We finally have our list!

Today was another crazy work day in Nairobi. We had finalized the students we picked for the scholarships for university, pre-university (certificates, diplomas) and high school (boys and girls) last night in another long meeting with lots of good-natured arguing. This morning, we did more of the same, and then went to the community office to meet with the many students who were, sure enough, waiting for us. (They often show up to the hotel we are staying at, too. In fact, today we had to deal with that and it was unpleasant).

Anyway, so we got to the office and met with the students, finally able to give them the news of whether they’d been accepted or not. It was really difficult and I have to admit to shedding a few private tears (no one noticed, otherwise it would have been mortifying). It was a lot harder than I expected, partly because there have been so many logistical things to take care of, that I didn’t dwell on this particular moment, aside from the practical aspects like explaining exactly how we decided. I didn’t prepare for how they’d react, the raw emotion of it all. For instance, the first guy we had to let down said that he didn’t have any bad feeling, because even though he really wanted the scholarship, he was happy we were helping Sudanese, because they were all his brothers. Another person apologized for his low grades (I explained that even though his mean grade of B- was decent, we had no choice but to pick others with higher grades like A or B+), but told us that it was life was really hard and there were other circumstances that got in the way. Ulcers? Fatherlessness? Lack of food? Being chased away from school because of arrears? Ten students to a textbook in Kakuma refugee camp? Yeah, I bet. Life is hard.

Anyway, so we had some good meetings and some tough ones. Thank God we are working in a team. Because we are all working together and we want to fight for the truth and pick the absolute best students (we have to defend the fairness of our choices, to ourselves, to each other, to the students, and to a higher power), it’s great that there are so many eyes looking at all the applications. This morning, Mayen fished out an application that my mom had looked over, and asked us why this boy was not on the finalized high school list. Indeed, he had better grades than a couple of boys we’d chosen. We had had reasons for picking other students, but in the end, we felt we had to swap another with him. It was an important decision. Two similar other decisions were made through the course of the day. Imagine, because of God’s help and our due diligence, three people who otherwise would not have gotten funded, finally did.

At the end of a long, lunchless day (sadly, one or two meals per day is how too many people usually operate here), we finally left the community office to eat. We ended up at an Ethiopian restaurant where we had a delicious, buttery, meat-filled meal, eating injera and curry with our hands. It was amazing!

Tomorrow, we are going to the Nairobi museum in the morning with Mayen. In the afternoon, we’ll meet with Kwai and Jon to discuss strategy since not all the students who were accepted showed up to the office today. We have to call them all and get all their official school documents together to start making payments. A few don’t have schools to go to yet, so we have to place them. We also have to open a bank account here in Nairobi to deal with all our new financial commitments. But that will have to wait until Monday.