Great Memories

The Children Performed moving song at the Chandra School



Our Welcome Dinner (and Richard's B'day) at the Garden Hotel




Downtown Machakos

Kuba Cloth from the Carnivore Restaurant



In Jinja we drove into the Hospice Parking Lot (see the sign in the window)



Rev. Gunder prayed for the children at the Chandra School.


We met this friendly woman at the Garden Hotel. She's part of the President's Cabinet.


Garrett, Raymond, and De'Angelo wait to get on the bus where we spent many hours.

Read the Story

Click the title of this post to read how WCA is making history in Africa.


Guess what kind of tree this is... they were all around our hotel.


The classroom at the Chandra School in Machakos


Elders from the Village


A view of the exterior at the Garden Hotel

Photos and a Journal of the Journey

See the full summary of events, along with photos at

http://makinghistory-in-africa.blogspot.com/

Poem for the Youth on our Journey

ROYAL LINEAGE
& the Bomani Warriors

Young men and women of all of us
you are of all of us
wide and great young people
just choose, I say choose
do not wait to be told what
games to play
For predictions will win and lose fortunes away

Now go create a world
For all of us – Built on mothers love, on love
of fathers, brother, sister, husbands, wives – be good to us,
We’ll hold doors wide open to your freedom

Be bold and haughty if you will, be humble still
Be on your own truth, your own path – aside
From Western lies, from evil eyes
Be men and women of spirit ties & anger
When the lions come

Go now Create, I say, Build on Fathers dreams
and grandma’s Hills – see them clear from cool blues,
from their minds and make them real to
Dance upon – you are given these keys, this day,
with this breeze of living sanction – use them wise,
sons and daughters use them.
They will guard you
If you respect them & all of us, your people.
These keys will send you on journeys, on odysseys
That few others have known
And when you are grown
Remember this day and your parents, your friends, your people,
Remember to help some others, young ones to believe in you
And themselves
And all of us.

A Poem for Dr. Beam

What is this She Brings?
For Dr. Lillian K Beam


When someone brings life
Like a nutrient,
Like the spray from a clear waterfall,
Like the new song from the finch flying overhead
who'll perch just to sing you a few bars.

When someone brings life
You remember that colors under sunlight aren't simply red or gold.
Beads & berries & blooms shout "I am crimson," or whisper "I am buttercup."
And you become a gifted analogue among them, glowing too.

It's not merely that you're startled by the amber bark of the Eucalyptus
or the lilting dance of the saffron butterfly.
There are many spectacles reported nightly that presume importance,
whether you see the news or not.

And the hungers of our world are famous
though bright glitz a'clatter, new buzz and brilliance from flooding fortunes
just don't solve them;
Can scarcely redress looming misdeeds,
bestow safe streets, repair the people's needs,
or comfort all the children.

It takes someone to bring life…
Maybe in a slide show & stories of travel to a world in Africa,
A village with tall & graceful ancestors who belong to us all.

It take someone who will bring life
In the music of laughter she is willing to share
Mingled with encouragement, Molded by her faith in possibilities
And chiseled with her strength.

Never mind that you walk away now realizing your own greatness
In an often small record of your day.

What is this if not life?

By Robyn Iset Anuakan
February 16, 2006

Poem for the Team

TO HEAR THE FAVORED WINNOW
(for the June 2007 Water For Children Africa Team)


The decision
To identify with those who have
Shown themselves
A work in progress
At peace with our next steps
Inclined to embrace ourselves
As light through a tunnel.

We are magic lamps
Listening stems
That draw wisdom from the ground
And give meaning to its stones.

If you see more than just dirt
It is our restitution.