A grateful email from Mboya follows (warning: I think someone has been giving him American self-help books in order to deal with his sadness in being unemployed so there is a rather funny bit about self discovery and appreciation and a lot of Dr. Phil-esque bullsh*t, but you gotta love him for absorbing that stuff):

Hi allison,

good news! you cant imagine l went through and received the cash, actually it was no a hardship since i applyed everything in orders all the details you had given to me. [Getting cash from a MoneyGram is frustrating because you need to know the answer to a secret question and have a reference number, ugh. Luckily I learned from the last one to tell Mboya every last detail on the receipt so he doesn't have to wait a day to email me]

Otherwise i will be home for at list one day so that i can pay for the fee and i think i will settle all the bills for this semester till December.thanks sooo much. please tell all your friends how much i appreciate and hope same day we shall see each other since i know only mountains never meet , but humans you never know!!! [A favorite Swahili proverb Milima haikutani, lakini binadumu hukutana, Mountains never meet, but people, they do meet] cause self discovery is the first step towards self appreciation...... only that growth means change and change means letting go of the old to make way for new.As seed doesn`t ''betray'' other seeds when it grows in to a flower. As we head off in new directions, we will find new friends who are going the same way. By sharring new experiences we will form bonds that are just as strong as the bond we now have to break with travelling companions of the past. [positive, supportive friends are essential to a frogram of growth] [rrrrright. moving on]

Allison i really have no much, only that in Kenya we are expecting for the short rains seasons to begin in late october through mind-December,right now people are preparing for the planting season,to make sure the try weeds is cleared and burned , cause we allso believe is part of manure which is good for soil and it keeps it fertile for the germination of the plants. [Mboya's family farms, which has been difficult in the past because between spring 2003 and 2006 the rains, long rains that go from the end of March til June-ish and the short rains mentioned above, have failed, leading to drought and famine. After we left there in January, the rains arrived a few months later and caused damaging floods. I am hoping that next month the rain is on schedule and falls gently]

I had a question ? How do you want to learn the swahili? For me i had suggestion of you sending same wards [one of the things I love about Mboya's emails are that he writes the word like it sounds when he says it. When he says "words" it comes out as "wards" so he writes "wards" probably not even thinking about spelling since English is his second language and Swahili is phonetic and no one cares if your spelling is slightly off] in English then i can translate in swahili!! not unless you have other option!!!!

Samething i didn't understand! what do you mean your friends are so happy that they could do samething good for same one else? Do they want may be to educate more kids or students who are not able to pay for their schools or collages?or orphanes, please clarify to me! [that email is going to be a long one. I'm not sure how to approach the answer to this. I mean, there's the simple answer "we want to help someone go to school" or the personal one I would give him about being disillusioned by aid agencies and feeling the need to help someone and knowing that my money was being well spent by sending it to him. I'll have to think on this]

Well am not still ,not the\at good in typing i can take the whole day, although am better than before , i will still keep talking to you any other time,any time . [awww he's so dedicated! I forgot what it was like trying to type before I learned how to type. It was torture. poor guy. plus in english! he must want to bash his head against the keyboard]

Please if you send anything, think on the duties for the postage fee if you can, otherwise the end-up by charging so much at the post office,but i think with the stationery's are not that bad; but with electronics like the phone etc.hope it will be OK !cause i can't want to use it, and i really miss it pleeeeeeease.Anyways am not pushing anything just take your time. [I sent Mboya my old cell phone but of course, cingular locked it so it can't be used by anyone not in the network. Never fear, he sent it back and I'm going to send it to an unlocking company in Cali. Take that cingular b*tches. ok not really b*tches, your network really works well for me, LOL]

wish you wonderful schooling and hope you can also have fun, do you have terms off from school? please give my best to Sister Amy,your boyfriend, Reachel and Melissa,Elizabeth and the rest;Tell them i miss to see them, hopefully pretty soooon than later for God will.

Thanks and please take care also don't fall to keep in tough. God bless you. by 4 now

Mboya.

Now you can all see why Mboya rocks and is a grateful and wonderful and pretty funny person. I am going to reply to this email and send him a care package too. I am hoping to send him a disposible camera so he can take pictures of his family and then send it back to me so I can get it developed and I can post his pics and send him some, because most Kenyan farming families don't have pictures of each other or themselves. That's it for now, thanks for reading.
Allison