Our November 7 General Membership is a morning meeting and will feature a program by Vernoy Paolini. Ms. Paolini, a retired Sussex County educator with 37 years of experience, has written curriculum for, and is a volunteer docent at the September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City. Her program, “14 Cows for America” shares the story of a gift bestowed on the United States by a tribe Maasai Warriors in the wake of the September 11th attacks. Living in a remote region of eastern Africa, many of the Maasai people of Kenya did not learn about the magnitude of the 9/11 attacks for months. Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah, a Maasai student attending Stanford University in California, witnessed the attacks on the World Trade Center during a visit to New York City and told his community what had happened when he returned home to visit in spring 2002. His story of buildings made of steel that reach to the sky melting in a great fire was beyond their comprehension but people in the US had been kind and generous to Wilson during his stay. In response, they offered 14 cows—a gift of compassion and generosity—to the United States. For the Maasai, cows are a sacred symbol of life. The U.S. ambassador accepted the gift on behalf of the nation. It was determined, however, that the herd should remain in Kenya to be cared for properly. Naiyomah asked an American friend, James Cloutier, to create two identical paintings to commemorate the gift—one for Kenya and one for the United States. Vernoy Paolini was moved to personally thank the artist and escort the artwork to the September 11 Museum where it now resides.