Good morning, friends.  Here I am continuing with what I started on yesterday's posting.

I need to tell you about this place, more about its layout and view. We have 46 acres here.  It was purchased in 1979 as a piece of a large coffee plantation that went bankrupt.  We are situated on land that slowly rises on one end and then about half way into the land falls off more quickly in the other half, going down toward a small river in a deep gorge.  At the high point of the property we are at 5900 feet above sea level, just about as high as Colorado Springs, CO.  So we are in the mountains with refreshing clean air, cool nights and hot mid-afternoons when the sun is not blocked by clouds. 

The retreat house, which is an old mansion from the coffee plantation days, sits on the highest part of the property.  The Jesuit community buildings sit on a lower part of the property, somewhat down the knoll of the drop-off going toward the river and gorge.  It is maybe 100 feet lower than the high point of the property which is where the lawn in front of the old mansion is.  The lawn is maybe 400 feet from one end to the other, a marvelous place to stroll or sit out on when you are in retreat or just want some quiet time to relax, which is what I will do some late afternoons.  I will get a movable chair and go in the shade to meditate and just close my eyes to enjoy the breeze.  The view from there is spectacular.  From concrete benches or from movable, metal chairs that one can lift and move, you can view the range of mountains that are some 30-40 miles away.  The shape and contour of the mountain ridge remind me very much of the Pennsylvania or Virginia Allegheny mountains:  very green, heavily treed and filled with little villages.  The ridge is up and down in its contour.  The range is named the Ngong Mountain range because in the language of the Masai tribe, Ngong means knuckles like when you clinch your fist and look at the up and down appearance of the knuckles.  At the ridge are some radio and TV transmission towers and also some windmills for generating electricity.  The altitude at the ridge must be close to 7500, maybe 8000 feet above sea level.

   Up on the highest level of the retreat house grounds are a number of tall trees and flowering bushes, not too many to clutter the grounds but just the right number and spaced correctly to make for a truly gorgeous ambiance.  (One cluster of bamboo right outside my office building--maybe 20 feet up) and then another bigger cluster toward the front door of the retreat center; it is pruned or shaped to look like a huge mushroom!) A number of the bushes are flowering right now, since it is spring time here with lots of pollen in the air (runny noses and itchy skin at times also!).  The color up at that point is out of this world!  Camera bugs would have a field day!  A little down the knoll and going toward the buildings of the Jesuit community is a grove of maybe three dozen mango trees.  Wow, is that what was in paradise before Adam and Eve messed up things??!!

  At opposite ends of the property are two huge gardens from which we and those who stay at the retreat house eat a lot of the veggies.  We even eat some of our own beef, drink the milk that comes from two cows (two other cows are too young right now to produce for us) make our own cheese and yogurt, raise some of our honey (big bee hives), raise and eat rabbits and also quails and poached quail eggs.  We have six German shepherd puppies that we are trying to sell.  Any takers??!!  They are for sale at $160 US per pup, already wormed and inoculated!  We also have a goat that we think is pregnant.  The roosters, chickens and a few cats fill out the rest of the scene.

  At the other end of the property is the bigger of the two gardens, almost the size of two football fields.  That is where my little plot (about 30 feet wide and 100 feet long) is.  Near my plot is a grove of about 30-40  banana trees.  They stand 30-35 feet up and in clusters of about 10 stalks per tree.  Their huge leaves make for great shade in the afternoon sun.  When I sit there I look up at a big bunch of green bananas.  It is delightful to see something like this, something that is still quite new to me.

   Let me try to describe the layout of the Jesuit community buildings.  They  consist of two long lines of apartments, single dwellings.  They stretch for 235 yards, which is as long as two football fields end to end.  Quite a distance!!  These buildings include the administrator's central office, a TV room and a couple of meeting rooms, the dining area and recreation room, laundry area, some guest rooms, then a large chapel in the round and a smaller one; also a library and a workshop and storage place for farming equipment, including a tractor.  Outside the dining room is a veranda, shaded with nice picnic type tables to eat at in warm weather.  This is where the birds come in the morning to eat crumbs we throw to them.  A monkey three feet tall comes there on some occasions!

  There is about  60-65 feet between the two sets of buildings running parallel to each other.  The roof is of light shaded rust clay-tile and the walls are made of grey stone taken from local quarries.  Very solid construction.  Down the middle of the space between the two parallel sets of buildings is a driveway for facilitating the pickup of anyone who is sick and weak or is not too ambulatory.  In this same area are mini-fruit trees--oranges, lemons, pomogranites, then lots of rose bushes spaced nicely and in bloom right now (light pink, deep red, yellow, small red-orange ones, also some bogen-via bushes with dozens and dozens of fuschia colored blossoms and honeysuckle bushes trellising up onto the chapel roof.  Really nice!!

   The chapel is in the round, actually a half circle--wooden inlaid floor and lots of light coming in through the opaque windows of the roof and the back walls of glass.  About 60 movable chairs are there situated in a big half-circle facing the altar.  Off to the left of the altar and set into the wall is a little tabernacle with a glass door and the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance that is quite visible to anyone sitting in that part of the chapel.  It is a favorite place for many who wish to pray there.  Immediately to the left of the altar as you face it is a huge cross with a corpus of the crucified Jesus.  It is maybe 25 feet high and is of one piece of wood, probably three times life-size, really powerful as you enter the chapel.  The colors of the whole place are so tastefully coordinated. 

  My own living quarters are spacious, but have bare floors; the bed has a foamed rubber mattress.  Ugh!  I always sleep with my mosquito netting down at night.  It allows me to sleep in peace.  Showers have plenty of hot water but there is no stall or curtain.  I have a hand-held spray head and need a bath towel to dry off the floor after showering.  I blow-dry my hair in the reflection of my laptop computer--how ingenious, heh!!  Lots of natural light comes through a good size bay winder.  During the day I leave the sliding door of my room open as well as the windows of the bay area.  No screens!  (Smile!)

  My office is really spacious, probably 2.5 times what I had at Manresa.  It looks west and south toward the prettier parts of the grounds.  I love the view!

   This nation still suffers from the aftermath of the terrorist attack at the mall, Westgate.  It was discovered after about a week that only four terrorists, not 10-15 were involved and that most of the damage was done by the Kenyan army shooting at what they thought were the terrorists.  All four terrorists  escaped through a tunnel and faded into the crowds who were running for their lives.  The army now knows who each of them is and since has gone into Somalia and bombed and raided an Al Shabaab training camp that had about 300 people at it.  Two Al Shabaab leaders were killed and others as well.   About a week after the massacre at the Nairobi mall, the US Navy Seals had a nighttime raid from the sea near Mogadishu, Somalia, but failed to get the leader they were seeking to assassinate.  They came under very heavy fire from defenders of the leader of the mall massacre.   It is suspected that Saudi Arabia is funding these groups and that the pirates that formerly were capturing ships on the Indian ocean were funding their operations from the booty and ransom money they were getting. 

   The other big national news is that of the president of this country being indicted by the World Court in the Hague for allegedly promoting gangs of thugs to beat up and kill opponents to his election efforts back in 2008.  This involved over 1000 people being killed at the time of the elections.  He is trying everything to avoid going there, even threatening to pull Kenya out of the league of nations who answer to the legal system of the Hague Court.  (The USA does not belong either; otherwise, you could be sure that some elected or appointed officials of the last administration and probably some of the present administration would be indicted and certainly convicted of war crimes.)

  Lastly, the roads here are notoriously awful:  bumpy and full of potholes, numerous, obnoxious speed bumps to slow down drivers, narrow lanes and shoulders that drop off fast into ditches.  So there are many road accidents and roll-overs, numerous deaths as well.  Many buses travel too fast and every so often there are terrible accidents, even last week a big head-on of two buses that killed six and badly injured about 20.  The driver of one bus was waving to the other driver and lost control of the driver's wheel!  Stupid!! In another incident one taxi driver (taxis are like Volkeswagon buses that can take 10-12 passengers) tried to beat a train at a rail crossing.  He was wearing earphones and listening to loud music during the morning rush-hour traffic and didn't hear the horn of the train.  The taxi was mangled, 13 were killed, and he ran from the scene of the accident but was later caught.  He will go to prison for life.

  Well, this is enough for now.  It is really raining here now.  Finally the spring rains are visiting us, about 3-4 weeks late.  I continue to work on cutting down the size of my book because the publisher wants me to do that.  I expect to receive in this coming week in the mail a contract to sign.  The company is Liturgical Press from Collegeville, MN.  It will be thrilled when the book is finally printed and public for purchase.  That day is now in the foreseeable future.  Praise God!

Bernie Owens