Move-in Day, Turning 50, and other Assorted Items

Today, November 30, Matt is turning 50 years old. He has appreciated birthday greetings from afar, especially the ones reminding him how old he has become. Last weekend when we were at the village, Matt's lovely wife Cheryl announced to the children that he was having a birthday and she wanted them to guess how old Matt was becoming. The first response came from Joseph who guessed that Matt was turning 100 years old. That seemed appropriate since Matt has not received any rude or funny birthday cards yet. However, as the kids contiued guessing eventually one of them guessed he was turning 50.

Speaking of eventful days, that same day, Sunday, November 22, the children in Tumaini home were moving into their first permanent home. They have waited for almost 2 years while living in temporary housing in a mud hut with no electricity or modern facilities. Electricity and water are being hooked up this week and for the first time in their lives many of these children will be enjoying what we take for granted except when we go camping: a hot shower and a flush toilet. They were so excited to be moving into their new homes, it's like they were celebrating Christmas a month early as the children began running around the house, exploring all the rooms, setting up their beds, and beginning to make their new house a home.

On the way to the village that same Sunday, Matt almost hit a blind man, a goat, avoided a close call with a truck driver, detoured around two broken down cars, passed one car that was operating on one cylinder, and almost collided with two Matatu taxi drivers, which gave everyone else in the car quite a thrill, and aged Matt ten more years, so he is really 60 years old in Matt years.

This weekend, Matt and Cheryl enjoyed a peaceful weekend, celebrating his birthday in the quiet solitude of a small retreat center overlooking the Rift Valley. On Saturday afternoon as they were relaxing, reading a book on the deck of their cabin, they heard a loud cry and screaming erupting from the valley below them. At first they thought either a small war had broken out in Kenya or somebody else was turning 50, but as it turned out, a local village had gathered to honor a longstanding custom in villages throughout East Africa - the rite of male circumcision - a way to painfully introduce young African boys into the joy of becoming men. As several young boys in a small village in the Rift Valley became men, Matt realized he was becoming an old man by some standards (53 is the average life expectancy of a male in Kenya). Of course some of his friends might try and remind him that he is becoming an old man by any standard. To those who would say that, Matt would respond that "you are only as old as you feel" and as Matt drove back to Eldoret from their retreat center, he was feeling pretty old.

Graduation Day, Move-In Day, and Just Another Ordinary Day

Good afternoon (or good night in the U.S.). As all of you in the U.S. are fast asleep with it being 1AM on the West Coast and 4AM on the East Coast, it is noon here in Eldoret. We had a fairly eventful week as we said goodbye to Rachel Gallagher last Sunday as she travelled back to Portland, Oregon with Baby Belle.

The week began fairly busy but uneventful as Cheryl went about her work of learning the process for becoming the interim director of operations, while Matt continued to work as the Open Arms mule, delivering eggs from the farm, picking up supplies for the village, delivering food and workers for the feeding program, and trying to prepare for the start of the new school at the village. On the way to the feeding program, some children took quite literally what it means to be the family mule, as they transported themselves and some supplies to their home.

Towards the end of the week, on Friday, we were invited to a graduation ceremony, for some of our oldest nursery school children, who are graduation into Primary School. Now mind you, I barely remember nursery school but nursery school for Kenyan children is a bit more arduous beginning at 3 years old and continuing for the next 2-3 years as they go through three levels of nursery school in preparation for primary school.

Because Open Arms won't have an operating school until January, we have been sending our older children to a nearby school, and the school decided to have a "simple" ceremony to celebrate that ancient passage of graduation from nursery school to primary school. About two dozen children were being honored in this ceremony, along with 150 parents, family, friends, and about 250 other students, teachers, and administrators from the school. Five children from the Open Arms village were participating in this ancient rite of passage.

We were told that the ceremony was starting at 9AM, and being time conscious Westerners, we wanted to be there on time, but alas the pressures of Kenyan culture are beginning to change us. Matt had to run an errand delivering 20 trays of eggs to the market at 7:30AM. Unfortunately, for various reasons, he was still at the market at 9AM as Cheryl and the other girls were patiently waiting for them. They arrived at the graduation ceremony at 9:40AM and found themselves as the first arrivals for the ceremony. Matt had to go and run a few more errands as the Open Arms mule, and finally arrived with some of the rest of the Open Arms staff at 10:30AM. The ceremony had still not started, but Matt was surprised to find that he was the featured guest speaker at the ceremony. Fortunately the ceremony did not start until 11:20AM so Matt actually had 50 more minutes to collect his thoughts. As the ceremony dragged on with every faculty member, student, and village elder in the community eagerly wanting to share a poem, a song, a speach, or a dance, Matt had 3 more hours to collect his thoughts before he came up and shared a 10 minute speach about the importance of education, perseverance, and a relationship with God. Cheryl was also surprised when she was asked to hand out some of the diplomas during the ceremony. The ceremony ended about 2 hours later with some refreshments. Matt and Cheryl now wonder how long the primary school graduation will be for students at the first Open Arms Academy graduation ceremonies in a few years.

Matt and Cheryl are enjoying a relaxing Saturday as this blog is being written. Tomorrow, they get to celebrate another rite of passage for the children at the Open Arms Village. Moving In Day for the first children at the orphanage as the first permanent orphanage home is completed. After several months of patiently waiting, 12 of the children and their house parents will be moving into Tumani Home (Hope Home in Kiswahili), the first of many homes to be completed in the next few months. Will show some photos and videos of that special day in our next blog. Hopefully it won't be a five hour ceremony that starts two and a half hours late, but you never know in Kenya.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day,

Matt and Cheryl

Planes, trains, and automobiles

Good morning (or good evening back home in Portland - although it's past midnight there now, so it's no longer evening). We are doing well, staying busy with plenty of activities this week. Cheryl got on a plane on Sunday night with Ruth and two of our babies, Belle and Esther, to Nairobi to try and acquire visas for the two babies, so that Ruth and Rachel can take the babies home to family for Christmas. The babies, Ruth and Cheryl, did surprisingly well with the babies, and they were met by David and Rachel who arrived to Nairobi late Sunday evening. They got up at 4:30 or 5AM the next morning to cart babies, diapers, formula, and bottles over to the UK and US embassy where the US embassy had requested a 7AM appointment for which they had to arrive at 6:30AM. The visa for Belle was granted and Rachel is going home with Belle this weekend for a two month stint back in the states. Ruth got a notice that her visa is ready so she is going back to Nairobi on Monday to pick it up. What a process!! Anyway, they got to spend a little fun time during lunch and the early afternoon to shop in Nairobi and eat lunch at Java House, the Kenyan equivalent of Starbucks, and it is a treat. There's nothing like it in Eldoret, and shopping here is still very limited. It's surprising that for a town of 600,000 plus (Eldoret had about 250,000 people when I first came to visit four years ago) and growing fast that Eldoret has the shopping store capacity of a US town of 6,000 with about 4 to 6 moderately sized grocery stores (nothing close to a Walmart). It's interesting that most of the essential shopping here is done in open street markets, where locals often get the best deals but where muzungus (white people in Kiswahili) will often be charged higher prices than in the regular grocery stores (that's why we have Matrine, one of our Kenyan staff, do much of our shopping at the market). In addition, it is quite likely because of the predominence of subsistence farming throughout Kenya, that most people eat what they can grow on their own property and often do not buy groceries at the store or at the open street market.

We have even began our own subsistence farming initiatives at the Open Arms Village with growing potatoes, beans, cabbage, maize and raising hens for eggs, goats, sheep, rabbits, and dairy cattle for milk. So far we have been able to raise enough of all these items to feed the entire village and our office staff plus raise additional money from the sale of eggs, potatoes, and milk to the community. Matt seems to be the local egg delivery man in Eldoret since we are now producing nearly 100 eggs per day at the village, more than enough for the children at the village, the staff in town, and also to assist with the feeding programs. He has a local restaurant in town that regularly buys eggs, and they are encouraging the Open Arms Village to take on their next project, raising broiler chickens for the village and to sell to the restaurants in town. Matt now feels like his next purchase at the local Nakumatt variety and grocery store in town will be a pair of bib overalls.

Matt has also taken over most of the primary driving responsibilities for the village and the Open Arms staff since the other two staff drivers are on leave or on vacation (Metrine is on vacation and Levi's sister passed away so he is on leave). Matt started the week by taking the girls and the babies to the airport on Sunday. Then on Monday he began by taking Daniel, the village farmer and house parent, to the Eldoret feed store to buy chicken feed, molasses for the grain to feed the cows and goats, and a large variety of other assorted items for the farm and the village. Then he began taking three of the staff to assist with the daily feeding program at the Kambi Teso slum of Eldoret. On Sunday he will drive the staff to the village for church in the morning, drive Rachel and Baby Belle to the airport in the afternoon, drive Ruth and Baby Esther to the airport on Monday morning, drive Roselyn to see one of the sponsored Open Arms children at a school 40 kilometers away, and probably deliver some more eggs and other errands in the afternoon. (A lower percentage of Kenyans and exptriates here have drivers licenses or simply prefer not to drive - I can't say that I blame them). He really hopes that Metrine and Levi will be back soon.


Meanwhile, Cheryl is as busy as ever with taking care of babies, changing diapers, sterilizing bottles, filling them with formula, while at the same time learning Ruth's job as operations director so that when Ruth leaves for 3 months in early December, the wheels of this Open Arms operation in Kenya will continue to operate smoothly. We appreciate your prayers so much and hope that all is well at the homefront. We will miss our family, friends, and loved ones this Thanksgiving, but nevertheless we are so thankful for where God has placed us, and the opportunity we have been given while we are here. Of course we will also miss shopping at Walmart, turkey, and pumpkin spiced lattes at Starbucks, but surpisingly, and I know this is shocking news, a human being can survive without these three seemingly basic essentials. We hope to talk, and see you soon. Feel free to Skype with us on the internet or e-mail us at mattandcherylinafrica@gmail.com because we'd love to hear from you.

God bless you,

Matt and Cheryl Tallman

Two months and counting

As of this afternoon, we have been in Eldoret for two months. We are starting to feel like we are settling in, but there are still some unsettling or unusual experiences we have to deal with on a regular basis. Matt was driving through downtown El.doret yesterday, and he is starting to get used to the feel of driving in Kenya. However, there is no sense of common courtesy on the road, it is pretty much everyone for himself (and every chicken, goat, and cow for that matter). As Matt turned right to go down one of the main streets of Eldoret, two cars behind him turning right didn't just follow him - they passed him in the intersection as people, cows, and goats dodged the oncoming traffic. However, that wasn't an isolated incident. The same thing happened about eight times before he got back to the house (and Matt is not normally a conservative or slow driver by US standards - he has quite a collection of speeding tickets in the past thirty years to prove that).

What slows drivers down here in Kenya is not the goats, cows, pedestrians, cars, or even the police, but speed bumps and pot holes, and lots of them I might add. On a one mile stretch of road leading out of Eldoret, one would usually encounter about 25 speed bumps and about 200 pot holes. What usually keeps the mechanics around here pretty busy are broken axles, worn shock absorbers, and bent wheel rims. The tire shops also do a pretty good busy with tires being constantly out of balance.

Earlier this week, Cheryl took a road trip to Kisumu to pick up passports for two of the babies at the house, Belle and Esther. Kisumu is approximately 75 miles from Eldoret but it took about 3 hours to get there (apparently there are quite a few more of those speed bumps and potholes on the road to Kisumu). She left Eldoret at 6:30AM with a car full of people including Ruth who was holding one of the babies, Roselyn, who works as the local child sponsorship director for Open Arms in Kenya, Levi who also works with Open Arms and was driving the car, and a local immigration officer from Eldoret, along with two babies. Actually seven people (albeit two of them being babies) is actually a fairly uncrowded vehicle by Kenyan standards. Kenyans, as well as many other Africans, have taken car pooling to a new level.

After a long day at the immigration office, and a quick glance at Lake Victoria (a first for Cheryl)the five people and two babies clambored back in the vehicle for the long road trip back to Eldoret. Along the way, Roselyn mentioned she needed to drop something off to some relatives of hers just off the main road, which in Kenyan really meant that they needed to drive on a side dirt road for 30 minutes and drink Chai tea for an hour. They arrived back at home in Eldoret very tired at 7:30PM that night and grateful for some dinner and sleep.

In spite of the driving in Kenya, or maybe sometimes because of it, there are a lot of things we love about being here. The people are wonderful, the scenery is spectacular, the climate is perhaps the best in the world (it was sunny and 75 degrees today), and we love spending time with the babies and the children at the village. We hope that things are well back in cold rainy Oregon, where the car pooling is less crowded, and the drivers are a little more courteous.

Matt and Cheryl