Marmalade Sunsets: My interview with Jodi Lane of Providence Children's Home, Ngong, Kenya

If you sat next to me on a plane headed for Africa, would you like to know where I’d take you? We'd arrive in Morocco, wandering the souks of Marrakech, discovering a coffee shop within a thick haze of different flavors and aromas of grape and mint shisha as the men watch soccer and play cards. We'll then open our eyes upon the thundering sounds of the Djemebe drum beats as we inhale this Mali legacy. Dinner, sipping on one of Stellenbosch's finest wines will be served upon Table Mountain’s marmalade sunsets as we are seduced by the breathtaking panorama of Cape Town, South Africa. Then on to Kenya...

Strangely enough, I met Jodi one morning sitting in a Native American teepee in central Texas. I am not kidding. Jodi's voyage started more than 10 years ago when she sat in class next to Joram Githumbi, a Kenyan philanthropist who envisioned an orphanage operating in the Ngong region of Kenya, and who walked into her studio at the UT School of Architecture. The AIDS crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa has left millions of orphans to fend for themselves. Jodi's persistence and role in what is now established as The Providence Children's Home has attracted and allowed me to engage in her commitment to alleviate the distresses of so many orphans in Ngong, who, without the Providence Children's Home (PCH), would know nothing of receiving an education, a blanket to hold on to during lonely months, a voice to reason with when it seems like the pain of losing their parents is too great and too close rather than too far. Several volunteer projects exist within the PCH organization orphanage as Jodi and her team are actively recruiting students in the fields of Education, Planning and Business Development.

Jodi laughs when I ask her what her life was like before the Kenyan orphanage, she says she doesn't remember... almost as if Kenya has always been with her in some way. She lets me know she cannot imagine not going to the weddings of her children in Kenya, enriching their development and simultaneously, enriching her own development. If you are interested in learning more of the volunteer projects with Jodi Lane's team, you can go into http://www.providencekenya.org
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