Mountain Bike Project
The Result:
Five high quality Raleigh mountain bikes have been purchased and transported to Taraja Boys home to be stored temporarily. Also about ten kilometers of trail have been cut and two trails have been created and marked. The “Godfather” is the longer and more difficult of the trails. “Pinky and the Brain” is shorter and more technical. Along with purchasing bikes for the project we have also invested in several less immediate needs including cans of WD-40 to keep the bikes running smoothly. Also we have purchased three meters of chain along with a padlock to lock up the bikes. We are also looking for a good deal on a basic set of tools for bike maintenance as well as extra inner tubes for popped tires. Once we have purchased a set of tools and some extra inner tubes that should complete our project. We will head out to Athi River once more on Friday the 30th of March to deliver the tools and the inner tubes. While out in Athi River we will take a couple of the kids out on the trails. I am excited to see our work go to use! The kids at Taraja have been enjoying the bikes so much already, riding them all around Taraja.
Our spending breaks down like this… Five mountain bikes coming in at about 900 dollars, and about 100 dollars spent on other things such as machetes, spray paint, bike locks etc… The total being about 1,000 dollars spent. You can see a more detailed account of our spending below in our excel document.
Fundraising has been going well, we have only received fifty dollars from Wal*Mart but people have pledged anywhere from 600-700 dollars so far. As of now the project has been funded out of our pockets. We are confident the money needed will come. If you are interested in supporting this project financially you can contact my brother in the states
Antonio Giordano
E-mail: cr02@iona.edu
Cell Phone: 518-956-3787
Anthony has been handling all of the fundraising in the states for me while I have been in Kenya. He will transfer any donation you have in to my bank account to be used here in Kenya.
Thank you all for your interest and support.
Sincerely
Alex & Vic
Here is a detailed account of our spending.
| Description | Amount (Shillings) | Running Total (Kshs) | Running Total (USD) |
| 2/26/07:3 Machetes | -335 | -335 | -4.93 |
| 2/26/07:2 Yellow Spray Paint | -398 | -733 | -10.78 |
| 3/9/07:2 Bike Locks | -600 | -1333 | -19.60 |
| 3/9/07:2 Trinity Pro Sport Bikes | -13,600 | -14933 | -219.60 |
| 3/14/07:2 Mtn Bikes Returned | 13,600 | -1333 | -19.60 |
| 3/15/07:1 Raleigh Mtn bike | -12,895 | -14228 | -209.24 |
| 3/26/07:3 Raleigh Mtn bikes | -38,685 | -52913 | -778.13 |
| 3/27/07:1 Raleigh Mtn bike | -12,895 | -65808 | -967.76 |
| 3/28/07:2 WD-40 and 1 chain | -940 | -66748 | -981.59 |
| 3/28/07:1 Padlock | -60 | -66808 | -982.47 |
| 3/28/07:1 Inner Tube | -700 | -67508 | -992.76 |
| Our Balance (USD) | |||
| -942.76 |
Well, this past week flew by. I spent the first part of the week under the weather, and not much exciting happened. I lost 400 shillings to a pick pocket, and I slept a lot from Monday to Thursday, but I was feeling much better by Friday, when I went out to
Jason sponsors two girls to this school, so Ann and I went out to the mandatory parents meeting. It was pretty ridiculous. It started about one and a half hours late, and it went about half an hour longer than expected, so we ended up getting out of the meeting in about six to seven hours. It was mostly in English, but a lot of the necessary parts of the speeches (there were about ten) were in Kiswahili, so I was pretty clueless. We sat through the entire meeting just so we could spend about fifteen minutes with the girls. It was a long day, and the trip wasn't short either, but while observing the meeting, I learned a couple strange things about Kenyans.
First off Kenyans seem to enjoy it when their cell phones go off in the middle of a big speech. It honestly happened about thirty times. The principal’s phone even went off when a teacher was speaking. I think they had a "coolest ring-tone" contest. The next thing I discovered was they have no idea what proper English really is. One teacher got up and spoke for a while, in some fairly poor English, and then sat down. The Deputy Principal then stood up and addressed the crowd, telling them how apparent it was that that was the English teacher because her English was so good. I about died. Finally, you apparently don't need to know what you are talking about to be a "guest speaker." Some counselor lady came as a guest to this meeting, and she made some pretty ridiculous comments about the bible. She talked about how Cain was conceived immediately following the eating of the apple (if anyone can validate that, I would love to know), and she discussed the story of David and Bathsheba, but she forgot the names of Bathsheba, Uriah, and pretty much everyone except David. It was definitely an interesting day, and it greatly strengthened the presumption that all Kenyans are late.
Sadly, Saturday was pretty similar to Friday. This time, though, I went out with Jason to
We all went to church today, and the rest of the day has been spent hanging out and using the phones at the cyber cafe to call home. We will probably have more beans for dinner, and the rest of the day will be spent sleeping.
We are slowly closing in on the end of this trip. God has shown me so much about my self and my total reliance on Him. I can't wait to get home, but I am definitely enjoying every moment God gives me over here. I love and miss you all, and I will probably post fairly soon (note the probably and fairly, we'll see how much time I have). I'll catch you all on the flip side.
-Victor Rogers IV
Things have gone pretty well these past few days. We took a number of boys from Joy Divine Boarding School out rock climbing the other day in the Lukenya Hills. We all had a great time, and Gio took some good shots. I'm sure he'll try to throw a few on the blog soon. It was the first time Gio or I had ever climbed an actual outdoor rock. It was a pretty easy rock, but doing it well still made you feel huge. The guys we took had a blast as well.
We took about ten kids, one leader guy from the school (Fred), and one other climbing instructor (Kim, a guy). They were all great. Kim is a hilarious guy that is desperate for and “adventurous wife”, so if anyone is interested, I can hook you up. We even had a girl from a big Kenyan newspaper come along. Olive (sad name, she says it is pronounced Oleeve, I wonder if her middle name is Oil?) is a journalist/photographer for the Daily Nation, and she was covering our trip in the hopes that the paper would begin sponsoring them on a monthly basis. These kids are trapped in these small, awful school buildings all the time, so the chance to get out, have fun, and hear a great devotional was one of the coolest things they could think of.
The venture was almost flawless, that is, except for the trip home. Traffic was so, so bad. I don't care where you live in the states; this traffic was ridiculous. People here are the worst drivers ever, so one tiny accident on a bridge will back you up a number of hours. Near the accident, there was a mob of people, just there to throw in their two cents on the ordeal. It was bottle necking to a whole new level. On top of the terrible traffic, I had a headache and felt like killing every kid in that car. Group sing-alongs are a cute idea, especially in Swahili, but I am sorry to say that when ten guys, all over the age of twelve, start to sing some annoying song you can't understand as loudly as they can, you start to go nuts.
Anyway, the trip ended, and we went to our South C Sports Bar to relax and close off the night. Even on a Saturday it was completely empty. I have no idea how it stays open, but it is a great place to chill, so I am glad that it does.
I went to church alone on Sunday. Jason was in excruciating pain from sunburn on his feet and legs. The genius went around climbing barefoot with no ropes and some skimpy soccer shorts on. He was asking for it, but it is the worst sunburn I have ever seen on a guy’s feet before. I'm sure it kills. Gio went to town on a mission to talk to Pringles (for those of you who don’t know, that is what I call Jackie, Gio’s girlfriend, it’s a good story as to why, you could ask sometime) that ended up being pointless and wasted his entire morning. He hoped to be back in time for church, but it didn't work, so I was the only white guy in church. It was cool though. I sat near some nice people and we had a good time during the fellowship/discussion time.
The rest of the day was spent reading and sleeping. I’ve read a number of good books recently. Jason is your average English major, so he has gotten me to read a number of classics. I have some cold type thing with a minor fever, which sucks. I have felt like crap. I woke up at two this morning and threw up. It was pretty miserable, and it tasted like stomach acid and garlic, not a mix I would reccomend. I was physically and emotionally drained. I felt pretty alone and depressed, but prayer is a powerful thing, and I made it through the night. I still feel pretty sucky, but it should pass fairly soon.
We saw the guys from Gateway out to school this morning. They aren’t even sure where they are going to stay, or anything, so we’ll see what happens. Other than that, it has been a boring day, and I could really use some meds and sleep.
I'm pretty excited that we are about halfway through. The experience it incredible, but I really can't wait to be home. We still have a lot of work, though. We will probably head out to Athi River again sometime this week, but other than that we don't have a set schedule yet. Actually, there is only one definite for this week. Tomorrow is Terrific Tuesday at Pizza Inn. Two pizzas for the price of one, it is a great thing. It is my favorite night of the week, but I have missed it the past two weeks, so I can’t wait for tomorrow. Well, I love and miss you all a lot. I'll write again soon.
-Victor Rogers IV
Well, Gio and I got back from our crazy camping trip thing yesterday. It was great. We camped out in the mountains Tuesday night with Simon, Derrick, and Joseph. These are the guys we went to meet at
The first night on the mountain was miserable, yet it was amazingly beautiful. We camped out on this big rock formation right next to a tree that was growing right in the middle of the huge rock. The scenery was amazing, but the weather sucked. It poured a lot that night. We had five guys stuffed into a four man tent that leaked. I literally got about three hours of sleep that night.
We woke up the next morning and were greeted by Francis, another one of Jason's friends. He is a great guy, and apparently word got around that a couple of Mazungos (the Kenyan term for whites) were out camping, so he tracked us down. We packed from our terrible night camping, and Francis led us on a hike through the mountains. The hike was huge. We were out there for about six hours, but we planned a number of our trails.
After our hike, Francis took us over to Richard Mwema’s house. Richard is another friend of Jason and a schoolmate of Francis. Richard was working, but we all chilled in his house anyway. From there, we went out to Taraja. We met the “mother” of the boys’ home, Theosophia, and we stayed the night in our tent in their barn. The mother was an amazing woman. She has some of the strongest faith I have ever seen, and what she does for all of the street boys is amazing.
That night was better than the night before, but it was still rough. The security guards apparently use that barn as a hang out spot at night, so they had the halogen light on all night and they kept going in and out. We were thoroughly exhausted, but the next day brought about the hardest work so far.
We took the guys out into the bush and cut a bike trail by hand. We used these bent machetes, called slashers, and we spent hours in the ridiculous Kenyan sun doing by hand what could be done in minutes by machine. It was rough, but these guys were really good at what they did. Joseph, another of Francis’s classmates (not the one from Gateway), was the best slasher I have ever met. He was unstoppable.
It got too hot out, so we called it a day at about
Joseph, Derrick, Simon, Francis, Richard, and Joseph all attended Taraja at one time or another, were all street boys, and they had one of the greatest bonds I have ever seen. These guys grew up together, and their experiences together have made them closer than brothers. We started out with a group of three other guys, and we grew exponentially whenever these boys saw someone they grew up with. They were all so happy to see each other again. It was one of the coolest types of relationships I have ever seen.
Gio and I got back to the apartment last night, and I took the most amazing shower of my life. After we got clean and relaxed, we headed out to our favorite bar. Again, the South C Sports Club (we call it our Sports Bar, it sounds cooler than club) was completely empty. We broke our drinking record, I had five bottles and Gio had four. We are some heavy soda drinkers.
Anyway, I should get going. We will be going rock climbing with some kids tomorrow, so I need to go help set up. To close, I think I’ll share a couple cool things God has been showing me. Through Theosophia, I have been greatly encouraged to have more faith and to find God’s will a blessing. Through the guys, I have found that a little love and a lot of God can be an amazing combination in someone’s life. The fact that all these guys grew upon the street is amazing. They are such amazing people and great friends, and it is all because God was given a chance to move in their lives. Well, I really need to go now, so I will thank you all again for reading this, praying for us, and always supporting us. I love you all, and I can’t wait to tell you all some of the great stories I now have.
