Off Topic -- English Football

I'm off on another topic today, my apologies. This is for those of you who would be interested in knowing what it's like in a professional footballers house on game day.
Yesterday was game day at the Hahnemann house.
This means the only day Marcus can get up late. He has some down time with Halo and then he has his routine pre-game meal which includes a grilled tuna and cheese sandwich. After he's cleaned up and has his head shaved, he dons his dress shirt, tie and suit. Of course the final touch is his cowboy boots made of snake skin. They look good with his dark suit.

Then there's the traditional good-bye -- everyone heads to the door to say goodbye, Amanda has the truck going and Marcus is off.

Then the rest of us get ready, have our sandwiches and we're off. Yesterday two neighborhood kids went with us. Amanda has the radio set to hear the pre-game show and any traffic snarls. We arrive at the stadium, luckily Amanda has a car park pass and we can park close to the stadium. We enter through the Family and Guests door and we're off to the player's lounge to wait until it's time to go out for the game. There's a bar, coffee, tea, snacks. Then it's time to head out for kick-off.

It is such a thrill to step out into the stadium. The stands are full, it's noisy and you can just feel the excitement in the air. The teams are announced, big roar whan hey mention Marcus. He's at the opposite end in goal. Marcus had some good saves, strikers had some chances but no goals the first half. We spend half time in the player's lounge talking with other families. It's fun for us since we've been going for some time. This is the 6th season for Marcus at Reading. There are families we haven't talked to for some time.

The second half is more exciting and Marcus is down at our end. Reading makes a goal, Marcus has a penalty kick that he doesn't stop so now it is 1-1. The excitement builds as time passes. Marcus makes an awesome save by tipping the ball over the bar. Then Reading gets a GOAL in stoppage time. WHEW, a win is good.
It's exciting with 42,000 + people cheering.
An added bonus is that Marus is featured in the program.

Back to the lounge to await the players especially Marcus. He is usually the last player up. He got kicked in the head during an early save so that will need to be iced. We hang around for about an hour. Yes, the last ones out. There are still fans waiting at the car park for Marcus to sign things. Amanda, Jon, neighbor kids and I head out for home. On the way tradition has it to call the fish and chip shop, the Indian restaurant and the Chinese restaurant for take away. This way everyone gets what they want, no cooking, just cleanup.

We stay up until Sky Sports has their Match of the Day program with highlights from games. It's now late and we're all off to bed.

We'll do this all over again on Boxing Day the 26th with an away game, then again on the 29th and New Years Day. WOW it's a very full schedule.

Our Dear Friend Rosemary, MWEEP Chairlady

Rosemary is the chairlady of MWEEP. She also holds many leadership roles in the community and church. She hosted us during our stay and was very gracious to us. It was great to meet some of her children and some of her extended family. Rosemary has been hosting many volunteers this year. We were privileged to meet Kasey Cox who was also staying at Rosemary's home while he builds his own house on a back piece of here land. He is the field director for Network of Change Organization.
He is working on sustainable gardening both at his place and in the school yard.

Rosemary teaches at the Oloshoi bor Primary school. We arrived the second to the last day of school for the year. The new school year starts in January.

No sooner was she done with marking children's reports and closing up her classroom, then she started working with me and the MWEEP women. We had a meeting with some of the scholarship receipients, also with the MWEEP officials, then the whole MWEEP group. Another day she and Lucy went with me to meet the executive in country director of Project Baobab in Nairobi -- that turned out to be a whole day event, but very productive. I'll do a separate blog entry on our progress with Project Baobab. We met again with a Maasai women who is one of their trainers and has a DEEP heart for women and especially Maasai women.

Rosemary and I discussed using local transportation to get around rather than renting a car and driver. WOW! those experiences gave me many memories. More on the matatu rides in another blog.

More later, loanna

Lucy's Progress

Many of you have heard me speak about Lucy. She is the women with three daughters whose husband divorced her and left her destitute. Jon and I helped her attend teacher's college and now she teaches in a remote Maasai village.

A Maasai girl is traditionally married at a young age to a man of her father's choosing. She is then a part of her husand's family. If she is divorced she really has no place to go. Fortunately for Lucy and her daughters, her father allowed her to live in the family manyatta. Since she earns a salary, Lucy has been a big help to her family.

This past year Lucy's father took a major step and deeded her some land, very unusual for a daughter to receive land. She now has a home with a dirt floor, wood frame and corrigated metal on the roof and sides. She has a separate cooking house so the smoke stays there. A group offered a cost-share solar panel with wiring for a light, so Lucy participated in this. She has a large shamba (garden)which is now dry due to the drought. She has to watch out for the monkeys that come around when the produce becomes ready.

I should also mention that Lucy named her youngest daughter after me so there is now a little Loanna.

Some MWEEP Scholarship Recipients/Rescued Girls

I was not able to post since we didn't have internet access until the day we left in Nairobi. Then we had to deal with a 150 + emails on a slow computer.
We are now at our children's home in England. We had a relaxing uneventful trip here. Lucky for us Amanda got up at 5:00 am to pick us up. We left Nairobi at midnight and got in at 6:30 am.

Since I couldn't send out a blog each day, I'll be posting different pictures and stories over the next month.

The girls in the picture are receipents of MWEEP scholarships for school fees. They came to visit me Sunday after church. Some of them walked 1 - 2 hours one way to see me. They are amazing girls! You see beauty, strength, courage and a great of persistence. They have goals in mind and are doing what they can to achieve them.
I will share some of their stories in a later blog.

I met some of the parents in the process of getting to town. One of the best places to meet them was in Ngong Town. A purpose in going to town is to hang out and meet people. When a Maasai approaches someone or a group of people, you say a greeting and shake hands with EVERYONE. Some of them knew I was the masunga (white person) who was working with MWEEP and starting thanking me for the help to send their daughter to secondary school. If they didn't know who I was (there are other masunga volunteer around), once Rosemary or Lucy told them their faces lit up and they told me about their daughter going to school and thanked me a great deal. It was good to tell them that people in American care about them and want to help with getting their daughters educated. I was so pleased that these fathers were happy for the help to educate their girls. Many of the Maasai closer to Ngong are now enlightened (their word) about the benefits of an educated woman. Some brought beaded jewelry to give.

I was in Ngong the day before we left and the village chief from Kimuka made a point of coming over to talk with me. He was thankful for the help to the girls. Then we had a great discussion about the girls that still need to be rescued. If a father insists that his daughter get married and says NO to school, then she tries to explain to him why school is so important. If he still says she has to be married, she goes to the village chief. He will then go to the father. IF the father doesn't change his mind, then he will let the girls stay at his house and try to get her into a secondary school. Since is was vacation time, the girls need a place to stay. Some fathers will let their girls come back home for vacation and then let them go back to school for the next term. Other girls need to find a place to stay and are sometimes taken to relatives. The day we met the chief, he was taking a girl to another town so she could stay with her relatives.

In spite of seeing evidence of progress and more girls attending school, there is still such a great need for funding and for giving any girl/woman who wishes to go to school and opportunity to do so.