What a week its’ been.
Tuesday I accompanied Sr. Joy on home visits. The first one took us three hours to track down a father, first at his home and then at the school where he is the deputy head master. It ended up being worth the effort. It turned out the mother has been lying to us and stopped doing the therapy at home with her daughter and wants to send her away to boarding school. The father is very concerned, especially since now the child needs another surgery. It seems as if he’s going to work hard to stay on top of his daughter’s therapy to make sure that the next surgery is effective. The second visit took us to the home of a little boy who has plaster casting. While Joy talked with the mother and grandmother I played peek-a-boo with one of the other little girls. The grandmother jokingly promised I could take her back to the US with me since she seemed to like me so much. After no one was home at the third house, we headed home. Still it was long for a St. Julie’s day and we didn’t get home until almost 5.
We also got a visit from the president of Kenya this week. President Kibaki came through on Thursday afternoon. Of course all of us were excited at the prospect of seeing the president of another country so we got there close to 2, when they said he would arrive. We watched a two local men playing on homemade instruments while we were waiting, but soon after we arrived he began singing about us and the whole crowd of more than 50 people turned to look at us. It was a little uncomfortable. We moved across the road to get good spots, but I lost mine when I went to go get a little breathing room. Rather than pushing my way back to the front I sat on a blanket with one of the parents from St. Julies and listened to all the commotion. Luckily Michael, Tom and Jean got good pictures of the president. From what Sr. Joy told me, people were really upset with the whole situation. They were spraying down the ground to keep the dust from flying up on the president. Kenya is in the middle of a pretty horrific drought and people in our town don’t even have water to plant their crops. Then, when he showed up 2.5 hours later he didn’t let any of the local officials speak, he didn’t talk about improvements for the region and didn’t say thank you to all the people who stood in the blistering sun for hours waiting to see him. All in all, he spoke for less than 10 minutes. Thursday evening culminated in a joint early birthday dinner for Jean (March 29) and Tom (April 2). Eating with all the sisters is always so nice, not just b/c we don’t have to cook for ourselves, but to be able to sit at a full table with lots of interesting conversations.
Saturday I had the chance to meet with Martha Thompson from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. She was on a visit to Kenya and Uganda to check on the initiative that they partner with. The one in Kenya just happens to be in Kakamega, so Tom, Michael and I took the opportunity to learn more about the work they’re doing here. We met with Martha and Pastor Paul who leads the initiative here. He told us about how they’re working to find the people who came back to this area after the post election violence of last year with nothing. The NGOs who were here to help don’t really seem to be doing anything in this area so the work on this project is essential. Martha also filled us in on the other international projects that the UUSC is working on. The wonderful company combined with one of the best meals I’ve had since I got here made it a really enjoyable afternoon.
This Sunday was Jean’s 23rd birthday so to celebrate she, Tom and I made the trip up to Webuye to see the beautiful Webuye falls. After taking a boda boda as far as we could, we walked the rest of the way. We didn’t see a straight forward path (although there was one) so we took a more adventurous route that involved a little bit of rock climbing. Finally we got to the base. We were going to try and hike up the right side, but there didn’t seem to be a place that was safe to cross the river. We ended up going up the left side, which involved more rock climbing. At one point I lost my grip on some mud and ended up with mud from head to toe after slipping about 4 ft. We finally made it to the top and were rewarded with some pretty amazing “I’m on top of the world” views. There was a nice little pool where the water wasn’t running too quickly and since the temperature had been steadily rising all day, we decided to take this opportunity to take a little dip. Maybe not the best decision to swim in unknown water, but the water was wonderfully cool and had the added benefit of kind of cleaning the mud off of me. After drying in the sun we worked our way back to town on the main road. I was happy we’d taken the boda boda there b/c it took more than an hour to walk the 5 kms back to town. Michael met us and we enjoyed a very good lunch and were rewarded with pouring rain. I’ve never lived anywhere where rain makes me so happy. We took a quick look around the market and then headed back to town.
Yesterday we also got two new occupants in our house. The new postulants- Susan and Elizabeth- moved in yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to talk to them very much, although Elizabeth was at Racecourse when we first got here. I’m looking forward to getting to know both of them better.
A BIG thanks goes out to my sister for my very first package in Kenya. I’m sure the customs official in Kisumu are enjoying the M&Ms that were taken, but otherwise everything else made it. I really enjoyed the treats (like Skittles) that we just can’t get here. It also took less than 3 weeks!
Thanks for keeping up with everything!
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