One of the joys of being a Rotarian is meeting other like minded people from around the world.  I first met Megan MacDonald at the Los Angleles International Convention.   Megan was going to study in Kenya for 12 months in Nairobi, my home town.  We have become friends ever since and I have been following her blog.  Megan has now returned to America and continues to keep us updated on Kenya.  Megan writes:

“On February 11 last year I came home around 10 at night and was grabbing a snack before heading up to bed. Suddenly Maureen came into the kitchen with wide eyes saying, “I think my water just broke.” I burst into a fit of nervous giggles before rounding up my housemates and jumping into the car for the two block ride to Nairobi Women’s Hospital.

I remember the distinct honor I felt to be driving this young woman to the hospital and the great sense of responsibility as we prepared for an event I had no personal experience with. I’ll never forget the nurses a few hours later asking me and my housemates how many children we had as we held hands and focused Maureen on breathing through the pain. “None,” we said.

Yet there we were, witnesses to a beautiful birth full of strength, faith, friendship and humility. Out of a forceful crime came this perfect little child, born to a girl who became a woman right before our eyes.

On Christabell’s first birthday while friends celebrated in Nairobi eating Ethiopian food and cake with the birthday girl, I said a prayer of thankfulness for this experience and continued friendship.

Look at our growing girl – in a dress I wore myself as a baby sent with love from her auntie far away.

Megan MacDonald

I first met Megan MacDonald in Los Angeles at the Rotary International Convention in 2008.  Megan was on her way to Kenya to study at the University of Nairobi as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.  Megan has kept a blog on her activities and some of her posts are truly remarkable.

Megan’s Blog

Here is an example of her writing:

WRITINGS OF MEGAN

“Have you seen The Constant Gardener? Do you remember the rolling sprawl of rusted tin roofs in Kibera? Did the movie capture the fractured earth, the plastic bag-choked bits of green amidst the ever-present brown?

I went to Kibera for the first time shortly after I arrived in Kenya to visit Red Rose School. I wore the wrong shoes, and was cautioned that were I ever to go through the gate next to the school that beckoned into the depths of the slum I better make sure my feet were covered. I’ve been back many times since to the inner Toi market (fabulous used clothing market, I have a friend who got an authentic Louis Vuitton for under $1) and Makina market where my tailor is. All these visits allowed me to say, “yes, I’ve been to Kibera” though none of them in anyway conveyed the reality of the place I visited for the first time today. The border does not betray the inner sanctum’s reality. No, it does not

It is hard to reconcile my ability to see the beauty, joy and goings on of life in the slum, with the revolting site you have to process in order to know it must be changed. The land is sucked of the green. The water is scarce, the trash unbelievable. Children meander through filth, shining their glorious youth and innocence in order to make it human, to make it bearable.

There is music, constant music. There are babies being held, old men shooting the shit, hunched grandmas walking together. It is life, at the same time as it should, and never should, be.”

Megan MacDonald Nairobi, Kenya 8^th June 2009.  From Megan’s blog “There She Goes”.