Vanovers' Travels: A visit with Margret

Over the last 15-20 years Marilyn and I have been sponsoring a child through Compassion International. Our first child was from Ethiopia, and at age 18, she "aged out" of the program. This happened about 3 years ago, and at that time, we requested to transfer our sponsorship to a child in Kenya, since we had plans to return here on a regular basis, and had also developed a love for the Kenyan people. This child's name is Margret Wanja, and she lives in a small village in the northern part of Kenya. When planning to return to Kenya this year, we decided to attempt to arrange a visit with her. This process began several months before our departure and included background checks for both Marilyn and myself, as well as multiple other logistical hurdles...not the least of which was picking a day for a visit without benefit of knowing what our call schedule would be upon arrival. We chose Friday, Sept. 22nd (since Compassion International does not arrange sponsor visits on the weekend) hoping that we would be able to arrange coverage for ourselves at the hospital, and that we would have time to find a driver and make travel arrangements. After beginning the process, we discovered that Kenya is a fairly large country!...Margret's village was an 8hr drive from Tenwek, meaning that we would not be able to make the drive to see her, and return the same day. Fortunately for us, Compassion was willing to arrange to have Margret and a social worker from her school come into the town of Narok, which is only about an hour and a half drive from Tenwek. She travelled by public bus with her social worker (yikes!!...not an experience that we aspire to!) and stayed overnight at a hotel in Narok. Today (Friday), we had a driver from Tenwek take us to meet her and spend some time with her...what a blessing this turned out to be! She is a shy, but delightful, curious young 11 year old girl. She is the 3d of 4 daughters (with a 5th child on the way!...she is praying for a brother!!) and her parents are both day laborers in their village....sometimes having employment, sometimes not. She attends a school run by the Catholic church, and her day begins at 6:00 a.m. when she begins her walk to school. She arrives at school by 6:30 a.m. and then cleans for an hour or so, before beginning her remedial class work (she is currently in 3d form). This is followed by 5 classes in a variety of subjects including math, science, social studies, religious education, and language (she is learning English as well as Swahili, and her tribal language). We learned that her favorite class was religious studies, and that she would like to be a nurse after her primary education is completed. After her classwork, she has time for "football" or PE, followed by another 45 minutes to an hour of cleaning the classroom, and then she begins her walk home at 5:00p.m. As her family is poor, and if food is not readily available from their garden (during the drought for example), she might only eat one meal a day while at school. Her favorite meal is chicken and chapati bread ( an African flat bread, similar to a tortilla....for those of us from Texas!) Her favorite colors are green and pink. As fate would have it, we had purchased a cute green dress (without knowing her color preferences) to take along as a gift... and, one of Marilyn's employees (thank you Linda!) had donated a "Love Pink" rolling suitcase to give to her as well!! It was packed with various school items, and toys...a pink backpack, some crayons and pencils, paper and glue sticks, coloring books, and "paint with water" books. We also had packed some snacks and gifts for her family and siblings....Trail mix, Hershey's chocolate, and chocolate milk mix, Crystal light drink mix, peanut butter crackers, and some colorful dish towels and dish clothes for her mother. Easily the biggest hit was a soccer ball and frisbee which we "demonstrated" after lunch. Unfortunately, I "demonstrated" that stepping on the soccer ball while running was a good way to end up bruised and chagrined....she seemed to get quite a good laugh out of this before she was able to regain her 11 year old composure...Marilyn, on the other hand, did not even ATTEMPT to hide her mirth! In any event, I had no need for a visit to our friendly orthopedic visiting doctor from North Carolina, so all is well....just a bruised buttock... and bruised ego! Margret seemed to really enjoy her first big journey out of the area where she has grown up, her first bus trip, her first stay in a hotel, and her first visit with her Texas "family". She is looking forward to sharing her BIG story with her friends from her village when she gets back home. She is quite a lovely young girl (see pictures below) and we found ourselves charmed by her. We look forward to seeing how she matures and grows over the years ahead, and look forward to the day when we can come back to see her graduate from Tenwek's nursing school (God willing)!!