A letter to friend

**Below is what I just sent to a friend of mine in Brooklyn, NYC. I haven't updated here in too long and I thought it might due. Emily's parents are in town for this weekend and the next (with a safari in-between) so we'll be spending most of the time with them. Right now though I've had a little time to myself while they get settled so I put this down.

...so, the work I'm doing: It feels so often like I'm doing so much and hardly a thing at all. What I'm doing, for the most part, doesn't present immediate results. However, so much out here takes s-o- l-o-n-g to get underway and even then things can be rescheduled so even when I do a lot of work I end up spending a lot of time feeling bad and sorry for myself for doing such a poor job.

...and then, out of the blue, we'll suddenly have a lot of donations come in and terrific new contacts will blossom. Suddenly we'll be on track for receiving school chairs (over 200) and desks (over 100) for students and staff at out Secondary School. Suddenly we've got a firm commitment on free malaria test kits for there to better evaluate our sick students and staff. Suddenly we'll have a visiting team of optometrists and ophthalmologists there examining all our students and even people from the surrounding villages, handing out free eyeglasses to those who need them and scheduling free operations where necessary. Suddenly these good things will happen and I'll feel a little bit better about being here and being supported.

About who I'm serving: I'm not going to say that these kids are terribly unique or especially deserving over any others. Of course, you could find a group of poor kids in NYC and spend time with them and try and help them and be doing just as wonderful a favor to the world making it a better place. The work of giving these children a school, of course, is remarkable and there are places in the world where that is more important than others. Making a good school, on top of that, is wonderful indeed. Work that I do to do help serve these children and is part of that effort is something I'll proud of...

However, I imagine anyone gets just as much joy out of spending time with and helping a group of kids no matter their background or challenges. It is wonderful to be really getting to know them. What they really think of us though, I'll confess, I'm not sure. I mean, do they truly believe we're doing it for them or that it's just something we've decided to do at this point in our individual lives. For some, sure, it's one or other.

I wish my Swahili was coming along faster so I could speak more openly to the youngest kids but we get by... most of them are really keen on studying and are just happy having someone to show their homework to - even what isn't math or English - just for the acknowledgement of their work.

I get involved in some ways I didn't think I would. There just isn't enough local involvement here. People will drop by now and again, sometimes with donations, and visit just long enough to pray and chat with Mama for a while but then they're gone. Though HOCET is feeding and housing these kids, caring for their medical needs - and though this is a lot of work in itself - what it needs and desires is more quality time of locals talking and playing with the kids. I fear that I'll leave here having failed at helping to establish and real regular commitment from local persons. Of course, that wasn't one of my goals - and, frankly, they'll need to have another staff person hired to coordinate this - but I feel it's so important. HOCET and Kujali say they are building future leaders but there are, so far, no real mentors, no professionals sharing their stories, no young adults sharing strategies for higher level education strategy or success. They see the founder always busy and teachers and that's about all. They see wazungu (white foreigners) come through and want very much to visit where they are from or just have things they have... I believe many are impressed by the way we conduct ourselves but, also, that they see it as a special privilege afforded our skin color or assumed financial status.

I've spent time with our young adults who are out of our Secondary School system and not really within any plans of the organization. There is no one to lead them and I'm trying to help them understand that they are at that point in their lives - or at that point in their lives again - when they must do for themselves. They once, each of them, had to work as children to support themselves (or, for her, earn her place in the home) and then they were offered another place to be and provided an education. Now they must continue their studies but can't expect (because they aren't receiving and can't receive) the same kind of direction. Now, I say, they have to decide for themselves What Are They Going To Do with the help offered to them. What is the goal? How must they act to reach the goal? Mostly they wait. They bring up the need for help and they wait. And wait. They'll hear one suggestion from someone and subscribe to it 100%. I tell them they can't afford to wait, soon the help will end and the choices they make must be based on deliberation as well as a willingness, again, to risk something. Basically, it's time to become an adult. That doesn't mean being taking on all their own burden but, rather, to be fully invested in their development - so much so that being told to wait indefinitely isn't acceptable anymore. Some of this comes from their own experience and I believe some of it is cultural. ...but if they're going to help others later on, they've got to become the best at helping themselves. Happily, there is another volunteer coming next who will be working on just this thing. (Well, lots of things, but also this thing.)

A volunteer is returning to focus on volunteers at the City Center as well as educational programming there for the youngest children. Because HOCET is focused on older teens their challenges can be greater: there is already so much ingrained it can be, combined with how much is missing in them, difficult to mold them as one might hope. But there are some children who are taken in at the Primary School level and HOCET is finally going to be able to put more attention on them so they're brought up with what I guess will eventually become The HOCET Way. It's exciting to consider. I just hope there's more progressive local, regular, support.

HOCET is really growing and in a truly dynamic way. From the inside it's all jungle and precarious cliffs but observed from the outside it really is a beautiful thing, young yet but maturing into something more solid, more stable. I guess it's maybe just like the teens they serve in that regard. ha.

~aB