Time with Unity

Emily here with the blog today!

Each time we arrive at Unity, we are welcomed like family returning from a long journey. Even if we have seen them in the morning and are only returning a few hours later, we are still given the same amount of love. From the moment our safari car is visible from the entrance, the wattotto (children) come running up, shouting our names and grabbing our hands to bring us to their home. As we are led inside, the women individually hug us and ask about our day. Part of the culture that I have really appreciated has been the greetings: it is custom for greetings to be very personal and one-on-one, and we can tell that each woman is genuinely happy to see us each time.

After greetings, we continued work on the manyatta (hut) that we are building for the village. Although the homes look simple, we are learning how intricate and complicated the building process is! We dug through the rocky terrain with pick axes and cups to lay the foundation, hiked up a mountain to collect the right sticks, and we are now working on tying the sticks together for the walls using special leaves called lodop. While working, we shared laughter and exchanged songs in both Samburu and English. One of the highlights was when Margaret, one of the women, started singing along with us to Apple Bottom Jeans.

In the village, we met Teku. He has been teaching us Kenyan sign language, and many of us are now able to finger spell and sign some basic phrases. Despite all the road blocks life threw in his path, Teku never let it bring him down, and he has excelled in school to the point where he is one of the new recipients of the SYEF scholarship! He will be starting Form 1 (the first year of high school) after break.  

While some of us were in the village, two groups of us were able to go on game drives at the reserve along with some of the local children. The children were just as excited for the car as they were for the actual animals and they loved every minute of the adventure. The groups got to see families of elephants including very young babies and some giraffes who were not afraid to come up to the jeep! Although some of us had seen elephants and giraffes in zoos, this experience was different because they were living in their natural habitat and could wander the land on their own free will.

We ended the day with an appreciation circle for one of our local leaders, Francis, a former recipient of the SYEF scholarship, who needed to go back to Nairobi for his University. He has been an integral part of our group and even gave the shoes off his feet to a participant who was struggling with blisters! He stayed with us for an extra day in order to make sure there were enough sticks cut for the hut. We all shared stories of how he has influenced our experience and wished him well. We will miss him terribly, but we know that the influence of his loving and selfless personality will stay with each of us for much longer than this trip.  

Thank you all for continuing to comment on these posts! Getting to read the comments continues to be one of the highlights of the evening and helps us feel connected to loved ones back home.