Thursday, May 10th, 2007
Some Bad News
You may have heard about the Kenyan Airways flight that crashed last weekend. It has been big news here in Kenya of course, but two days ago we learned that this tragedy will be touching the Deaf community greatly. The one American aboard the flight, Dr. Al Hen, was the director of the Liverpool VCT which directly sponsors Kenya\’s three Deaf AIDS testing centers. He was a former Peace Corps volunteer and once complimented me on choosing a Peace Corps volunteer for a wife; he had done the same. Dr. Hen was a good man who strongly supported what we are doing here. We\’ll miss him and his contribution to educating the Deaf about HIV/AIDS.
In another sad peice of news, we have learned that our wonderful host father, Charles Kakumi has passed away unexpectedly. For those of you who don\’t recognize the name, the Kakumi family host Miranda and I for almost three months while we were trained to be volunteers in Kitui. The Kakumi family became our Kenyan family; we shared our ups and downs with them every evening over dinner. They were always supportive of us and our work. As I wrote months ago, I came to respect Charles Kakumi\’s wisdom. His comments on his own culture gave me new insights into what I was dealing with everyday in Kenya. He was the model of a strong Kenyan man: he sent all of his children to secondary school, he always welcomed guests and treated them like royalty, he was calm at all times, he supported his family and, when he spoke, the room would fall silent to here what he had to say. Miranda and I will attend Charles Kakumi\’s funeral on Saturday. It will be the first time we have seen the Kakumi family since we finished training.