April Recap: A Musical Revue

Sadie Hawkins Dance Prep.

The last day of April: I am under the weather-- sick, that is -- although I could add that given the nearly constant rain this month, I could be under a cloud at just about any given moment. 

I really wanted to get one recap out for the month of April and I predicted in my mind that this would be difficult because of how insanely busy this month has felt, but that it would all come to an end this past weekend. While it is true that a big project ended for me, the workload of the past week has not felt like much of a reprieve. 

Veruka Salt and Mr. Salt

The project that had its apotheosis this past weekend was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I have written about this in the past 2 blog posts, because it has been a big part of my life (as well as David's) the past 4 months, from audition in December to performances in April. I was honored to be invited to be the choreographer for the show and accepted; I soon realized that, with 13 dance numbers in it, the commitment was quite big, and I ended up spending 3-4 afternoons a week rehearsing and Saturday mornings preparing material. It was truly a labor of love because I genuinely enjoyed being a choreographer again after more than 15 years away from that profession. 

The show took shape weekly, and thanks to a great set designer, the production was fabulous with over a dozen scene changes, a multi-level stage, and fantastic props and costumes. (I felt the choreography rose to the occasion as well!) The last 10 days, as expected, were the most intense with 6 or more late-night tech and dress rehearsals before opening night last Thursday. In short, the performances were a huge hit and almost sold out every show. David did a fantastic job as Oleg Salt, the father of Verucca Salt, as did the rest of the cast. I would be hard-pressed to name a favorite moment, but the squirrel costumes for Verucca's Nutcracker Sweet (where she meets her demise in the chocolate factory) were quite impressive! I have put up a few photos that I have consent to share, but cannot share many for safeguarding reasons around sharing images of minors on social media. 

Vidiots (Mike TV demise)

There were a total of 4 shows, Thursday and Friday nights, then Saturday matinee and evening. They all went really well. By Sunday, I was pretty wiped out and also had a low-grade virus that I struggled with over the weekend. Not unexpected given the workload. 

While Charlie took up a lot of my mental and emotional energy this month, it was not the only thing that happened. The month began with Holy week and Easter, and Rebecca was charged with organizing an Easter choir. We had several rehearsals with a pick-up group from church and several amateur musicians from the congregation. We did a decent job with about 8 different songs on Easter Sunday morning. It was a blessing to be part of this (as a bass this time). After church, we had a quiet Easter dinner prepared by David with our pastor and his wife. They are Canadian Mennonites, and it is always nice to catch up with them. David prepared a pork pad thai dish as the main course. He is getting very good at preparing food these days. 

The following weekend, we had a visitor. Having someone come from out of town is a typical monthly event in Nairobi, and this time it was Rebecca's dad, who has passed through here several times before. He does work with cholera prevention and treatment, and I think he has been involved in genetic surveillance work based on trials being conducted in the region. He arrived for a conference here in Nairobi right after Easter, and Rebecca was able to enjoy a nice quiet dinner and catch up with him the evening he arrived. After the conference, we spent a weekend with him doing some nice things, including taking a safari in Nairobi game park. That is one of the really nice perks of being a resident here. Going to the game park on the outskirts of town is relatively cheap as far as an entrance fee. We could drive ourselves, but it is better to go in an open-roof safari vehicle, which is what we did. It was a pleasant day, and we saw most things one can see there in the afternoon and evening. (Personal favorite was a family of rhinos with a feisty baby.)

On Sunday, we went to church with him and then out to a restaurant in Karura forest that was really nice. It is always good to catch up with him, and he was able to bring us a stash of chocolate from Aldi's in the US, which is really good and cheaper than what we pay for in Kenya. Dave left on Sunday evening and was off to Zambia before returning to the US later that week. 

Besides acting in Charlie, David Mosley had some other school events he was part of. On the work side, he took his SAT for the first time, but more exciting to him were some dances that he was part of. Rosslyn hosts an Annual Sadie Hawkins Dance. (For those of you who were L'il Abner fans, you may remember that character.) But it was a chance for girls to invite boys to a dance, although, from what David said, almost everyone just attends without a date as one big friend group. David did know a girl in the honors choir who invited him, though. David is quite a character and bought a pink tuxedo over the summer to use on special occasions at school. He wore it for the Christmas concert and then to Sadie Hawkins. I did not see the whole dance, but I did get a picture of him with our next-door neighbors dressed to go. He said it was a good time. 

At the end of the month, there was also a junior-senior banquet with a Great Gatsby theme. David did his best to find some 20's Gatsby clothes, and I got a picture of him and our next-door neighbor, Aaron, right before the banquet, which was hosted at a nearby country club. It seems that David had a really good time there with friends, especially because he has made a community of friends from the swimming team, the musical, and the choir. It was great to hear how much he enjoyed it. 

Rebecca also had a very special week retreat, which was part of a spiritual direction course she is taking. Here is her report: 

Back in January, I took a weeklong silent retreat at Mwangaza Jesuit Center on the outskirts of Nairobi. I learned that the Jesuit mission also offers a two-year course on Spiritual guidance. Intrigued, I thought and prayed about it and decided to apply. It has been years since I did any formal professional development in ministry, and I was inspired by Paul's involvement in life-giving activities at the school. I've felt like I need more balance in my admin-heavy life. And also, I have benefited so much from meeting with a spiritual director over many years. 

So I was admitted to the course, along with a good friend from our local church, Severine. The first residential block fell in mid-April, Monday evening through Saturday morning. I was grateful and delighted to leave behind the tax exemption renewal process and the young adult interviews and enter back into the gorgeous green compound at Mwangaza Jesuit Center. There was still a little time in the early morning and during the lunch break to walk the grounds and look at birds. 

But overall, I was back to school: sessions ran from 8:30 am to 9:30 pm. Severine and I were the only Westerners in a cohort of 32 people, most of whom were Africans with a religious vocation of some kind. Some of the first block of teaching was about Ignatius Loyola himself and how God shaped his life through disability and hardship to enable him to guide others in their spiritual life. During a few of the evenings, we watched a surprisingly engaging film about his life, https://jescom.ph/film-tv/ignacio-de-loyola/  We also had a number of sessions on some of the basics: what is prayer? the Examen prayer. and the basic rules for spiritual discernment. On another full day, a guest lecturer came to teach sessions on African Worldview and Spirituality. What a fascinating deep dive into the inner workings of culture and the invisible structures of life that make up how people see the world. I was struck by the way in which the African spiritual hierarchy is given visible expression in the way government is run here: a single Creator God delegates authority to a variety of divinities, a lot like various government ministries overseeing different areas of life, along with a cascade of regional and local government authorities, chiefs, etc. People seek favors or permissions from local deities, a lot like we were going from one to another government office to get a required letter for the higher tax authority. 

Easter Sunday

We had some fun along the way, too. On one afternoon, we were asked to break up into small groups and create dramas to act out a few of the ways  we see spiritual dynamics at work in people's lives. My group, all of them nuns, had so much fun hamming it up and portraying a scenario where a betrayed woman moves from being suicidal to being willing to live for the sake of her children, with the help of some guidance from a Catholic sister. 

I will have three more week-long sessions over the course of this year. After June, I will be required to start meeting with people who would be willing to share with me so that I can keep growing in my skills of listening together with them for the movement of God in their lives. The training has also deepened my conviction that I need to make sure I take time every day to stop and notice where God is at work; otherwise, there is a risk of turning this one precious life into "an endless chain of very busy but meaningless days." (exhortation received from the Ignatius film). Now back to Paul...

Papa Dave visiting our office

What I have conspicuously left out of all of this is work. April is a rough month in general because it is the beginning of our fiscal year and that means we are receiving about a dozen annual reports for local partners. What made it worse were several other tasks that were piled onto us this year. Particularly, MCC is due this year to renew its not-for-profit status. This is done once every 5 years, and it is a very labor-intensive process, even with the help of an audit form. For us in the office, it requires gathering up tons of documentation on all the projects we have done to date, past audits, all of our transactions in bank statements, all of our project agreements, etc. There is also a massive application form where you are asked to do calculations to estimate every beneficiary in different sectors, as well as the total budget spent in different sectors, all over the past 5 years. 

By the end, we were on a first-name basis with the guys in our nearby copy shop and we had prepared about 30 bound volumes of documents to be delivered to the Kenya Revenue Authority. We are also required to go all over town to get signatures from different government authorities to affirm that we do indeed exist and are doing the work we say we are. Now we are waiting to see what will be required of us next. 

In addition to that, one of our staff members let us know he will be stepping into early retirement. This has meant we need to do a recruitment process involving rewriting job descriptions, preparing job posts, etc., prior to interviewing next week. April is also a month when we do many performance evaluations and have performance evaluations done on us. In short, we felt overwhelmed on the job, and the fact that Rebecca had to sometimes cover me during rehearsals made it even worse for her.

William Kiptoo retirement party

Now that the musical is over, we are both fully available to tackle the many administrative and managerial tasks that form the bulk of our work at MCC.  I will really miss the excitement of creating dances and watching them realized on stage. It is always worth it to give more of one's time to things that are life-giving. 

I think I will end there until next month.  

Rehearsing opening (Candyman)

Cast Party