Work Day

SOPA!!! Marianna here. . .hi mom. . .it’s the end of a beautiful day in Oloika. I’m sitting with some other Grotonians under the new dining structure on our compound, and the sun is setting behind the mountains on the others side of the valley. It almost looks like a watercolor by Turner or a crazy impressionist thing by Monet. It is pretty surreal to be sitting together playing cards or Banagrams and talking about Groton while we are actually on the other side of the world, thousands of miles away from the Circle (closer, however, to the Circle of Life. Ok, I promise that will be my only Lion King reference today).

          Anyway, though today was our fourth day in Oloika, it was our second day on the worksite. Johnson, plasterer extraordinaire, took his team (Charlotte, Matt, Laurie, and myself) through the process of slinging cement mush onto the brick walls of the dining hall and smoothing it out with spades once again. We are so close to finishing plastering all the outside walls! On the inside in the shade, other teams of Masaai workmen and Grotonians were continuing the work of building tables and benches for the students in Oloika to sit in when the dining hall can finally be used. I’m sure Liz mentioned this in her blog, but I have to repeat that the progress looking at the dining hall from last year (I’ve also been on the trip before) to this year is unbelievable. It looks like an actual building, and seeing it framed by azure skies and a seemingly endless plain to mountains behind truly made a beautiful picture. I feel so proud to have been and to still be a part of the process of building and finishing this building, really making a difference and continuing the relationships I established last year with workmen and students from the school.

          A relationship here is truly different from anywhere else. Last year, the Masaai people generously accepted us as a fixed part of their community for three weeks, yet told us that we would be their brothers and sisters forever (in the words of one of my little friends from the school, Joseph, “remember that it is only the body that leaves. . .the heart never leaves). I have truly begun to understand that concept, as I hear my name called out both in English and Masaai (Nosim, which means friendly or chatty) both by children I played with and men and women I interacted with. They tell me they missed me, ask what grade I am in now and if America has changed since I left. One of the boys, Edward, says he still has the letter I gave him, and little Joseph still has the book of pictures of New York City, my home. These are true relationships. Though I am a year older, the kids here are taller, and the group of Grotonians has changed, Oloika and the people have barely changed at all. My body left to a world of running water, electricity, and skyscrapers, but my heart definitely stayed here, in the mountains, in the sunset, in Kenya. I missed it a lot.

                                                                                                          Xoxo
                                                                                                          Marianna

P.S. GUESS WHAT MOM!!! Shani says my goat might have kids! Or it might have been eaten. . .which is just kwerd. Will report when I have more information.