Home Visits: Francis and Shaleen

Today our main task was to visit the families of Shaleen and Francis. These are the two students who Nathan and Jaime sponsor. We have a couple other stops along the way. 

The home visits are always very happy occasions, with fun, lots of hugs, presents, food, tea, more tea, and love. Nathan and Jaime didn’t quite know what to expect. I tried to prepare them as well as I could.

Our first stop was unplanned. We made it most of the way to our first stop, over the very bumpy roads, after tea for breakfast, then needed a bathroom break. Virginia directed us to the home of Joy, one of our sponsored kids at Osupuko. Her home was conveniently located for us.

Nathan handed out little gifts for the kids around. He was very popular.

After a brief stop, we then went on to Peres’s home. Peres is a new addition to the Tuko Pamoja family. His two uncles, Gabriel and Lenny, are enrolled in the child-sponsoring program already. Their mom, Sheila, asked if we could sponsor Peres too.

Peres lives with Sheila and Peres’s baby brother. Their mom, Abigael, works at a hotel in Kiserian, which is close to an hour away. Gabriel and Lenny usually stay with their grandmother, who lives much closer to their schools.

Sheila served us tea. Kenyan tea is made with loose-leaf tea, but is brewed in a pan on the stove in milk. It is very rich. And it’s typically made with lots of sugar.

Peres is below. He will be in Class 1 next year at Osupuko. He wants to be a watchman. He’s only 6, so I suspect that career choice will change.

Peres’s mom Abi got pregnant while in school. She gave birth and returned to finish secondary school. There had been discussion of her returning to post-secondary school as well. In this meeting she told us she would prefer that we sponsor Peres and that she is OK with not going further with school. 

Sheila makes bead jewelry. This is a very common occupation among the Maasai women in the area. Unfortunately, they don’t have a lot of markets available to them.

Sheila does very nice work. She is creative and does different, unusual things. 

Below, she gave Jaime a traditional headband that she made. It should be a great conversation starter for Jaime to wear on Teams calls at work.

Below, Abi, Peres, Sheila, and Peres’s little brother.

Our next stop was to visit Shaleen and her family.

Nathan started sponsoring Shaleen at the very beginning of Tuko Pamoja’s founding. Except for a few children transferred from another organization, she and Francis (Nathan’s other sponsored boy) were the first Tuko kids.

This sponsorship sparked a much deeper relationship between the family and our organization. We have since sponsored two other young adults in the family.

Shaleen’s mother, Agnes, is a single mother. She was the second wife of an older man, married when she was about 13. As is often the case with these relationships, she became a young widow, with little education and few income sources.

Her oldest child is Abigael. Abigael was born when Agnes was 14. She graduated from secondary school, but the family didn’t have the resources to send her on to further her education. If a girl reaches her teens in the Maasai culture and is not in school, the tribal elders will arrange her sale into marriage. After Abigael’s graduation, the elders were ready to get her married. They would set an appointment with Agnes for them to come by and arrange Abigael’s wedding. Agnes and Abigael would agree that Abigael would “run away from home” temporarily over the time of the meeting. So Agnes would tell the elders that Abigael wasn’t there and she didn’t know where she was. Then Abigael would come back and the process would repeat. 

This continued until we met Abigael and her sponsors got her back in school. She has now finished a certificate in cosmetology, is working as a hair stylist, and has plans to earn a business certificate starting in January 2026 so she can open her own shop.

Agnes’s oldest son is Stephen. He is in secondary school. Like Shaleen, he was behind in school fees when we met, on the verge of being sent home for nonpayment. If Agnes couldn’t pay his fees, he would be forced to find a job. The only jobs available in this area and culture are as a shepherd for someone else’s livestock. This is a full-time job, requires being away from home for a month or more at a time, and pays about $8 a month. We were also able to locate a sponsor for Stephen, who paid his back fees and got him back in school.

Agnes shared that without Tuko Pamoja’s help both Abigael and Shaleen would be married by now.

Below, Agnes greets Nathan.

Nathan greets the youngest child in the family. In Maasai culture, an adult greets a child by placing his or her hand on top of the child’s head. 

Shaleen was well behind in school fees when Nathan started sponsoring her. She was identified by the school as one of the two neediest kids, in a school full of very needy kids. The school is very reluctant to send a girl home for nonpayment of the fees. They know she will be sold into marriage if they do. So Shaleen was still in school, but running up debt Agnes couldn’t pay.

There are a total of 8 kids in the family. Shaleen is fourth. 

Below, the younger kids play with Play-Doh that Jaime and Nathan brought.

Agnes’s main profession is making bead jewelry. When we met her, she had no beads to make more inventory. Nathan provided money for her to get more beads and supplies. Tuko was able to help her sell some jewelry and gave her the money. She used this to buy goats. She has since used income streams she has developed to buy a small herd of goats, start a successful garden producing food for the family, and upgrade some of the house.

Agnes has impressed us with how capably she has used a small boost up to build a livelihood. 

Below, Abigael with her little sister.

The building on the left was the kitchen, and is probably still used sometimes. But Agnes has remodeled the house to put a small kitchen inside, as well. She will soon be building a small bedroom outside the house for Stephen. He is scheduled for his coming-of-age ceremony—his circumcision—in a few weeks. At that point, he can’t sleep in the same house with a woman he isn’t married to.

As we expected, we were well-fed at Agnes’s house. And had plenty of tea. Abigael and a neighbor handled most of the cooking.

Agnes gave Jaime some beautiful handmade necklaces. Nathan was given a shuka, which is the cloth that the Maasai men wrap around themselves. 

Nathan and Jaime brought gifts for Shaleen, Agnes, and the younger kids. Shaleen is now decked out in a Milwaukee Brewers jacket and a Green Bay Packers hat.

Below is the family together. The second oldest daughter, Gloria, is away in boarding school. She is sponsored through another organization.

Our next stop was to visit Francis.

Francis lives with his mother, older sister, and two younger brothers. His mom, Joyce, is the fourth wife (concurrent) of his dad. In total, Francis has 21 siblings. Some are much older, as there is about a 50-year age gap between Joyce and her husband.

Francis’s dad is an interesting man. In many ways, he is a traditional Maasai. At the top of this list of traditions are his clothing and his four wives. He kept livestock, also a longstanding part of Maasai culture, until they were killed in the multi-year drought that ended a few years ago.

Less traditionally, this father is pushing to get his kids educated. Francis’s older sister, Jackline, is finishing secondary school next month. He also wants Francis to be educated. And he is willing to ask others, like Tuko Pamoja, to help.

Below, Francis shows his dad the photo album Nathan and Jaime brought for them. They were all particularly interested in the photos from Jaime and Nathan’s wedding 5 months ago.

We were served more food and tea.

Below, Nathan and I are with Francis’s dad.

Below, the group shot.

As described above, Jaime and Nathan brought small gifts for younger siblings and neighborhood kids. They brought Play-Doh and fidget spinners. I’d tossed a couple extra ball caps we had into their bag, as well.

The football in the pic above was extremely popular. Francis, Jackline, and their next youngest brother James all play.

Below, a bunch of neighborhood kids showed up to see what was going on. Jaime, never shy about wading into a crowd, grabbed toys to hand out and quickly became legendary in these parts.

A football game quickly broke out. Conveniently, our driver, Greg, is a former pro goalie. He was showing the kids a lot of moves, and they had plenty of their own. I explained to him that if he really wanted to impress us, he needed to play in an ankle-length skirt, like Jackline was. 

James likes playing goalie, so Greg gave him some good lessons. 

On our way home, we stopped by the home of 5 girls who Ginger and I sponsor. The two oldest, Sarah and Valary, were away at school, but we got to see Marion, Patience, and Cecelia, along with their mother, Gladys.