It is only the traveler...

"There are no foreign lands. It is only the traveler that is foreign." -Robert Louis Stevenson

We traveled to the most beautiful places, both in the sweet rooms filled with children and adult yogis, and in the amazing landscape of Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha. 

"One destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."-Henry Miller

Rhythm

"Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances." Maya Angelou


We ended a busy day with a dance party taught by dancers who are more proficient at shaking a leg than us.





The next morning I ventured out to an outreach and Jeff went to the recording studio with Victor who is an amazing musician and being.

The outreach I attended was motivating, inspiring, and ended with as surprise group facilitation of a trauma group. Magdaline who was teaching the outreach told the group about the trauma classes I've been teaching to the Africa Yoga Project teachers and then she opened it up for the group to ask me questions and share.  They shared and shared and I could have easily been there for half of a day. Now my project for next year is formulated, I will co-teach in the outreaches with the teachers about trauma and coping skills.

While in the outreach the children kept on drawing my attention outside and you can see why, right?

After the outreach we headed to Gracious School for our last outreach on this adventure. Jeff and Victor taught music and the children loved it. They thanked us for coming back yet a third time and we promised to see them next year.  

And I had to say goodbye to my sweet girl, Marcy. Her sister asked me if I'd bring her home with me and when I realized that I'm not Madonna or Angelina I knew I couldn't just pick her up and take her. Until next time, Marcy. I love you.

Light

 "It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold onto their humanity."

-Howard Zinn

We visited another familiar place today, the Women's Prison. This is our third year visiting the women there. When we arrived I was given a job right away. A knife and part of a cabbage were passed over to me and then I had to start chopping it up. I think it was a test to see if I would do it and how I would interact with the women. After about two minutes one woman came over and sat next to me, she said, "do you want me to assist you," and I replied with a resounding "yes." I didn't have the right technique and I think she wanted to talk to me and get to know me. I had big sunglasses on and she told me she liked my shades and that back home she used to wear sunglasses all of the time. She has a daughter back home and she's been in the prison for seven months.  We have no idea why the women are in the prison, nor do we ask. We're there to teach yoga and bring a little light into the space. 

After prepping their meal the class began. 

The women filled up the space with laughter and supported each other in the beautiful practice. 

There was dancing and singing. Joy and love.

"In some countries, it is a widespread means of torture to constantly subject prisoners to artificial light..."-Natascha Kampusch

Africa Yoga Project brought real light, light from the heart, light that can only be created from a space of deep compassion and care.

Grace

It all begins with communication. Today I led a communication workshop for all of the Africa Yoga Project Teachers. We focused on what culture around communication the teachers want to cultivate. 

They came up with an awesome communication manifesto:

Openness 

Trust

Non-judgemental communication-acceptance

Generous listening

Clear and simple communication

Requests instead of commands or demands

Love

Compassion

Realizing that different people have different ways of communicating

Patience

Communicating in a fair way, not treating folks differently based on their role or level of power in the Africa Yoga Project

I'll be following up with a few teachers to offer them a conflict resolution training and set them up as mediators to help resolve conflicts as they arise. 

Then we headed to one of our favorite places, Gracious School. Jeff has taught music there for the past two years during our visits and ambassadorship with AYP and I teach yoga when I'm at Gracious.  The children love Jeff and his musical games. He's an awesome music maker and teacher. 

"You put your stomach in, you put your stomach out", Jeff's rendition of the hokey pokey.

And we reunited with Teacher Happiness who is the head of Gracious School.

 And this one, this little girl named Marcy is my heart. I was so happy to see her. I fell in love with her last year and when she saw me this year she walked up and said, "hi" with the sweetest smile on her face. Love, love, love Marcy.

"Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors."-Wm. Paul Young

Loving an animal

"They say somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret grave where they go lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end."

-Robert R. MCcammon

We visited one of our favorite places in Kenya, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Each year we've gone to see these orphaned elephants. In the last three years we've adopted four elephants at the Trust and this year we learned that one had been released to the wild. After three years the elephants go back into the wild to create chosen families. Many of the elephants mothers have been poaching victims or died from starvation, lack of food and water.

We adopted an elephant named Susawa for our friend whose birthday is coming up. Susawa came to the orphanage about five months ago and her mother was a victim of poaching. Her keeper who took this photo of her for us said she was very traumatized when she arrived but that she is acclimating now and is much better and more sociable.

This is  KITHAKA, we just adopted him yesterday, he's silly and was making his keeper laugh a lot.

We also managed to see these amazing four legged, long necked beings.

We visited the Giraffe Center and got to feed the Giraffe. 

This is Ed. He is awesome. 

Back to work tomorrow. It was nice to spend the day with a different kind. 

What if our religion was each other

What if our religion was each other

If our practice was our life prayer, our words.

What if our temple was the earth,

If forests were our church, if holy water our rivers, lakes, and oceans.

What if meditation was our relationships,

If the teacher was life, if wisdom was self-knowledge,

If love was the center of our being.

-Ganga White

I got to teach 230 people yoga today. It was beautiful.