Update from Kenya

This is a roadside cafe near the town of Naivasha in Kenya where me and my friend Njaaja stopped for tea last October. I saw the very same cafe on the website of CNN last week ... only this time it was the scene of people being beaten with sticks.

It is a very different Kenya right now that the one I visited in the fall. Hard to believe that things can change so fast.

I've been getting updates from my new friends .. ironically I haven't heard anything from the journalists I met ... likely too busy getting the story out there in the big media to communicate one-to-one. I would guess that those working for Kenya Broadcasting Corporation are fine .. busy, but fine.

I was more concerned about Leah, my friend who works at the radio station in the Korogocho slum. I hadn't heard from her in a while .. I was very relieved to hear back from her last week that she is fine. She is working on a story that we're not hearing about ... rapes and violence against women that are happening as a direct result of the current conditions.

And of course I have been even more worried about the 74 children in the Njaaga's Hope Child's Home. At first, the violence wasn't near the home so I wasn't so worried. Now it has moved closer in, and the village close to the home has had incidences of violence. Thanks to Fran, a woman here in Canada who is in constant contact with them, I am getting regular updates.

A few days ago it looked like the kids were going to be moved to Nairobi. There are now 90 of them ... James and Lucy, the two Kenyans who started the home, have taken in 16 more kids ... all between the ages of 3 and 5. Their parents were killed in the violence when they took refuge in a church. It was then was torched and they burned to death, leaving all these babies ... a blessing that the babies weren't with them in the church ... but so tragic and horrific that so many more children are being orphaned .. as if the AIDS epidemic wasn't enough to cope with.

So we just wait for news ... the other children I am concerned about in all of this are my two nieces Elizabeth and Emily. Just before Christmas their family decided to sponsor a child from the orphanage. Having friends in Africa is really a big thing in their lives ... they are sponsoring a boy named George and they wrote them letters before Christmas. My sister Lori and I have had many discussions about how much to tell her kids .. who are only 12 and 8.

Lori had a talk with Elizabeth, who's 12. She is a very sensitive little soul and is carrying around some sadness about all of this. And some fear too. I feel some responsibility for this ... I was the person who introduced my nieces to these children in Africa. And if anything happens to them, this will be a very difficult life lesson... and that I was the one who inadvertently brought this into their lives.

Somehow it's different to bring messages to "the masses" than it is to bring them to those within our small circles of family and friends. We don't ever know what kind of impact our stories bring in the greater world ... I can see clearly how the stories shared with my immediate circle has created awareness and change.

I have to constantly remind myself that we can't ever totally control the impact of our words. Telling stories and sharing them with the world requires a great deal of faith that our words will have the impact and results that we intend.

In this case, even if something bad does happen, Elizabeth will be fine even though it will be hard. And despite the gloomy tone of this piece of writing, I do have faith that the children will not be harmed. I'll keep you posted.