It hard to believe that we have been doing this Art in
Kibera program for 5 years; it always feels new to me when we arrive and at the
same time it’s just like coming home.
We arrived on Saturday evening to Franco, our friend and driver and to
our surprise, Anne Wangari, my Kenyan sister and our dear friend was waiting as
well. Settling in to the Pedro
Arrupe Center is like coming back to ones home. You show up, they greet Margaret and I with great warmth and
Karibu Nyumbani (Welcome Home) and it is just that, home. Our home in Kenya that fortifies us and
keeps us grounded as we experience all that is Kenya, Nairobi, Kibera, St.
Aloysius School, and our Smart, Beautiful and Important students.
Sunday was up and out to Church at Nyumbani Home. This is a home for orphans with HIV and
is such a great, affirming and meaningful place. The priest that held mass was wonderful and as were talking
as the kids were arriving, he said to me,
“look how nice they all dress to come to mass” and I agreed saying it is
important to them. Its not only
that he said, it’s about seeing the confidence this place builds in these
children. When you are loved this is what happens. My heart started to pound as I thought of my sons Andre and
Lucas and turned and went into mass.
I am not sure that it matters what faith tradition you follow or if you
even do when you see these children take part in mass, it’s about community and
the creation of a core of love and respect and caring. Its wonderful to see all the children
so excited to be in church as they are singing and acting out their parts and
giving peace to each other and signing and dancing as only I have seen in
Kenya. If this was mass daily, it would be packed wherever it was being held.
It was rewarding to see them so happy and engaged and makes me grateful for the
work Sr. Mary Owens and her team does to create such a loving home, yes,
Nyumbani means home. Perfect name!
We went off to lunch to our favorite spot, Nairobi Java and
then a little Masai Market perusing.
Then back at the ranch as Margaret calls the Pedro Arrupe Center, we had
a nice dinner with the community as well as celebrated a few birthdays and
wished one of the Jesuits well as he moves to the University of San Francisco
to take on more education. We were
recognized for being part of this community and even Chachu, the Jesuit going
to USF, thanked us for our presence.
It is moving to be recognized by a community that we have come to revere
as a home away from home. They are
the kindest and warmest community ever.
As I have said before, organic is almost always how this
trip unveils itself to us.
Margaret and I had talked about introducing sculpture as our medium this
year and starting small with found objects and paper made sculptures. When we got to the school this morning
and students were waiting. They
faces beautiful, there excitement visible and their rapt attention, meaningful.
The way the students respond to us and greet us is worth all that you can
imagine. We talked about sculpture, we talked about what art means to them,
which is one of our standard questions, and the answers were amazing, as
always.
This year the theme is “Creating from the Soul” into the 3rd
dimension. We are taking their work from 2 dimensional to 3 dimensional. We talked about creating from the soul
and what that might mean to you as an artist and what we heard was worth
sharing:
“Creating makes you courageous”
“Brings you out as an individual”
“It’s a means of communication, expressing yourself”
“Builds self esteem-provides the courage to do the best”
“Transforms what is in your soul to something real and
tangible”
These quotes are just priceless and knowing that this is
only day one, seem to prove that we will in fact have a great 2-week
session. After this discussion was
held, we stopped the class for a practice that we started last year to help our
students become centered; we lead meditation with music. It was great to see
them reflect, breathe in and out, take in the music and the words and then have
them all come back to class. This
5-minute exercise brings them back refreshed and relaxed and ready.
We started off with creating sculptures from paper just to see what people came up with. Interesting and structural and a little predictable but something that comes through in these exercises is how absolutely individual we all are and it is obvious in their creations. Then Margaret brought out Origami and led the class through the creation of the peace crane. I never thought it would take an hour to create the crane or how complex it is to do this with precision. This is a test in patience, accuracy and presence, like most things in life.
We left the class with a closing meditation and an
assignment. The assignment are to
write in their journals (I forgot to mention we made these at the start of
class) about “what would you like to create from your soul” and bring found
objects to create a sculpture and we were off.
After class we went to visit Kibera paper were old recycled
bank paper and other recycled papers are made into new beautiful, colorful
paper that eventually become holiday cards etc. The woman that run this
organization are crafty and smart and creators of beautiful art From there we
went off to the Kouna Trust to meet with the new director, Sylvia Gichia, who
was an artist in residence last year when we visited Kuona. We were hoping to have our students
hang their art again but this year there is an exhibit opening that coincides
with when we would want to exhibit. The name of the show is “The Woman’s Vote”
by Maryanne Muthoni. We are
excited to bring our students to meet her in a private meeting next week;
Sylvia and Renee were kind enough to set up discussion between our students and
the artist on August 22. We also
visited artists at the Kuona Trust that we have known from the past and met
some new ones such as Tony, a glass artist like Margaret. It was great to hear them talk shop and
compare and contrast. The irony
with this meeting was that Tony was the glass artist that did the glass windows
and stained glass windows at the Pedro Arrupe Center Chapel where we stay. It is a small world. Margaret walked away feeling happy and
excited by the whole experience.
This seems to be the norm with us when we are in Kenya, our second
home.
As I wrap up this blog, I am continually filled with
gratitude for the opportunity we were given 6 years ago to develop this program
for the students of St. Al’s. It
continues to be something new each year and amazes me how it unfolds and
continues to bring us back each year.
We are reengaged and rejuvenated by the hopeful people of Kenya and this
is most visible to us through our students and the School that invites us back
each year. It feels so normalized
for us to be here and at the same time, I know that this is an experience of a
lifetime that we have each and every year with our beautiful Kenyan
friends.
Thank you for coming on this journey with us and reading our
blog and commenting, we like knowing you are here with us. Your support means so much to us.
Until Tomorrow!
With Gratitude,
Charles and Margaret
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