Tuesday, March 30, 2009
Yesterday was exhausting and the kids were awesome. We drove for hrs to the village and saw an example of rural life. The Nyumbani village is unbelievable. They raise cows, goats chickens, grow fruit and vegetables. Each destitute grandparent lives in a house with 10 orphans. Their homes are made from interlocking bricks that they made there. Right now they have nearly 400 kids. We went with 5 women from the lions club of Kenya who are presenting new shoes for all of the kids. They also brought several optometrists to scan all the childrens eyes. The kids there are all double orphans. Only about 14 percent have HIV. But all of them watched their parents die and many likely also attended to a sibling as they died. When we walked into the cent al hall to watch the Lions present the shoes, the children went nuts. Especially when they saw Joe. They asked if they could hold joe up for all to see. The crowd cheered. We left immediately following their dance performance and made the long drive back. We had a planned stop at a handicap center to buy some native items. No sooner had we left there and we came across the lions club folks broken down on the side of the road. 8 people in all. We moved all of them into our two vehicles. And towed their vehicle into the next town. We were packed in tight. It was wild. What we can't do justice to is explaining the driving and road conditions. Much of the time it is like driving on the wrong side of construction barriers in the states! The roads are uncompleted and narrow at points. The drive up gave us a chance to see rural life. Some women for example rise at 3am and walk 10 KiloMeters to gather water for the day. They hope to return by 6 am. We saw many men and children tending to their cattle and goats. Along the road side. People are constantly moving and coming in all directions. Often they appear to come from no where. We saw women sorting rock on the side of the road. It is the rock left from construction. They sort and wait to sell it to trucks traveling by. Some men were chipping off slate rocks to also sell. The rural children can not travel the great distance to school each day and therefore if they are in school they go to boarding schools in the villages. Tonight we were throwing a pizza party for the children back at nyumbani. Unforunatly we didn't get back in time. But the children waited at Fr dag hall to greet us. They loved the lamented place mats joes class made and they will get lots of use. Tomorrow we leave to go on safari and we don't know what our email access will be like so know that we will be in touch as technology presents.
