Day 21: Thirty Shillings per Kilo

Chai plants

Looking across a valley

Dylan and I spent the morning harvesting chai leaves with Edith, one of the core church members and leader of the choir. Families in Weru often plant their chai plants on the slopes of their shambas because they are pretty much the only crop which grows effectively on the sides of the hills and valleys. The three of us spent a good three hours walking along the rows of chai plants picking out mature (but not too mature) leaves. It was sort of fun to harvest the leaves and hang out with Edith (who banters a lot of Dylan), but eventually, it did get tiring and neither Dylan nor I were even the ones carrying the basket full of chai leaves on their backs. Later, we asked Edith how much she would be able to sell the leaves we collected for. She told us that a kilo goes for about 30 shillings and we had harvested about 5 kilos. So if we do the math: we would have earned about 150 shillings and we if convert to dollars (1 dollar to 80 shillings) then the three of us earned about $2 for 3 hours of work.

For me and Dylan, harvesting coffee beans and chai leaves gave us something to do during our downtime but for Kenyans like Edith, this was their life-they can't just decide that they don't feel like harvesting their crops and mess around instead. And all that work for what? A couple of dollars at most. Even the minimum wage in American is $8/hour (~640 shillings). What Edith and her family wouldn't do to make that sort of money in one hour.

Later on, Pastor, Dylan, and I were walking home after making a house visit to a family. During our journey, we met some men who were drinking. One of them decided to follow us after we had said goodbye to the rest of the group. Maybe the dude was drunk or maybe had some sort of problem, because he definitely acted a little strangely. All I remember thinking was how I wanted the man to go away and leave us alone. The man walked with us for a good 15 minutes and during that whole time, I didn't think any kind thoughts at all.

All of sudden, the man stopped walking with us. I can't remember if this occurred before or after he left us, but at one point, I felt God reminding me that He loves that man as much as He loves me. Once again, I was reminded of my inability to love people and my lack of desire to see people meet God. Once again, I was made painfully aware of how incomplete and lacking I am as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

At the end of that day, I asked God for a greater heart to love people with, whether it be my brothers and sisters in Kenya who work so much for so little or some random crazy dude walking with me...and it's still something I pray for today.