Feb 27th 2009 - Coming to you live.
It's been 2 weeks since I've written a blog, mostly since we have been traveling and I have no laptop with me. It's just too heavy to lug around, especially when being near a power outlet often enough to be able to use it is such an iffy thing. For the first 10 days of our travel I don't think I would have had a chance to recharge the laptop. So good choice in not bringing it.
I've a lot I want to right about and not much time. I'm in an Internet shop in Arusha Tanzania and really only have about 30 minutes in which to write anything. I thought about many items I need to record here, but finally decided that since this is coming to you live I'll update everyone on what is happening right now.
Ashley and Travis came to Arusha because of a couple of kids that they and parents have been sponsoring here in Arusha. The kids are orphans that a former nun has taken in and cares for. I think she has one of her own and 4 that she as added. Through our contact here, Elizabeth, a friend we made through my dad's time here doing teacher workshops a long time ago, we hooked up with Helen and her kids. (See Elizabeth's website on the Sarfari company she and David, a local man, have - http://www.naturesgiftsafaris.com/) Any way, on our last 2 trips Ashley has stayed with the family for a few days and just hung out and grown close to the kids. Travis was with her the last time and we even took them all on a safari to the Arusha National Park - a really nice, close by game park.
Ashley and Travis are planing on staying around this area for about 3 weeks until it is time for them to head home. They are kind of looking for a few other places to help out at as the kids are in school most of the day and have study time most nights.
So since Ashley and Travis were heading out, the rest of us went along for the ride. The 4 of us are staying at the Backpackers Hotel / Hostel (by the Meru branch of the Post Office) and it's a pretty good low budget accomadations. We've already spent 3 nights and have another 3 nights booked. After that time all are up for grabs. Not a abundance of activities around Arusha itself for people not going out on safaris, etc but we have got a couple items done.
Yesterday went out to see a new orphanage, preschool, AID/HIV awareness program that Elizabeth is helping to inform people about. Is less than 2 years old and was started by a young man just out of college who was an orphan himself. It has pretty humble structures, and pretty cramped, but they are having success with about 35 children being served. They are struggleing had to mouth at this time, but the program seems solid and the people deicated and the man Mooney that runs it is taking it slowly so not to fail for trying to grow to fast.
On our way back to town we stopped at a nice game lodge, which I don;t have the name for and had lunch while watching the cranes, storks, elam, monkey and more wonder and graze right in front of us. The palce is a reserve for animals and hand out right at the edge of the lodge and grounds. Morgan and Ashley even got to feed an elam ( the largest of the gazelles) that wondered up to the wall to see what was going on. I have pictures that will be going up when this trip is over and I'm back with my laptop. I think they should be good. The food was also superb.
We hit the Meru Craft and Curio market today and loaded up on some treasures, the best deal had by Morgan getting 2 Barack Obama tangas for only 6,000 shillings. The prices very from shop to shop and bartering had is a must. I looked at the plentiful little tin sarfari vehicles and got intial prices of 20,000 to 5,000 shillings for them. I didn't want one, I just was trying to see the range of prices that the different shops would start at. Some items we did buy were 22,000 at some shops all the way down to the 2,000 we paid for them finally. All I did was walk from shop to shop and the hawkers would just lower the price.
Joyce and I went the the Central Market ( the locals market) after lunch. This was just to walk around and see what was happening. It is also interesting going into these markets and see the variety of items they sell - fruit and veggies, kitchen ware, spices, fish, live chickens, fabric and some electronics. I was a little surprised on how little we were harrassed. Although the man from the fabric shop did follow us for quite a ways trying to get us to come back or go to their other shop. He even tried to convince us that our daughter was looking for us and we needed to come. But both of them were back at the hostel, so it didn't work to well.
Times up, God Bless and do something fun for me.
Paul
Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
It’s My Birthday and I’ll Cry if I Want To or Chicken Dinner Special Birthday Surprise
Feb 12th 2009 – Actually yesterday was my birthday and I didn’t cry, but I did wake up after some vague, pleasant dream thinking ‘oh great, I’m still in Kenya’ and being slightly depressed. I actually meant to write this on my birthday but got wrapped up in a birthday surprise Safari Scramble. Some pics of this and more at http://picasaweb.google.com/MaiersInAfrica. Today is Susy’s birthday and she is really, really, really old.
We are still trying to work out the final details for leaving Mbita for awhile. Our plan is to head to Kisumu and then Mombasa by train. After a few days there most of us head to Tanzania for a little while. Ashley and Travis will head home after their visit to TZ (they head back a month before we do), Joyce and I will probably be back in the Mbita / Homa Bay area at least for part of the time. Morgan and Nick still sort of up in the air. Timing and transport are still being worked on and will probably be worked on until it actually takes place. It seems here plans are always tentative until they actually happen.
The day was actually somewhat productive. I worked with our Polytechnic manager for a while developing forms for the financial aspect of the school. We’ll have to wait and see how well and accurately they get used. I’m hoping to get a little time with John before we take off to review and help fill out some of the info. This might have to wait until Joyce and I return later, probably in April.
Joyce helped with some other Polytechnic typing – the employment agreements for the teachers and manager. Only about 6 weeks have been spent getting the samples from the Homa Bay Diocese. John has been working for almost 2 months already.
Morgan spent some time with the Dressmaking and Tailoring students helping them make some book bags for the kids.
So, pretty good activity compared to most days around here.
Breakfast and lunch were pretty much the usual and is growing very tedious to me and I find myself not eating a lot. As I’ve mentioned I’ve dropped some wait, definitely some muscle, which I didn’t have much to spare, along with fat. I can almost put my hands around my thighs now. Looking forward to having some people back home try to fatten me up a little. Everyone else has also lost weight except possibly Nick.
In the afternoon things took a turn for the better when I was presented with an invitation to a special birthday Safari Scramble. It was set for late afternoon and said to be ready for anything. So after making sure that I got my work done with John (the polytechnic manager) I started getting ready. I didn’t know much other than to be prepared and at the mongoose hole (that’s a story already told) at 4:45 pm. I had some time so I read for a while and thought of what I might need. Since I had no clues about the Safari Scramble, since this was a first of its kind to take place, I had to go with my gut. I ended up with just a few essentials – my Swiss Army knife, Burt’s Bees lip balm, my wallet, a tube of Neosporin in case of cuts or scrapes (I call this the wonder drug and find many uses for it), 2 pairs of reading glasses, a pen and pad, my Chacos rather than my flip, a head lamp, and a Obama sticker on my shirt. I tried to bring my trusting flat magnifying glass that I’ve been training for Survivor with, but it was nowhere to be found.
Turned out to be a challenge course set up using a GPS to find my way around and various tasked to complete at each waypoint. After a brief training by Travis on the use of his GPS I was off to the first location – Father Charles’ garden. Here I had to get a flame using my magnifying glass that magically appeared in 10 minutes. I was granted an additional 5 minutes for climbing to the top of the old windmill and singing Happy Birthday to myself. I knew my chances of success were slim as it was later in the day so the sun was not that hot and it is rare in my practicing that I ever got a flame this fast. I failed, even with the extra 5 minutes. The consequence was having to have Chicken Dinner’s favorite drink, a Ginacca. I was a little cocky and used much more than the required ½ shot of gin in my first attempt. I had so much that I had to squirt a little of it out after I swished it before I could swallow. Even though I had a very oversized shot, Morgan with mortified with me and could not believe that I would desecrate the supreme Ginacca protocol by spitting some of it out. She said she’d be totally ashamed to have to even report this to the almightly Ginacca creator Chicken Dinner and insisted I have another one to redeem myself.
The rest of the event went up and down from there, but I feel like I had a respectable outing considering my aging body and the fact that Ginaccas were required after most of the tasks regardless if I passed or failed. The second event require that I pick up, or do my best to pick up, a child, a chicken, a dragonfly and a cow. The child was the easiest of the four, even though my first child, Byron, was said to be a baby, not a child and I had to pick up a different one. The chicken was probably the toughest, but with Eli’s help on 3 of the 4 items, I succeeded quite well and got to have a Ginacca as a reward.
A couple more waypoints, a couple of samosas and a trivia challenge got us to our final destination, a bar in mid town Mbita. This place serves Obama beer for 200 shillings a pitcher. My task here was to get a family portrait with as many Obama relatives as possible before the rest of the family could finish the first pitcher of Obama. I got a photo with 9 relatives. Not a hard task since this is Luo country and they will all claim to be related to Obama, especially if you find them drinking in a bar. Since this was not the top level of achievement of 10 or more Obama relatives, I had a to pay penance for the grand prize with another Ginacca and a mug of Obama beer. This beer sucks by the way and is served warm. After several Ginaccas there was no way I was going to be able to down a mug of it and not have it come back up sometime later that night. Fortunately I had a ‘Ask Elly’ token to us and played it so Elly could drink the beer for me.
After the second pitcher we headed across the stage area to a hotel (restaurant) recommended by Mavine, one of the kids, as having good food, particularly chicken. The chicken was out but the fish and meat (cow) was good. After a relaxing meal and a bit of time passing I knew I’d be okay for the night and didn’t have to worry about seeing my supper or Ginaccas rise out of me.
We headed home using the public motorbikes, well worth the 50 shilling a person, to get back to the parish compound. After a little reading I fell off to a nice sound sleep. But only for a few hours and then was wide awake sometime in the middle of the night for who knows how long.
It was a nice birthday day.
Reported as I think it happened,
Paul
We are still trying to work out the final details for leaving Mbita for awhile. Our plan is to head to Kisumu and then Mombasa by train. After a few days there most of us head to Tanzania for a little while. Ashley and Travis will head home after their visit to TZ (they head back a month before we do), Joyce and I will probably be back in the Mbita / Homa Bay area at least for part of the time. Morgan and Nick still sort of up in the air. Timing and transport are still being worked on and will probably be worked on until it actually takes place. It seems here plans are always tentative until they actually happen.
The day was actually somewhat productive. I worked with our Polytechnic manager for a while developing forms for the financial aspect of the school. We’ll have to wait and see how well and accurately they get used. I’m hoping to get a little time with John before we take off to review and help fill out some of the info. This might have to wait until Joyce and I return later, probably in April.
Joyce helped with some other Polytechnic typing – the employment agreements for the teachers and manager. Only about 6 weeks have been spent getting the samples from the Homa Bay Diocese. John has been working for almost 2 months already.
Morgan spent some time with the Dressmaking and Tailoring students helping them make some book bags for the kids.
So, pretty good activity compared to most days around here.
Breakfast and lunch were pretty much the usual and is growing very tedious to me and I find myself not eating a lot. As I’ve mentioned I’ve dropped some wait, definitely some muscle, which I didn’t have much to spare, along with fat. I can almost put my hands around my thighs now. Looking forward to having some people back home try to fatten me up a little. Everyone else has also lost weight except possibly Nick.
In the afternoon things took a turn for the better when I was presented with an invitation to a special birthday Safari Scramble. It was set for late afternoon and said to be ready for anything. So after making sure that I got my work done with John (the polytechnic manager) I started getting ready. I didn’t know much other than to be prepared and at the mongoose hole (that’s a story already told) at 4:45 pm. I had some time so I read for a while and thought of what I might need. Since I had no clues about the Safari Scramble, since this was a first of its kind to take place, I had to go with my gut. I ended up with just a few essentials – my Swiss Army knife, Burt’s Bees lip balm, my wallet, a tube of Neosporin in case of cuts or scrapes (I call this the wonder drug and find many uses for it), 2 pairs of reading glasses, a pen and pad, my Chacos rather than my flip, a head lamp, and a Obama sticker on my shirt. I tried to bring my trusting flat magnifying glass that I’ve been training for Survivor with, but it was nowhere to be found.
Turned out to be a challenge course set up using a GPS to find my way around and various tasked to complete at each waypoint. After a brief training by Travis on the use of his GPS I was off to the first location – Father Charles’ garden. Here I had to get a flame using my magnifying glass that magically appeared in 10 minutes. I was granted an additional 5 minutes for climbing to the top of the old windmill and singing Happy Birthday to myself. I knew my chances of success were slim as it was later in the day so the sun was not that hot and it is rare in my practicing that I ever got a flame this fast. I failed, even with the extra 5 minutes. The consequence was having to have Chicken Dinner’s favorite drink, a Ginacca. I was a little cocky and used much more than the required ½ shot of gin in my first attempt. I had so much that I had to squirt a little of it out after I swished it before I could swallow. Even though I had a very oversized shot, Morgan with mortified with me and could not believe that I would desecrate the supreme Ginacca protocol by spitting some of it out. She said she’d be totally ashamed to have to even report this to the almightly Ginacca creator Chicken Dinner and insisted I have another one to redeem myself.
The rest of the event went up and down from there, but I feel like I had a respectable outing considering my aging body and the fact that Ginaccas were required after most of the tasks regardless if I passed or failed. The second event require that I pick up, or do my best to pick up, a child, a chicken, a dragonfly and a cow. The child was the easiest of the four, even though my first child, Byron, was said to be a baby, not a child and I had to pick up a different one. The chicken was probably the toughest, but with Eli’s help on 3 of the 4 items, I succeeded quite well and got to have a Ginacca as a reward.
A couple more waypoints, a couple of samosas and a trivia challenge got us to our final destination, a bar in mid town Mbita. This place serves Obama beer for 200 shillings a pitcher. My task here was to get a family portrait with as many Obama relatives as possible before the rest of the family could finish the first pitcher of Obama. I got a photo with 9 relatives. Not a hard task since this is Luo country and they will all claim to be related to Obama, especially if you find them drinking in a bar. Since this was not the top level of achievement of 10 or more Obama relatives, I had a to pay penance for the grand prize with another Ginacca and a mug of Obama beer. This beer sucks by the way and is served warm. After several Ginaccas there was no way I was going to be able to down a mug of it and not have it come back up sometime later that night. Fortunately I had a ‘Ask Elly’ token to us and played it so Elly could drink the beer for me.
After the second pitcher we headed across the stage area to a hotel (restaurant) recommended by Mavine, one of the kids, as having good food, particularly chicken. The chicken was out but the fish and meat (cow) was good. After a relaxing meal and a bit of time passing I knew I’d be okay for the night and didn’t have to worry about seeing my supper or Ginaccas rise out of me.
We headed home using the public motorbikes, well worth the 50 shilling a person, to get back to the parish compound. After a little reading I fell off to a nice sound sleep. But only for a few hours and then was wide awake sometime in the middle of the night for who knows how long.
It was a nice birthday day.
Reported as I think it happened,
Paul
Monday, February 9, 2009
Pius
Feb 4th, 2009 - Pius is not your typical Kenyan.
He is a great, great, great grandson of the major chief of the Mbita area. He is on our Polytechnic committee. He is the chairman of the local Mbita Catholic parish. I have also heard him mention 4 or 5 other committees that he is either the chairman for or on. They include primary schools, another Polytechnic, and a group of farmers interested in help from the Minister of Agriculture’s office. He grows trees organically and thinks about the long-term future. Travis says a hippie and if he was from the US he’d be from Eugene.
Pius has a kind, gentle soul. He is intelligent and hardworking. He is well off by Kenya standards and shares what he can with others. He is taller than I am, about 6 foot 3 and slim. He is slim because he walks everywhere from his home. His home is 5 kilometers from church, yet he is the only one that arrives on time for any of our committee meetings. He is 61 years old and says he is from the pre-Cambrian age, referring to the fact that he is not connected to the world through modern technology such as cell-phones, but he is ahead of his time.
He is thoughtful, considerate and retired. He is highly educated. He was a civil servant for about 30 years, working in the finance and banking area of the federal government. At one time I know he worked with and monitored investments from foreign companies and organizations. He has some back to his family land, the land of the chief, and decided to do something different and leave his previous working life behind him.
Yesterday he fetched us and took us to his home. This was not your typical visit that the family was dreading. We’ve been invited to home enough to know that it is usually an uncomfortable experience of sitting around and staring at each other, including out hosts, in silence for several hours. We usually try to be the first one to make an excuse to be excluded from the outing. In this case we all gave up more time at Sero (the wonderful nun’s place for children) to be home for the visit.
Pius said he would have us fetched at 8am, a little early for most of us, but not bad. Knowing how punctual Pius is we got up early and even had Eli get our breakfast prepared early. Pius did not arrive. This concerned us a little but we knew a few things. Pius is a man of his word. He lives 5 kilometers away. There is a river between us and him and gets hard to pass with the rains. It had been raining the night before. I was going to give it a few minutes, until 10 am, before I thought it might not happen. Then Pius showed up. He had waited a while since it had rained to make sure the paths were probably passable. Both Morgan and I checked out his shoes to see what he was wearing and how muddy they were to see how dirty and treacherous our journey might be. He was wearing Hush Puppies and only had a little mud on the sides of his soles.
We are off, but first we had to stop by and see Mary at Mbita Primary School so he could pay off a debt. He says that a person in debt is not his own man. He always has to be looking out for the person wanting their money back. Mary was not there, but he left his 40 shillings (about 53 cents) he owed her. But he needed to take care of it.
We headed up the hill to his place. Pius gave us a running commentary of the area as we passed through. Se stopped several times to greet people at their homes to say hi. We also learned of a few relationships of people we knew that we did not know were related. At one point we turned around to see Mbita, the island of Usinga and several other islands. It was a beautiful view and hike. At one point Pius asked if we had time to visit a shut-in, a man who had be paralyzed for 7 years, from a stroke I assume. His wife has been caring for him lovingly since then as Pius put it. Pius said he like to drop by occasional to pray with the man and visit. Pius says it is good for him to have visitors, it gives him a little change of pace and the knowledge that others are thinking about him and care for him. We stopped by for a few minutes to say hi and chat. We were surprised to also find a week old baby named Cliff. It was a tiny baby with a full head of hair. His skin not much darker than ours is now. It was the first born of one of his daughters. After we chatted for a while and passed the baby around we took off for the last part of our hike.
On the way we passed by a man made water retaining basin made by the government. It did not have any water in it. I did not look like it had ever had much water in it.
As we approached Pius’ place he pointed out the home of various relatives, all who had a piece of the family land. Each had a pretty good share as there were not a lot of relatives left. It seems that when Pius ancestor, the chief, was in power one of the neighboring tribes mounted an attack around 1900. Since he was the chief, his sons and relatives were to lead the men into battle. While the enemy was soundly defeated, most of the family was wiped out.
Shortly after that the British colonization started and the chief gave up his authority. The reason given was that he would not work with and take orders from babies. Pius went on to explain that the new ruling authority, the British, were light skinned. The only light skinned people the Chief knew of at the times were new born babies. And the Chief was not going to deal with babies. While most Kenyans do not get my jokes, Pius gets some of them. So I actually got a little chuckle from him when I said that if the babies were as big as a man, imagine how big the adults were. Pius said they would be giants, showing that he got the joke.
We made it to Pius’ house and were greeted by his wife Pauline. We do not know Pauline as well as Pius but she seems to have the same gracious and giving heart as Pius and genuinely wants to help those in need. She was a very gracious hostess.
As promised we were served porridge, or oogi. This is not the normal thin porridge that the poor eat, but a thick porridge made with finger millet and maize flower (I think), a few other things including lemon juice. It was quite tasty and I think we all enjoyed it, which was a good thing since they had had 2 large pitchers of it for the 6 of us. We made it through most of it. I really did like it, especially with the fresh lemon taste in it.
We then went to see Pius shamba (small garden) and trees. Pius had attended a seminar shortly before he retired that a man said he had decided to plant trees on his land rather then grain crops. Most of the trees died, but the eucalyptus lived. So Pius thought that would be a good us for his land and started to investigate the eucalyptus tree. He asked around and the main question he got back in response was what type of the 800 varieties do you want to plant? He said that one that will grow where I live. Most folds thought he as a little nuts for trying to grow trees, no one does that and the area is really considered desert and not suitable. Pius persisted and finally found out about a hybrid from South Africa. He sad he started with 2000 the first year, a mistake as it turns out since he didn’t know how to grow them. He was told about a product the helps retain the water when planting and used it. Unfortunately this also kept the soil cool which attracted bug. And as the bugs rested in the coolness they also ate, his seedlings. Only 500 survived of the first 2000. But Pius was happy and had prayed (Pius is always praying, he is a devout Catholic who starts each day in the bible. He prays for guidance, thanks, encouragement and just about everything else. I think we had 7 prayers with him this day.) that if even one survives he would continue. So with 500 surviving he continued on, only without the water retaining addition. He plants a few more every year and now has about 5000 and will stop when he gets to 8000. He plans on rotating the harvesting of them. His use was going to be mainly selling them as telephone poles after about 10 years growth. One of the wonders of the eucalyptus is that it re-grows from the remaining roots and trunk so he doesn’t need to ever replant. This is great because even after he is dead his kids, his kid’s kids, etc will still benefit from his work. And after the first harvest, the trees grow faster because the root system is already established and down to the water table. It was very beautiful walking through the thousands of trees he has.
He has also planted a few other items. Some for a little diversity, but mainly for water and erosion control. But most of those plants also have a second purpose. The Aloe plants for ointments and the other cactus for the fibers that can be used to make ropes. A skill that his wife knows. Other trees supply eatable beans.
The other main tree he grows are mangos. These are not the native mangos that most grow around the area. These are big delicious ones. He starts with the standard ones and grafts on the better fruit ones. He has his own little nursery set up to do this and at some point will raise enough to sell to others. He has a couple hundred mango trees now and hopes to get to 600. These mangos as delicious. They are bigger than the normal ones and do not have the fibrous meat part inside. And they are very sweet and tasty. As Eli put it “they are more than good.”
Unfortunately this growing season the fruits dropped before maturity because of lack of water. There were a few left, but not nearly as many as they should have gotten. While this is bad news, God told Pius to dg a bore hole for water. This would give them plenty of water and allow them not to be dependent on rain and also give them better success with the eucalyptus trees as they lose many to lack of water. The problem is, there is no water underground, or so they have been told by people who know. And getting a machine in from Nairobi to do it would cost 2,000,000 shillings (26,000 USD) which would not be affordable. But Pauline’s dad had used a couple of men several years ago to do it by hand. She tracked them down and they would do the job for 100,000 (about 1,300 USD) plus room and board. Pius was a little skeptical, since water was not supposed to be underground, but since he only had to pay if water was produced he was willing to try. We looked down the 3 – 4 foot hole that was about 50 feet deep. We could not see the bottom, or the man at the bottom that was digging. The dig manually and once deep enough haul up the dirt and rock by bucket and rope. The rope was made by Pauline and is also used for the man at the bottom to climb out with. This is not an easy task. They use a shorten jumbe and sledge hammers and chisels. The ground is mostly rock with very little soil in between. While at the start they get about 10 feet a day, towards the end a good day might be 6 inches. To locate the water they use a divining rod. Sound suspicious to me and Pius too. But since they only charge if they find water, he went for it.
Pius also recycles just about everything and grows organically. All the waste water is captured and saved for watering, or mixing with the organic waste they have, such as peels and g-nut shells. He has several barrels of this waste all in different stages is decomposition. And it smells terrible I found out as he opened one to show use what it contained and looked like. They do have pit toilets, so no worry about that water making it to the garden, but the animal wastes, such as the chickens, does make it to the garden. Just a minute – He is having a new pit latrine built and did mention that the old one will be capped and once decomposed will be used for fertilizer.
We thought it was about time to leave, but Pius invited us into his house one more time – for a surprise lunch. We should not have been surprised since a meal always accompanies a home visit, but we thought the oogi was it. It was a tasty meal with much more than we could eat. We did get reprimanded a little, by both Pius and his wife, for not showing enough ‘respect’ in eating the ugali. Among us we only finished ½ the small bowl of it. This was a very bad showing as two good Kenyans, like Fr Charles, would have easily finished off the whole thing. There was also some new to us, a sauce that could be used over the greens. It was made by boiling milk to get the cream, letting it sit a while and sour, taking the liquid that was left and boiling it again – or something like that that made it sound like it was just boiled rotten milk. Ashley was the only one that tried it and reported that it was really not very good, even though she told Pauline otherwise.
And big news came in while we were eating – water had been hit in the bore hole! Pius was excited and could hardly contain himself. This would solve a lot of problems for them. Of course being the generous man he is he also planned on sharing with his neighbors as he was able. He says since he has the resources he needs to share, be a good example, help others. Since the have the land, they need to do something productive with it. So much of the land around him just sits idle. He says too many people with land when asked what they are doing with it respond ‘keeping it’. Anyway, after we finished eating the great mangos, we went out and looked down the hole and could see the water. Of course it was time for another prayer. A few more days of digging a little deeper, a little work to prepare the bottom of the well so the water is clear and the top gets put into place and he’ll have his water.
Dessert was fresh fruit. We finally got to try some of the mangos. I had been disappointed on our garden walk that we were not offered any. They were delicious and we all gorged ourselves on them. We even got a couple to take home.
The walk back was lead by Pius. He had to show us the way. Fortunately it had cooled a little, the clouds were coming over and the wind was picking up. He also took us a little more direct route back. It also didn’t seem to have as many hills. This was good as Joyce almost didn’t make it to his house. Other then a comment by Pius about the drunk young men we met wasting they lives, and the story of a nephew he tried to help several times with school, who he gave up on because he wouldn’t even dig holes for his mango trees for a good wage to help out with the money he wanted, they trip back was relaxing.
God bless,
Paul
He is a great, great, great grandson of the major chief of the Mbita area. He is on our Polytechnic committee. He is the chairman of the local Mbita Catholic parish. I have also heard him mention 4 or 5 other committees that he is either the chairman for or on. They include primary schools, another Polytechnic, and a group of farmers interested in help from the Minister of Agriculture’s office. He grows trees organically and thinks about the long-term future. Travis says a hippie and if he was from the US he’d be from Eugene.
Pius has a kind, gentle soul. He is intelligent and hardworking. He is well off by Kenya standards and shares what he can with others. He is taller than I am, about 6 foot 3 and slim. He is slim because he walks everywhere from his home. His home is 5 kilometers from church, yet he is the only one that arrives on time for any of our committee meetings. He is 61 years old and says he is from the pre-Cambrian age, referring to the fact that he is not connected to the world through modern technology such as cell-phones, but he is ahead of his time.
He is thoughtful, considerate and retired. He is highly educated. He was a civil servant for about 30 years, working in the finance and banking area of the federal government. At one time I know he worked with and monitored investments from foreign companies and organizations. He has some back to his family land, the land of the chief, and decided to do something different and leave his previous working life behind him.
Yesterday he fetched us and took us to his home. This was not your typical visit that the family was dreading. We’ve been invited to home enough to know that it is usually an uncomfortable experience of sitting around and staring at each other, including out hosts, in silence for several hours. We usually try to be the first one to make an excuse to be excluded from the outing. In this case we all gave up more time at Sero (the wonderful nun’s place for children) to be home for the visit.
Pius said he would have us fetched at 8am, a little early for most of us, but not bad. Knowing how punctual Pius is we got up early and even had Eli get our breakfast prepared early. Pius did not arrive. This concerned us a little but we knew a few things. Pius is a man of his word. He lives 5 kilometers away. There is a river between us and him and gets hard to pass with the rains. It had been raining the night before. I was going to give it a few minutes, until 10 am, before I thought it might not happen. Then Pius showed up. He had waited a while since it had rained to make sure the paths were probably passable. Both Morgan and I checked out his shoes to see what he was wearing and how muddy they were to see how dirty and treacherous our journey might be. He was wearing Hush Puppies and only had a little mud on the sides of his soles.
We are off, but first we had to stop by and see Mary at Mbita Primary School so he could pay off a debt. He says that a person in debt is not his own man. He always has to be looking out for the person wanting their money back. Mary was not there, but he left his 40 shillings (about 53 cents) he owed her. But he needed to take care of it.
We headed up the hill to his place. Pius gave us a running commentary of the area as we passed through. Se stopped several times to greet people at their homes to say hi. We also learned of a few relationships of people we knew that we did not know were related. At one point we turned around to see Mbita, the island of Usinga and several other islands. It was a beautiful view and hike. At one point Pius asked if we had time to visit a shut-in, a man who had be paralyzed for 7 years, from a stroke I assume. His wife has been caring for him lovingly since then as Pius put it. Pius said he like to drop by occasional to pray with the man and visit. Pius says it is good for him to have visitors, it gives him a little change of pace and the knowledge that others are thinking about him and care for him. We stopped by for a few minutes to say hi and chat. We were surprised to also find a week old baby named Cliff. It was a tiny baby with a full head of hair. His skin not much darker than ours is now. It was the first born of one of his daughters. After we chatted for a while and passed the baby around we took off for the last part of our hike.
On the way we passed by a man made water retaining basin made by the government. It did not have any water in it. I did not look like it had ever had much water in it.
As we approached Pius’ place he pointed out the home of various relatives, all who had a piece of the family land. Each had a pretty good share as there were not a lot of relatives left. It seems that when Pius ancestor, the chief, was in power one of the neighboring tribes mounted an attack around 1900. Since he was the chief, his sons and relatives were to lead the men into battle. While the enemy was soundly defeated, most of the family was wiped out.
Shortly after that the British colonization started and the chief gave up his authority. The reason given was that he would not work with and take orders from babies. Pius went on to explain that the new ruling authority, the British, were light skinned. The only light skinned people the Chief knew of at the times were new born babies. And the Chief was not going to deal with babies. While most Kenyans do not get my jokes, Pius gets some of them. So I actually got a little chuckle from him when I said that if the babies were as big as a man, imagine how big the adults were. Pius said they would be giants, showing that he got the joke.
We made it to Pius’ house and were greeted by his wife Pauline. We do not know Pauline as well as Pius but she seems to have the same gracious and giving heart as Pius and genuinely wants to help those in need. She was a very gracious hostess.
As promised we were served porridge, or oogi. This is not the normal thin porridge that the poor eat, but a thick porridge made with finger millet and maize flower (I think), a few other things including lemon juice. It was quite tasty and I think we all enjoyed it, which was a good thing since they had had 2 large pitchers of it for the 6 of us. We made it through most of it. I really did like it, especially with the fresh lemon taste in it.
We then went to see Pius shamba (small garden) and trees. Pius had attended a seminar shortly before he retired that a man said he had decided to plant trees on his land rather then grain crops. Most of the trees died, but the eucalyptus lived. So Pius thought that would be a good us for his land and started to investigate the eucalyptus tree. He asked around and the main question he got back in response was what type of the 800 varieties do you want to plant? He said that one that will grow where I live. Most folds thought he as a little nuts for trying to grow trees, no one does that and the area is really considered desert and not suitable. Pius persisted and finally found out about a hybrid from South Africa. He sad he started with 2000 the first year, a mistake as it turns out since he didn’t know how to grow them. He was told about a product the helps retain the water when planting and used it. Unfortunately this also kept the soil cool which attracted bug. And as the bugs rested in the coolness they also ate, his seedlings. Only 500 survived of the first 2000. But Pius was happy and had prayed (Pius is always praying, he is a devout Catholic who starts each day in the bible. He prays for guidance, thanks, encouragement and just about everything else. I think we had 7 prayers with him this day.) that if even one survives he would continue. So with 500 surviving he continued on, only without the water retaining addition. He plants a few more every year and now has about 5000 and will stop when he gets to 8000. He plans on rotating the harvesting of them. His use was going to be mainly selling them as telephone poles after about 10 years growth. One of the wonders of the eucalyptus is that it re-grows from the remaining roots and trunk so he doesn’t need to ever replant. This is great because even after he is dead his kids, his kid’s kids, etc will still benefit from his work. And after the first harvest, the trees grow faster because the root system is already established and down to the water table. It was very beautiful walking through the thousands of trees he has.
He has also planted a few other items. Some for a little diversity, but mainly for water and erosion control. But most of those plants also have a second purpose. The Aloe plants for ointments and the other cactus for the fibers that can be used to make ropes. A skill that his wife knows. Other trees supply eatable beans.
The other main tree he grows are mangos. These are not the native mangos that most grow around the area. These are big delicious ones. He starts with the standard ones and grafts on the better fruit ones. He has his own little nursery set up to do this and at some point will raise enough to sell to others. He has a couple hundred mango trees now and hopes to get to 600. These mangos as delicious. They are bigger than the normal ones and do not have the fibrous meat part inside. And they are very sweet and tasty. As Eli put it “they are more than good.”
Unfortunately this growing season the fruits dropped before maturity because of lack of water. There were a few left, but not nearly as many as they should have gotten. While this is bad news, God told Pius to dg a bore hole for water. This would give them plenty of water and allow them not to be dependent on rain and also give them better success with the eucalyptus trees as they lose many to lack of water. The problem is, there is no water underground, or so they have been told by people who know. And getting a machine in from Nairobi to do it would cost 2,000,000 shillings (26,000 USD) which would not be affordable. But Pauline’s dad had used a couple of men several years ago to do it by hand. She tracked them down and they would do the job for 100,000 (about 1,300 USD) plus room and board. Pius was a little skeptical, since water was not supposed to be underground, but since he only had to pay if water was produced he was willing to try. We looked down the 3 – 4 foot hole that was about 50 feet deep. We could not see the bottom, or the man at the bottom that was digging. The dig manually and once deep enough haul up the dirt and rock by bucket and rope. The rope was made by Pauline and is also used for the man at the bottom to climb out with. This is not an easy task. They use a shorten jumbe and sledge hammers and chisels. The ground is mostly rock with very little soil in between. While at the start they get about 10 feet a day, towards the end a good day might be 6 inches. To locate the water they use a divining rod. Sound suspicious to me and Pius too. But since they only charge if they find water, he went for it.
Pius also recycles just about everything and grows organically. All the waste water is captured and saved for watering, or mixing with the organic waste they have, such as peels and g-nut shells. He has several barrels of this waste all in different stages is decomposition. And it smells terrible I found out as he opened one to show use what it contained and looked like. They do have pit toilets, so no worry about that water making it to the garden, but the animal wastes, such as the chickens, does make it to the garden. Just a minute – He is having a new pit latrine built and did mention that the old one will be capped and once decomposed will be used for fertilizer.
We thought it was about time to leave, but Pius invited us into his house one more time – for a surprise lunch. We should not have been surprised since a meal always accompanies a home visit, but we thought the oogi was it. It was a tasty meal with much more than we could eat. We did get reprimanded a little, by both Pius and his wife, for not showing enough ‘respect’ in eating the ugali. Among us we only finished ½ the small bowl of it. This was a very bad showing as two good Kenyans, like Fr Charles, would have easily finished off the whole thing. There was also some new to us, a sauce that could be used over the greens. It was made by boiling milk to get the cream, letting it sit a while and sour, taking the liquid that was left and boiling it again – or something like that that made it sound like it was just boiled rotten milk. Ashley was the only one that tried it and reported that it was really not very good, even though she told Pauline otherwise.
And big news came in while we were eating – water had been hit in the bore hole! Pius was excited and could hardly contain himself. This would solve a lot of problems for them. Of course being the generous man he is he also planned on sharing with his neighbors as he was able. He says since he has the resources he needs to share, be a good example, help others. Since the have the land, they need to do something productive with it. So much of the land around him just sits idle. He says too many people with land when asked what they are doing with it respond ‘keeping it’. Anyway, after we finished eating the great mangos, we went out and looked down the hole and could see the water. Of course it was time for another prayer. A few more days of digging a little deeper, a little work to prepare the bottom of the well so the water is clear and the top gets put into place and he’ll have his water.
Dessert was fresh fruit. We finally got to try some of the mangos. I had been disappointed on our garden walk that we were not offered any. They were delicious and we all gorged ourselves on them. We even got a couple to take home.
The walk back was lead by Pius. He had to show us the way. Fortunately it had cooled a little, the clouds were coming over and the wind was picking up. He also took us a little more direct route back. It also didn’t seem to have as many hills. This was good as Joyce almost didn’t make it to his house. Other then a comment by Pius about the drunk young men we met wasting they lives, and the story of a nephew he tried to help several times with school, who he gave up on because he wouldn’t even dig holes for his mango trees for a good wage to help out with the money he wanted, they trip back was relaxing.
God bless,
Paul
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
World Vision (by Joyce)
Sometime back in January (it seems like long ago) when we were in Uganda, we woke up early at our hostel and took a cab into Kampala to the World Vision headquarters. After our briefing by the area manager (?) we headed off to visit a 10 year old boy named Joseph. Through World Vision, we have sponsored Joseph since last April. After completing background checks before we left home, we were all in the clear for our visit. It is nice to know that none of us have a shady past that would prevent us from visiting a small boy! We drove through the beautiful countryside of Uganda that was so green and somehow much tidier than Kenya. After a brief stop at the local area office, we proceeded by following a man on a motorcycle who knew where Joseph lived. As we pulled up to the house I spotted Joseph right away because he had on the same colorful shirt that he wore in the photo that was sent to us. When we first committed to sponsor Joseph, the card that gave information about him said that Joseph was a girl. That was one of the reasons that I chose “her” because I thought it was funny that there was a little girl in Uganda named Joseph. I was always suspicious that there was a clerical error and we found out a few months later that my suspicions were correct.
As we got out of the car, Joseph could barely contain his joy at seeing all of us. He was so embarrassed to have all of the attention, but he seemed to enjoy it. His sweet-faced grandfather was there to greet us in his long white “shift” that he wore. His grandmother could not quit shaking our hands. As we went into the small brick house, our eyes had to adjust to the dark, windowless living room. Some neighbor ladies came in with one Jackfruit that was twice the size of my head. Nick says “that it would be the size of your head if your head was the same proportion as a babies head is to it’s body and you grew up to the size you are now”. I don’t understand it, but it was funny and you had to be here to fully appreciate it. Anyway, it is a strange “fru-it” that grows on the trees nearby. We use the term “Fru-it” a lot here because that is how our kids pronounce it. I quite enjoyed the jackfruit and it was unlike anything that I have ever had. We were also served some steaming tubers (something like potatoes) and steamed ground nuts. I was so thankful that there was not a big meal that was served and that the grandparents only served what they could grow. I am always aware that if we eat a meal at someone’s house, that they might not eat tomorrow. As we sat in the crowded living room Joseph continued smiling and our World Vision representative (Scovia) translated our conversations. We had stopped and purchased some soap, cooking oil, rice and a few other things to give to the family and his sweet grandmother just continued to clap with everything I took out of the bag as she sat on the floor. When I gave Joseph a few things that we brought just for him, (a deck of cards, underpants…thank you Madeline…a ball and a few other things, he was quite happy. Joseph then gave me a doll that he had made out of banana leaves as well as a ball on a string that the kids use to play with. I can show them to you when we come home if you remind me! The doll is so cute and I really treasure it. They were still a little damp from just being made. Apparently, when I was out at the car, Joseph moved over to sit by Ashley and told Scovia that Ashley was his favorite. She was quite happy with that and made sure she paid special attention to him during the rest of our visit.
We met Joseph’s two little sisters and little brother who were all quite adorable, but the little brother would not shake our hands. The little tiny kids here are often frightened by our white skin. We have made many children cry just by looking at them. I made two kids cry at the same time in the marketplace here in Mbita last week! Apparently, Joseph and his siblings all live with their grandparents, but we also met their actual parents. They came by to greet us after awhile. Unfortunately, Scovia was not familiar with Joseph’s family and did not know why the kids were not living with their parents…??? She did say that sometimes the grandparents are so lonely at home that they want the grandkids to live with them.
This family was very poor but very proud to show us around their grounds. As we were going outside, Joseph’s little sister had a bowl full of groundnuts that she was very happily eating from a bowl. All of the sudden there was a scream from her that came because her groundnuts were taken away from her by a bunch of little grabby hands. She was very upset but was quickly made happy when Morgan took a big handful out of the basket that one of the ladies was carrying. Sometimes when these kids get food, they have to protect if with everything they have. It was quite a beautiful area and the family had a lot of things growing on the property to help sustain them. As we walked around, the whole neighborhood came out to see us. They were the nicest bunch of people and we really enjoyed our time there. When it was time to leave we posed for some pictures and said goodbye. Joseph seemed to be a little relieved that we were leaving because there was a lot of attention paid to him.
It seemed strange to pay one short visit to a child that we will probably never see again, but it was an experience that was worth the time. We have some nice photos and will send them into World Vision when we can. When I look at his photo that will go on my fridge when we have our own home again we will remember his family with fondness and with a smile.
As we got out of the car, Joseph could barely contain his joy at seeing all of us. He was so embarrassed to have all of the attention, but he seemed to enjoy it. His sweet-faced grandfather was there to greet us in his long white “shift” that he wore. His grandmother could not quit shaking our hands. As we went into the small brick house, our eyes had to adjust to the dark, windowless living room. Some neighbor ladies came in with one Jackfruit that was twice the size of my head. Nick says “that it would be the size of your head if your head was the same proportion as a babies head is to it’s body and you grew up to the size you are now”. I don’t understand it, but it was funny and you had to be here to fully appreciate it. Anyway, it is a strange “fru-it” that grows on the trees nearby. We use the term “Fru-it” a lot here because that is how our kids pronounce it. I quite enjoyed the jackfruit and it was unlike anything that I have ever had. We were also served some steaming tubers (something like potatoes) and steamed ground nuts. I was so thankful that there was not a big meal that was served and that the grandparents only served what they could grow. I am always aware that if we eat a meal at someone’s house, that they might not eat tomorrow. As we sat in the crowded living room Joseph continued smiling and our World Vision representative (Scovia) translated our conversations. We had stopped and purchased some soap, cooking oil, rice and a few other things to give to the family and his sweet grandmother just continued to clap with everything I took out of the bag as she sat on the floor. When I gave Joseph a few things that we brought just for him, (a deck of cards, underpants…thank you Madeline…a ball and a few other things, he was quite happy. Joseph then gave me a doll that he had made out of banana leaves as well as a ball on a string that the kids use to play with. I can show them to you when we come home if you remind me! The doll is so cute and I really treasure it. They were still a little damp from just being made. Apparently, when I was out at the car, Joseph moved over to sit by Ashley and told Scovia that Ashley was his favorite. She was quite happy with that and made sure she paid special attention to him during the rest of our visit.
We met Joseph’s two little sisters and little brother who were all quite adorable, but the little brother would not shake our hands. The little tiny kids here are often frightened by our white skin. We have made many children cry just by looking at them. I made two kids cry at the same time in the marketplace here in Mbita last week! Apparently, Joseph and his siblings all live with their grandparents, but we also met their actual parents. They came by to greet us after awhile. Unfortunately, Scovia was not familiar with Joseph’s family and did not know why the kids were not living with their parents…??? She did say that sometimes the grandparents are so lonely at home that they want the grandkids to live with them.
This family was very poor but very proud to show us around their grounds. As we were going outside, Joseph’s little sister had a bowl full of groundnuts that she was very happily eating from a bowl. All of the sudden there was a scream from her that came because her groundnuts were taken away from her by a bunch of little grabby hands. She was very upset but was quickly made happy when Morgan took a big handful out of the basket that one of the ladies was carrying. Sometimes when these kids get food, they have to protect if with everything they have. It was quite a beautiful area and the family had a lot of things growing on the property to help sustain them. As we walked around, the whole neighborhood came out to see us. They were the nicest bunch of people and we really enjoyed our time there. When it was time to leave we posed for some pictures and said goodbye. Joseph seemed to be a little relieved that we were leaving because there was a lot of attention paid to him.
It seemed strange to pay one short visit to a child that we will probably never see again, but it was an experience that was worth the time. We have some nice photos and will send them into World Vision when we can. When I look at his photo that will go on my fridge when we have our own home again we will remember his family with fondness and with a smile.
Monday, February 2, 2009
The Grass is Getting Greener
Jan 31st, 2009 – Literally the grass is getting greener. Since our return from Uganda it has rained nearly every day. I noticed today as I strolled to the outhouse how green our yard looked. The dying grass was recovering to a nice shade of green and little green clover like weeds were beginning to spring up. It made me smile.
I wish I could say everything else is ‘greening’ up, but that would be misleading. No, an outright lie. However, the Polytechnic is moving forward, slowly maybe some green is about to sprout. Last I left you we were going to have the first meeting in like 2-1/2 weeks. They had the chance to make uniforms for another school and make a little extra money for the Polytechnic. We met and actually had 2 committee members present. Father Charles and the Manager also attended. It was pouring rain outside, the first big rain we had witness since getting to Mbita. We moved the meeting inside the church and due to the noise of the rain on the metal roof, had to find a secluded corner to hold it. We strategically arranged the benches as to not get dripped on.
Fr C and Manager John presented the idea of making the uniforms. It was decided to do it, only after securing a firm tender from the school and determining the quantity and number that needed to be made. Fr C called and found out that due to them procrastinating and not doing anything for two weeks they had gone else where to get the uniforms.
It was decided to go ahead and purchase the sewing machines anyway and start the Tailoring and Dressmaking course anyway. After the meeting John and I discussed the possibility of buying a few masonry and carpentry tools to start those courses also. So as they were going to the bank to get funds for John to go to Kisii to purchase the machines, we told the idea to Fr C, who thought it was okay and they took out enough funds to acquire a few small tools. No word on when these other courses are planned to be started. John acquired the machines, not the best on the market, but adequate to start. I’ll have to go on Monday to see the kind of receipts he got and make sure it is all documented.
During the process of seeing if we could make the uniforms we discovered that Millicent, the lady selected to be our Dressmaking and Tailoring instructor could not sew trousers. So we had to reconsider. John called four applicants back and using a borrowed machine had each prepare a pair of long pants. Millicent never even started and said she needed 3 days to do it. Two of them, one female and one male, made both trousers and skirts, all in a couple hours time. Both did a very good job. The other two were marginal, with one of them continuously asking the others what to do next. We selected the female, one because she was female and we felt we needed a female on staff as all the other instructors are male. She also had teaching experience.
Breakfast break ……
Found out after breakfast that we will have two or three guests for lunch. They are the owners of the store we frequent regularly. A couple of our kids have also had lunch at their home. The owners have requested that Fr C ask us to pay for their daughter’s college fees. He told them no, but I guess they want to hear it from us. This is part of the ‘They are white, they have money” mentality that Kenyans have. This makes it extremely difficult to do nice, small things for some that you want to but not others. One hears about it and the next thing you know others are coming with requests. A good example is when we handed out the underwear that Maddy had collected for us. Soon after the first distribution which we did in connection to one of the afternoons of planned activity we had during the December break, many other kids showed up to request a pair. Some even came back and said they did not receive any. Some got a second pair, some we caught and didn’t get the second pair. Some tried multiple times to get extra pairs over the next several days. Then we had adults coming to request pairs for their multiple kids. We erred on the side of generosity handing them out. Fortunately Maddy had collected hundreds of pairs so many children did receive a pair.
Back to the Polytechnic – Supposedly Monday John will fire up the Polytechnic and start having students come. This could be an interesting day. Last I heard, we had 8 students interested in the Dressmaking and Tailoring. I’m anxious to see how many come in the first week and how many actually have the fees! I’ll let you know how it goes.
We think our time is about up here in Mbita for awhile. Joyce and I will return at some point to see how the Polytechnic is progressing, but I doubt if any of the kids will be back once they leave. There are various reasons for leaving here. One is that there is not enough to keep two of us busy with the Polytechnic, much less 6. With the Polytechnic moving forward, their will be even less work. Ashley and Travis, and others of us to a lesser extent, have some close ties in Tanzania and want to spend a month or so their. Nick has been pretty antsy since our arrival to do something else and is working up plans for a couple of interesting projects. This has caused some turmoil in us all in the discussing and planning of this exodus. When will we go, who will be together, and how long will people be staying places all need to be talked about. And in the back of our minds is they fact that we have to say goodbye to our kids. This last one is the most troubling for most and causes a lot of emotions to arise when the topic comes up.
While out main stated purpose here to assist in the opening of the Polytechnic, they part that we will remember is the interaction with the kids. We thought it was going to slow down once school started, but soon after school resumed the teachers went on strike and the public schools closed down. The kids and more began to appear. Then Joyce started to play Bingo, with prizes for winners, and the numbers grew more. Each afternoon kids started to hang around waiting for Bingo and the prizes. They would be worked into a frenzy by then end of the Bingo time. Fortunately this was usually at the end of the day and we’d send them home afterwards. Of course a couple of favorites would be told to remain behind and meet us someplace else for an extended visit.
Our kids are not necessarily the best, the friendliest, or the nicest. They just happened to ingratiate themselves to us early on. Mavine is poutie, always thing he deserves what anyone else gets and walks off sulking often. He also flares up some and starts shouting accusations at the others. Sometimes blows and tears result. He has been know to lie to us, or just walk off with something, to get extra of something. But he is grossly entertaining – no one dances like Mavine - and we love him dearly. Eunice is quiet and often hangs around the kitchen helping out. She has been found in tears many times, with the usual story that some other girls have been beating her. She is quite and shy and doesn’t speak much to us. Magdalene is a child lost in her ways. She runs away from home often for days at a time. She is not always kind to others and at times is a trouble maker. Overall they are good kids and many seem to love to help us out with tasks around, such as dish washing, water fetching and laundry. They get occasional compensation, such as sweets, food and an occasional few shillings.
Joyce is happiest when her kids are around. After Uganda, when the rest of us wanted to retreat to our corners and recoup in peace and isolation for awhile, Joyce wanted the kids and welcomed them with open arms. The more that came, the bigger her smile got. She is definitely the happiest in and amongst the kids. She is already grieving them with just the thought of our going on our way to someplace else. She will be the one remembered most by the kids of Mbita.
We have passed the half way point of our Journey by a few days. At time the time has flown by, at others it seems our time must be up by now. When I stop and think of three more months I wonder if I can actually do it. I think it is a combination of not having a definite, or even semi-definite, plan for the time, feeling like I’m wasting time here not having anything productive to work on or towards, and at times being to lazy to motivate myself to do something productive, even if it is interacting with the kids.
I’ve thought to myself often about the decaying structures and infrastructure around in the parish compound, in Mbita and in Kenya in general. I’m being to understand it some. On the small scale, I’m finding myself willing to let the dirt build up on the floor and porch a little longer. I tolerate the smell in the outhouse longer before thinking it needs to be cleaned. I wear my clothes an extra day or so. I see that the yard needs a little care, and the metal roof sheets are bent and leak. I have no desire to pay attention to it today, maybe the ‘tomorrow’ that may never come.
There is a frenzy of kids outside now drawing us pictures with colored pencils. They are knocking on the door as they finish to show someone and giving them to us. This is agitating me as I’m trying to work on this. The second time I headed out to tell them all too just leave them outside in a pile. I got to the door and had a change of heart and looked, asked questions and thanked the boy for the pictures. It did contain a man with a machete over a dead body, which is a little disturbing. I think he said it was because the man had stolen something from somebody else. Makes you wonder why he would draw a picture of such a thing and if he has experienced such a scene in his past.
I need to go and interact with the kids. I do better with small groups, so maybe I can find a couple off doing something I can join in on.
Reporting from Mbita,
Paul
I wish I could say everything else is ‘greening’ up, but that would be misleading. No, an outright lie. However, the Polytechnic is moving forward, slowly maybe some green is about to sprout. Last I left you we were going to have the first meeting in like 2-1/2 weeks. They had the chance to make uniforms for another school and make a little extra money for the Polytechnic. We met and actually had 2 committee members present. Father Charles and the Manager also attended. It was pouring rain outside, the first big rain we had witness since getting to Mbita. We moved the meeting inside the church and due to the noise of the rain on the metal roof, had to find a secluded corner to hold it. We strategically arranged the benches as to not get dripped on.
Fr C and Manager John presented the idea of making the uniforms. It was decided to do it, only after securing a firm tender from the school and determining the quantity and number that needed to be made. Fr C called and found out that due to them procrastinating and not doing anything for two weeks they had gone else where to get the uniforms.
It was decided to go ahead and purchase the sewing machines anyway and start the Tailoring and Dressmaking course anyway. After the meeting John and I discussed the possibility of buying a few masonry and carpentry tools to start those courses also. So as they were going to the bank to get funds for John to go to Kisii to purchase the machines, we told the idea to Fr C, who thought it was okay and they took out enough funds to acquire a few small tools. No word on when these other courses are planned to be started. John acquired the machines, not the best on the market, but adequate to start. I’ll have to go on Monday to see the kind of receipts he got and make sure it is all documented.
During the process of seeing if we could make the uniforms we discovered that Millicent, the lady selected to be our Dressmaking and Tailoring instructor could not sew trousers. So we had to reconsider. John called four applicants back and using a borrowed machine had each prepare a pair of long pants. Millicent never even started and said she needed 3 days to do it. Two of them, one female and one male, made both trousers and skirts, all in a couple hours time. Both did a very good job. The other two were marginal, with one of them continuously asking the others what to do next. We selected the female, one because she was female and we felt we needed a female on staff as all the other instructors are male. She also had teaching experience.
Breakfast break ……
Found out after breakfast that we will have two or three guests for lunch. They are the owners of the store we frequent regularly. A couple of our kids have also had lunch at their home. The owners have requested that Fr C ask us to pay for their daughter’s college fees. He told them no, but I guess they want to hear it from us. This is part of the ‘They are white, they have money” mentality that Kenyans have. This makes it extremely difficult to do nice, small things for some that you want to but not others. One hears about it and the next thing you know others are coming with requests. A good example is when we handed out the underwear that Maddy had collected for us. Soon after the first distribution which we did in connection to one of the afternoons of planned activity we had during the December break, many other kids showed up to request a pair. Some even came back and said they did not receive any. Some got a second pair, some we caught and didn’t get the second pair. Some tried multiple times to get extra pairs over the next several days. Then we had adults coming to request pairs for their multiple kids. We erred on the side of generosity handing them out. Fortunately Maddy had collected hundreds of pairs so many children did receive a pair.
Back to the Polytechnic – Supposedly Monday John will fire up the Polytechnic and start having students come. This could be an interesting day. Last I heard, we had 8 students interested in the Dressmaking and Tailoring. I’m anxious to see how many come in the first week and how many actually have the fees! I’ll let you know how it goes.
We think our time is about up here in Mbita for awhile. Joyce and I will return at some point to see how the Polytechnic is progressing, but I doubt if any of the kids will be back once they leave. There are various reasons for leaving here. One is that there is not enough to keep two of us busy with the Polytechnic, much less 6. With the Polytechnic moving forward, their will be even less work. Ashley and Travis, and others of us to a lesser extent, have some close ties in Tanzania and want to spend a month or so their. Nick has been pretty antsy since our arrival to do something else and is working up plans for a couple of interesting projects. This has caused some turmoil in us all in the discussing and planning of this exodus. When will we go, who will be together, and how long will people be staying places all need to be talked about. And in the back of our minds is they fact that we have to say goodbye to our kids. This last one is the most troubling for most and causes a lot of emotions to arise when the topic comes up.
While out main stated purpose here to assist in the opening of the Polytechnic, they part that we will remember is the interaction with the kids. We thought it was going to slow down once school started, but soon after school resumed the teachers went on strike and the public schools closed down. The kids and more began to appear. Then Joyce started to play Bingo, with prizes for winners, and the numbers grew more. Each afternoon kids started to hang around waiting for Bingo and the prizes. They would be worked into a frenzy by then end of the Bingo time. Fortunately this was usually at the end of the day and we’d send them home afterwards. Of course a couple of favorites would be told to remain behind and meet us someplace else for an extended visit.
Our kids are not necessarily the best, the friendliest, or the nicest. They just happened to ingratiate themselves to us early on. Mavine is poutie, always thing he deserves what anyone else gets and walks off sulking often. He also flares up some and starts shouting accusations at the others. Sometimes blows and tears result. He has been know to lie to us, or just walk off with something, to get extra of something. But he is grossly entertaining – no one dances like Mavine - and we love him dearly. Eunice is quiet and often hangs around the kitchen helping out. She has been found in tears many times, with the usual story that some other girls have been beating her. She is quite and shy and doesn’t speak much to us. Magdalene is a child lost in her ways. She runs away from home often for days at a time. She is not always kind to others and at times is a trouble maker. Overall they are good kids and many seem to love to help us out with tasks around, such as dish washing, water fetching and laundry. They get occasional compensation, such as sweets, food and an occasional few shillings.
Joyce is happiest when her kids are around. After Uganda, when the rest of us wanted to retreat to our corners and recoup in peace and isolation for awhile, Joyce wanted the kids and welcomed them with open arms. The more that came, the bigger her smile got. She is definitely the happiest in and amongst the kids. She is already grieving them with just the thought of our going on our way to someplace else. She will be the one remembered most by the kids of Mbita.
We have passed the half way point of our Journey by a few days. At time the time has flown by, at others it seems our time must be up by now. When I stop and think of three more months I wonder if I can actually do it. I think it is a combination of not having a definite, or even semi-definite, plan for the time, feeling like I’m wasting time here not having anything productive to work on or towards, and at times being to lazy to motivate myself to do something productive, even if it is interacting with the kids.
I’ve thought to myself often about the decaying structures and infrastructure around in the parish compound, in Mbita and in Kenya in general. I’m being to understand it some. On the small scale, I’m finding myself willing to let the dirt build up on the floor and porch a little longer. I tolerate the smell in the outhouse longer before thinking it needs to be cleaned. I wear my clothes an extra day or so. I see that the yard needs a little care, and the metal roof sheets are bent and leak. I have no desire to pay attention to it today, maybe the ‘tomorrow’ that may never come.
There is a frenzy of kids outside now drawing us pictures with colored pencils. They are knocking on the door as they finish to show someone and giving them to us. This is agitating me as I’m trying to work on this. The second time I headed out to tell them all too just leave them outside in a pile. I got to the door and had a change of heart and looked, asked questions and thanked the boy for the pictures. It did contain a man with a machete over a dead body, which is a little disturbing. I think he said it was because the man had stolen something from somebody else. Makes you wonder why he would draw a picture of such a thing and if he has experienced such a scene in his past.
I need to go and interact with the kids. I do better with small groups, so maybe I can find a couple off doing something I can join in on.
Reporting from Mbita,
Paul
Playing Electrician and Other Highlights
Jan 28th, 2009 –
Yesterday I finally decided to play electrician again and see if I could not get one of the plugs working in our house. I had looked into this shortly after we had arrived, but when I saw the neat tangle of wires in the main electrical box in the house, I decided to pass on it and save myself an electrifying experience with the 220 volts they use here. If you look closely you can see it is also home to a brown nest for some insects.
This second picture shows that the outside is no better than the inside. This is the outside connection box that connects the house to the underground wiring that goes throughout the compound. Underground is a relative term as I have spotted a few wires, such as the yellow and green one leaving the box, exposed along the way to the main church. Most of the wiring appears to be run inside metal pipes from what I can tell, and these are not always underground. In some spots, particularly around the road where erosion has occurred, these pipes are exposed and bent. So underground means probably less than a foot.But yesterday I decided to try again as I’m getting tired of doing all the charging of our electric contraptions in the dinner room area. Since this is a more public and accessible area we have to stay and watch the items so they don’t grow legs and walk off. I started by looking at the plug receptacle. It seemed okay, but a couple of loose wires I tightened. The second one I left alone after seeing that it looked like it was not connected at all and the wires were just all patched together in it’s box.
This did not fix it so I moved back the spaghetti in the box in the house. This time I explored a little more and found that there is actually a couple of fuses mounted with the main power switch. One indeed was blown I found with a little experimenting with the overhead lights and swapping the fuses back and forth. Using the good one in place of the bad one actually allowed the socket to work. Score I thought, all I need to do is repair the fuse. You don’t replace these fuses as all they are is a thin wire strung between 2 contacts on the fuse and held in place with a couple of screws. Knowing a little about power, I knew I needed to use a wire about the same size so that it would continue to be the weak link and blow first before the plug or device plugged into it went up in smoke. So off to town to look for small wire. It took a few stops and asking a couple questions of locals, but I finally found a electrical repair “shop” that had wire that looked and felt about right. Back home, screw in the fuse wire and plug it in – and it worked! I’m in business and happy.
I plug a couple batteries in to charge and take off. Later in the day I notice the charger is not on. Great, what’s wrong? I play with the fuses a little and it appears that one of them was just a little loose. I re-seat it and all is good.
Overnight I have nothing charging but plug in batteries again this morning. Nothing’s happening, the charger is not charging. Back the fuses and the one for the socket is blown and has a pretty good black spot on it. Not a good sign. This doesn’t daunt me much as I’m a pro now. I have more wire and quickly re-wire the fuse and plug it in. I flip the main power switch and hear a pop and see smoke rising from the fuse. Definitely a bad sign. I stopped playing electrician at this point as it rained heavily last night and there was a puddle of water on the floor not to far from the electrical box. Knowing that the roof leaks, I figure the wires are shorted who knows where and it’ll to a continuous battle now that the rains seem to have come.
How do I know that the roof leaks you probably asked yourself? Well a couple nights ago when we had the biggest rain we’ve seen here since we arrived, I was laying in bed when a pretty big splat hit me right on the belly. Of course the first one I considered an anomaly and went on reading my book. After the fifth one or so I decided it wasn’t going to be a rare occurrence and arranged a plastic trash sack and a couple of wash cloths to stop and soak up whatever fell from the ceiling. This has worked pretty well the last two nights. I’m just hoping the rains don’t come any harder because for now the wash clothes dry our between storms and are ready to soak up more water when the next storm hits.
Here is the aftermath of the fly storm. Hand prints courtesy of Travis. He said it was pretty gross, but not so gross that it kept him from ding it a second time. The flies left almost as fast as they come. Here one evening and gone the next morning. It least mostly gone. A few stragglers and apparently the ones in our bathing room didn’t get the message to leave at all and stayed in force. All that is left behind is a few million dead and rotting fly carcasses. This much decomposing fly flesh actually has a bit of stench to it which is worse in some places then others, such as walking into the dinning room.The sound of a gecko falling from the ceiling onto a concrete floor is much like the sound of a large drop of rain hitting the floor.
We all are growing restless.
Out of time for now, more soon I hope.
Paul
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