Well, I'll start of by apologizing for leaving you hanging last night. I'll start this morning by filling you in on a somewhat appropriate send off, even though I'm still at the Maseno Guest House.
I woke up at 5am, and lay in bed thinking of home and family. At 5:30 I got up and stepped in the shower. Most people have left, and I'm only aware of 1 other room being rented besides mine and Jim's. Hot water was waiting! I turned the spicket. Nothing. I turned the cold spickitt. Nothing. "Hope you had fun in Kenya. Enjoy your 24 hour flight home. Can't wait to see you again." was the only thing that came out.
This is where you learn how little water you really need to clean yourself up. At night, buckets are filled with water for just such an occassion. They're placed outside of the rooms, and wait patiently for the water to run out. Now is that time. The bucket hold about 5 gallons, and no, it's not warm. There's a large blue basin in everyone's shower... I don't recall if you can see it in any prior pictures. Anyway, you put a little water in the basin, and through trial and error, you find the most effective way to get the water onto your entire body. After all, the mountain didn't come to Mohammed! Some people squat outside the basin, some people stand in it... it's all about personal preference. Either way, it will get the job done. And yes, this morning it did. Add a hot shower to the list of things to do upon arrival at home.
Now, we return you to your regularly scheduled program, Huma Lady Lions vs Mbaka Oromo Secondary School (MOSS) Simbas. First I must remind you that Huma is an all girls school, and they were now about to compete against a mixed class of Form 2 (10th graders). There couldn't have been more that 7 girls on the MOSS team, and the boys looked rather imposing.
The field was marked out when we got there. String connected the bases, and cardboard squares were used as bases. If you looked at it from above, it looked more like a parallelagram than a diamond (this time, parents ask your kids... and here I never thought I'd need to know what a parallelagram was). The rules are somewhat adjusted, or completely forgotten, depending on your perspective. There are 11 people on the field, and 11 batters. Everyone bats. Perhaps we'll introduce the "3 outs" rule later. It will be the same time we introduce the "3 strikes and your out," rule. Some players use gloves, others bare hands, but we use the softer "training" softballs to play.
The crowd is absolutely enormous, consisting of Huma girls that aren't playing (they were finishing an athletic day when we arrived), and some surrounding primary school students. The colors are quite striking.
And after a long, hard fought battles, the Huma girls defeated the MOSS by a score of 28-30. If they were playing with more rules, especially 3-outs, it would have been a massacre. The girls were stupendous. They caught most if not all pop flies and line drives - mostly barehanded. They hit several home-runs, and in couple instances, I thing they were grand slams. The value of such a feat was lost in translation. All they cared about was that they made it all the way home.
Here's a picture of both teams... or should I say, ALL the teams...
The game ended at a little after 5, and we thought we’d be back early. Nope. Following the game there was the usual fanfare that accompanies visitors… especially visitors from the us. First, their equivalent of an Athletic director talked about the sporting events that took place during the day. He thanked us for introducing baseball to Huma, and for bringing Mbaka Oromo. He then introduced Jim, who spoke about the baseball game, the three girls he sponsors (through various friends & himself), and how strong the Headmaster, Mareb, is. Just as he sat down, Mareb said, “Perhaps Adams (for whatever reason, most Kenyans add an s to my name) would like to say something.” “Yes, yes, yes, of course,” said Jim. Cue the talking with the hands. As he saw me floundering, he threw me a line. “Why don’t you tell them about our board meeting the other day?” Bingo. I started to relate the story of our walk back from Huma towards Mbaka Oromo, and how we talked about their need for more classrooms, and, more importantly, electricity in a dormitory which houses 120 girls. I reaffirmed that they have no lights, so they are in the dark from 7pm to 7am. We saw the facility afterwards, and it’s downright dangerous. The electricity was lost during a fire many years ago, and I’d hate to think what would happen if another fire started in the middle of the night… anyway, first I told them that we had decided make sure that building got electricity asap. I glanced over at Mareb, who was grinning from ear to ear and shaking Jim’s hand. She was hearing for the first time, along with the students. There was thunderous applause and cheering. Once it died down, I further told them that we would build them a classroom as well, to help create some space in those that were already overcrowded. Again, more cheering. I asked that they work hard, so that we can work hard, and walked towards a seat next to Jim and Mareb. She gave me a firm hand shake and a tooth-filled smile. Now, the interesting thing was that the MOSS players were all seated together, and judging by their behavior, they don’t like losing. After I finished, I took a seat next to Jim.
Immediately, Mareb moved over to be close to the two of us. The athletic director then gave out awards for the day’s events. Not for the baseball, but rather for the other events occurring when we arrived: volleyball and track. These weren’t the usual awards, though. Given the time to consider the situation, this is what you would expect to be given out in a poor country. The girls received laundry soap, or oleo. Sometimes they were accompanied by a pen. The winning teacher for the day was awarded a gallon of juice. Let that settle in for a bit. Jim and I, along with William and Mareb handed out the awards to the students as their names were called. We were each met with a smile and a handshake. A curtsy preceded each girls acceptance before they returned to sit with their friends. It was very humbling. There were times that tears began to well up in my eyes as I watched the exchanges. It’s actually having the same effect on me as I write this.
Next came the handing out of certificates from an athletic event sometime in the past. Apparently, the certificates weren’t ready then, but luckily they were now. It probably amounted to another 50 names, handshakes and curtsies. It was getting late, but wait there’s more. William was then asked to speak. He’s long winded, but got the girls, and even some of the boys, laughing and clapping. It was actually nice to hear him tell his students that if they worked hard, they can be successful like the girls at Huma. He then turned around and said that if he had brought the Mbaka Oromo Primary School students to play, “You would have seen fire!” I wonder how that went over with the secondary students.
Mareb then spoke, thanking us much more than we deserved to be thanked. We are only the faces of hundreds of people that help us accomplish our goals here in Kenya. It makes me uncomfortable when they thank us so much. That’s just something I have to work on. Mareb had a girl lead the entire group in what I would characterize as a rally cheer. They wanted us to have chipati and kuku. They don’t have the real thing, so they gave it to us in spirit. It was really cool, and I hope this video captures that. The sun was beginning to dip very low on the horizon as Mareb finished.
Then came the Deputy – Mareb’s assistant. She is a short stocky woman who just joined Huma this past year. She has narrow eyes, but a very wide smile. She often tries to hide it, but a smile that big can’t stay hidden for long. She’ll raise her hands over her face, or sometime lower her eyes, but the smile still comes through. She, too, said how grateful she was, but there was more. Not only was she thankful for the lights in the dorm, and the extra classroom, and the Fairport Softball t-shirt we gave her, but at her previous job, they had American visitors. She unfortunately never got the opportunity to meet them and shake their hands. We were the first wazungo she ever met! That made everyone laugh, and assured a hug goodbye from both Jim and me. She closed with a prayer as the sun began to set. It took another 20 minutes before we found our way back onto the bus.
It was a short ride to Layla station where Jim, William, Noel and I got off. We said our “goodbyes” and went to catch a matatu back to Maseno. The bus continued on toward Mbaka Oromo to drop off the students.
This would be our last Matatu ride… or at least I hope. If they’re feeling adventurous, perhaps I’ll bring some of our guests in May onto one. Those little vans, crammed with sweaty Kenyans is an experience that can’t be described… or duplicated… and if possible, not repeated.
Jim and I returned to the Guest House where we had 2 cold Tuskers waiting for us in the fridge. We picked up some ground nuts, and just sat and talked. We were both pretty tired, though, so the beer didn’t last long.
I sat under the mosquito net, and typed as much as I could. This is not the final chapter to this trip, however, because it will be continuing. Hopefully by now, Jim will have entered some stories on his blog (http://jiminkenya.blogspot.com). Andrea is his only follower at this point, and she thinks it’s pretty pathetic that she the only follower of a blank blog. Jim assured me that he’d get right on it. Hakuna matata.
I’ll right one more entry while I sit in the airport in Dubai, then you probably won’t hear from me again until May.
Talk to you in a bit.
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