SCHAP- Matoso. Mission Accomplishing.

I do not have very much time so I apologize for being brief. We travelled to NY, sweet. Then we spent about 12 hours in Qatar (look it up on a map), also sweet (my seventh middle eastern country). We arrived in Nairobi then worked our way to Matoso. 90+ hours of travelling later we arrived at our destination. Reuniting with Maurice was one of the sweetest moments of my life. We had been communicating for months preparing for the project, but in the back of my mind I knew that he doubted that we would actually do the things for his community that we promised to do. The moment that he saw us return to his village, our joy was mutually exquisite. Immidiately we got to work. I/ SCHAP has been blessed with the most wonderful team that I could have ever asked for. Jill, Kris and Nichelle have been awesomely durable and hard working. We started construction on the community center immediately. Simultaneously we began the multiplicity of meeting required to craete a waste management system though the community and as soon as we could we began construction on the land fill. Both are still under construction but are ahead of schedule. While we have been building the skeleton (the stuff)... we have also been building the muscles (the people and the programs). I have never been involved with so many meetings in my entire life, and those who know me know that is a very large statement. It has been fascinating as we have been able to coaless (there is no way that is the right spelling, or even the right word) the knowledge and innovation that we have in the west with the thoughtfulness and experience that they posess. All decisions have been thouroughly discussed, taking EVERYONE's input into consideration and concluding on the best decisions. Since the moment we stepped foot here we have been a part of a living, growing, evolving project. In the comunity center we have already commenced guitar, recorder, chess and computer classes.. despite its lack of completion to date. We have hired a primary education teacher who already has a following of students but no school. We have hired a manager and we have assigned a volunteer community chairman, secretary and treasurer who will be the interface between the center and the community to ensure its success. This is and has been the most exciting, most interesting, more rewarding, most fullfilling, most developing, most fun thing that I have ever done in my entire life. Team moral has been through the roof. We are all safe and healthy. The community has fed us well and provided very adequate accomidations. No dissentary, no lethal snake bites. The only thing that we dread os the day that we will ahve to pack up and leave. For those of you who need this wrapped up into a couple sentences: We are safe. We have made serious progress. 100% of our initiatie have been a success and those still on the horizon are confidently within our scopes. We have rendevoued (don't even care about the spelling on this one either?) with a rep from Uganda and one from Rwanda who we are training in order to help us run future projects in thsoe respective countries. SCHAP today is exciting. SCHAP tomorrow will be phenominal. We have a very clear vision for the future of our organization and what we MUST become in order to fullfill our mandate. We as a SCHAP team send our love. Thank you for all your support. I love you mom.