Aurora Borealis Bound

I write this as I'm sitting in the Phoenix airport, waiting to catch my connecting flight to Anchorage, Alaska. I've accepted a position as a marine fisheries observer. Basically I'll be gathering biological data onboard commercial fishing boats operating off the coast, identifying fish species, collecting and recording data on sex & lengths, monitoring regulatory compliance, and documenting location and amount of each species caught. This information is used by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to manage the commercial fisheries in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. After 3 weeks of training in Anchorage, I'll be deployed out of ports along the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. Most of the work is based in Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, King Cove, and Akutan. Whoa!

The news from Kenya over the past week has been bad. The town of Nakuru was the epicenter of the latest violence, and the neighborhood that the IHF orphanage is in has been completely leveled. Our house mummy Pauline had her house burnt down, and had to flee Nakuru with her family. They hid in a school for a few nights, but are now renting a house in an outlying area in a Kikuyu community where they are safe. The children were moved back to Pokot, where things are calmer but also DRY and hot. This means extremely limited access to food and water, which sets the children up for malnutrition and sickness again. The tribal politics out in this area are also extremely tense and complicated, things I cannot even begin to understand or describe are in jeopardy of undermining the children's health and well-being. I'm so glad Carol is on her way back out to be with the kids. My fellow volunteer Laura is leaving Tanzania next week to go back home to Australia, and Sam and Cassidy have already gone back themselves. That just leaves Juan, and he is volunteering at an orphanage in Usa River. Hopefully he'll be able to join Carol in Pokot soon.

The need to sponsor our kids in Kenya is beyond urgent now. Any financial assistance is greatly needed of course but what is REALLY important is that we get these children sponsors so that we can use any additional money to augment food supplies and rebuild the IHF center. I've personally committed to the "guardianship" of 4 kids that have no sponsor, so if you are interested in doing something wonderful, contact me and I'll tell you all about them! Since I know them, I can even tell you about their personality and show you some of my pictures. One in particular is Patricia, who is one of our older girls. She and her sister Chemariach have been with Carol for a long time, and are some of the most trusted and responsible "children" there. They are also the leaders of song, calling out the verses and then having the younger children echo back to them. Patricia is very beautiful, always smiling and wanting to give me a hug. This picture is of her on Christmas eve. She stayed up ALL night with Pauline cooking so that we could enjoy a feast in the morning!