Farming, worms and little Ali

Monday and we have begun our Organic Bio Intensive farming Workshop with some of our High School students and some local villagers. The organization Organics4Orphans, has as part of its mission statement, the goal of increasing the capacity of communities to care for the orphans in their midst. It makes sense, what with the number of orphans nearing 50 million in Africa, they all can't be cared for in orphanages or childrens homes.  Enabling communities to build their own food security allows them to care for more of the hungry within the community.

The methods are quite interesting and provide a high yield in a relatively small patch of ground (100 sq ft) with only manure, compost and mulch used for fertilizers. The goals are primarily food security, nutrition and disease prevention. We will be learning much about the healing capacity of  various foods; for example, pumpkin is being used as a dewormer.

This is good to know since Karen noticed yesterday that several of the small children had sores on their heads, faces and necks. One little girl had sores that were more pronounced then the others, they appeared to be open and seeping....... When Karen pointed this out she was told that it was worms and that the girl would be taken to the clinic for treatment. What surprised us was how quickly it seemed to have broken out as we see these children everyday.

I am not sure whether I had mentioned little Ali.  Ali is 5 years old and was rescued with his two brothers from near starvation after being abandoned when their mother was hospitalized for critical illness as a result of Aids.  When he came here just over a month ago he was little more than a skeleton with a bloated belly.  He couldn't walk so he just sat on those little legs not much bigger around than my thumb.  Ali has been doing much better and has been walking for about 2 weeks although he is only about the size of an 18 month old.  He finally began to smile and interact more with the children in this last week or so and then Karen noticed today that he appeared a little jaundiced. Please pray that Ali is okay.  We will get him checked tomorrow but I am worried that his little body would be too weak to fight off anything too serious.....

It rained for about 15 minutes today and  I was too far from the house to get soap in time for an impromptu shower.  Oh well, on the bright side the system we have set up for collecting rain water seems to be working. It needs a few small adjustments and we will be ready for some serious rain, maybe a couple of hours worth.

I received a visit today from Gilbert, the local military officer in charge of civil security for this region. He just stopped by to introduce himself and to reassure us that it was his job to keep us safe and secure from Al Shaabab and any other security threats.  It caught me a little off guard as I never imagined that  our small group way out in rural Kenya would be much of a target for a terrorist organization. However Gilbert assured me that we were quite safe and gave me his phone number to call if I had any concerns at any time.  It's nice to have friends in high places.

Well that's it for today. God Bless us everyone.