BEADS Sponsor Trip - September, 2006

In September 2006, BEADS sponsors Tony Foltman and Terese Lyons of Santa Fe, New Mexico visited Kenya to visit with their sponsored girl. They write of their experiences (Terese’s comments are in Italics):

The moment we met Sainapei caught me unawares.

We had been in Kenya for three days as part of the BEADS Sponsors trip. We had already met Nelly, a beautiful and shy Maasai girl who is sponsored by close friends of ours in California. We had also met Moyai, an equally lovely young woman, who was sponsored by Leila Medley who accompanied us on the trip. But the moment we finally met Sainapei and her mother, Tayana, seemed to come out of the blue!

Debby Rooney had given us a rough outline of our itinerary and I had been keeping track more than Tony. So I knew when we were to meet Sainapei and her mother. (In fact, Sainapei and Moyai later gave us Maasai names and mine is “Nasieku” which means “on top of things!” )

I had been mesmerized by Kenya and the drive to Isinya, home of Top Ride Academy where most BEADS girls go to boarding school, the extraordinary welcome given us by the many, many beautiful children and their teachers, the songs of the lovely DuPoto Women’s Group, and the magnificent warriors, Chief Patrick and Chief James, Joseph and Phillip. It was truly overwhelming.

The entire group of students, faculty and staff greeted us en masse as we drove up to the school. As they sang, we were presented with bouquets of roses. For the moment I felt like we were some sort of royalty.

But Sainapei does not attend Top Ride because she lives a good bit east of Amboseli National Park in the town of Loitokitok. She attends Kimana Secondary School there and the BEADS staff had to arrange to have her and her mother come to Amboseli. It would be two more days before we met her.

So in our first days we met the other delightful girls and visited Top Ride. We walked through many classrooms with Peter Wereru, Headmaster, and met many smiling, happy students and dedicated teachers. Seeing the many students very earnestly applying themselves to learn was heartwarming.

It was also so rewarding to feel the sincere appreciation of the Headmaster, teachers and students for the small gifts (books and such) we had brought for the schools. They do so much with so little that we felt proud to be a part of it all.

On the way to meet the families of Nelly and Moyai we bought each family a gift of supplies: flour, sugar, soap, cooking oil and other staples. At their homes we were given wonderful greetings of traditional Maasai songs and dances. They openly shared their homes with us and presented us with many pieces of the beautiful, hand-made beaded jewelry.

In all of this I was swept up in the excitement, warmth, friendliness and beauty of the girls and the Maasai. I lost my sense of time.

Then suddenly, at a school in Amboseli, there were Sainapei and her mother! Sainapei’s radiant and beautiful smile I recognized immediately from the few photos that Debby Rooney had sent us. I think I was captivated at that moment!

Being “on top of things,” I was not quite as surprised as Tony when we first saw Sainapei and her mother, but I was just as captivated!

We had exchanged a few letters over the previous two years that we had been sponsoring Sainapei. Her letters were charming, full of engaging descriptions of her school, her life and her family (and in very good English). They also brimmed with thanks to us for being her sponsors.

Sainapei, a bit older than the other girls we had met, was poised, full of confidence, energy and excitement. On the long drive to her village she showed us her school books, described the Periodic Table to my wife, and told us how much she likes physics and chemistry. Being a former nuclear engineer I had a wonderful time talking to her about science. As we drove she wrote down Swahili words for the many animals we saw as we passed through Amboseli National Park. It was a magical time!

At her home we met her father, Lolkinyiei, a wise and stately man of 90 or more years. A man who understands the importance of education and as a result sought out BEADS to help Sainapei.

As with the previous families, we were received with great warmth and affection. Sainapei proudly showed us the place in her father’s manyatta where she sleeps when not in boarding school. She beamed all the while!

And I almost cried to think of the comfortable bedroom I grew up in as contrasted to this small, dark, hard place of which she was so proud. But perhaps that is why these children are so unspoiled and so appreciative. Once again, I felt so proud of what we are doing and what BEADS, as a whole, is doing.

In our honor her family slaughtered a sheep, one of the few they had left after the severe drought earlier in the year. The warriors cooked it over an open fire and we all shared a meal under the trees.

All too soon it was time to leave this remarkable family and take Sainapei back to school. They thanked us warmly for all that we were doing for their daughter and we drove off in a light rain. At her school, Sainapei gave us the Grand Tour. And there we met seven other BEADS sponsored girls. We had brought a variety of school supplies for them as well as tee shirts. As we gave them out there was much smiling and giggling! It was all quite playful and a great deal of fun.

But in a flash it was all over. We had to leave our lovely Sainapei at school and return to Amboseli. It would be some days before we could put our jumble of feelings and thoughts in some kind of order. It had been a brief, but very, very special time.

In the first minutes of our meeting, Sainapei’s mother told us in Maa, which Sainapei translated, that the family “gave” her to us because we could do for her what they could not. But she kept touching her heart and gesturing toward us. This needed no translation. We now share their daughter. She has come into our lives. We are committed to providing for her education for as far as she is able and wishes to go.

We now have a very special and lovely Maasai “daughter,” Sainapei Lolkinyiei. We are very grateful to BEADS and Debby Rooney for the opportunity.