We are IN Kenya!!!

So it’s 4 of us traveling to Kenya - Matt and Mary (me) Lossau, Lydia Auch and Kelsey Moss.  Three of our Algonquin neighborhood families represented… who couldn’t help ourselves.  We had to come see our friends in Gambella.

we arrived in Nairobi about 6pm, got through customs pretty quickly (even though the price for a visa doubled…) We grabbed our luggage, snapped a picture of us and the “Welcome to Kenya” sign and ran into our trip leader, Jonathan, who led us to Wubshet and his landcruiser who took us to our home for the night. 

Wubshet and his wife, Habiba, lead the work here around Isiolo.  They resource our adopted village of Gambella and now 3 others around Isiolo.  Wubshet is friendly, and wears a leather cowboy type hat - a new one just today!  He and his wife LOVE these villages, and it is such a delight to be with him in the car as we drive away from the airport at sunset.

we drove w/the windows down and i could hear something chirping as we drove.  there were people walking all along the roads… for the entire 40 minute trip.  traffic’s crazy, but i didn’t much pay attention to that.  my heart was FULL as we drove.  We are in Kenya!!  KENYA! Algonquin FOR Gambella. Tomorrow we make the 4.5 hr car trip to Isiolo, settle into our home for the week, then head to a newly partnered village, very similar to where Gambella began 3 years ago. 

And as i hear the crickets chirp, i’ll head off to sleep (complete w/mosquito net) happy in my heart.  This is a beautiful moment!

Merry Christmas!

As the holiday season falls upon us, I find myself with a bit of time to pause and reflect on the things I am thankful for.  Right up at the top of that list, is our partnership with Gambella.

What an amazing privilege it has been to be a part of this partnership.  I love working with our neighborhood families, and watching their eyes light up as we talk about Gambella, and plan our fund raising efforts.  It’s so cool to see the excitement in other friends and neighbors who have donated financially, or given us items to sell in a garage sale, where all of the proceeds went to Gambella—they get it, and realize that they are literally helping to change the world!  And how about that first video call we did over Skype, using a satellite modem from the village?!  None of us who were there will ever forget that.  Seeing and hearing and interacting with the people of Gambella for the first time—and seeing the school that did not exist before Gambella’s partnership with GHNI—literally took my breath away.

The highlight of my year, however, was having the opportunity to actually go to Gambella this summer.  It was so fun to spend a week with the people of Gambella!  Even though I couldn’t speak more than a few words in Borana (and most of them couldn’t speak more than a few words of English), by the end of the week I felt as though Gambella was home.  Here I was (that’s me with my arm around Boru in his winter coat), in a village that quite literally had no food a few years ago, and I was working side-by-side with the villagers, building a storehouse (pictured below)—which was funded entirely through our neighborhood partnership with them—so they can store the surplus crops they grow until they can eat them or sell them.  Not bad for a village that up until a few years ago had never farmed, and is located in an incredibly arid area!  Even now, planning is underway to complete the clinic that was started last year, and to launch the goat loan program that we raised money for at the end of last year.  Any additional funds that are raised this year will be used for purchasing more goats for that loan program.  These goats are vital to the villagers, as many of them still have one meal a day, and that meal is nothing more than about 4oz of goat milk!

These people are the poorest of the poor, and with the hand that life has dealt them, they have every reason to throw in the towel and call it quits.  Instead, they were dancing, and singing, and had huge smiles on their faces—in short, they were full of hope.  Because of the support of people like you, this village has hope; not only this village, but nearby villages, and even the entire region.  The U.N., the Kenyan government, and many NGOs have taken notice of the change in Gambella, and have made trips to the village to observe.

I believe what I am most grateful for, is the change in me.  I’ve always wanted to live fully alive, and I strive to do that, but I can honestly say that nothing makes me feel quite as alive as I do when I am doing something for this partnership with Gambella.  Thank you for being a part of my journey.  May you have a blessed Christmas!

I’m Going to Gambella!

This summer, I (Matt) will be traveling to Kenya, to volunteer in our dear village of Gambella.  I’ll be going with about a dozen other volunteers and GHNI staff.  We’re trying to raise $3,300 before I leave, so that we can work on the following projects while I’m there (you can donate by clicking on the ChipIn Widget on the top-left of this page):

• Using the money that we raised last fall, I will be helping Wubshet to purchase goats for our small animal loan program, and distribute them to the neediest families in the village.

• We will be building a storehouse—now that Gambella is growing more and more crops, they need a safe place to keep all that food, until they can eat it or sell it (depending on the crop).

• If we’re able to raise all $3,300, we will have enough money to build a clean water tank and latrine by the clinic building (if you recall from the video call, these are the last requirements that must be in place before the government gives the approval to use the clinic).

The reality of all this, has smacked me right between the eyes.  I’m very aware of both sides of the impact of our efforts.  On the upside, the money that we raise makes a very real and significant impact!  On the downside, if we don’t raise the money for these projects, they won’t happen!  There’s a lot of potential joy (or potential heartache) wrapped up in this partnership.  Our efforts matter—they truly matter.  We can change a village—our dear village!

Goats, Widows, and Crops

I continue to be moved, every time I remember our video call with the village of Gambella.  It was simply incredible seeing the smiles on their faces, as we cheered for their progress in the areas of education and farming—that was hope and pride that we saw on their faces!

Many of you were involved in our fund raising efforts at the end of last year.  We raised money to start a small animal loan program, to begin replacing the animals that were stolen by the armed bandits that attacked the village last July.  One of the local GHNI workers (Habiba), along with Duran (who is a local TCD trainer), are conducting a door-to-door survey now, to determine who has the greatest needs.  The cost of goats has also recently shot up in that area of the world.  Wubshet and Habiba are wanting to use our money wisely, so they will wait until the results of the survey are in, and will re-evaluate purchasing the animals at that time.  This is one of the many benefits of having local GHNI workers engaged with Gambella—we can be sure they have the best information available, and can make the best decisions possible.

Jeff Power, the US Mobilization Director for GHNI, has posted a couple of new blog entries about Gambella recently.  He met with some of the women who became widows in the attack last year, and his account of that meeting is heart wrenching.  He also wrote a blog entry about the amazing onion crop that Gambella just harvested.

I also had the privilege of writing a guest blog post for the GHNI website.  It is called “10,000 Mile Neighbors”, and you will find it on the GHNI website (just scroll down a bit until you see it).

Last Days of Our First Project

We are in the last few days of raising funds for the first project in our neighborhood’s partnership with Gambella, and we have been amazed at the support we have received from our friends and family.  You are the ones making this happen, and we are grateful to you!  Just a few hundred dollars left to reach our goal!

Our First Project with Gambella

We need your help! Would you be willing to spare $10, to make an immediate impact on an entire village?  Click on the orange ‘ChipIn!’ button on the top-left of this page to make a contribution.

Earlier this year, Gambella village was attacked by 50-100 armed men. They killed 6 men to send the village scattering. Once they had the village to themselves, they proceeded to steal more than 1,000 of the Gambellans’ animals, and money from their huts. In addition to the loss of animals and money, many of the villagers got sick with pneumonia from hiding without shelter for several days, until the village was safe enough to return to their huts.  (See the video at the end of this post for more information.)  The good news is that the men behind these attacks have recently been captured, and the people of Gambella are now getting back to work on the TCD projects that have already started.

The people of Gambella already live on one meal (or less) each day (some are sustaining themselves with little more than tea). To suffer the loss of animals and health, on top of the extreme poverty that has been their lifelong experience, is unimaginable.

We need your help to get them back on their feet. We want to implement a small animal loan program, to help them restart their small herds. Fifty families lost all of their animals, and the idea is to start with these families, giving them a male and female goat, so that they can breed enough animals to begin to rebuild their small herd (at which point they will give a male and female animal to the next family in need of rebuilding their herd). We also want to ensure that the villagers are getting the medical attention they need.

In order to help the people of Gambella, we want to raise $1800, to pay for the animals and medicine, as well as a portion of the finances needed to pay the staff workers who will implement the animal loan program, and oversee the recovery efforts.

Can we count on your help? Just $10 can make a huge difference in these people’s lives. If you’re able to give more, it would be greatly appreciated, but even $10 can make a lifelong difference.  We’ll be able to post some pictures of the animals, and maybe even some of the families, that we help with your donations.

Click on the orange ‘ChipIn!’ button on the top-left of this page to make a contribution.  For this first project, we’re only raising funds through November 22.

GHNI Gambella Attacked! from Jeff Power on Vimeo.

Who Is Gambella?

The village of Gambella is located in Kenya, near the town of Isiolo.  It is just north of the equator.

Some facts about Gambella:

• Population of approximately 2,000
• One of 1,000 Borana villages
  • About 3 million people in these villages
  • The forgotten people
• Adults speak Borana (sometimes also called Oromo, as they are a sub-group of the Oromo people), and some Swahili (but no English)
• Most families live on about $.50/day
• Their soil is incredibly rich, but completely arid
• They’ve historically been pastoral (no, not church, think “animals”-primarily goats), but climate change toward drought has made that far less productive.  As a result, they’re needing to learn agriculture
• The village itself is as dirt poor as you can imagine. Most people live in small huts they’ve made. The girls start having babies at around age 14. They each have one set of clothes… plenty of holes and rips… and wash them in the river every so often.
• “Honestly, what the adults want more than anything is a better life for their kids… healthier, more than one bowl of food to eat a day… and they want their kids to be educated.”-Jeff Power, from his travel blog