsatisfactory result. Like many developing nations, Kenya has a long way to go.

OCT '11 - Ethiopia Contrasts

An African and Arab lineage makes for handsome boys and beautiful girls, as my eastern African friends have been happy to explain to me. 

Children in Addis Ababa greet and entertain the stranger in their neighborhood.  As is often the case, the poor are gracious and welcoming, the rich, not so much unless you're part of their rich world.


Children gather to greet me; one cheerful fellow invited me home to meet his family.


The boy's family, tolerant of their son (left) bringing home a tourist, tells me about the plants and trees nearby. They wont let me pay for the privilege of taking pictures.  The walls of their house are made from mud and straw; seems to work well. The boy is a natural leader/organizer. Wonder who he'll be in a decade.  Hope he gets a chance.

In the center of the city, slum areas are under pressure by the government.  Construction projects compete for space as the city grows. 

I'm told that virtually all the construction projects in the city are owned by 30 wealthy families.  The gap between rich and poor is huge.

Squatters living in traditional areas are systematically being forced to relocate to similar slum areas on the edge of the city.  If they can raise the money, they can move into government housing projects, but few do.

I have friends here, a precious family who welcomed me a couple of years ago.  We do our best to lend a hand, but it is difficult to do anything that makes a long-term difference.

I've been offered many children for adoption by parents who are struggling to give their kids a better future than the one they see.

Breakfast at my luxury hotel gives a startling contrast to the home I visited just a few minutes prior.  A day's stay here costs almost a year's income for the folks just across the street.  Conversations in the room are about business initiatives, international politics, and lavish living.

Just across the street from my hotel, a grandmother invites me home to meet her family.  Toddler holds on to my leg as we walk together.  She put her little foot on top of mine for a moment, perhaps to compare sandals and toes.  She pulled one of my toes experimentally and laughed.

At grandma's simple hut, and with the help of a university student who translated for me, she explains that she has seven children in her home.  Daughters have died, fathers have deserted, leaving her with the burden of caring for the children, one of whom is completely disabled.  She runs a little kiosk selling candy and some vegetables in order to survive.  We chip in to help things along.

Perhaps the high point for my few days in Addis Ababa (the city name means 'new flower'), was time with kids, just playing a little soccer, telling stories, meeting mom and dad.  Every smile in a difficult world is a treasure.

Kids here pose for one of many pictures they took with my camera.  I have multiple versions of this one as each one wanted a turn with the camera. 

A child's needs are simple.  Family, safety, health, food, shelter, clothes, and perhaps most importantly, an education that provides basic skills and equips them for decision making.  If we could find a way to do so, we'd love to help all these families to pursue just that.  My evangelical friends would include preaching the gospel.  They're right that the broken world can't be fixed without fixing our relationships with our Father and each other. 

Many of the folks here are serious Christians with whom I've been honored to pray.  They pray for me, they tell me.  Some are Muslim too, and have received me graciously.  Their needs are equally great, their parents equally appreciative of a helpful friend.

On a Skype call home, my wife asks me if it was worth it to make the not inexpensive side-trip here.  I don't know the answer yet; perhaps something will develop.

HA!!  This is the collection the kids took with my camera.  A momentary diversion from street soccer, I suppose.  Lots of laughing and jostling for position and posing involved.  Everybody wanted a turn.  Click on the photo to see the original size.


UPDATE:  MAR '12  A one day layover in Addis gave me a chance to return to this neighborhood and say hello.

It's Sunday and most are in their Sunday best.  I delivered prints of all the photos from October, got to chat with kids and parents.  Nice folks; treated me like an old friend.

These kids are the fortunate ones.  They live in a pretty safe village, they get to eat and to go to school.  They're blessed.

Curious where you fit in the economic scheme?

Curious what life is like for 80% of the world?

An American at the US “poverty line” is among the richest 13 percent globally.  America's poor need help, for sure, and they're in better shape than most people.

How does that play out across the world? 

Photo left, kids in Kenya run off with my camera to take pictures of each other.  This is my buddy Anderson, age 3, by the family's cooking hut.  I couldn't survive, living as simply as he does.

• A UN study reports that the richest 10% of adults own 85% of the world's total wealth. The bottom half of the world adult population owns 1% of global wealth,^[10] and discouragingly, the gap between rich and poor is widening.

Photo right, just down the path from where Anderson lives, the kids photograph a fellow as he brings wood for the kitchen fire. 

This is Kenya's coastal region where they get some rain a couple of seasons each year.  Even so, clean water is difficult to come by.  The well in the photo background is brackish, and fresh water comes from just a few sources near here; often, you have to pay a vendor for it.

First World Heaven, Third World Hell:

• The great majority of the world’s population live on under $2.50 a day.  Over 80 percent of humanity, more than 5 billion, live on less than $10 per day. 
• The vast majority in the Third World live very differently than the working class of the First World. For example, the average working American lives on $87 a day. 
• There are more people in India alone who make less than $0.80 a day than there are people in the United States.  That's 100 people living on what one American has daily.

Just two hours inland from Mombasa (photo left), the forests are failing, the fields are too dry to produce crops.  Villages are in decline as health issues and starvation take their toll.

We've been given a couple of acres here to build a church/pre-school/community center.  It's an opportunity to do a little work building up the community capabilities and resources.


There are so many opportunities to lend a hand, make a difference, be a brother to a fellow who's working so hard just to feed his family and perhaps give his kids a better future.  Curious?  Ask.

OCT '11 - Djibouti Briefly

On the flight in to Djibouti, the miles of dry riverbeds filled with sand are all too obvious.  The drought is quite real here.

I have just a few days here before moving on to Kenya.  Work is good, complicated, and difficult, but with good folks.  Always a pleasure to work with them.  Except for the part where I broke three ribs.

Our hotel is chosen for us by the company.  It's embarrassing enough to live in such luxury, but even more so when my friends just minutes away struggle for food and clean water.  We've been through all this before.

The road to Doraleh (left) is a poignant reminder as I drive; the road goes for miles and miles through scruffy desert and ends at the sea where my friends live.  I've been here before several times; every time I've been here in Djibouti, actually. 

Kassim and his mom (right) are from a family I sort of know.  They've been gracious in the past, sitting me down and telling me about life in the desert.  Comfortable conversation, but not a lot of laughing.  I've brought a few gifts for the families which they receive graciously.  They appreciate the help, particularly now during the drought and famine in the region.

It's a particular pleasure to find this lady and her family (left).  We first met a couple of years ago through her adult son; nice folks.  Note the smudges on the second panel of the photo.  Those are kid fingerprints on the lens of my camera!  They took a few photos each.

Help is appreciated by folks here.  Times are too difficult to keep your family from suffering from hunger, from abandonment by government, from a sense of helplessness.  We do what we can, each of us.

You don't have to wait for the world to change

Give her a chance to live it for real!

This young lady lives in one of the smallest countries in Africa.  In her world, education is the way up from subsistence living. 

Lend a hand?  

She's one of a gaggle of kids we've known for a few years; like most in the country, her family struggles with just keeping the kids fed. Around 30% are undernourished. Girls have a harder time staying in school because of the cost; families often must choose which of their children will go. The cost isn't much, and a little help goes a long way here. We have a strong NGO that manages our assistance efforts.

When you're a kid, as long as you're fed and housed, you're pretty much happy with life. It's what comes a decade down the road that you have to prepare for, though. Without an education, you'll be struggling to survive, worrying about how to feed your kids, trapped in the locked down world of poverty.

AUG '11: Can money buy happiness?

Yep.  It sure can. 

It turns out, though, that wealth exhausts its power to buy happiness early on.  Here's how it seems to work.  

"The difference between earning nothing and earning $20,000 is enormous—that's the difference between being homeless and hungry vs having shelter and food."

After the basics though, there isn't much 'marginal utility' to increased wealth. In other words, the difference between a guy who makes $10,000 and a guy who makes $50,000 is much, much bigger than the difference between the guy who makes $50,000 and the guy who makes $250,000." 1  More money makes less difference in terms of happiness, and getting it takes up more and more of your life.  Chasing wealth (and more 'things') will likely deprive you of the happiness you hoped to gain.  

Actually, we knew all that, those of us who aren't struggling to survive.  Once you've arrived at a comfortable level, you can expend a lot of effort in upgrading your lifestyle, but it's a lot of time and effort spent with little change in your personal happiness; it's time that could and perhaps should have been spent otherwise.  Years pass, and we wonder when we're going to achieve what we've been working so hard to get for so many years.  Perhaps we've lost track of the goal.

Got a goal?

As it turns out, while money can't buy happiness, it seems that healthy relationships can.  Folks who are invested in the lives and well-being of others are likely to be a lot happier.  Hmmm.  Genuine interest in others, unselfishness?  Giving, caring, loving?  Those things are more likely to bring the joy we're looking for?

"Individuals and societies don't have the same fundamental need. Individuals want to be happy, and societies want individuals to consume.  Most of us don't feel personally responsible for stoking our country's economic engine; we feel personally responsible for increasing our own well-being.  These different goals present a real dilemma, and society cunningly solves it by teaching us that consumption will bring us happiness.

Society works to convince us that what's good for the economy is good for us too. This message is delivered to us by every magazine, television, newspaper, and billboard, at every bus stop, grocery store, and airport.  It finds us in our cars, it's made its way onto our clothing. Happiness, we learn, is just around the corner and it requires that we consume just one more thing. And then just one thing more after that. So we do, and we find out that the happiness of consumption is thin and fleeting, and rather than thinking to ourselves, "Gosh, that promise of happiness-by-consumption was a lie," we instead think, "Gosh, I must not have consumed enough and I probably need just one small upgrade to my stereo, car, wardrobe, or wife, and then I'll be happy."

We live in the shadow of a great lie, and by the time we figure out that it is a lie we are closing in on death and have become irrelevant consumers, and a new generation of young and relevant consumers takes our place in the great chain of shopping."[1]

 We definitely need a better plan! 

Possible alternatives?  

     Return to the Christian foundation of our society^[2] or face increasing economic breakdown, war, the chaos of violence, radical redistribution of wealth, and growing shortage of food and natural resources.^[3]

  ~ Frances Schaeffer, forty years ago

While I've never been and advocate of 'going back', there's perhaps that element of abandoned truth to which one must return lest they find themselves perpetually frustrated.  Is there an element of the Christian foundation to which we might return?

God loved so much that he gave ...  Now there's an interesting thought.

So then, you can perhaps buy happiness ...

...   for somebody else.

May '11, Samuel in Kenya tells me, "These 3  girls were rejected by their father after their mother died they are now staying with their grandmother. I did buy them uniforms; took them to a preschool at Miritini."

Later when I comment on the marks visible on the one girl's arm, Samuel says, "I was there yesterday at Miritini and asked the preschool teacher to take her to the hospital.  They sleep on the floor, and their grand mother is poor and old.  I spoke to one of the leader in our church yesterday to see how we can assist her.  I plan to give her shs.3000.00 to start a small business selling fried fish to earn a living and support the grand children.   The old woman lost two of her daughters who died."
  

Thank you Samuel, for all your goodhearted work.  Update: one has lesions on her arm; taken by a teacher to the hospital, but can't afford the medicine.  Another falls from a tree and is injured.  They hadn't eaten in a couple of days, so she was climbing a mango tree trying to get some fruit.  Hospitalized.  OK for now.  Desperately poor, and could use a hand.

Easy stuff for us.  Want to join in?  Ask me.

Want to help? Some thoughts ...

So what do I do if I want to help?

GO. If you can go, do it.   
Plan it now and do it this year. We understand so little, watching from our comfortable living room. Go see for yourself. Go to learn. Go with others who know the people and can help you make your way into the community. You might wisely decide in advance that your purpose is just to meet folks and learn from them. Go with the expectation of being changed by those you'll meet. They know so much more about life and poverty and coping than we do.

GIVE. If you can give, please do, generously and regularly. 

Our generosity is the supply pipeline for competent folks doing the work long-term, and there is great need. We discovered again with the recent Haiti crisis that you can't just send stuff. If you fill a box with clothes, it costs more to handle the one box perhaps than the clothes are worth. Giving money to the organizations that do the work, on the other hand, helps fund an efficient logistics and supply management process that brings the right kind of help to the point where it's currently needed.

LEARN. The hardest task, understanding the real need.
I'm often asked if I have room to take children's clothes in my luggage. Friends see the pictures of kids in raggedy clothes and are heart-moved to meet the need. Clothes are good, and I've taken a bunch mostly as friendship fun gifts. A colorful t-shirt with a nice logo brings a smile, but clothes aren't the real need where I travel. Malnutrition, on the other hand, is a tough problem. Between 10% and 40% of the kids I meet will have protein deficient diets. They'll be under height for age and under weight for height (stunted). Some will have a reddish tint to hair that is a possible indicator, too. The deficiency will affect the way their bodies and internal organs develop. Their lives will be complicated and shortened by the lack. Sponsoring a nutrition program takes more to accomplish but addresses a real need. Agricultural assistance, or maybe a pair of goats can be a big help. Helping without hurting takes thoughtful effort. Instead of $20 for T-shirts, $20 worth of fish and beans might balance a household's diet for the month or two.

A precious mother and daughter (left) invited me in for a brief visit; nicer than most of the people in my world. Just being hospitable, they seemed to appreciate the chance to talk a bit with a visitor. They have very little but are not hungry at the moment. If you want to lend them a hand, you'll want to understand what would serve them. Help them protect their fishing areas so they can feed themselves, help the community develop clean water and sanitation, schools, health education ...

Things that help: the most difficult task is not getting goods to Africa, although that's daunting enough. It's figuring out what you can do that actually helps without being an insensitive, arrogant foreigner in the process.


Kids in the difficult areas of Africa don't need teddy bears. Families don't need our instruction or pity and are as offended by such foolishness as we would be. The presence of tourists is often an insult as they take pictures of 'the poor Africans'. Families could use a brother's hand in the labors of life along the way, just like anyone else would. So what can we do that actually helps?

Like most folks, Africans appreciate you stopping to shake hands, meet mom & dad, sit with them awhile, and listen. Give the moms a ride back from doing laundry at the river, maybe. Help them load the baskets in the truck and unload at the village. It's an apparently unusual gesture by a foreigner and much appreciated. Ask questions about whatever. Ask before taking their picture. Good manners and caring go a long way, but it costs a lot in terms of time, resources, and personal pain. After leaving a meeting at the hospital, I've had to stop beside the road and wait for the pain to quit before driving further. The reality of life in Africa will wound your heart deeply.

The Navy SeaBees leave an impressive mark in Africa with their construction efforts; they're famous for giving something that lasts. They're on my short list of heroes for serving others. What can we offer that lasts?

Organizations like World Vision do a magnificent job of the stuff that matters. They invest a couple of decades in a village, build schools and houses, dig reliable wells, teach agriculture, do health care, and after a decade or three, a generation of children are educated and the village is changed for the better. That's real help. The key to their effectiveness is that they go and live there. It's a long-term commitment to be alongside.

In the fifteen or so trips I've made to Africa so far, I've made a few mistakes and stumbled onto a few winners. I've spent money on kid trinkets, I forget what they were now, but it was a loser. No matter what you have, there are probably more kids than you can equip. On the other hand, working with a school or an organization on the ground means you have skilled adults with whom you can pitch in and try to help.
Balloons for a Children's Day event (at the school) were great fun, as was the candy which colored a lot of tongues purple, if I recall. We added those little things to their celebration, and it was appreciated. Printed photos are a nicety enjoyed by pretty much everyone. 

Books were a home run. There's no bookstore in the country. In Lisbon, I picked up a few (expensive, unfortunately, or I'd have bought more) books for elementary school aged kids. Well received; the school has just a few books, I discovered.

 

I'd picked up a couple of Portuguese Bibles, I forget why; another home run; the principal asked for more for the teachers to use in the classroom. We shipped a case to them last fall.

In conversation with the principal and teachers, they tell me their regular need is supplies like pencils and paper. I carry pencils every trip in, whatever my baggage weight allowance will stand, and we buy paper and notebooks from a store there. We have an in-country agent who purchases things locally on our behalf when we can raise money to send. 

Sending a box from the states by mail (flat rate, 20 lbs., $42) makes sense only for items worth the expense. 

But what helps, really? In Sao Tome & Principe, for instance. They have a wonderful community and culture, are not likely to go hungry for extended periods, little violence, little crime. Children are more likely to grow up safe and happy in Sao Tome than they might in Chicago. Health care is inadequate. A balanced diet is uncommon. The Taiwanese Medical Mission has made real inroads against malaria, but more is needed for basic health care. Education receives little public funding and is resource constrained. The children's world is narrowed by the lack of literature and instructional texts.   
Community infrastructural elements are minimal. Water is often from open stream sources, electricity is often not available or reliable, most homes don't have TV (probably a good thing), and home internet access is only for the wealthy. There's only one internet cafe in the city that I know about; expensive. The educational resources of the web could be a benefit to schools, perhaps. Or would they be better off if they remained somewhat insulated from the rest of the world?

Expensive lessons from the Peace Corps: In conversations with Ned Seligman, the director of Step Up Sao Tome, I learned a bit about what works. He began with the Peace Corps decades ago and through the difficult years of tremendous effort, he understands the work that has to happen in the field. He spoke with insight about the 'save the children' approach to making a difference. For a family in need, sponsoring a child's education is a big help, but there are many needs. Families rarely have just one child needing help for school. A better friend (as opposed to an uninvolved benefactor) will try to understand what needs are critical and immediate. Long term concerns might include issues like malaria or HIV/AIDS education and prevention, or help in starting a small business, or home gardening, or water purification and community sanitation, or maybe adult literacy.

Government top-down programs often siphon off funds, reducing the impact at the point of need. The needs of a community in poorer countries are daunting, but small organizations like Step Up Sao Tome are focused at the village and family level to tackle them. World Vision is perhaps the most capable of the large organizations.

24 JAN '10 - Sao Tome & Principe

UPDATE: we had a chance to assist with the Navy Seabee's site survey at Almas Elementary. They spent time with the principal, Valentim (in the photo, green shirt), determining what was needed most. They're going to fix the windows, improve the wall, repair water and electrical problems, and paint the classrooms. In the photo, the kids gather between classes to meet the team and see what's up. The Navy construction team will be here later in the year for the project's completion.

UPDATE: In Sao Tome, STeP UP is the NGO I've been working with, recommended to me by US embassy staffers who know them well.  (photos right).  They manage a number of projects including an effective scholarship program. They've agreed to open the program for a couple of kids I know at Almas Elementary. Education is a tough road for kids in Africa. Here, a lot of them drop out around the 4th grade because their families cant afford it. A few hundred dollars will cover the cost of a life-changing year for a family. For the kids, it includes school uniforms, shoes, tutors, books and supplies, food to help achieve some balance in their diet, transportation, and health education covering malaria, HIV/AIDS, and more. STeP UP is taking a couple of five families into the program for us. Donate here,if you like. It goes to the NGO in Sao Tome for education assistance. People will like you better if you give.
________________________________________________________

Djibouti:
A small country of a half-million people, 50% unemployment, nomadic hinterlands, a legacy French influence, and a fair amount of U.S. activity. We've been on the ground there several times doing construction in preparation for installation work. Having just returned from my first trip there in APR '09, I've seen more than I can easily grasp. Having ventured into the refugee slum area, a father expressed to me his simple concerns, an education for his children and a chance for them to have a better life. He'd brought his family (wife, mother, and children) from Somalia in hopes of giving his kids a better future. Perhaps we'll be able to sponsor his children through school; his oldest son is a student at the University of Djibouti and could use a little help. NOTE: his mother died recently; I haven't been able to get the details. The youngest member of the family, photo, left.
UPDATE:  
Our attempts at making our way into the community in Djibouti were hampered by misrepresentation, fraud, and theft. A younger member of the family whom we befriended used the tenuous new relationship to extort money. Truly minor, but disappointing and counterproductive. Later, we were in the neighborhood (a known and dangerous refugee area, we later discovered) to visit and drop off simple gifts, a member of the community stole a backpack from our vehicle while we were just inches away. The community made the individual turn himself in to the police, but we lost time and opportunity in the process. The theft is understandable given the desperate circumstances of their lives.


I'll post more info when I understand it better. We'll try again, probably in 2011.


Kenya:

On the horizon for 2010/11. We'll be there off and on for at least a couple of years, and we have contacts via churches in both Nairobi and Mombasa. We'll see.

Update: Kenya is incredibleFour trips to Kenya this year... 39 kids on school assistance now, including the three precious orphans here who live with grandma. We're working through a local church pastor and board for the programmatics.

More updates in the travel narratives at Africa Tales.

So what are we going to do with what we know?

Tell the rich folks to quit being so full of themselves and so impressed with their own possessions, which are here today and gone tomorrow.  It's not their merit that made them wealthy and others less so. Tell them to go after God who is generous to us all - and tell them to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasure that will last, gaining life that is truly life.

          1 Timothy 6:17-19