It's Christmas Time in Kenya

It's Dec 17th and I'm writing this one live, so prepare for a little rambling.

It's a week before Christmas eve and I'm sweating off a lot of pounds. Even more since I just read the Christmas Music Festival at our church is postpone because of snow and ice. I'll take a little of that right now.

Here in Kenya does not seem like Christmas at all to me for several reasons:
1) the heat and sun - I'm use to the winter weather in the great northwest and I'm missing it right now.
2) No constant Christmas music playing everyplace. In fact I've heard maybe 2 songs so far.
3) No constant commercials letting me know what I should be buying for Christmas. I don't miss this.
4) Not Advent services.
5) No Christmas decorations. There are a few, but most of them you would be hard pressed to tell if they are for Christmas or the person just liked them in general and they have been up for a couple years.
6) We are about to have our 4th Sunday of Advent and there has be scant mention of the Christmas Story in any of the sermons or the bible readings. This one bothers me the most. These have been Catholic Masses, but I'm pretty sure we'd be getting a lot more about the birth of Jesus in the US. I like the Christmas story and the season and do miss it quite a bit.

Speaking of Christmas versus, here is one for you:

Matthew 1:23 (New International Version)

23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"^[a]—which means, "God with us."

That's my wedding verse, given 31 years ago today. Yeap, today is Joyce's and my 31st wedding anniversary. I gave her a sunrise motorcycle ride on the island of MFangano, she gave me a bag of mangoes. More to that story but not here or now.

A reminder - Friday is the last day our internet access is available until Jan 5th, so this is probably the last blog and picture post for a while, sorry. But ICIPE, like Intel, closes down for year end and so goes our access. And we leave tomorrow for a 4 day trip to Nairobi to visit the Dellamaters and their Journey to Kenya project. (www.firstlovekenya.org). We met them 2 years ago on the plane flying into Nairobi and are very interested to see what they have accomplished in that time.

Well my time is up for today, my Christmas best to all and to all a blessed New Year. (Consider this your Christmas card and letter from the Maiers for 2008)

Paul and Family.



Pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/MaiersInAfrica

It’s a Down Day

Saturday Dec 13^th, 2008 – It’s a down day, both activity wise and emotionally for me. While it is a slower paced day as far as responsibilities go, we still had things to do. Had a school committee meeting after breakfast, an update on that in a moment, and a lunch date. But not a whole lot was actually accomplished. And not being excited about the day and wonder why I’m here on the shores of Lake V, it’s a down day overall.

First the Polytechnic update (see previous entry for more, which was posted at the same time). We met today to short list our candidates for the Manager position. The list was short to begin with with only 4 applications being turned in. Reviewing them was not hard as most of them did not meet most of the qualifications. Only one had any real potential. It was decided to only have him interviewed. Fortunately Joyce had summarized the applicant’s info, otherwise this process would have taken several times longer than the 1+ it took anyway. Of course there were a few other items, the chairperson was late, only 3 of the 7 committee members showed up. So we got 10 productive minutes of work done in our 2 hour meeting. Hmmm, that sounds a little too familiar. Even with 3 of 7 members present we still had a quorum. They have the concept of ‘apologies’ here. This means if you inform the people at the meeting either before or at the time they call you 30 minutes after the meeting starts asking you where you are that you will not be able to attend, you are counted with the number present to determine if a quorum is achieved. I feel sorry for my kids having to sit through these meetings as for the most part the meetings are not very productive and even sleeping or washing dishes would be a better us of time.

As you can see, I’m not real up on the meeting process or the progress today. Hopefully Monday we will hire the one candidate and he will kick things from first to second gear, or maybe I should say get us out of neutral.

The lunch date was fine, same old same old on the food. The high point for me was the pineapple for dessert – very sweet and tasty. They tried to get us to eat more than we wanted, but soon a few other visitors arrived to eat a lot of the remaining food, so it did not look like to much went untouched. I was just thinking of a polite way to excuse ourselves when the tea came out. So another 30 minutes before Joyce politely excused us to head home. That was the time we were invited to various other things, such as visiting where they come from “way over on the other side”. Not sure over or the side of what, but it my impression was it was less than 50 miles. The wife also told us about the women’s group she was in and how they weave things for income when the lake is shut down to fishing during the fish mating season. She said we could market the items for them “were we are”. We assumed she meant the US but she didn’t specify and we were all too leery to ask for clarification. So we’ll need to see what come of that as we did say we’d like to see the items and the shop they have. Being caught a little off guard on the topic we didn’t have a pat answer developed yet to politely say sorry, no can do.

Fortunately our lunch as close by. Nick, Morgan and Eli had a different lunch invite, someplace further away. They left about an hour before us and are still not back. We’ve been back for 3.5 hours. I’m wondering how they are feeling about now, as they did not seem to be jumping for joy when they left. As the sun has set and dinner is in about 1 hour.

So that is a down (low activity) day summary. But I’ve also felt down emotionally today. I’ve asked myself several times today that the heck I’m I here for. I’m wanting to move 6 to 12 months into the future and get the aid of 20-20 hindsight to see what benefits came from this trip. I know benefits already, we are making a small impact on several lives and I hope we are making a larger impact in a couple of lives, some I hope will continue long after we leave.

But that doesn’t seem to make me happy or joyful today. Part of the problem with down activity days is the time to think about the here and now and the things we are missing, or all that is wrong around us and how little we can impact the so large of need. Wondering why this country, that has tremendous potential in people and natural resources, struggles so much.

Yesterday we met a number of US kids in their 3 month of an 11 month, 11 country mission trip. They are part of The World Race, a mission of Adventures in Missions out of Georgia. Sounds like a neat program and opportunity to spread the gospel and see many different cultures. We walked up to SEEK (Suba Ecology Education of Kenya, formerly Kenya Island Mission, formerly associated with World Walk with Massai) to see them. We knew where they were as they had stopped by the parish to pick up a TV and DVD player along with a generator to do a presentation and we got a chance to speak with them for a few minutes. Turns out they had to carry the TV (about a 26 incher tube style) and related items a 1/2 mile up a hill to the point of the presentation. Anyway, I’m way off on a tangent here. My point was to be that at SEEK, while talking to one of the staff members, I heard they had municipal water service. I was very surprised as I did not think that existed in the area and I had not seen any signs of that. We have both water feed and drainage pipes all over the compound here. I assumed that it was from having a compound system that was fed by a pumping system from the lake. It looks to have been in disrepair for quite some time. Maybe it was from the municipal system, maybe not, but why don’t they have water if it is available. Even water feeding one tank in the middle of the compound would be a big improvement over the donkey cart hauling the lake water up. Come to think of it, even a pump coming directly from the lake filling a tank would be an improvement. This said as we are about out of water in our barrels as the donkey cart man has not been around, or at least not filled our barrels in the recent days. Of course we could haul it up bucket by bucket, but I thought that was not going to be needed since the donkey man was around. So why no water?

After having kids around most of the week I need to remove myself this afternoon. I went down to the concrete wall that runs from the shore into the water. It’s a wall now, but it was something else in the past. This can be seen by various metal pieces with holes, brackets and braces all along the wall. I wonder what it was at one time, how long ago was it built, how long ago did it fall apart, why did it fall into disrepair. Anyway, it’s a place I like to go and stand or sit on as it give you a good view of the sunset and most the rest of the bay area we are by. Today I sat facing east, looking at the small waves breaking into the planter. I think it is a planter anyway. It has a tree growing out of it and beach grass. It looks like those 4 foot wide pebble surfaces concrete planters you see in Central Park, USA. It’s in about 4 inches of water now and when the lake is calm, it extends about 15 inches out of the water. Was this always a planter I wonder? If not, what was it? When, where, what, why all come to mind as I watch the foot high waves break against it side and over the edge into it. Of course these are also the questions I’m asking myself today. Maybe tomorrow, maybe a year from now I’ll be able to answer some of those questions. I hope.

Off to another tangent here is why am I doing this blog anyway? On our last trips to Kenya I made it less than 3 days in keeping a written journal. I think this is really mostly for me, so someday I can look back and figure out the purpose of this trip, or just share it with grandkids or my faded memory. But somehow I feel more compelled to do it this time and on a semi-regular basis. Hope someone else is enjoying it now and finding something interesting or enlightening in it. Maybe when I return home you’ll share with me something that struck you and I’ll be able to see this trip in a different light.

Dinner is being set around me so time to go and eat. Yumm, more starch based foods. Still enjoying the salsa additions we have been having the last week or so.

Rambling from Mbita,

Paul

Update on the Polytechnic

Dec 11^th, 2008 – The progress is slow at best. We are making progress but not enough to keep 6 of us anywhere near busy. We are branching out to other things, like the afternoon kid’s camp, mending clothes and trying to find more to do. Some of it will just have to be our own initiative, asking and finding more to do. We do have several kids that hand around a lot of the day, so we are making local contact and learning a little about life hear in Mbita Kenya. But back to the Polytechnic.

Last weeks meeting really concentrated on the job description for the Polytechnic Manager and Instructors. Thanks to one former instructor at the school who was here when it closed, we got a few good ideas and suggestions. The main one being to make it a combo Manager / Instructor position, at least to start. We took the task of creating the flyer to be used upon ourselves, mainly to make sure it got done in time. They are moving aggressively on this item. Posted the notice last Friday, giving just a week for the manager candidates to apply, they will review on Saturday to select ones to interview and have them show up next Monday for interviews and sounds like make them start working on Tuesday. Wow, that seems real quick, but they, the committee members figured me get many applications in that time. One day to go and we have 2 applications, one of which we already had contact with, so that doesn’t really count as a whole one.

The one that we had contact with appears to be a viable candidate, with some good experience and knowledge. He was a former teacher here (the same one noted above) so we should be able to get some references checked out, or as they call them here ‘referees’. Hopefully by early next week we’ll have a manager on staff and be moving a little faster.

The instructor’s applications are due by Friday the 19^th. This was also in the posting, but we have not seen any candidates yet. Maybe they all wait until the last minute to turn them in.

With the upcoming hiring of the manager funding becomes a bigger concern. There is about 22,000 shillings available from when the Polytechnic closed and this is available to the committee to use. To put this into perspective, the manager’s salary should be 8,000 to 10,000 a month. And 22,000 shillings is less than $300 US dollars.

So where will funds come from? A few sources hopefully, but not the one most are hoping for. The hoped for one that isn’t going to happen to any major extent is the Paul Maier family as they refer to us collectively. Even through we have said many times to many people that ‘we are here to assist you, to use our heads, heart and hands, not to supply the financing.” Of course I’m sure they ignore the parts they don’t want to hear and with the impression that all Mzungus are rich (which we are relatively speaking) and they assume we will be supply some funds. And we are planning on supplying some, but not much. Our current plan is to help pay for some of the Manager’s salary for the first couple of months. Put we will only match some of the funds they have, give it sporadically over the period. We don’t want them to think we are going to be an ongoing funding source or that they can count on us to bail them out. When we do give the money, we will probably not even say it all comes from us, but that it can from various sources as one time donations.

We never had the intention, nor did we budget, to fund any major project here. For this project in particular, I think that they more they pay for the better long term chances it has to survive. I don’t want the Polytechnic’s survival to be dependent on continuous funding from sporadic US sources and particularly the Paul Maier family. We will see how that goes.

There are many NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that are already in existence that will probably help some. Some that the Polytechnic has had relationships with in the past and hopefully some new ones going forward. Also the Kenya government does supply some support through various means, but being new here we do not know what those are or how to go about getting any funds from them. Also, it will be interesting to see if the Homa Bay diocese will be putting up any money since this is part of their local Mbita parish. They did not say they were in our initial meetings with them when they thought this would be a good project for us. In fact I felt like they avoided the issue other than allude to the Maier Family potential.

One of the first main tasks of the new manager will be fund raising by recruiting paying students, contacting and working with NGOs, and Kenya governmental agencies. Some of these, particularly the NGOs, will probably be sponsorship of students.

The initial expenses will be some salaries for the manager and instructors. New tools will also be needed. Also there may be some building maintenance, but most (locals) seem to think they are in good shape as is. We also have some major electric machines – planers, drill presses, welder, etc, that need maintenance on them as they have been out of service at least 18 months, is not several years.

One additional step we, the Maier Family, is taking responsibility for is the re-painting of Polytechnic sign on the street. The name is changing and so are the courses, so it needs to be redone. It also seems to be the main advertising resource. So we are hoping to create a little buzz by changing the sign so people will see we are moving forward.

I think that brings you up to date. Sorry if the writing and the flow is a little disjointed, but I just didn’t fell like doing several drafts or sitting down before hand to organize my thoughts.

Signing off from Mbita,

Paul

More Happenings

Important message to those who look forward to these semi-regular blogs (I think that is mostly just our parents) – The ICIPE internet connection we use, or at least access to it, will be un-available starting Dec 19^th. So from then until probably early January we may not be posting blogs.

12/9/2008 – First, the combo lock thing on the door. Going one step further in the logic of using a lock, either key or combo on the door. After working on the garden plot with 30 or 40 kids it was swimming time. We sent the kids on down and got ready ourselves. When I arrived lake side the hippos were frolicking not to far off and we were all watching. Morgan arrived a few minutes later. She asked “Who was the last one out of the house?” I promptly thought, great I forgot to lock up and many kids are around. I quickly confused that I was the last one out. She quickly correctly me “No, I was the last one out of the house.” It took a second on why we would care until I realized I did lock up, with her inside. Fortunately there was a hole on the screen for opening the window so she could reach through and with the help of a mirror and 9 tries, finally freed herself.

Fr Charles lives a pretty humble life here by our standards, but pretty good compared to those he serves and the rest of the community. I’d say that our humble dwelling and the food we eat probably is better than 80% of Kenyans. Anyway, Father’s car is a clunker through and through. Some reason I think he should have a better car, but he seems satisfied with it. It’s a four door sedan Toyota Corolla, several years old. I’ve learned that when I sit in the front passenger seat I need to be mindful of the wire that protrudes that holds the glove box closed, I’ve snagged my knee many times on it. Morgan noted on one trip that Father is the only one that drives at a reasonable speed through town. I reminded her that it’s probably because he is only using his springs as his shocks are broken. The crank for a couple of the windows sit in a door pocket or on the floor. You need to be let out if you sit in back as the doors do not open from the inside. The front end has definitely seen its share of bumps and bruises. Part of the molding has been reattached with screws.. The cracked windshield has a constant haze over it that never seems to go away, even after the 90 minute car wash. I can hardly see out of it at night, especially when a car is coming towards us. And many times in the morning he needs to have a push start to get it going. He says after the first one it usually isn’t a problem the rest of the day.

I have been tiring o little of the repetitive food here in Mbita. Rice or spaghetti (I east as little ugali as possible), beef or eggs, greens (sucamawiki or something like that), beans or green grams sometimes. Everything is made with oil and tomatoes in it. Breakfast is a loaf of bread, peanut butter, jam, honey, Blue Band (a margarine like substance that I have not yet tasted) and tea or coffer with milk. We occasionally get fruit – banana, pineapple, mango and paupau (sp?). But getting a little tied of most of it. Fortunately once Ashley arrived things have changed a bit. I think it was a combo of someone new and the regular kitchen help being gone so Eli welcomed others into the kitchen. Also we discovered a small bush in our yard that had little peppers growing on it. These are less than an inch long but pack a big wallop. That with tomatoes

Paul

The Story of Magdeline

The Story of Magdeline

One of the young girls that has been playing in our yard over the last few weeks is named Magdeline. She is 11 years old and lives down the road with her grandmother and a 3 year old named Byron. Byron and Magdeline are not brother and sister, but both of their parents are dead and Magdeline’s grandmother cares for both of them. One of the first days that they came to play we were instantly in love with them. Byron’s shorts were in tatters but Morgan spent one evening sewing a huge patch over the bottom in the shape of a heart. His pants were an object lesson the next day in church after the priest watched Morgan doing her repairs. The priest spoke of doing kind things for others and he went on to tell the story of the torn pants. The next day Byron showed up happily wearing his pants. Some of the other kids brought their torn clothes and enjoyed the patches that were lovingly sewed on for them. As we got to know Magdeline a little better, we realized that she was just a regular kid who was bossy and domineering at times. One day my journal entry was entitled “I scolded an orphan today”. Magdeline and another little girl were saying cruel things to Collinse, one of our favorite boys, and I could tell that his feelings were hurt. I very sternly told Magdeline and Trezy that if they were not kind to the other children that they were not allowed in our yard because it was a place for children to be happy and feel safe. I sent them home and they knew that I was not happy with their behavior but I hugged them and told them that I would see them tomorrow. The next day I did not see Magdeline and of course, I felt guilty about talking sternly to her the day before. Well, the boys (Junior, Collinse, Uncle, Father and Mavin…who play with us on most days) took me aside and told me that Magdeline had run away from her grandmother a few days earlier and that she was sleeping in the bushes. They said that they had seen her begging for money and food. Needless to say, we were all watching for Magdeline. We had seen Byron the day before and he did not even want to look at us as he seemed to be so sad. He usually smiles at us and is very animated. No one had seen Magdeline and it had been a week since her grandmother had seen her. Magdeline finally showed up nearby today when we had a lot of children in the yard. Morgan said that she was up in a tree and as she passed by Magdeline called out to her. Magdeline came to our yard and we all greeted her happily and told her that we had missed her. I was so afraid that she would run away. Once I could tell that Magdeline seemed comfortable I went up to her and took her hand and we went for a walk. I told her that I was very worried about her and I asked her where she had been sleeping. She said “in the bushes”…I asked her if she was hungry and she said “yes”. We walked into the kitchen and I dished out some leftovers from lunch. While she ate, we sat together and talked. I asked her if she was ready to go back home to her grandmother because she was missed so much. She said “yes” and after lunch we walked down the road to her grandmother’s house. As we approached the small stand where her grandmother sells produce, several children saw us coming and they yelled out her name “Achieng, Achieng” and they ran to the road to greet her. I told her “see, even your friends miss you…especially Byron”. When we approached her grandmother, she turned around and smiled at Magdeline. She tilted her head and gestured with her hands as if saying “Oh, my child…you have returned”. She did not speak English and I did not speak Luo, but I knew that she was being welcomed back home. As I walked back home by myself, I was just hoping that Magdeline would not run away again. About 20 minutes later Magdeline was back in our yard with a joyful Byron on her back. When Magdeline had come to our yard during the time she was away from her grandmother, she never brought Byron with her (it made sense now). The day ended happily and as Magdeline left us with Byron on her back, she told us to sleep well. They are both coming back tomorrow for games, music and fun. I hope her grandmother will sleep well too!

Oriti,

Joyce

A full week in Africa completed!

A full week in Africa completed! Travis and I (Ashley) arrived in Nairobi last Wednesday at about 8 in the morning. We caught a taxi van (they wouldn’t give us a car because we had too much luggage. And as previously mentioned all the cars are TINY.) to the bus stage and got a bus to Homa Bay. We got ripped off by some guys who helped us with our luggage, but hey, everyone needs to make a buck somehow. They charged us about double the price of our bus fare to put our luggage on the bus. I’m pretty sure we paid them to not steal our stuff off the bus. Took a bus over some rowdy roads and took about two hours longer than it should have to arrive in Homa Bay right at sunset. Thank goodness Dr. Jon Ott was meeting us at the stage, it’s pretty easy to spot Mzungus. On our drives we saw giraffes, zebras, and a bunch of different gazelles. And we sweated. “Welcome Back to Africa!” the trip seemed to shout. We met Dr. Jon, Johnny, and Tablee, and they helped arrange a porter to cart all our crap down to the hotel. After some tea and dinner we gladly jumped into bed. At who knows what time in the morning there was quite the bustle outside our window. My favorite moment was the cell phone ring of “oh baby, baby, how was I supposed to know…” Thanks Brittany Spears. The next day we took a quick (quick in African time anyway) tour of Dr. Jon’s hospital and caught a cockroach to Mbita.

It was so great to see the family in Mbita. We caught sight of the only two Mzungus walking down the road not far from the stage, pretty easy to spot the tall white man and the short red head (Big Daddy and Mommasita, as Elly calls them) they brought us back to the compound and we began the greeting and settling in rituals. We are lucky enough to have Lakeside Manor with a great veranda and the best view of Lake Victoria. It just fits our two beds and the closet. It’s all we need, though, we don’t spend much time inside until it gets dark, and by then I’m in the kitchen helping with dinner, then dinner eating and the nightly yahtzee rituals.

I’d love to go day by day for my own sake and say what we’ve been up to, but I’ll spare you and just tell the highlights and major parts.

I’ve become the unofficial kitchen help, but Ellly keeps thinking that I need to make more and more decisions about what is going on with the food. (Elly for those who don’t know is our helper, he does a lot of the cooking, most of the dishes, and tons of the cultural and language interpretation, we all love him.) The second day here on the compound I asked Elly if I could help in the kitchen and learn the traditional dishes. So now I’m in the kitchen for lunch and dinner every day, I haven’t been awake for breakfast preparation. The main dished include: Ugali (maize-flour and water cooked until playdough-like, used as a utensil), Sukuma wiki (interpreted as Kale, cooked with sautéed onions and tomates), eggs (scrambled, cooked with sautéed onions and tomatoes), and a variety of stews (cooked with sautéed onions and tomatoes). So I cut I ton of onions and tomatoes, I’m great at slicing a thin tomato without it ever touching the counter or cutting board. Now I’ve began to make “American” dishes, trying to give the family a little excitement. At lunch today Elly even got the afternoon off while Morgan and I made rice, beans, salsa, and from-scratch tortilla chips. It took FOREVER, but it was “sweet” (what our African brothers say instead of delicious). Father Charles also liked the garlic mashed potatoes. Enough about food, though.

We also began a children’s program Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. It’s been fun to watch the children play traditional camp games and not have to worry too much about how rough they play with one another. Capture the Flag on Monday was wild, not so much tagging one another as much as flying tackles and dragging to “jail”. I love the fact that the children are rough-and-tumble and they just bounce back. They’re tough little buggers, and there is no whining. I don’t remember the last time I lead a group of children in a game and there was not one child who whined. We must have had over 100 kids on Monday and about 70-80 today, Wednesday. The only complaint: the children don’t so much care to follow rules. Oh well, they’re smiling and having fun. We’ve also been singing songs, the favorites being the ones with a lot of motions, so they don’t have to learn to the words to participate.

My favorite parts so far:

1) Daily swims in Lake Victoria, yes, I’m swimming every day in the second largest freshwater lake in the world, in Africa, daily. Usually we are joined by 5-50 children who splash, make us throw them, do flips off the boat anchored in the bay, and just romp around on what has been dubbed “Mzungu Beach” mostly in their underpants or naked. Morgan and I also finally got up the guts to go bathe in the lake. It was refreshing, but the evening is much choppier on the lake and thus not as clean as you might want for a bath. I think I’ll begin bathing in the morning.

2) Playing with the puppies. Which today I decided I will not do anymore. I squeezed a maggot-looking worm out of one of the pups and realized most of them are covered in the things. I squeezed probably 8 out of various pups before one landed on my sandal and attached to my toe. I left then. And I don’t think I’m going to be able to bring myself to love on those pups anymore.

3) Cooking with Elly, see above.

4) The children. They are so incredibly cute and imaginative, and sweet. They (mostly) always share, seem genuinely glad to see us, and make us laugh all the time.

5) Never looking at a clock, unless you’re simply curious. Things happen when they happen, you can’t rush, and there is no reason to.

6) Never having to put on a sweater, long pants, a hat, or blankets on the bed.

My least favorite parts so far:

1) Never having to put on a sweater, long pants, a hat, or blankets on the bed. It’s HOT! But we have Lake Victoria a short run down the hill.

2) Ticks. Gross, I’ve had one attached and one crawling on me.

3) That’s all I can think of, it’s actually really great to be here. The community is amazing, they are all so sweet and welcoming. We spend all our time outside and have great family (not just immediate, but what has become our family here in Mbita) to spend the time with.

One last exciting thing to tell you all about: the HIPPOS! We’ve had a number of sightings since we’ve been here. There was a sighting of their backs and heads out in the bay a few days ago, as we walked by to get a closer look some of the local men asked us if we wanted to go out in their boat for a closer look. Yeah, right. Then yesterday we went down for the afternoon swim and the children informed us that the hippos were too close, we shouldn’t go in the water. They were at least 100 yards out, we got in anyway. As they came closer we decided it was time to get out. They were only about 60 yards away from us. Exciting, but scary.

Well, that’s about all I have for now. Hope all is well in the states, glad I’m not there to suffer through the winter. All my love, Ashley.

Little Bite Size Pieces Of Happenings

Pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/MaiersInAfrica

12/6/2008 – A couple items converge on this item. We brought many colored pencils with us so we could let kids draw pictures. One of the kids, Junior, likes to draw jet planes, so one day Joyce brought out our pictures from home and showed the kids our nephew Adam and his jet – very cool and quite impressive. We’ve also been telling the kids for some time that Ashley and Travis were to be joining us. Two days before the big day, Joyce mentioned to a couple kids that Ashley and Travis were coming. Junior piped up and sask “Adam too?” You never know what will impact a kid. But Adam, if you happen to be flying over the area, please feel free to drop in.

Morgan mentioned the mongoose and the project to get it out. I really had little to do with it then having the keys to the area that contained the piece of railroad track we used as a pry bar. I don’t think she did justice to the smell that it exuded from rotting a couple of days. We had only started to notice it when Dennis had already found the source. But the fragrance was even better when they carried it by me with the maggots dripping from it. Phew-wwweeee!

Almost impossible to catch a picture of this to prove it, but the most I’ve seen on one motorcycle is 5 people. Three were kids, but still. Four (including 2 kids) is not uncommon. Usually one child sits in front of the driver and then one in front of the passenger in the back. With the 5, I think it was 2 kids in front of the passenger and one in front of the driver. The problem with catching the picture is because you can’t see the kids seating between the driver and the passenger until the cycle is passing by you. By that time it’s to late to get the shot.

I still laugh and shake my head at this when I see it being done, but I’m stooping to it myself. I’m sweeping the dirt, and grass, in front of our house. We have a tree out front and it drops flowers, leaves and seed pods all day long. It looks untidy, or more untidy than just the dirt, so I sweep a couple times a week as my yard maintenance.

A new boy came around this week, his name was Churauch. Five or six years old maybe. He took a shine to me more than the others. We had been sorting tools earlier and I had gotten grime under my finger nails. At one point while I was sitting and he was leaning against me I started cleaning under my nails with my other nails. He soon picked up my hand and started picking away at the grime for me. How thoughtful.

The next day in church, a little boy came in after we were seated and sat down close to me. Hmmm I thought, a kid wants to see the Masungu up close. A few minutes later he was gone, but came back later on and sat down a little closer. Joyce and I sort of looked at each other and asked if this was the boy from yesterday. Neither of us knew for sure and we see so many new faces and it takes a few times to be able to recognized them. It was only when he picked up my hand and started cleaning my finger nails that we knew it was Churauch.

I walked into town last Sunday with Morgan and Eli on the shopping trip. We took a bit of a back route that led us by some cheap and less than desirable living spaces. I think I put a picture up of it. As we passed a boy of 4 came out and started pulling down his pants to urinate in the street. Two things crossed my mind – how considerate he doesn’t want to soil his compound and they should teach him to pee down hill and he was aiming up hill and I’m sure it was going to just run down over his feet.

Last week Father Charles went for a 5 day conference. What caught my attention was that his entire luggage consisted of one briefcase. And I thought Nick packed light.

Foot washing is done here with a stone, usually about the size and roughness of a cement stepping stone. People rub the soles and side of the bottom of their feet quite aggressively on these. It would take off several layers of my skin if I did it. I should be surprised after seeing the kids running all over both the dirt and rock covered roads and the grasses that are spotted with thorns and stickers. Morgan mentioned they probably are just big calluses and this rubs them down a bit.

When we came to visit Mbita and attend the Dinery (sp?) Mass, which are big gathering of several parishes, that the area Bishop and the Minister of Immigration were also present. I didn’t even know the man 2 seats down from me was important until he was introduced as the Minister of Immigration. Hopefully if we ever get in trouble with our Visa he will remember us. Anyway, a few weeks later he had delivered new alter furniture for the church. Fr Charles was joyed and said they were very fine. We got a sit on them and barely deformed the cushions. To Fr Charles this was a sign of quality, the cushions being very firm. To us it was barely softer than the flat plank pews. The new furniture gave Fr Charles an excuse to re-arrange the seating up front. His plan was to move his seating area to the other side mainly because that side got a little breeze, which would be welcomed with the hot garments they need to wear. The assistant priest Christopher was not so keen on this arrangement – one for the side of the cross it put them on (the left instead of the right) and the furniture possibly being too comfortable anyway, as priests should suffer some, as Christ did on the cross. Fr Charles set it up his way, but I noted at first mass, which Fr Chris did, the seats had been moved to the over side. I think Fr Charles then moved it back for the second Mass which he led.

Last item for this blog – changing of the locks. Joyce decided that we should use one of the combination locks we brought for our front door rather than the pad lock it came with. Couple reasons – Ash and Trav had just arrived and it would give them easier access to our quarters as we gave them a lock with the same combo for their space. Also we wouldn’t have to worry about finding who had the key when we needed to get in. Due to the possibility of theft we also lock it if nobody is around. We only have 3 keys so not enough to go around and most time only the last person out brings a key as it stays in the lock when it is not in use. So more often then not you head back and get most of the way before you realize you need to track down the key and hope the person didn’t go for a long walk. So the combo made great sense. Until of course the first night when the house was locked up before sunset and I was the first to go back well after the sun had gone down. I’ve had no problem doing the key lock in the dark as it happens often. The combo with 51 year old eyes and no light is not going to happen. So back to find out who has there head light with them, which we usually carry around after dark to make our way back. Well, as I said, the locking was done well before sunset so no one had grabbed one of their lights – great. But people are prepared for darkness around here so it was easy to locate a candle and matches in the kitchen to take up to shed light. Not quite as easy with the nice breeze coming through trying to keep the candle lit as I turned the dial. Made it without much trouble, just need to remember the torches next time.

Time for a splash in the water.Paul

Together at Last

12/5/2008 – Ashley and Travis joined up with us yesterday, Thursday the 4th of December. We are very happy to be together, both because we have all been looking forward to it for so long, but also the 4 of us here in Mbita wanted the distraction. Ashley and Travis had a long haul, having left for the airport before noon on Monday, Dec 1st and meeting up with us about 12:30pm on Thursday. Overall their travels went okay, and perhaps they’ll relate any stories sometime. We were not quite as nice to Ash and Trav on their last leg of their journey as we were to ourselves. After wee landed in Nairobi, we had a leisurely, lazy day for the most part, before we board the train for an overnight ride to Kisumu in sleeper cars. Ash and Trav had to make their way quickly to the bus station, called the stage, and find a bus going to Homa Bay. After a misinterpreted phone call with Daniel, who had helped us our first day, Ash called us on a borrowed cell phone about 10:45am telling us they were on their way. Of course we did not know the bus line or the route they were taking to get to Homa Bay, so the arrival time could only be very roughly approximated. We called Dr John in Homa Bay and let him know what we knew about their bus departure time. He said great and they would be waiting for them well ahead of the needed time.

We were all anxious to know when they arrived and kept waiting for a call from about 4pm, the time we hoped they would arrive We knew that was optimist, only giving 6 hrs for the ride, but if all went really really well, that would be the earliest they would make it. About 5pm we got a call from John wonder if we had heard anything, or knew more about the bus line or the route they were taking. We didn’t. He was just asking as 3 buses from Nairobi had already arrived and they had not. He was just hoping that they got on the correct bus as people had been know to direct travelers to the Migori bus rather then the Homa Bay one. Thanks for this piece of info Doc, as we would never had considered that and now rather than just hoping for a slow bus, we worried about the wrong bus. More concern than worry, as both Ash and Trav had been in Kenya before and were capable people of being able to sort out the mistake if they ended up in Migori and not Homa Bay.

Five turned into six which turned into 6:30. Surely they should be in Homa Bay by now. A call to John told us they were not. Great, how far was Migori from Homa Bay? Any chance if we set out to locate them, would we really have a chance? Would that be like jumping into the rapids to try to rescue the wife that just fell in? Then the moment of brilliance for the day struck – call the borrowed phone back that they called us on and see if the kind stranger knew anything. About 6:45 we had our local guy Eli call. To our delight, the man knew who we talked of, said he was with them to Kisii and they were on another bus (turned out to be the same bus actually, but we didn’t find that out until the next day.) that was headed to Homa Bay. They had boarded the bus about 5pm. Great not a problem, how long should the ride from Kisii to Homa Bay take we asked. An hour maybe, maybe 1 and a half. Great, that means they should have been in at least 30 minutes ago.

More wondering and anticipation to hear the news of their arrival into the capable hands of Dr John. The news finally arrived about 7:30 that they had arrived. Yeah, they would soon be at they New Jersey hotel we had reserved a room at for them, to the bargain price of 5 US dollars, for a double. They had some tea, went to bed and were to meet Dr John about 8 am Thursday to get a roach to Homa Bay.

After breakfast and a quick tour of the hospital, they headed for the stage. About 11:30 we got the news that they were aboard and on they way. We took off to town immediately, as we had a couple errands to do on our way to meet them. First stop was the Computer / Office services shop of our committee chairman to print up and copy the Polytechnic Manger advertisement (yes, we are making progress). That took 4 times longer than needed as they first PC froze up while printing and the second would not recognize my flash drive. They finally re-booted the first PC and got our document out and copies made. The bright spot was they treated us to a fruit juice drink they manufacture on site. We got a tour of the manufacturing ‘plant’ even. The fruit was stored under the end of the desktop that housed the 2 PCs. The production was done by a lady sitting on a short stool in the back room, between various other supplies and what-not grinding and juicing the fruit in a blender, then straining the pulp out of it. The Juice was absolutely fantastic, made of pineapple, papaya, avocado ( I think ) and a couple others, and serves icy cold. We definitely will stop by often for more.

Next was the hair cut I needed for more than a couple of weeks. I know this is quite soon for me, as I had one shortly before we left and go at least 3 months between them. But hat hair here is the mode and the shorter it is, the less the hat affects it. First try had the barber at lunch or running an errand. We waited about 15 minutes, chatting with the locals that tended the booths close by. Before the barber showed, we decided we better get to town before the kids arrived. Sure enough as we were walking into town they passed us. I spotted the white arm hanging out the window of the roach and sure enough it was Ashley. A couple minutes later, they drove up to us having dropped off their other passengers at the stage area. We told them we had arranged for Father Chris to pick us all up their so to go back, we’d be their in a minute or two. Joyce called Father Chris as we continued into town, he said he’d be quick with his errands and come get us.

We made it to the stage and greeted each other warmly, it was so nice to finally have them with us. We unloaded the car, great the 2 escorts from Dr John, Table (Tab – Lay) and John. As we were waiting I spotted another barber just across the street from were we were standing and decided, sure, it should be quick, they just buzz it with the electric clippers anyway. Behold, that barber was also at lunch. He did come back shortly and I decided, let’s do it, so I got my first haircut in Africa. It did take longer than I expected, mazungu hair is slipperier and does take a little longer to cut. He did a fine job, I should be good for another 3 weeks or so. The timing was great, as I got a call from Father Chris just as the barber cloak was being removed.

We loaded up and were off to the Mbita Parish compound and our home for the next few months. Ash and Trav were greeted with joy and warmth from their siblings Morgan and Nick. We quickly got the luggage into their room in Lakeview Manor. Only one single bed so Father Charles told us which other one we could take and what mosquito net to take. A little time and innovation and all was arranged in their quarters.

Lunch was served and the remaining afternoon and evening was spent catching up and telling stories of both the US and Kenya. So great to have the family together. We sat here and there, roamed a little bit of the compound, but nothing strenuous. Lots of clouds and a nice breeze made for a comfortable day. They met several of the kids that hang with us and a few of the adults. Unfortunately the clouds also hid the first sunset from them, but we watched anyway.

Both Ash and Trav looked beat but made it through most of the day. Trav did need to head to bed before dinner as his head was hurting and had a sore throat. We celebrated after dinner with Tusker beer that we sent Johnny and Eli to fetch from town. 22 of the 24 bottles made it, as the carriers need to stop and rest and refresh on the trip home with the heavy case. Father Charles broke out the bottle of Napoleon brandy he was saying for the arrival. He made it, but did start in before the rest of us while he was watching the news before dinner and had consumed about a quarter of the 70 proof brandy before we even saw the bottle. Let’s just say he as quite mellow by the time he got to dinner. This father is a great guy and we love him, we could not have a better host. We will have several stories about him along the way.

Both of them slept well and Trav felt much better in the morning. Today (Friday now) was mostly a planned to be a down day, allowing us to spend un-pressured time together and them to recoup some. Some playing with the kids, some new toys Ash and Trav brought along and a little tour of part of the compound.

The sky was almost cloud free and it was very warm. So gave us a reason to have our first family swim in Lake Victoria after lunch. Nick has been playing in the water frequently and Morgan has waded a bit, but today we all got into the act with several of the kids. The water is warm, the sun shining hot and the breeze cooling – this is a great life.

A little more playing after the swim and that brings me up to this point in time. I’m sitting at the dining table and see the sun is just about to set. A good time to end and sign off and make it down to see if the sunset is visible or not.

Paul – over and done for now.

Thanksgiving In The Hospital

12/2/2008 - Staying with our family tradition, we had to travel away from home for Thanksgiving. Our normal destination is Santa Cruz, CA, USA. (Hi Vicki and kids – missed you this year, hope you got our Thanksgiving day message.) This year we spent our first major American holiday in Homa Bay, in St Paul’s Mission Hospital. Fortunately this was not as patients as a result of the public transport we took, which are notorious for bad accidents. The little Corollas are referred to as Cockroaches, probably since they can live, and drive, through about anything. We were at the hospital was as guests of our American friend Doctor John.

We were excited to have something to do, as progress on the vocational school project is slow. Dr John was excited to do something special for an American holiday and share it with people who appreciated it.

We took off Thanksgiving morning, shortly after breakfast. Only the four family members as Eli was not feeling well and opted to stay behind. Since there would be some extended walking involved, we all packed lightly, after all it was only for one night. No need for extra clothing, just some misc items like cameras, books and headlights. Three of us just had our small packs. The lightest packed was Nick, who only carried 2 books with him, one really more a large pamphlet.

We started off with about a mile and a half walk to the transportation hub of Mbita. We were looking for the quick transportation, the cockroaches. These seem to be the quickest way to Homa Bay over the rocky and potholed roads as they are the most maneuverable and small enough to fit the gaps between the potholes. We quickly found a ride and all 4 of us crammed in the second seat. They already had a couple for the front seat, so we only needed one more passenger. The last passenger soon arrived. So with the 3 plus the driver in the 2 front bucket seats, we were ready to take off. Still not sure how the drivers manage, as they seem to get the least amount of room of any front seat passenger. We we’re off, for the first 5 yards, where of course we had to stop and wait another 5 minutes. Once on the road for good, the ride was just over an hour. This was helped by the fact that there had not been rain for awhile and we could take the shorter, “better” down road into Homa Bay. At this point in our experience, we’d label this trip as uneventful.

Once in Homa Bay, we headed off to the hospital immediately. It’s a short walk of three quarters of a mile, give or take.

The hospital was buzzing, having in 6 or 7 inpatients and some waiting outpatients. Things are picking up there, but Dr John says it is too soon to tell if it is a trend or a blip. There were also many young men around. These were some of the kids John sponsors for school. Since the school holidays had started the kids were out of school and suppose to be home with relatives or guardians. However, most prefer to hand out with John, were ever he may be, then traveling home. John finally got most of them out of the compound and on their way shortly after noon.

We visited with the remaining staff and the few boys that stay with John semi-permanently. We are getting to know them all slowly and we are always excited to see them, and them us. We soon fell into small conversations around the compound, catching up on what’s happened since the last time we were together, what the Thanksgiving holiday was about, or general conversations about how America differs from Kenya.

Morgan and I took a quick trip back into town to hit the ATM and get some change. We then browsed the local supermarket to compare prices to Homa Bay and see what items we might want to pick up before leaving town.

The Thanksgiving feast was soon served. Since turkey as not available, John tried for duck, but had no luck there either. Finally he settled on pork, which isn’t often eaten here. It was very tasty and a nice change of pace for us. I was a little disappointed that we had nothing shaped as turkey. I thought they could have tried the tofurkey route with the ugali. Of course the tofukey would be much tastier than Ugali-rkey. Sukamawiki (greens), rice, ugali and even gravy rounded off the meal.

Almost the complete hospital staff joined us for the feast. John started off the gathering with a mostly correct history of the holiday, but either he or I must be misinformed about some of the details (last Thursday of November, 1492 and Plymouth Rock) but it got the point across. This was followed by the Johnny Appleseed song for grace before we all dug in. John was very happy that the staff actually stayed and ate with us, as he’s tried it before and they usually just dish up and take off to eat someplace else.

After lunch Joyce, Morgan and I headed back to town. We wanted to hit the internet shop and try to make some calls to the US. We were easily recognized by the internet shop’s owner, who asked how we were doing and wondered why I did not have my laptop with me.. We informed him we were now in Mbita, just here for the night and the laptop was too heavy to carry for such a short trip. I had earlier picked up some international calling cards that John told me about. We got about 10 minutes to the US for only 100 shillings, about 13 cents a minute. It was time to try them out. We located the payphones that needed to be used near the post office. Needed Morgan to dial the numbers as my reading glasses aided eye’s were not good enough to make out the pin numbers on the card. After one false start, it worked wonderfully and we got through to my parents. This time at a reasonable hour, unlike the 5:45 am call the time I tried Skype and forgot about the daylight savings time change. Had a good connection, with a minimal delay and had a pleasant 10 minute talk with them. With the last few seconds we had left on the card we gave our usual Thanksgiving host, Vicki, a ring. Only got voice mail, (which took half the remaining time just listening to all the cell phone added messages about leaving a voice mail, which they probably do on purpose to run up the minutes used on people and et more money, but that’s a separate rant) and left her a rambling message until the phone card ran out.

I spent the next couple hours reading the local paper – not much good news in it. Sometime I need to write about the current affairs of Kenya. The rest of the family spent time chatting with the staff and boys. I’m sorry I missed some of that, as one of the nurses, a Maasii, told stories of killing lions and the courtship of his wife. He has invited us all to come home with him for a weekend, so hopefully we’ll have good stories to tell and pictures show about that.

That evening we sat in the hospital’s courtyard chatting and Morgan brought out the special treat she had acquired for us – A small bottle of Johnny Walker Red and a bottle of Amarula, an East African drink made from the local Amarula berry, which is a nice sipping drink. (This must be one of those run-on sentences Morgan mentioned I was prone to have in some of my blog entries.) We were all excited about the special drinks. We spent a pleasant hour sipping drinks out of shared coffee mugs and talking. John loves having us around to chat with and tell stories to. Seems the Kenya folks are more into getting down to business with him and not just relaxing and chatting about recent events, news or past experience. We are a welcoming ear to John and his tales and extended, tangent filled explanations.

That night we each got a private hospital room to sleep in and our own bucket of water for bathing. I don’t think the hospital has had running water for some time, at least months, if not years. At this time it does not even have power. At some point power got turned off for lack payment and even though the bill has been paid in full for some time, the relaying of that info to the main Power Company office does not seem to be available. I think John said that someone must go in person to the office, show that payment has been made to the local office and request that the power be reconnected. However, someone seems to be industrious and found the control box and knows how to reconnect the power, and they reconnect it at night for the evening hours.

The night was restful and we woke up to tea and peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast.

While I wondered about town and did a little more checking on the internet, the rest of the family spent the morning marking the linens that we had sorted during our last visit to Homa Bay. They plan on starting to use them and wanted them marked so it would be less likely someone would walk off with them.

After lunch we started our journey back home. We had a few stops on the way to the cockroaches. Ashley and Travis are coming soon and arrangements need to be made. Our plan is to make them travel by themselves from Nairobi to Homa Bay, but we wanted to arrange as much of it as possible. The first stop was to secure local accommodations for them as we hope they will get into Homa Bay sort of early Wed evening. We wanted to give them a chance to rest overnight before meeting us in Mbita. John took us to the New Jersey Hotel, in which he has stayed, to see want we thought. It’s more a locals hotel then a tourist hotel, but seemed great, especially for the under $5 rate for the double room. Both the shared restrooms and bathing area are close to the room we selected for Ash and Trav.

It was then off to the bus lines to try and secure seats on one of the better ones. This part of the mission did not go nearly as well as the hotel reservation. The first choice in buses only had night runs from Nairobi and since they were to arrive at the airport in the morning, it was not a good option. They then hit the other bus lines, which are all housed together. Difficulty arose over the language barrier as we only spoke English and the clerk’s level of it was rather limited. Unfortunately there was not one of John’s boys with us to help interpret and explain our needs. Came away not having made any reservation, but thinking that most of them left to early for Ash and Trav to catch. There was mention of 11, noon, 2 o’clock buses, but didn’t really know if these were real times or not. Did discover that the buses often left late. So the plan is to ship Them off to the bus station when they arrive and hope one of the buses is late in departure and they can catch one before the evening runs start. He best we could do was to give them a list of the best to worst bus lines so they could get the better one if they had a choice. Welcome to Kenya Ashley and Travis.

Easily caught a cockroach headed back to Mbita. After the required 15 minutes seating of the four of us crammed into the back seat, we took off, to the petro station. Nick spent the time bargaining with the guy selling sunglasses, jewelry and cell phone cases off the piece of cardboard he carried around. Nick tried on a pair of sun glasses, but Morgan said they were too big, so he passed on them. The tank was full, at least full enough to get to Mbita, by this time so we were off.

Due to lack of rain, a few vehicles and the way the wind was blowing, the ride back was the dustiest we have had. I thought about closing my window, but figured I’d rather have the dusty wind cooling me off then the heat building up. And the front windows would be open, so the dust would still be flying anyway. When we arrived, both Nick and I were well coated with dust and grime, on the half of us that faced the windows. Quite a sight according to Morgan and Joyce. The walk back home was shorter as we got dropped off at the junction to the Parish compound. This cut the final walk to les then half of the first one.

I hit a milestone on this trip. I was actually looking forward to getting to bath in our luxurious standing room only bathing room.

Hope all had a happy Turkey day,
Paul

Pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/MaiersInAfrica

Morgan's Thoughts

I’m sure you’ll notice that this isn’t Paul writing today. I, Morgan, have finally decided to try and give you a little different perspective on our life in Kenya at the moment.

Where to start, though…?

One thing I will confirm: I’ve been trying to pet just about every animal we’ve come across. Some are more receptive than others, and I’ve quit trying to chase baby goats and chickens and such. I think the local children are the only ones quick enough to catch them. I can get my hands on most cows, and like daddy mentioned, we have a load of dogs here in Mbita to keep me company. There’s one male dog, who is Father, Grandfather and/or Uncle to all the others, and 3 girls, one of which is the mom of the other two (and daughter and wife to the male), whose puppies are cousins and half-brothers and sisters all at the same time. The mamas all love me and come running when they hear me, which I love, but I’m not sure how good it is for security purposes, since at least a couple of them are our guard dogs. But the male won’t have much to do with me, and is still ferocious, so I figure that’s enough. And oh, the puppies!! 5 born to one mom, and 7 to the other, which is now 3 and 6, unfortunately, but the surviving ones are all opening their eyes and starting to wiggle around. I’ve been more purposeful in visiting the dogs than anything else around here on a daily basis, I think. Hmm, look at that: a whole paragraph from me about the dogs… Big surprise, I guess.

One thing I see has not been mentioned much is our neighbor kids. It began with 3 or 4 girls the first day, who we let play with a ball, and the next morning we had a couple little boys out front declaring, “We would like to play with the green ball.” More proof word travels fast around here. So every afternoon (even before breakfast, some days) we have a gang of kids in the yard waiting for us. We have about 6 or 8 regulars each day, and inevitably one or two we’ve never seen before. Yesterday at one point, we had over a dozen kids running around. The number seems to grow every day. We have a couple rubber balls that have already been abused to the point that, even with duct tape patches, they don’t stay inflated for much more than half an hour. But luckily we brought a pump that seems to be as much fun as the balls themselves. We have a Frisbee and a Nerf football, Dominoes and colored pencils. I’ve spent a couple days with embroidery thread, teaching the kids to make friendship bracelets as well. A couple days ago the whiffle balls came out, and yesterday the boys were constructing hockey sticks out of the leftover wood from the tables and things Nick had made (which were made themselves from leftover wood from a torn-out ceiling in another building). I guess I should change my position here, and say that playing with these kids has made me feel more purposeful than anything else on the trip so far… aside from playing with the orphans at Sero, which was just as good. Many of the kids here have lost one or both parents as well, some are living with relatives, and I’m pretty sure 4 or so of the boys live together with a gal that rents a house here on the church property, who has no kids of her own. I don’t know how to say in a way that doesn’t sound arrogant, that it feels good just to enrich these kids’ lives a little. To show them some love. I know a flat rubber ball doesn’t sound like much, but I think the fact that they have somewhere to go to just be kids means a lot to them. One of the gals on our Polytechnic committee is a teacher at the Primary school across the fence (a school of 400+ kids, 8 grade levels, and 7 teachers), and she told us that many of her kids come to school without having had breakfast, and have probably had to fetch water already; then when they are sent home to have lunch, they may or may not get anything to eat, and are sent again to fetch water or to do some other chore, then sent back to school. I say this to illustrate how little children are allowed to just be children. We of course see kids playing around the streets with tires and strings tied to cars they’ve made from wire and cardboard and plastic lids, but it sounds like most of their time in between is spent doing more physical labor than most of us would care to do in a day. I shouldn’t generalize, but I don’t think I’m that far off. Anyway, by now we know most of the kids by name, and playing with them has occupied many times more time in our days than anything to do with the Polytechnic has. Can’t say I’m very disappointed about that, personally.

Alright… another topic, maybe…

How about everything gross we encounter on a daily basis? Sound interesting? Monica, you might want to skip this part...

My dad already mentioned the bugs in the tea. At the beginning of this trip, when I would discover a bug in what I was drinking, that would be the end of it, and I’d dump it out (or maybe pass it to Nick who cared less). At this point, if I have to scoop half a dozen gnats out of my tea, I do it, and look into my glass and think, “Well, I hope there’s not one that sank to the bottom that I’m going to swallow,” and finish my cup. And, ahh, our toilets. As Paul said, we have a 2-compartment outhouse. Though I think he referred to it as a bathroom… but I’ve yet to see any porcelain in there. It has tin walls that creak with the wind, and a cement floor with a square hole about the size of a 6x8 picture frame in the floor in which to do your business. So I want all of you to stand on your toilet seat and crouch over it the next time you need to use it, and let me know how it goes. AND remember that your hole is twice the size of the one we’re aiming for. I’ve seen the fore mentioned geckoes on the walls, but I prefer their company to that of the cockroaches and snake (only one so far) who also reside in our lovely commode. The bathing situation isn’t too bad at all, actually, though I wouldn’t turn down a hot shower. We get our water from the lovely Lake Victoria, hauled up by a guy with a donkey cart. Who I thank God for, because I have yet to learn to carry anything on my head, let alone a 5 gallon bucket of water. But at the end of a thoroughly dusty, hot day, the cool water is really nice. So I, personally, use about a pitcher of water (I try to scoop around the floating bugs), and get something a little better than a sponge bath out of it. I never thought I’d enjoy such a meager washing so much. Not to mention we seem to have been drinking the water from the lake, too. Boiled, of course, but that hasn’t prevented a few stomach aches. But we got some WaterGuard (basically sodium chloride), so hopefully that will be a little more hygienic. That wasn’t too gross… Maybe the cow and goat poop everywhere that is apparently no one’s job to clean up after. No scoop law here. And no litter law either. I’m actually surprised that there’s not more trash lying around, since, for example, if you give a kid a piece of candy, the wrapper’s on the ground before the sweet’s in the mouth. But I think a lot of the trash comes in handy for burning, so there you go. I’m kind of disappointing myself with the lack of “yuck” factor here… My dad has already mentioned my crusade against the ants. And I thought I had an ant problem in college. Ooohhh, no. This was an inch-wide stream of them flowing into our kitchen. And apparently Ziploc bags are no match for their tinyness. We had some cookies in a bag that they had invaded, and they were crawling in and out of the holes in the cookies. So I picked them out as best I could, found an airtight Ziplock for the ant-less cookies and some DOOM insecticide, and that’s the last I’ve seen of them. Knock on wood. Our bat friends were mentioned, too, I believe. It was startling to have them zipping around our heads at first, but at this point, I don’t think any of us so much as flinch when they come in to join us for evening tea. As much as we might like to think they zip back out another window, we know they’re living in our ceiling. I know my dad mentioned the hole through which they leave us gifts on the coffee table every morning. So we began moving the coffee table as a stroke of genius, and I even began laying down a bit of old paper for easy disposal. The last thing I can think of, which isn’t a daily occurance, thank goodness, was the smell coming from an old cement hole in the ground outside our house. Not a septic tank, so that didn’t explain it, but there was a heavy cement lid that was open just enough for a critter to crawl inside and get stuck. So Paul and some of the church men (Has anyone mentioned they refer to them as “the Christians”, as opposed to “the Congregation”? We think that’s pretty funny…) got a big metal rod to hoist it open, some poking sticks and a length of rope, and quite quickly were able to haul out a 4 foot mongoose that had apparently been chased into the hole by our guard dogs. See? I didn’t spoil them! I had heard the battle a couple of nights before, but I thought it was cats fighting or something. Quite a ruckus.

I guess that’s it for gross. I know there has to be more, but I’ll keep a list and get back to you.

I wish I had more to talk about. Maybe just a bit about daily life in Mbita? We’ve been here just over 2 weeks now, and as Paul mentioned, it’s been pretty slow going with the Polytechnic business. Actually, my dad just popped in and introduced me to one of the former teachers who stopped by to help us evaluate what we have – or should I say don’t have – as far as tools and equipment for the masonry department. Other than having some “professionals” stop by to help us evaluate, there hasn’t been a lot to do. We have about 6 buildings we’ve cleaned out, mostly with the help of those neighbor kids. And you should see them clean! Those girls can mop a cement floor, bent over at the waist, with an old t-shirt and some laundry detergent and make it shine like porcelain. There’s no way us mzungus could have done half the job without them. They were 100 times more helpful than the church youth group that was assigned to help us one afternoon. I think about 4 of the youth actually ended up helping, and that was the day the Leatherman disappeared. It was, however, miraculously found the other day by one of the men that had accompanied the youth that afternoon. And as far as Fr Charles and a few other Christians (ha ha) were concerned, he was probably the one whose sticky fingers had gotten at it in the first place. But no matter. We’re counting ourselves lucky that that’s been the only casualty so far anyway. The cleaning definitely made us feel productive for a few days, at least. I think my dad may have posted some Before and After pictures… but that only lasted so long. So for the past week, we’ve done the little organizing of the handful of tools we found, and that’s about it. But laying them out all together was actually kind of encouraging. Otherwise, our days consist of getting up around 7 or 9 (7 for the parents, 9 for Nick and I), and having breakfast. Then we have a few hours to play with the kids who have congregated in the yard, or maybe do some laundry in the lake. I go to the market most days with Elly at that time, too. Has anyone mentioned him? He’s one of Dr John’s boys (African boys who he’s sponsored through school that all refer to him as their father now. It’s really sweet.) who he sent with us to be our cook and personal assistant of sorts. He’s become part of the family, really. I think he’s about 21, and he enjoys Yahtzee and our iPods (even though he listens strictly to Michael & Janet Jackson, and maybe 2 other reggae albums we have). Anyway, after the morning activities, we have lunch, and after lunch is more playing with the kids (thank goodness for them, or I think we’d do a lot of staring at eachother), and pretending we have important things to do, like play with the puppies or go look at the lake or read. Dinner is after sundown, which gives us the opportunity to watch the incredible sunsets I know my dad has posted pictures of. After dinner it’s Yahtzee and tea time. This seems to have become mandatory since last week when we taught Elly to play. We even got the other cook, Eucabeth, and the student who’s staying here, Dennis, to play a few times. And after that is bed, because we’re all sooo tired from our long, hard day. Mealtimes seem to be the mile markers of our day. It seems like we kill time between meals a lot, just to see the day pass, even though I don’t think any of us are the least bit hungry when we sit down to eat most of the time. I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten 3 meals a day consistently. I guess that’s about it for our day to day lives. There has obviously been some minor frustration with our lack of productive things to do. It’s nice to some extent, but I’m going to feel really useless if this turns into a six month vacation. We’ve talked to Fr Charles about finding needs within the community we could have for little daily projects, like mending clothes or minor household repairs we could help with. Even helping at that 400 student school I mentioned… anything, really, just to make us feel useful. He has a chicken project to set up come January, but that’s a month away. I guess if our biggest complaint is having little to do, I shouldn’t be complaining. But as you all know, that’s why we came in the first place; to “make a difference”. We’ve resigned ourselves, I think, to making less of a dramatic impact, but that’s why we’re just looking to do anything that could make a small difference, even if it’s only for one person.

So this is where I’ll stop. I’ve rambled a lot, and I apologize for my overuse of commas and parentheses… though it might be a bit better than my dad’s stream-of-consciousness ramblings. But I shouldn’t talk, since this is the first one I’ve written, and I thank him sincerely for being the one to keep you all updated. Now that I’ve found I obviously don’t have a shortage of babble myself, I’ll try and relieve him of the duty a little more often. Plus it looks like I’m doing something very official and constructive with my time when I sit in front of the computer for a couple hours.

Much love to everyone. I definitely get quite homesick for you all here and there, so keep sending us notes of little goings-on when you get the chance. Even if you think it’s not important, it’s really nice to hear about home. Sorry we don’t have to resources to write more one-on-one emails.

Love and Peace,
Morgan.