Our reason to see Rusinga Island

Timm and I both graduated from North Park University, in Chicago. We were a few years apart, but both lucky enough to take classes from Prof. Theodora Ayot, a Kenyan woman who still teaches history there.

Many North Parkers over the past decade have been just as fortunate, since Teddy teaches two of the required introductory world history courses.

Teddy would often ask the class what I always took as a rhetorical question: "Are you my people?" (Another phrase, more common in the MWF 9 a.m. French Revolution class I took from her, was, "Where are my people?") In her rich Kenyan voice, highlighted by that British accent common to English-speakers from former colonial countries, it was her warm, welcoming way to let you know people from all different cultures and places walk together through this life. I always thought that must have been a worldview expressed in the place she came from.

If you got to know Teddy, you became her people. And eventually, she'd invite you to come visit her people on Rusinga Island.

Timm and I were again and again invited (though you might say "told" we would be making the trip, if you know Teddy), with our friend even suggesting jobs we'd be assigned on the inevitable visit. I was to write about Rusinga; Timm was supposed to built a school. (Since the blog is up and running, I win.)

In that sense, this trip has been years in the making.

But there was a twist a few years ago, and some of the people she taught and mentored took her up on the offer in a different way.

I don't know the full history of this small effort to provide scholarships for students of Rusinga Island. In fact, just this afternoon in Seattle I met the woman who was one of the founders of the organization Teddy inspired, and Ingrid promised to explain all the background to me when we return. Here's a link with a bit more information. The short version is that a few years ago "Operation My People" was founded by some North Park alums to show their gratitude by helping the children of Rusinga. Who are our people.

Some of Timm's friends have become the leaders of OMP, and have visited Rusinga a few times. They've been helpful with advice for our trip, and we're playing mule for OMP in return. The latest project is to "shoe our crew," or outfit a youth soccer team.

Timm and I are traveling light for the next two weeks, except for the first few days. We'll have two 4-foot by 2-foot by 2-foot duffle bags in tow from Nairobi to Rusinga, filled with 36 pairs of soccer "boots" and two sets of soccer jerseys. The plan is to have them dropped off by Wednesday. One boys team and one girls team will look pretty good, and we figure this won't hurt our welcome.

So there's an added reason for this long-planned trip, and an added job that Teddy never assigned. We're not building a school, but hopefully we're helping build a program.

Those bags are packed, we're headed to bed now and off to Sea-Tac in the morning. Fifteen hours or so and we're on the way to Nairobi.

An introduction to our trip

In the era of Facebook I realize the redundancy of a travel blog like Timm and I have in mind here. But Mr. and Mrs. Nelson do not Facebook, and since the first rule of writing is "know your audience," here we are with a simple website where our parents can (hopefully) read an update or see photos as we move around Kenya.

If you aren't Dwight or Kathy, I should tell you about that trip now.

My brother Timm and I leave for Kenya on Sunday, June 26. We plan to be there for two weeks. We fly to Nairobi, where we plan to stay for one day before taking a bus to a town called Kisumu. From Kisumu we will hitch a ride to a place called Rusinga Island, a community of 15,000 in Lake Victoria, on the west side of the country. That's about it for the plan, though we have a few other things in mind we'd like to do. I'm a little ambiguous about what comes after that (and with good reason, because we really don't have a itinerary), but that'll just add a dramatic arc to this blog. A second good rule of writing.

I'll explain the connection with Rusinga in the next blog post, it's a good enough story for it's own spotlight.

We'll be dependent on the kindness of strangers, we're counting on friends of friends to be at certain places to meet us as we travel, and we'll probably make plans based on the local recommendations whenever possible. The idea of this blog is to be a place where we can post brief updates from Kenya over the coming two weeks, if you're interested in following the trip. If that proves impossible because of infrequent Internet access, come July 10 there will be a nice recap with photos and all that.

Last, about the blog's title. That's my pidgin Luo for "The Nelsons are going to Rusinga," based on a list of dictionary words someone sent me. It's not exact, but you get the point. (And you probably don't speak Luo anyway.)

But keep reading, and we'll try to keep this interesting. And maybe we'll teach you to say: "David and Timm, waweza kuiandika?"

(That is, "Please write it down for me.")