Florence Mubichi Memorial Room at OU

Urge employers to provide women with a clean, pleasant, private place (other than a bathroom!) where they can nurse or pump breast milk. There is such a room at the OU School of Nursing that is named in honor of my dear friend Florence Mubichi of Meru, Kenya.

Kenya Mission - Books Donated

Several months ago, students at Summit Middle School in Edmond donated books for the children's library I helped launch in Meru, Kenya. Above is a picture of one of the drop off sites at the school. I went there with file boxes and the kids threw the books into my boxes. Those boxes have been sitting at my church and now I'm finally sorting through the boxes and repacking them tightly in preparation for their being shipping to Kenya.

I am actually going to store the boxes in a donated storage unit for a while until I have enough boxes of donated books to fill a 20 foot shipping container. I'd mail the books to Kenya but the postal rate is $1 per pound plus most of what gets mailed to Kenya of any value never arrives at it's destination. Also, there is much rigmarole involved in getting a waiver on books (otherwise I'd have to pay import tax on the assumption the books were for resale in Kenya). It involves getting papers signed by the Secretary of Finance and the Secretary of Education, bribes to officials at the Port of Mombasa and bribes to policemen who stop our truck between the port and Meru... I'm willing to jump through those hoops once for a 20 foot shipping container but not numerous times for smaller shipments.

If you know a middle school that would consider a service project of donating books for the community library located on the campus of the Kaaga School for Hearing Impaired Children in Central Kenya, please have a teacher or school official get in touch with me. My Kenya connection, the remarkable Florence Mubichi, and I will come to the school and show pictures and talk about the need for books and our goal of creating a culture of reading for children of Kenya. Thanks.

FYI, the first picture is my living room hearth where the repacking process has just begun. I am trying to bring home and repack 5-8 boxes a day. I keep wanting to hold back what I consider hugely culturally inappropriate books while my 7th grade language arts school teacher daughter insists we send almost everything donated. I have talked her into letting me set aside the "Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley" series and the "Girl Talk" ("Allison's a model!") series. But Pokemon, Captain Underpants and Scooby-Doo are going to Kenya!

Kenya Mission Trip - Final Thoughts

I have had a surprisingly hard time shaking jet lag since returning from Kenya this time. But, I am taking myself off vacation and getting back to work as of tomorrow so expect a back log of posts!

Sorting through the pictures and video I took in Kenya in October, you'd think all we did was sit around and goo at the baby. But we DID actually get alot accomplished and I came home with a new task - putting down a floor in a classroom at the Kaaga Primary School so the room can become a small elementary school library/reading room. These kids don't have a diningroom; they eat on the ground except for during the rainy seasons (I guess they eat in the classrooms when it rains). But they'd rather have a library than a diningroom. Want to help me make that happen? If so, leave a comment or email me at jeanwarner at cox dot net.

(Read my most recent Kenya blog at http://merukenya2008.blogspot.com/ and Kate McLain's blog on the mission trip at http://kenyakatie.livejournal.com/. We lost Internet connection just about the time I flew home but I will finish posting about the mission trip from OKC over the next week and Kate will do the same as soon as she returns home next Friday.)

Above are pictures of the future library at Kaaga Primary School, the shack that serves as the school's "kitchen" and some of the kids. The school only serves food to the kindergarten students; the rest bring a lunch, go home for lunch, or do without.