Well it has been too long since I posted an entry, my apologies.
Let's see. Ali is doing better. His complexion is changed from a pale yellowish brown to a darker more healthy brown. His hair is starting to change as well. We received news this week that his mother is soon to be released from the hospital, so after 4 months here, Ali and his brothers will be able to return home!
We were so excited last week when the rain started and we had water filling our tanks. After getting good rains for three days in a row, the tanks were full and things looked good. Then we found out that the heavy rain had washed out a section of the government pipe and the water source was cut off from us. We need a working well here. They had one installed two years ago and it worked poorly for about a week and then nothing. The company charged a large sum of money but had some changes of management and we were left with an unserviced well and no recourse. I have been able to locate a man in Nairobi with a charitable organization that may be able to help. Pray for favour and a good source of water. Hopefully we can save this well or get a new one. A sustainable water supply is more critical than most of us realize.
I am continually amazed at the view here. Behind us, towering over us every day is the incredible rock face of Mount Gogii and then like a horseshoe ridges and mountains halfway encircle us. On a clear day from the front of the house we can see the top of Kilimanjaro over the tops of the Mango trees and between the peaks of two nearer moutains( or hills as they call them here). The ground is sandy and red like PEI soil and relatively fertile if you cultivate it well. If you don't dig it well and mix in some compost the ground is hard packed/baked and doesn't really absorb the little rain we do get. There I go again talking about water. Hoping for water, planning for rain, planning how to make your stored water last is a constant preoccupation here.
The villagers of Bura are starting to get used to us here. They usually only see Mzungu's{white people} on tour buses driving by on the road on their way to Safari Lodges. There are less surprised looks and screaming toddlers hiding from us and many friendly greetings in both Swahili and English. Our Swahili is still poor but we have mastered 20 or more words/expressions and learn more almost daily. It is only the older people and the younger children that have little English skills and even they are very helpful despite our handicap.
Karen, Chelsey and I went for a walk in the orchard the other day, surveying the progress of the various fruit trees and Karen was complaining that something was prickly under her skirt. We never thought much of it at the time as we all had little hitch hikers on us in the form of some clingy seeds from some kind of weed. The next morning Karen found a scorpion in her dirty clothes. He was just small, 2-2 1/2 inches long, but we were surprised none the less. We just stepped on it and after the customary photo threw him outside. This environment has helped both Karen and Chelsey a great deal with their coping mechanisms around creepy crawly things.
The gardening is coming along well. We have about 10 raised beds so far and I hope to have another 10 or more by the end of next week. We have a nursery bed with seedlings for cabbage, turnip, cauliflower, beets, Swiss chard, onions and 2 varieties of tomato that should be ready to transplant next week. We have seeds for more beds and our compost pile is almost ready to use, in just 2 more weeks. We are so excited to see the growth, especially since the rain came last week.
Karen cooked us a traditional Kenyan dinner tonight consisting of fried goat meat, carrot soup, ugali and fresh papaya for dessert. It was very good and the third time in three days that we have eaten meat. We have had very little meat for the past few weeks and I personally have lost over 20 pounds. I don't know if it is the vegetarian-like diet or if it's just the heat and the work/exercise. Either way I'm not complaining, another 20 would be nice....
Chelsey got Malaria we figured out yesterday, but not to worry, we had the doctor come over (Free house call) and she started a three day treatment with antimalarial drugs yesterday and is feeling better already. They pretty much shrug Malaria off here as a fact off life, like the flu or a cold. If you get it, treat it. Sleep under nets, eliminate standing water( mosquito breeding grounds) and don't worry about it.
School is out for the December(summer) break and both the health inspector and the District Education Officer have given us lists of requirements for the next school year( begins January 3rd) so there will be plenty of work to do and funds needed if anyone out there is in a charitable Christmas mood. Really this work is like the story of the loaves and the fishes from the Bible; they have done a lot with very little and are to be commended. However if these were our kids we would be fundraising $500,000- $1 million and building them a nice facility with a well, hot and cold running water INSIDE the building, washers and dryers, Indoor toilets that flush and lockers and closets and nice metal bunk beds and......... You get the picture , or do you,... I really need to post some. We need a working well.
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Tourists on Safari
Tourists dropped by yesterday, their white western faces peeking out from within the safety of their safari van. They had their driver hand two packages of 10, glitter covered, pencils out through his window for the 25 or so little African children standing excitedly nearby. Karen and I were in the compound when they came and seeing the children running we walked out to investigate. Karen walked right out to where the kids were, and the tourists with their windows up and their eyes wide taking in the sites, said something to their driver and drove away.
We are in the middle of a drought with a water crisis on our compound for the last couple of weeks so its dirty, and the kids clothes are dirty. They each have a school uniform, a set of play clothes and some Sunday clothes. It doesn't make sense for them to have more anyway, because they spend most of their time outdoors, working and playing, and everything is dusty. More clothes would just mean more laundry, more laundry requires more water,..and...well, you get the picture. Don't get me wrong the kids are well cared for and get washed regularly, but they frolic and play and hang out, outside, so their clothes are dirty and ragged. The clothes get replaced as needed and handed down, or traded amongst them, but the point is the clothes that they do have are well worn.
Then along come the tourists peering out from with the safety of their vehicle as if this was just another of their stops and we all were the wild animals. It was surreal. I'm not sure what they were afraid of, the only thing contagious here is the love that these children pour out to everyone that allows them to. It makes you think though, why even stop with your 2 packs of dollar-store pencils if you don't want to become engaged with what's going on here. Why not just drive by, back to the $200/night lodge with it's $30/plate buffet. Don't get me wrong, the kids were excited for the pencils but they don't have any paper to write on, well they do now because we went and got them some along with some crayons for the kids that didn't get a pencil because they only gave us 20. You get the picture I hope.
The point is we from the first world just don't get it. We go about our lives peeking out the window to the rest of the world passing small tokens, sparkly pencils, out the window, and go on our way feeling good about what we've done. We can tell the stories about the lions we saw and the elephants and those dirty little kids, ...why doesn't someone do something about an orphanage like that allowing those little children to be so ragged and dirty. The thing is we need a secure source of water, more staff, better facilities and for all that we need..., you guessed it $$$. This work has come a long way in the last 6 years on very little money. The kids are off the streets and cared for and educated. However it is like going back in time 100-150 years in many ways. When it comes to bringing things up to the 21st century standards of the western world it requires money.
So you can have all the African safaris, Florida vacations, Las Vegas, Mexico..., that you want. I'll take a few weeks here in rural Kenya over any of it. Spending time with these kids, the little ones and the teens, is the most rewarding thing that I have ever done. Teaching them, and learning from them, has changed and is changing me. They don't really need things that we have as much as we think that they do. They play games with sticks and stones and discarded string. Most of these teens that I have met are hard working , skilled, creative and wise beyond their years. They all have dreams of a better future and believe that if they work hard it will come. They dream of coming to Canada to visit me...I dream of coming to Kenya to visit them.
We are in the middle of a drought with a water crisis on our compound for the last couple of weeks so its dirty, and the kids clothes are dirty. They each have a school uniform, a set of play clothes and some Sunday clothes. It doesn't make sense for them to have more anyway, because they spend most of their time outdoors, working and playing, and everything is dusty. More clothes would just mean more laundry, more laundry requires more water,..and...well, you get the picture. Don't get me wrong the kids are well cared for and get washed regularly, but they frolic and play and hang out, outside, so their clothes are dirty and ragged. The clothes get replaced as needed and handed down, or traded amongst them, but the point is the clothes that they do have are well worn.
Then along come the tourists peering out from with the safety of their vehicle as if this was just another of their stops and we all were the wild animals. It was surreal. I'm not sure what they were afraid of, the only thing contagious here is the love that these children pour out to everyone that allows them to. It makes you think though, why even stop with your 2 packs of dollar-store pencils if you don't want to become engaged with what's going on here. Why not just drive by, back to the $200/night lodge with it's $30/plate buffet. Don't get me wrong, the kids were excited for the pencils but they don't have any paper to write on, well they do now because we went and got them some along with some crayons for the kids that didn't get a pencil because they only gave us 20. You get the picture I hope.
So you can have all the African safaris, Florida vacations, Las Vegas, Mexico..., that you want. I'll take a few weeks here in rural Kenya over any of it. Spending time with these kids, the little ones and the teens, is the most rewarding thing that I have ever done. Teaching them, and learning from them, has changed and is changing me. They don't really need things that we have as much as we think that they do. They play games with sticks and stones and discarded string. Most of these teens that I have met are hard working , skilled, creative and wise beyond their years. They all have dreams of a better future and believe that if they work hard it will come. They dream of coming to Canada to visit me...I dream of coming to Kenya to visit them.
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Water, Gardens and a Star is born.
So it's Sunday evening now, almost a week since my last post. I am sitting in the house waiting for the pump that we have rigged to pump enough water up in a small water tower so that we can have enough running water in the house to wash up and flush toilets etc. The water has stopped coming in any quantity from the public water lines and the tanks at the orphanage are dry. They older kids have to walk about 1.5 kilometres to a stream/swamp to fetch water for bathing and laundry. We still have a few hundred gallons in one of our tanks here on the farm so the smaller kids fetch water here for cooking and drinking.
Some of you have asked about a well, and one had been drilled here two years ago but it only worked for a very short time and then quit working. The organization had charged a large amount of money for this well and then just walked away. SSooo..... we are going to attempt to investigate the state of this well in the next month or so, and I am sure that we will need additional finances to repair it.
The gardening workshop with Organics4orphans went very well. The agriculture students are very excited as are the teachers and the Murrays. We have currently one bed of Kale planted, and one bed of nightshade greens, approximately 200 plants in all. As well, we have established a 5x5 foot compost that will provide composted soil in less than 6 weeks. We started a nursery bed in which our tomatoes, cauliflower, chard, cabbage, beets, red onions,and turnip seedlings will be started to transplant later. Tomorrow we will dig more beds and plant soya-beans and cow-peas. In the next few weeks we hope to cultivate over 1/2 acre of raised vegetable beds so that by Christmas we will be over run with fresh vegetables.
The rest of the team left this week to return Canada, leaving Karen, Chelsey and I to settle in as temporary residents of this small rural Kenyan village. The Bishop and his family make sure that we are very well cared for as his first missionaries to Bura.
Yesterday we walked to the village to go grocery shopping. Ben, the Bishops son, accompanied us to help us find what we wanted. Ben was continually amused as Karen listed things off that were unavailable here, or he didn't even know what they were. No brown rice, only white, no baking spices, very few yellow vegetables. We mainly have cabbage, Kale, onions, and chard for vegetables. We did, however, find three small eggplant, 3 passionfruit, 6 oranges, 1 papaya, 1 small coconut, 5 avocados, 3 small green peppers, some mixed spice for salads, 1 dozen rolls, a small plastic basin and a 6 litre bucket for kitchen compost, all for less than $7.00. So you see the fresh produce is not expensive or the locals who live in such poverty could not afford it. Most of the people here who are working earn between $1 and $2 per day.
Chelsey and Ben have been composing a new song and it's really good. Chelsey wrote the lyrics and Ben the chorus. The are collaborating on the music. Ben plans to record three of the tracks on his next CD with Chelsey, very exciting. She has become a bit of a local celebrity here. We were walking down the road the other day and as we passed all the little girls began to sing Chelseys part in the song she sang at open air concerts held the last two weeks.
By the way thank-you for all your prayers for little Ali. He is much better and I even saw him trying to run and jump yesterday, so cute. He has also begun talking a little to the other children. It really is a wonder to see his progress day to day. We are hoping at some point to travel to Voi, 40 kms away soon to an internet cafe where we can get a connection good enough to upload some photos.
Well that's it for now, I've got to go shut the pump off and hopefully have a quick, cold, dribble of a shower.
:)
Some of you have asked about a well, and one had been drilled here two years ago but it only worked for a very short time and then quit working. The organization had charged a large amount of money for this well and then just walked away. SSooo..... we are going to attempt to investigate the state of this well in the next month or so, and I am sure that we will need additional finances to repair it.
The gardening workshop with Organics4orphans went very well. The agriculture students are very excited as are the teachers and the Murrays. We have currently one bed of Kale planted, and one bed of nightshade greens, approximately 200 plants in all. As well, we have established a 5x5 foot compost that will provide composted soil in less than 6 weeks. We started a nursery bed in which our tomatoes, cauliflower, chard, cabbage, beets, red onions,and turnip seedlings will be started to transplant later. Tomorrow we will dig more beds and plant soya-beans and cow-peas. In the next few weeks we hope to cultivate over 1/2 acre of raised vegetable beds so that by Christmas we will be over run with fresh vegetables.
The rest of the team left this week to return Canada, leaving Karen, Chelsey and I to settle in as temporary residents of this small rural Kenyan village. The Bishop and his family make sure that we are very well cared for as his first missionaries to Bura.
Yesterday we walked to the village to go grocery shopping. Ben, the Bishops son, accompanied us to help us find what we wanted. Ben was continually amused as Karen listed things off that were unavailable here, or he didn't even know what they were. No brown rice, only white, no baking spices, very few yellow vegetables. We mainly have cabbage, Kale, onions, and chard for vegetables. We did, however, find three small eggplant, 3 passionfruit, 6 oranges, 1 papaya, 1 small coconut, 5 avocados, 3 small green peppers, some mixed spice for salads, 1 dozen rolls, a small plastic basin and a 6 litre bucket for kitchen compost, all for less than $7.00. So you see the fresh produce is not expensive or the locals who live in such poverty could not afford it. Most of the people here who are working earn between $1 and $2 per day.
Chelsey and Ben have been composing a new song and it's really good. Chelsey wrote the lyrics and Ben the chorus. The are collaborating on the music. Ben plans to record three of the tracks on his next CD with Chelsey, very exciting. She has become a bit of a local celebrity here. We were walking down the road the other day and as we passed all the little girls began to sing Chelseys part in the song she sang at open air concerts held the last two weeks.
By the way thank-you for all your prayers for little Ali. He is much better and I even saw him trying to run and jump yesterday, so cute. He has also begun talking a little to the other children. It really is a wonder to see his progress day to day. We are hoping at some point to travel to Voi, 40 kms away soon to an internet cafe where we can get a connection good enough to upload some photos.
Well that's it for now, I've got to go shut the pump off and hopefully have a quick, cold, dribble of a shower.
:)
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