Dr Gerry Hardison and his wife Nancy, parishioners of All Souls' Episcopal Church in Point Loma, California (the Diocese of San Diego), have been in Maseno, Kenya, since 2001, where Gerry Hardison is Medical Director of Maseno Mission Hospital and Nancy is Principal of St Phillip's Theological College. In March 2008 Advent parishioner Noel Dass traveled to Kenya to assist the Hardisons as the Logistics and Community Development volunteer at the Hospital for the next several months. Parishioners Karen Cole, Suzanne Miller, and Megan Sloat spent time in Kenya this summer helping Noel and other staff at the Hospital. They will be discussing their experiences at an Entr'acte session later this year.

(l.-r.) Karen Cole, Megan Sloat, and Suzanne Miller -
heading for Kenya this summer

Kenya Project page from All Souls' Episcopal Church-Point Loma website

Episcopal News Service story about the Hardisons and other missionaries in Kenya

Also see "AIDS in Africa - the Jubilee Ministry" on the Diocese of Massachusetts website

July 17, 2008 Update from Noel

Dear friends:

Habari from Kenya once again! I apologise for my long silence since my last e-mail communiqué. It has been a rather hectic past month and a half for me and I have not had too much time available to write my customary long e-mails!

Just as I was about to send this e-mail, I received an e-mail update that the Senate has passed the renewed version of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)! This is huge as it was stalled in Congress over a disagreement in the expansion of the bill to cover opportunistic infections like malaria and tuberculosis. Thankfully, our Congressmen and Congresswomen have seen beyond their differences and passed this important bill. Failure of this bill to pass would have had disastrous consequences for the many that use the services of the Comprehensive Care Centre for HIV/AIDS (CCC) at Maseno Mission Hospital. In fact, the temporary hold-up of this bill being renewed resulted in the staff of the CCC not receiving their meagre salaries on time!

Anyway, much has happened in terms of my work here. After almost 5 months, I finally feel as if I am settling in. My work with the community volunteers on human rights issues is progressing. I embarked on a mission to have this group of volunteers registered as a Community Based Organisation (CBO) with the Kenyan Ministry of Social Services. Having this recognition will benefit them in several ways. First of all, they will be recognised as a legitimate entity that is seeking to advance the awareness of human rights in their community. It will also increase accountability and ownership amongst them and subsequently access resources – both funding and training from other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the country. My subsequent aim as far as this group goes is to then connect them with other groups and agencies in the area that will be of use to them.

Additionally, I've been spending more time with the Mothers' Union Orphan Feeding Programme volunteers. I've been accompanying the programme manager on her weekly visits to the various feeding sites, ensuring that the programmes are running smoothly and the children being served their meals on time as well as making sure that their time is filled productively with play time and extra tutorials.

Earlier this week, I happened to connect with a volunteer with the local UNICEF office in Kisumu who was interested in our programmes in Maseno. I subsequently attended one of the Education Cluster meetings with one of the Mothers' Union committee members. This was my first time at a UN cluster meeting – these "clusters" are a principal component with the United Nations reform of humanitarian relief. Attending this meeting allowed us at the Mothers' Union to network with other local organisations and share experiences, best-practices etc. It also allows us to help channel larger issues that relate to children and education, especially those resulted from the post-election violence in Kenya earlier this year to UNICEF's head office in Nairobi and eventually to the national government that we hope will result in policy reform.

An added benefit of this connection is that the UNICEF volunteer agreed to come to Maseno and conduct additional trainings on sexual and gender-based violence as well as the referrals process for my human rights group! I'm thrilled by this development because my group will get further exposure to external resources beyond that will help them even after I leave.

Apart from all of these fantastic developments, I am hoping to complete the bedding fundraiser with the actual purchase of the pillows and blankets in the next couple of weeks. It's absolutely amazing how much time it takes to implement what is seemingly a simple project. Miscommunication and haggling for prices are just some of the drama involved. On the bright side, I feel I am becoming more Kenyan with my ability to bargain and say "no" improving by the day. Nonetheless, I remain hopeful that this project will be completed in due course.

I have been privileged to have lots of new people around me the last few weeks. The best visit has been from the team from the Church of the Advent. Karen Cole, Suzanne Miller and Megan Sloat were certainly a sight for sore eyes!! We have had a busy and productive (and not to mention fun-filled) past week. We visited several of the community groups, the Comprehensive Care Center for HIV/AIDS (CCC) and their satellite clinics as well as a couple of the Orphan Feeding Program locations and mobile clinic among others. Karen and Suzanne left last Sunday, which was sad, but Megan is still around till the end of next week, working with the CCC, conducting a survey on mother-to-child transmission of HIV. You will have the opportunity to hear about their trip later on in September in one of the entr'acte sessions.

Additionally, Mary - the former Peace Corps volunteer who was here prior to the post-election violence, Ryan – a college student from West Virginia, Jenny – a student from Episcopal Divinity School as well as Cole – another college student from California are also here. Oh and how could I forget Rev. Zach Drennen (who's a good friend of our very own Mark McInroy from Harvard Divinity School) who's currently an Episcopal Missionary in the neighbouring Diocese!? He passed by here a couple of weeks ago and a group of us will actually be going up to visit his project this weekend.

There was another group from the UK who was here a few weeks back and they too were good company. I'll certainly say that all these good folk have been fantastic and made my stay here this past month more enjoyable than it's ever been since I arrived.

It's amazing how fast time flies. The last few months have been a bumpy road both health-wise and emotionally. Nonetheless, I'm glad to have had this experience. My time here is supposed to come to an end later this month with my funding nearing its end. However, as I mentioned in the beginning of this e-mail, I'm only now settling in and getting my hands dirty. There is much that remains to be done. God willing the door will open for me to continue working with the community in Maseno.

Peace,

Noel

June 3, 2008 Update from Noel

[After a short break in Burundi]

For those of you wondering about Burundi, it’s a small country in East/Central Africa in the Great Lakes region. It’s bordered by Tanzania in the south and east, Rwanda on the north, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Lake Tanganyika on the west. It was the other country that was directly affected by the 1994 genocide that took place in Rwanda.

... Bujumbura is a relatively small city that sits on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. One gets a breathtaking view of the hills that form the Congo basin across the lake. The security situation was tenuous at best as things have a habit of changing almost overnight in Africa, but I was very safe the entire time and in good hands. Life was as usual in the city however, with the usual crowds in the market and people going about their daily affairs trying to make a living. ...

Burundi is supposed to have one of the lowest GDP figures in the globe, yet I was quite impressed with the infrastructure. The roads were pretty decent (the worst roads in Bujumbura were still much better than the road I use on a daily basis in western Kenya) and there is chlorinated tap water supply. Also, I was quite amazed at how clean the city looked. Most of all, I thoroughly enjoyed being in a French-speaking environment again! The last time I had the chance to immerse myself in the French language was in 2003 when I was studying abroad in France. Burundi, being an ex-Belgian colony retains French as one of its official languages (the other being Kirundi). I also had the privilege of meeting other aid workers from various NGO and UN agencies and the diplomatic corps and exchanging stories and various experiences. Interestingly enough, I had the opportunity to learn a lot about neighbouring Rwanda and the current environment there after the genocide and how things are now. I’ll be happy to discuss it privately if any of you are interested.

Burundi was not purely enjoyment on my part however. This country directly experienced the horrors of the 1994 genocide and I met many who bore the emotional scars of the past, most notably the children. My friend, Eduardo, spends time with a few children from one of the orphanages here. In what seems to be an amazing story, he knew the mother of one of the kids in the orphanage who had died, when he was in the country 10 years ago, immediately after the genocide. Anyway, he takes some of the children with him every weekend and spends time with them and I had the chance to be with them. Although I meet a lot of orphans here in Kenya, this was a different experience. They were all thrilled to have a visitor with them and they just grabbed on to my hands and wouldn’t let go for awhile... There was one particular kid who’s about 13 or 14 years old whom I connected with despite a language barrier, where he spoke mostly Kirundi and a little bit of French and me in English and French… (I never dreamed that I would be correcting anyone’s grammar in French, of all languages!!) For those of you who know me, I don’t particularly do well with children as I run out of things to say very quickly. However, we seemed content with the little conversations about ordinary things such as school and movies, and even just to be silent.

I also had the chance to meet some other orphaned children when I was visiting my friend, Galen and his family, who did not know their identity. They now live in Burundi but they don’t know if that is where they were born. These kids were born right around the time of the genocide and don’t know if they were born in Rwanda or in Burundi. You get a sense of how truly alone some people are in this world in that moment and you begin to take stock of all the blessings you have in life – things that you take for granted like a home, family, friendships, even identity… On a brighter note, I did make friends with a couple of Burundians whom I keep in touch with and it’s nice to have more friends in more parts of the world!

My one other discovery about life in Africa is that when traveling, it is always better to pay the extra money and fly the reputed big airlines than to be thrifty and try the budget airlines. Of course, I learned this lesson the hard way. I booked my ticket on this new airline called Jetlink Express (btw, avoid this airline if you ever find yourself in East Africa!) and both ways, I was informed on the day of travel, that they weren’t flying the Nairobi-Bujumbura route!! The first time, that happened at Jomo Kenyatta Intl Airport in Nairobi AFTER I had checked-in and been given my boarding pass. 30 minutes later, the agent who checked me-in, came running after me to inform me of the news. After much arguing and being very unpleasant, they booked me on a Kenya Airways flight. The same happened on my return (I was unable to reconfirm the flight 72 hours prior to departure as there were 2 public holidays back to back in Burundi and formed a 4-day weekend!). I ended up having to spend an extra night in Bujumbura before returning to Kenya as the next available flight wasn’t until the following morning. Once again, they got me on a Kenya Airways flight, though this one flew via Kigali, Rwanda. Though it was only a 45-minute lay-over, I nonetheless got to view the vicinity of the airport. While this would not be noteworthy in most cases, actually being on Rwandan soil was quite an experience. Having read and researched the genocide and even just seeing the movie, Hotel Rwanda, actually being there, even if only briefly and at the airport was quite a sobering experience (as if Burundi did not already have that effect).

Thankfully, the good experiences outweighed the bad and needless to say, I was rather sad to leave. Nonetheless, I had a one-day stop in Nairobi en route to Maseno. Nairobi was great as usual. One of my prized discoveries in the city is the local equivalent to Starbucks called Nairobi Java House and they have some of the best coffee I’ve ever had! I realized that I do require constant stimulation be it in a large urban setting or perhaps in an emergency situation.

Back in Maseno, I’ve had an interesting time readjusting to life here. All the visitors are gone and I’m here by myself. Nancy & Gerry Hardison (the missionaries who run this place) are currently back home in the US doing fundraising, though they should be back pretty soon. I was privileged to get a visit from a very good friend from graduate school who’s now working in Uganda and we had a great time, despite the lack of social life (as most of us know it) in these parts. My friend, Memory, originally from Zimbabwe, showed me what a 10 Million dollar note looks like…Yes; I did say 10 MILLION… Those of you following the developments in Zimbabwe, you will know that it has been experiencing an unfathomable inflation rate over the last few years thanks to good ol’ president Robert Mugabe… this was even before the current elections fiasco there.

I continue to spend time with the community health and human rights volunteers, encouraging them and providing guidance whenever I can to various situations. Being so used to an academic audience, I find working with the community to be challenging and there are lots of things I find myself having to learn and re-learn. I’ve also noticed that human rights tends to get a lot of air-time in speech but little in terms of practice and it’s sad to see some of the very people who talk about it and run programs, end up being one of the biggest culprits of human rights violations. We (the volunteers & I) are nonetheless working on possible projects that would generate income to sustain their work.

The fundraiser that I mentioned in my last e-mail to purchase bedding and linens for the hospital is almost at its end. Thank you to all of you who contributed to it. You will be hearing from me individually in due course. The next phase is purchasing the items. The hospital administration wants to have a committee and put out a tender. I’m in discussions with them on the details and the best way to proceed.

They say that time flies when you’re having fun. I can’t believe that it’s been almost 3 months since I got here and my time here seems to be coming to an end relatively soon. I am planning my next step and applying for other positions in the field. Hopefully something materializes soon.

Well, with that I will end this communiqué. I wish you all well. Do keep in touch.

Cheers,

Noel

April 22, 2008 Update from Noel

I hope this e-mail finds you all well. I’ve been meaning to write much sooner but have been caught up in stuff going on around. Initially, I was feeling ambitious to write a weekly update but reality soon set in. Thank you to all of you who’ve sent me e-mails and messages on Facebook. I truly do appreciate it and feel loved!

I was (and continue to be) overwhelmed by my surroundings. The hardships I see on the ground are so great that it’s not something that I could have ever imagined. It’s one thing to read in the newspaper or on the internet or even watch on television about extreme poverty abroad. It’s quite a different picture altogether when you see it up close and personal and the poor and sick have names that you know. I’ve been spending the majority of my time with the Comprehensive Care Center for HIV/AIDS at the Mission Hospital and hearing the stories of the various individuals affected by the AIDS pandemic is sobering and hard to stomach. It’s not so easy to place “blame” on the people as the circumstances surrounding them be it cultural, victims of crime and violence etc. are such that most of us can scarcely imagine.

I am spending more time with client support group and the human rights advocacy volunteers, listening to their stories, participating in the education piece and am also trying to design a training session on basic human rights. People living with HIV/AIDS suffer from extreme discrimination – losing their jobs, right to hold property and denial of justice.

I know of many of you are looking forward to Nan & Gerry Hardison’s visit to the Advent. I encourage you to meet them and listen to them speak about the work as well as the need here. One need that I have seen where I think the Advent can help is with purchasing pillows and blankets for the hospital. It is heartbreaking to see people who are in some of the most pathetic states of health not even have a pillow to rest their heads on while in the hospital. I have spoken to Fr. Gray and we think a collection could be taken specifically for this purpose when the Hardisons come. It would be great if you could support this initiative according to your means. It will certainly be appreciated and will provide at least some basic relief to many who pass through the Maseno Mission Hospital. (Ed. note: We passed the hat - see below! - at the forum on April 30 and raised $211 - enough for many pillows, according to Nan Hardison!)

Peace,

Noel

March 19, 2008 Update from Noel

Habari all (Kiswahili for “hello”),

I hope this e-mail finds you all well. It took me awhile but I finally managed to get my own Internet connection thanks to Safaricom's EDGE service.....so while it's faster than traditional dial-up, it's still a little slower than broadband.

Anyway, I've been here in Maseno, Western Kenya for a about a week now and it's been quite an experience..... Nothing in the world could have prepared me for this....I'm in a rural town in the mountains of Western Kenya. How a quintessential city person such as me found myself here is beyond me! But there are some plusses to this. Being in the mountains, the climate here so much more pleasant than it is down in Kisumu - the 3rd largest city in Kenya, which sits by Lake Victoria. The Equator runs right through this area - there's a marker that shows it a few kilometers away from where I live. Yet, the altitude makes it more tolerable.

I’ve been into Kisumu several times in the last week and I’m starting to get a sense of the city. The signs of the recent clashes are still quite visible in Kisumu with burned down buildings and shops but life seems to have resumed to normal there. The view of Lake Victoria is just absolutely gorgeous….. It’s too bad the Lake ferries to Uganda are not running these days. I’m surprised at the large Indian population in Kisumu. I’ve always heard that there is a large Indian population in East Africa but I wasn’t quite prepared to see the likes of “Bhagwanji Motors Ltd”, the Bank of Baroda (5th largest bank in India) and a Sikh temple in Kisumu. The mayor of Kisumu also happens to be Indian. But it’s very interesting to observe the relationship between the ethnic Indians and the ethnic Kenyans….there doesn’t seem to be much interaction … but maybe there is and I just haven’t seen it…after all, I’ve only been here for a week!

I live in the guest accommodations at St. Phillip's Theological College, which is part of the Maseno Mission Centre. The accommodations are basic but satisfactory. I have my own quarters, which is right next to the kitchen... Our cook, Emma is amazing and I'm pretty well taken care off. I did have the pleasure of trying a typical Kenyan meal - Getheri - which is essentially beans and maize....very interesting experience.... it was hard and took a lot of chewing.... and sat in my stomach for days.....or at least it felt like it, but it's supposed to be a very nutritious meal. I was visiting one of the orphan feeding programs that the centre runs last Saturday together with Nan Hardison (principal of the college & the director of all things here) and Karen Miller (another short-term visitor from California).

The Orphan Feeding Program is held on Saturdays and it provides some extra educational classes for the children as well as provides them with morning tea and lunch. It is run by volunteers from the Mothers’ Union organized by this mission centre.

I've also gotten the chance to accompany one of the Mobile Medical Units (MMUs) from the Maseno Mission Hospital Comprehensive Care Centre for HIV/AIDS. These MMUs basically take the clinic to the patients – esp. those who are in areas where it is a huge burden for the clients to come into the hospital. The clinic is staffed by nurses and volunteers from the hospital, who check on CD4 counts, provide confidential HIV testing as well as provide the clients with their medications and vitamins. The ride up there was an interesting one indeed! At one point, there were 16 of us (including 2 children) in a Toyota Land Cruiser SUV, in addition to large boxes of medical supplies and equipment! The ride was made even more interesting on the superb roads in Western Kenya! The things you miss when you’re a tourist….. Haha...

There’s this joke I heard which you will all find amusing: The response to the question of “which side of the road people drive on in Kenya?” is “The BETTER side” – and this includes the shoulder of the road which is essentially dirt…. The number of potholes in the road is just unbelievable! One other thing I cannot seem to fathom is why they need speed bumps on the roads here! But then again, when I look at the way the matatus (van taxis) drive, I think I can see the reason. I have yet to see a matatu with its passenger side door closed whilst driving!

Well, there’s just so much to write about that it’s hard to organize it one e-mail…..I’ll update you on more as time goes by. Please feel free to forward this to anyone else whom I may have missed. Take care & do keep in touch! I long for contact from my various homes…..

Peace,

Noel