Watching the Chickens

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.  For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalm 139:11-14

I hope that you are thawing out after what has been a week of ice, snow, and uncomfortable living conditions for many of you.  I pray that your homes were spared from expensive damage and that you were able to access necessary supplies to keep yourselves and your families warm, hydrated, and fed.  As I scrolled through FaceBook and Instagram over the past week my heart ached to read the posts about frozen pipes, intermittent or total loss of power, and people making the best of a difficult situation.  Living in a developing country these past few years, I know all too well the feeling of dread when the power cuts just as you were starting to have hope that it wouldn’t.  I am all too familiar with boiling water and flushing toilets with buckets only when it’s really necessary to do so.  While we are blessed here in Tanzania to not have frigid temps to contend with, lack of electricity and water is a problem that the majority of people do contend with every single day.  I know you know this, and I’m sure that this week especially, you are feeling grateful for the luxuries that you do have.  I know that’s how I feel every time the power comes back on, or I turn on the faucet and clean-ish water comes out.  Out of the large amount of time my mind devotes to these basic amenities, electricity and water, about 25% of it is spent worrying about when they’ll disappear again, and 75% is giving thanks for having them at all.  So while I still hate every time the lights go out and every cup bath I have to take, I know that by going without, I’m gaining a thankfulness that I pray I will never take for granted.  You may be thinking, 
        Geez Allee, my toes are still partially frozen, it’s a little early for this thankfulness talk. 
                    and I get that.  
But I hope after some time, after every room in your house is back to 72 degrees and the pipes are fixed and the water runs clear again, you’ll be able to look back on your time without with more gratitude than resentment. 
Joseph finished the chicken house this week and on Friday we bought four very special chickens to inhabit the nicest chicken coop in all of Bukoba (maybe even Tanzania).  Our plan is to have around a dozen chickens, but we’re starting with four to see how they do.  Just as they had surrounded Joseph while he was building it, students surrounded the chicken coop from the moment the chickens arrived until bedtime on Sunday night.  Every time I looked there were different students there.  They sat, poking their tiny fingers and noses through the chicken wire, giggling as the rooster crowed and the hens bathed in the sand.  
Over dinner Saturday night I shared with Joseph something that has fascinated me ever since arriving at KEMPS last year.  KEMPS is a boarding school, but not all students are boarders.  There are close to 200 kids who live here on the campus in dorms, and another 150 who live at home with their families and commute to and from school every day.  On the weekends, those 200 students have two full days of free time, but little to do with it.  There is no TV for them to watch, no computers or video games for them to play with.  They don’t have phones or iPads or coloring books or puzzles.  So what do they do for two days?  They study.  They do chores around the compound.  They play in the sand and build cars out of juice boxes and bottle caps, they kick around makeshift balls and chase our cats, and they watch the new chickens in Mr. Joseph’s chicken coop.  I told Joseph how rare it would be for a child in the US to spend any extended period of time without some form of entertainment.  Think about it.  What do your kids or grandkids do on the weekends? What did you do as a kid on the weekends?  I’m sure some of you grew up in a time free of technology and video games and spent a lot of that time outdoors using your imagination.  But no toys?  Not even a ball or a baby doll?  No TV?  Not even a radio program?  When I think about the amount of time that these kids occupy themselves without complaint or even a pout, I again am filled with gratitude and reminded just how privileged my childhood was.  So what do we do with that?  Do we deprive our children of toys and technology and force them to spend their weekends with nothing?  No, of course not.  Kids need and deserve materials to play with.  My kids here at KEMPS included.  But also, not to be a broken record, sometimes we need some time without to help us be grateful for all that we have.  
Joseph and I are trying to think of ways we can provide some entertainment for our students during their free time.  Bi-weekly movie nights is a start, but they need more than that.  On Sunday we distributed colored pencils and markers that were generously donated by friends of mine to every student on campus.  They don’t have notebooks to color in yet, but it’s a start.  We also talked about creating a better system for the small amount of sports equipment the school has so that it can actually be used equitably by nearly 200 students on a regular basis.  We don’t have it all figured out yet, but again, it’s a start.  And of course, I would graciously accept any ideas you may have for ways to provide creative, sustainable outlets for this large number of students without breaking the bank.  

As you head into this new, brighter week and all that it may hold, I pray that you stay warm, stay healthy, and stay grateful. 

Mungu akubariki, 
Allee

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Alison Gomulka

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