Five Bucks Flushed Down the Toilet

Aug 8, 2010 – Literally, five dollars flushed down the toilet.  Well not exactly literally – it wasn’t five dollars, but a pair of kid’s shoes.  And most toilets don’t flush here, and are pit toilets anyway.

Joyce had heard that our Byrone could not go to school because he did not have any school shoes to wear.  So she enlisted the help of a few people to get him a pair.  Mama Anil next door was going into town so Joyce gave her 400 ksh to buy a pair of kid shoes.  Once those were acquired, she brought the to school and sent them with Junior (I think) to deliver to Byrone.  Deed done. 

Heard a couple days ago from our kids that Byrone’s shoes were gone.  What?  The story was that a neighbor of Byrone, a kid actually, not sure how old, but somewhere between Byrone and a couple years older, was jealous of his new shoes.  So she took them and threw then down the pit latrine, the long drop, the outhouse. 

Five dollars flushed down the toilet.

Joyce bought low fat milk.  First of all I didn’t even know that existed here.  But it was Kisumu, which is a bigger city.  But low fat, come on, we aren’t watching our weight here.  Yes we are dieting, but for the little amount of milk we use, I think we could go with the fatty stuff.  And I’m pretty sure the Mbita diet plan calls for the whole stuff.

Speaking of milk, here in Mbita is the first time I’ve seen bubble gum flavored milk.  They also had chocolate, strawberry, banana and a couple others.  But bubble gum, yew, I can’t imagine.  Only here in Kenya.

The referendum is coming in a couple days here, on wednesday.  Watch the news for it.  Suppose to pass and not cause chaos.  Please pray for that.  We are staying put until we see for sure that one side doesn’t get ticked off when they lose.

Closed the schools books for the month.  The first try for me.  I seem to be off a few shillings, maybe a few thousand, okay 37,000 ksh.  But that is only the first pass.  I need to go back over things and see if I missed anything or not, or double counted some expenses.  Stay tuned for the exciting updates on the continued saga… Hope I don’t cause you to loss to much sleep over this.

Did I mention that Kisumu must be the NGO (non governmental organization – usually a non-profit) capital of Kenya?  There are so many there, in so many various states of existence.  It probably has to do with the fact that it is a bigger city, in a province with server poverty and HIV/AIDs problem.  But it seems like every mom and pop humanitarian effort that thinks it can do good sets up in Kisumu.  This isn’t all bad, it does bring a lot of outside money to the area, but a lot of it probably ends up going to the wrong people.   I don’t think you can go a block and not run into one, or at least someone that wants to have one, or asking for money for one (which probably is a scam).  Some are just briefcase NGOs – paperwork filed but if they do anything it is to collect money.  Some blew out faster than they blew in, but still have internet sites and signs around.  A few are making a go of it, but it would be interesting to see for how long.  It would be interesting to see a study done on the status and longevity of NGOs in Kisumu.  And probably 80% of them have AIDs in their name or at least their mission statements.  I think this is overkill.  Yes it is something that needs to be addressed, but I see it as more of a symptom of a problem – poverty.  And poverty has many more symptoms – disease, malnutrition, prostitution, malaria, etc. 

There is little coordination between the NGOs and not even easy to find ones that may exist, and particularly what they actually do.  I don’t think it is the most effective way to help.

And the abundance of NGOs brings a lot of white people with it.  Everyplace you go you see them, particularly the nicer places and in the nicer vehicles.  With so many whites around you sure don’t feel out of place, or at least as much out of place.  One reason why I like Mbita better.

Enough rambling on that subject.

And happy birthday Jon, only a few hours late (at least from your perspective)

Time to go do something productive, maybe,

Paul