Two American Canyon residents stayed safe on their recent visit to Kenya by keeping out of the slums and avoiding trouble spots in the East African nation where clashes erupted after President Mwai Kibaki’s disputed reelection on Dec. 27.

Father Pat Stephenson and a parishioner, Michael Schneiders, of Holy Family Parish, returned home safely last week after a two week trip to Kenya to check on a Catholic school for girls the parish sponsors in a suburb of Nairobi, the capital. They returned to San Francisco Jan. 21.

Stephenson and Schneiders were guided by friends throughout their stay in Nairobi and Machakos, a city south of Nairobi. They canceled planned visits to slums of Nairobi and the Rift Valley in western Kenya, where much of the violence has been reported. An estimated 800 people have been killed, more than 300,000 displaced since December, and there are reports of mass killings of Kenya’s largest tribe — the Kikuyu tribe, according to the Associated Press.

The two men stayed at a convent where Stephenson said early morning Mass for the nuns. Schneiders, an IT worker for PG&E in San Francisco, also stayed at the school, the Cardinal Maurice Otunga Empowerment Center, where street girls receive vocational training and schooling in order to become financially independent. Holy Family Parish members have raised close to $70,000 since 2004 to help run the Catholic school.

Both Stephenson and Schneiders saw heavy police presence in Nairobi as they were guided by Kenyan priests and nuns.

While Stephenson felt safe, Schneiders said he never really relaxed until they left last week.

After all, Americans are not used to seeing so many people with AK-47 rifles in the streets, he noted.

Once, he saw three soldiers pummel an unarmed man as he and a Catholic Relief Services worker assigned to the school drove near Nairobi. They were on their way to pick up six students who could not return to school after the winter break because public buses had stopped running.

Somehow, the man escaped, said Schneiders, adding they were able to find the students and bring them back to the school.

Another time, he saw the tail end of a demonstration as people dispersed.

Later that night, he saw on the news that it had been a peace march the military had tear gassed.

“It didn’t make any sense to me,” Schneiders said.

They nonetheless were able to meet with Cardinal John Njue and Archbishop Martin Kivuva in Machakos, both of whom support the Cardinal Maurice Otunga Empowerment Center.

After Sunday Mass at the gymnasium where Holy Family Parish gathers every week, parishioners welcomed Stephenson back.

This was their third trip to Kenya since 2004. Both said they look forward to returning to Kenya in two years.

“The people welcome you so much that we are enriched,” said Stephenson. “When you’re around good people, you become better,” he said.

Schneiders wonders how the political troubles between Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga will be resolved. The trip, he also said, will help him be more empathic to their friends’ worries.

Stephenson noted that Cardinal Njue has denounced tribalism — the clashes between tribes that have been so pronounced in Kenya as of late.

In the meantime, the Cardinal Maurice Otunga Empowerment Center continues to operate.

Visiting Sunday Mass were two sisters originally from Kenya, Bernadetta and Ruth Muasa.

Both worry about the events of the last few weeks in Kenya, a country known until recently for its political stability.

“It’s devastating,” said Bernadetta Muasa, a former American Canyon resident who now lives in Washington State.

In an e-mail last week, Christine Munguti, a nun who helps run the school, said she hopes the situation will return to normal. Right now, the center provides food to people who have been displaced, she said. But prices have gone “very high,” she also said.

As of Jan. 19, 30 out of a total of 78 students enrolled at the school have managed to return to the center, Munguti wrote.