It’s Christmas Eve and all the TV channels are airing their top ten stories of the year. Here’s one of
my top ten.
I have two friends, actually, probably more than two, but these two play the heroes in my story. R. J.,
friend one, had a chain saw that “up-and-stopped.” He said he had dropped about 120 dollars in
repairs then it up-and-stopped again. “Nilson, you grew up with chain saws, would you take a look at
this piece-a-junk.” Never one to turn down a challenge, I dismembered the chain saw. New plug,
flush out fuel line, new fuel filter-- seemed like a good idea. Well, that piece-a-junk chain saw never
upped, much less stopped.
After a couple of months I screw up the courage to admit my failure to R.J. “Keep it. Tired of fooling
with that piece-a-junk.” Like I need a chain saw for a paper weight.
A couple of months later, it happens I’m having a cup with friend two, Bob, at Starbucks. Bob is the
kind of guy who makes America great. A little overweight, optimistic, always ready to tell a story; a
retired hospital engineer; inveterate tinkerer; he can fix anything. “What do you know about chain
saws?” “Let me take a look at it.”
Next week Bob has the chain running like new and says he’ll drop it by my place. “Bob, I have a big
chain saw. What do I need with another?” He’s says he doesn’t want it, cause his chain saw is even
bigger than mine (man talk). We think a minute and he suggests he puts it on Craig’s List and,
knowing I am going to Africa, why not see what I can do with the proceeds there? That’s how I end
up with four twenties that nobody wants.
Next week I find myself making home visits for Hope Kenya, a preschool in Miwani, a very poor
neighborhood of Machakos, Kenya. Hope Kenya gets kids out of the slum and prepares them to enter
primary school.
One of our worst hardship families is headed by a 19 year old mother with three boys 2, 4 and 6 years
old. Most of the people in this part of Kenya have been given Christian furst names, so to preserve
this young lady’s anonymity I shall call her Charity.
Charity was abandoned by her aunt at age thirteen in another town after both her parents died,
presumably of HIV. All three of her boys are malnourished. She and her children live in an eight foot
square, stick and wattle hut with a dirt floor that turns to mud when the rains come. The rains have
just begun, and their only belongings, a pile of grey, wet rags are heaped in the corner. Charity is being
treated for HIV that she acquired in a gang rape. Fortunately, she is almost well, has found some day
labor and her two older boys are attending Hope Kenya under a “scholarship”.
Bob Finds Charity
Generally, when I work in the developing world I try to teach people how to take care of their own
needs through health education, sanitation, nutrition and self help projects under the “teach a man to
fish...” theory. This time, I justified giving away the two hero’s eighty dollars on the grounds that, one,
it wasn’t really mine and, two, nobody wanted it in the first place. I asked one of the teachers to see
how far she could stretch the money for Charity and her kids.
Close inspection will reveal a new bed, mattress, blanket, mosquito net, two pans, a charcoal brazier
for cooking, a stirring spoon, a big blue plastic tub for washing and Charity’s smile. There was five
dollars left from the two hero's stash. It went for a month’s rent.
Sometimes it’s just better to give fishes. They’ve been said to feed multitudes.
May we all prosper in the coming year and, if you think you might do OK, how about sharing a fish
with the kids at Hope Kenya?
Bjorn
