So the first strong images of Africa in my mind are born of Out of Africa, a film that paints the Kenyan landscape with sweeping and gorgeous landscapes. The deep red soil of Karen Blixen’s coffee plantation, the acacia trees that grow up and then flatten towards the tops, the vast distances of land and sky– all of this is what Kenya was supposed to look like.
But more recent vicarious experience and stories have shown me otherwise. Africa is, instead, a landscape ravaged first by colonialism that, while it left the landscape (mostly) intact, seriously disrupted the social systems. The eventual liberation of these social systems gave rise to ancient and new anger, civil wars, and economies suddenly unsupported. Add to this the destruction of AIDS, which hampers society at every level, and we have an Africa very different from the one Karen Blixen left with some reluctance at the turn of the last century.
I’ve come on this trip because of AIDS, not the colonial ideal. Beacon of Hope is five years old today and it sits on the edge of Kware (quarry), a slum named because of the stones that are everywhere within it. Beacon is a narrow concrete building with few windows, an enclosed but really outdoor kitchen, and a dirt and rock-ridden courtyard where the children play. The building houses a diagnostic, treatment and counseling clinic for people with HIV. Downstairs it houses several rooms for cleaning and spinning and weaving wool, as well as classrooms for the children of the women who spend their days there: Beacon educates and cares for infants through children in the first grade.
We toured Beacon today and enjoyed the children in the schoolyard. They were transfixed with Emma’s blonde hair. William and Everett gave countless piggy-back rides. I let them try on (and try on and try on) my sunglasses. Then we had lunch and walked over to Kware to visit some families.
We were divided into three teams so that in groups of five or so we walked through Kware to make our visits. The ground is dirt and stone, deeply rutted and pocked with trash: banana peels, papers, orange peels and indistinguishable Other. The stench was impressive: that rotting dumpster smell– sweet and sour and sickening. At the edges of Kware, people sit near their sales stands. Fruits and vegetables, jeans, purses, backpacks. It would seem like a lovely market if it weren’t for the random goats and chickens, the garbage, and the stink.
But this market isn’t deep. We didn’t walk long before we were in the ‘residential’ area. These are blocks of houses made of the same stones that were quarried from the earth. Topped with sheets of corrugated metal and having one window if you’re lucky, the homes are spaces of one room, 50 square feet at the most. Here we visited families who are being helped by Beacon of Hope: a woman whose husband has abandoned her because of AIDS, living in that space with her sister and brother-in-law and their three sons. Nancy has only one daughter, and she needs to find a place to live. We listened, we prayed with Nancy, and then we walked away, shaking our heads at the reality that seven people live in that impossibly small space.
Beacon of Hope is helping, though. Nancy will get medicines because of Beacon, and she will receive treatment and counseling, and she will find friends. Her daughter, Charlene, is at serious risk of being a street child if her mother dies; the people of Beacon of Hope will do everything in their power to make sure that doesn’t happen.
After our visits in Kware, we drove a short distance into the slum and through a private gate. At the end of the broad and quiet drive is Beacon’s new home. They have purchased an old estate: a gorgeous mansion with marble bathrooms, broad porches, stables, chicken houses, and a huge lawn. We walked around the house, we gaped at the property. The plans are ambitious: school, clinic, factory, kitchen, everything will be moved into this house and new buildings by September.
Jane Wathome, Beacon’s founder, walked us around the property. At the bottom of the lot, past the former stables, we stood where men were digging up the soil for a foundation. Here she brought out the architect’s plans, and we studied them together, amazed at what will certainly be here to serve these people.
The new Beacon will be a far cry from the slums these people are used to. But Jane’s vision is right on: spending their days in this facility and school will introduce the children and women to the possibility of something Other. They are worth more than this life they are living. The Lord, Jane said, has a purpose for these children. Beacon will help to show them this.
Kware slum and Beacon of Hope stand not far from Karen Blixen’s farm. On the hillside where we stood looking at plans, we could see stretches of green and the acacia trees. The beginnings of the foundation had cut through the grass and exposed the red soil where, once upon a time, a coffee plantation was sewn. I crouched down to the ground and grasped some of that soil. I squeezed it in my palms and poured it from my fingers until it filled all the cracks in my hands.
