R.I.P. Charles Mutinda

Before we left Kenya, one of our favorite little Bosco Boys got sick. We left for the airport around 5 a.m. on October 5th, Charles died that morning at 3 a.m...

Our friend, Brother Jay, also has a blog and wrote about Charles...



Dear Friends,

Greetings from Bosco Boys. The Lord has given and the Lord has taken him away, Charles Mutinda, born on 06/03/10 was called to his heavenly abode on 5th Oct 2010 early morning at 2.45 am. He was the 4th born in a family of six children. He has three brothers and sisters. He joined Bosco boys on 9th June 2009. About a week back he started to complain about pain on his hip on the right side, he was taken to St. Mary’s Mission hospital and treated and there was no improvement and was taken to St. Theresa Hospital Kikuyu for further treatment and was admitted on 30th Sep 2010. There the doctor diagnosed him with a broken pelvic borne and was put on traction. He further developed complications, such as pain on the hands and later was not able to move the hands, yesterday he was diagnosed with advanced pneumonia and was not clear in his speech. Seeing his situation deteriorating we rushed him to Kenyatta National Hospital on 4th Sept 2010. He was admitted and was put on drips and oxygen. On 5th Early morning at 2.45 in the presence of his father and mother at his bed side the Lord called him to his heavenly abode. May his soul rest in peace.



“MY DEAR BROTHERS’ PLEASE WE SHOULD USE THE CHANCE THAT WE ARE GIVEN.

The way you sleep in studies is the way you loose the chances or your goals

Please don’t forget you are here for few days and you know what brought here is not Fr. Director or Fr. Mtunga; you came here because of your goal

Please try to MAKE your goals because you CAN MAKE IT”

Charles Mutinda.

Few days before he became sick; Mutinda wrote these inspiring words to be put on the Green team notice board.

We love you our Br. Mutinda



REST IN PEACE MY BOY
with the extension of our physical bodies we can not be together but am sure within the spiritual dimension we are together and always we will be. Its sad that we can not shake hands, we can not exchange words etc. but we can still be together cause we belong to the one home in which we are together. The hearts never forget what it welcomes in. Those live together in one heart never separate.
in my heart you remain my brother my boy and my son.
long live boy and pay a visit whenever opportuned
love. jay.



(Charles is on the left with the #7 jersey on)

"Don't Leave Me Alone"

This was a passionate plea from little Charles Mutinda to whoever visited
him in the hospital when he was still admitted. Unfortunately his plea was never
granted till he died at the hands of his mother.
He is the Boy who loved and appreciated the services offered to him by Bosco
Boys. This was seen in his readiness to change for good and so becomes one of
the emulated boys in the house.
Mutinda was a friend to many of us and he never fear to speak what was in his
conscience. His openness led him to have many friends however, some did not
understand him.
His desire to stay with his friends even when was sick is enough sign for the
love he had to others. "Please brother let one of you stay here with me!" he
insisted to me some few hours before he was transferred to Kenyatta Hospital.
Again few minutes before he died he asked the two fathers; “please don't go!”
I am sure this plea is still clicking to many of us who had the opportunity to be
with him at the last hours.
This is the cry of Jesus in agony at the garden; ...could you not watch one
hour...? (Mk.14:37)". Just as Jesus, Little Charles Loved us so much that he wanted us to
be with him when was going back to his father.
Charles we are with you forever.

May your soul rest in peace.- Amen.

Pat & Katie in California

So...

We're home!

We got home on the morning of Tuesday, October 19th. No one knew, well only a few people to help us set up the surprises for our families, so we came home and have been surprising our families. It has been so fun being able to see everyone's faces, seeing their shock, and how they register in their heads that they're actually seeing us :)

We actually left Kenya on October 5th and did a bit of traveling before we came home. We first flew to London and enjoyed a delicious dinner with our friends Chris and Amy, they were the two who we visited before we came to Kenya. The next day we took a train ride under the English Channel, rode along the French country side, and arrived in Brussels, Belgium. We then spent six wonderful days in Belgium with our friends Nils and Gil. They were two volunteers in Kenya with us during our first four months. We stayed with their families and they could not have been more welcoming, loving, and just great.

After our small visit in Belgium we then flew to Bangkok, Thailand to spend time with Katie's uncle, Gary. We really enjoyed our time with him, exploring the city of Bangkok, and going on hikes along the Sea of Thailand.

Then at 5:50am Tuesday, October 19th we flew back home with a lay over in Tokyo, Japan. It was a long day of traveling but really the trip only took 4 hours because we arrived in LAX at 9:50am Tuesday, October 19th. When we left Tokyo, it was day time, as we flew it became pitch dark outside, then we saw the sunrise, and then we landed in the beautiful land of America. We ended up flying around the world!

Now, you might be thinking, why are they home? Well... We felt it was time to be home. We truly truly loved our time in Kenya, we learned so much about so many things, met so many wonderful people, learned so much about ourselves, saw many beautiful/amazing sights, and we feel as if we've grown so much. It's not that we didn't know this before but our time there made us realize more, that being with the ones you love is most important. It doesn't matter where you are because you can be happy everywhere and find new people to love there, but the majority of the people we love are in Southern California. That made us want to be there...

We couldn't be more happy to be home. We want to thank everyone for their support, well wishes, and prayers that you blessed us with over the 9 months that we were away from home. THANK YOU!

We will be posting pictures and more blogs about our last days in Kenya and our travels around the world.

The blogs that have been going up the past 2 1/2 weeks had actually been posted (and post dated) around 3 weeks ago. We had to trick you guys somehow.

We want to eventually meet up with everyone so please let us know when and where! If you want to contact us, Pat's email is patrickecowan@gmail.com and Katie's is kacoolovich85@yahoo.com


:)

Kariura Preschool

These are photos at the Kariura preschool in Nairobi. This place was initially the first Bosco Boys but then came about Langata then now Bosco Boys-Kuwinda (where we live). We went and visited and there now is a preschool for the local kids in the slum surrounding it. These kids are so sweet!


These kids were so sweet when we entered.

Class time

BEAUTIFUL SMILE

These kids are so cute.

This is a picture of the walkway in the slum where the preschool is. In the middle is a stream that comes from the back of the slum where the bathrooms are.

Don Bosco Boys Kwaheri Funky Day

The other day we were invited by the new head honcho of Don Bosco Boys Town Technical School Fr. Paul Felix, formerly of Bosco Boys, to be guest judges at the DBBT cultural presentation day. It turned out to be a really fun day, watching these talented students put on some traditional dances, song, comedy skits, and raps.

We have heard long about how the food at DBBT is the best among all 5 Salesian centers in Nairobi. They weren't lying. Fr. Paul truly treated us so wonderfully there and it was nice being able to hang out with a "older" crowd than the boys at Bosco Boys. There were even some students at Boys Town who are older than us.

The team names ranged from Scorpions, Dragons, Omnitholoics (We STILL have no idea what that means), Black Rose, and there were a few more (can't remember). But it was a great day.


Fr. Paul Felix introducing us to the crowd. He's a really funny man, there's an older post about him and how he hates the pussy cats at Bosco Boys. How he would always yell "pussy out!" when the cats would come into the dining hall to take food. It was fun to hear him laugh at his own jokes again and that you can barely even understand the guy anyways.

One of the groups performing their traditional dance.

This was the judges panel; Far right: Judge #1 Millicent (a teacher at DBBT), Judge #2 Brother Patrick (formerly of Bosco Boys who is talking), Judge #3 Katie (who doesn't seem too impressed by the last act & wasn't really judge number 3 because she stole my (Pat) Judge #4 binder but she sat in the Judge #3 spot, doesn't really matter but she stole it), and the REAL Judge #4 Pat.

After the performances we were asked to give a response of what we thought. At first we were being nice but then another priest, Fr. Waldamor (who is Polish and just a really great guy), told us to be harsh and give them real criticism so they learn. We then started doing that and I don't think everybody liked us as much as when we first got there, but eh.

There was a DBBT band that played in between segments of the day. The two girls of the band played bass and guitar and did a really great job.

Our little buddy Eric, from Bosco Boys, just showed up at DBBT. We told him we were going there for the day and since they had free time that day he walked all by himself just to hang out with us. So we let him be a judge with us.

I was able to announce the winner, Omnitholoics... go figure.

Bosco Boys Smiling Faces

Fr. Sebastian has been going around taking pictures of all the boys for a collage he's creating for the school. These are some pictures of our friends.


Daniel

Kelvin

Kevin, he swears he's the strongest man in the world.

John

Stephen, the basketball star.

Peter

John

STANLEY! sometimes he likes being called Kamau, sometimes he likes being called Patrick, but he's still Stanley.

We love these kids!

These are just some fun pictures of daily things from Bosco Boys...


There are many stray cats that hang around the school. Some are there purposely to be a presence to scare away the rats, some do a good job, but there are still tons of rats. There are also some cats who have found their way to the campus and have felt right at home. Many of them have kittens then, this is one of the new baby cats around the school.

The kids love standing by the gate which leads to the...FOOD! The gate has to be locked at all times because the children really want to eat, always... But this is also where the cats live because they want to be fed also. You can see one of the cats on the floor. The oldest boy here in the orange is Papa. He doesn't speak English really well but likes the song "Big Papa" by Notorious B.I.G. So we call him BIIIIIIGGGGGG PPAAAAPPPAAA

This is mostly Class 5, they had a class project and they're holding some of the cut out letters from it.

This is Doris, she may be the shortest girl here, fupi cabiza (very very short). The boys like teasing her for being short but she still has one of the biggest smiles... even though she's not really smiling here.

Boys being boys.

The boys looking smart. (They use the term "smart" here like we use the term "sharp" or pretty much "looking good") They love taking pictures like they're GQ.

The MIGHTY Samuel!

In this mess, John's on the top and Rufas is on the bottom.

Ngong Road

There are two roads that lead to the city of Nairobi from Bosco Boys, Langata Road and Ngong Road. Langata Road is faster from Bosco Boys but usually has much more traffic. So what we do is take a mutatu (public van transportation) to the area of Karen then jump on a "City Hoppa" (public bus transportation) to the city of Nairobi. It is a little longer but there is less traffic and there is more to see on the road. These are some views from the trip you would take from Karen to Nairobi on Ngong Road.


Normal homes/shops along the road.

For almost a mile stretch on the road is an area where there is about 20 shops that sell the same handmade furniture/arts. These are some metal giraffes that people weld together. They are very beautiful looking pieces of art but they wouldn't fit into our rooms at Bosco Boys so we just took a picture instead.

Some kids just hanging out along the road.

This is actually a very large building for Kenya, used probably as an apartment complex. Being able to live here would mean you are doing very very well financially. You can also see the traffic behind us on the road.

This is a shot of the furniture that people make along side the road. They have shacks next to the road where they construct everything, transport is from the shed to open space daily, and just sleep on it until someone comes to buy it.

Fun Field Day

Recently we had a day full of games and fun for the kids. Fr. put on a day of football and track competitions for the kids. It is a lot of fun when the kids compete against each other, play the games they love to win, and when they succeed from their hard work. We were able to play with them a little today but they didn't want any "older people" playing because they wanted fair/even team matches. Here are some photos from the day.


Br. Mapesa talks to the kids before the matches begin with leading them in a prayer.

The girls getting prepared for their game.

Smile

Group smile

Intensity, passion, focus...Bosco Girls

Beautiful

Peter and his little buddy.

Emmaculatte and her friends.

A race around our track.

A break for some chai (tea).

The winners at the end of the day.

Fr. Seba and his pal.

Parents Meeting

A big part of the Bosco Boys program is reintegration back into normal Kenyan society. Every holiday time at Bosco Boys, which is a month period between a 3 month block of school, the children are sent home to put into use the skills, manners, and habits they have learned at Bosco Boys. Now many of the boys don't have places to go, so they stay here during holidays. Some kids may have a grandmother to go home to, an aunt, somebody. When they go home to this particular person/group of persons, we hope they don't resort back to the lifestyle they lived before coming to Bosco Boys.

When the next school term starts up, Fr. Sebastian asks each student to bring at least one person back with him for a Parents meeting. Here, Fr. Sebastian can tell, show, and explain to them what is being taught to their boy(s) and that the parents can also learn something for the betterment of the child. Now these pictures were taken at the beginning of this school term, but when we borrowed Fr.'s camera he had these pictures so we decided to put some up.


Fr. Sebastian talking to the parents that did attend in the library/tv room... When we think about it, having a library/tv room is kinda funny.

To the far left is Odijo, who is taking notes about the meeting. Mr. Steven (Odijo, which is a shang "slang" word for teacher) has been apart of Bosco Boys since the beginning. He is a social worker and deals individually with each of the kids and their families. He is a wonderful man.

One of the mothers speaking up.

A photo of most of the parents/guardians who came sitting in the DH (dining hall).

Some more of the families.

A grandmother of a Bosco Boy.

Achilles (a former Bosco Boy, now teacher/helper at Langata who is waiting to go to college) wears a White Sox jacket and serves lunch.

Everybody's hungry

Yummy!

smile

beans and rice and everything nice