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Posted 12-8-00
CLEVELAND -- No Case Western Reserve University news assignment has taken me so far from campus as the trip to Kenya with the third-year College Scholars.
It also was an experience I will always cherish for the opportunity to meet and get to know a group of remarkable students. Spending more than a week in vans or tenting to the sounds of strange animals are experiences that bring people together. I also learned what big and giving hearts the students have, as they talked constantly about starting a relief effort for a village school, they have called "Case in Kenya."
Wherever we went in Kenya, each of us made friends. Not only did I bring back souvenirs for my colleagues in 14 Adelbert Hall, but also the addresses of many people I met there.
Who would have ever thought that the message in the back of my mind to pack a picture of my husband and dog would actually bridge a cultural gap between an American and Kikuyu woman in Kenya.
Separated from the group while visiting the village of Kiganjo, Kikuyu women and I asked each other questions. In exchanging information about village life, children, and families, one asked me if I was married. Out popped the picture of Steve with my Old English sheepdog Rufus. More questions followed. Agnes Njoki Ndiritu asked if she could have the picture and my address. I gave them to her, then asked for her address, too, since I would like to write her.
Reunited with the scholars and faculty members Jonathan Sadowsky and Peter McCall, Ndiritu came over and presented me with a beautifully carved necklace in soapstone and wood. Thinking that was an extravagant gift in return for a picture, I gave her my watch. She beamed.
While fueling the vans in Naro Maru the next day, our group encountered Agnes Ndiritu again and two other Kikuyu women. With a broad smile on her face, she proudly raised her sleeve to show me she was wearing the watch.
Days later, when visiting the Maasai people in Loita Hills, we found out that most of the village people, who live without electricity and running water, still tell time by the sun and stars. A watch is a luxury that few own.
Also on the Maasai farm, it became evident that books are rare. While looking through my Kenya guidebook, a young Maasai excitedly pointed to the cover and said "Maasai." He motioned eagerly that he wanted to see the book. Along with his friend, we started leafing through the book as they talked in Maa, pointed to pictures, and asked me to read for them. Their excitement attracted others until there we were in a huddle of Maasai warriors. Leaving the book with them, one of the last memories of that night is of two men sitting in the firelight looking at the book.
As I work in Adelbert Hall, I know somewhere time ticks away and pages turn on a little part of CWRU in Kenya.