Photographer Stacey Irvin Shares her Travelblog
Posted on Oct 07, 2007
Hello Everyone!
I’m in Nairobi right now and the last two weeks have been full of adventure. I flew from Nashville on August 9th and met up with Poppy Buchanan (fellow Nashvillian and founder of Burning Bush, Inc. www.burningbushkenya.org ) and Brenda McKaig of Rising Fawn, GA (an expert in wool, spinning and weaving www.risingfawnfiber.com ).
Poppy and Brenda were wonderful traveling companions during my first two weeks here and it was sad to say goodbye on Friday. We traveled together to the small, rural village of Ndathi near the base of Mt. Kenya. It is about an hour’s drive northwest of a town called Nyeri in central Kenya (over very rough roads). Burning Bush helped to construct the Samaria Maternity Home and Clinic at the home of Susan Kaburu, RN in Ndathi. This clinic serves the needs of a very large area surrounding Ndathi. Susan and her family were wonderful hosts. The staff and Susan’s daughters, Anne and Njeri work hard to help keep the clinic running and were so nice to get to know. I was also able to meet Esther Maina and her husband, Steven — incredibly driven people who are working hard to improve their lives and the lives of others in the community through micro-lending and other enterprises. Brenda McKaig came all the way from Georgia to share her expertise on wool production with Esther.
The community of Ndathi — and most of Kenya, is very religious — many conservative Christian communities (of all denominations) scatter the landscape. I was a stranger to daily devotionals and long, 3 to 4 hour church services, but was welcomed with open arms nonetheless. These first two weeks have been quite an education on so many fronts — as always, I find more questions than answers….. I have gained insight into healthcare, micro-lending ventures, missionary and NGO aid work — everything about development in Africa is difficult to wrap one’s head around. This experience is so valuable and I know I will think on it for a long time to come.