Well, Kenya has gone from a serious drought, where so many animals and people died, to a serious, never ending, monsoon rain. The ground can’t take it all in and we are having massive mudslides and horrible flash floods…once again ruining crops and killing many people caught off guard.
Our house (in Nairobi) is becoming electrically unstable from the amount of rain and we have to be very careful what we touch…especially showers as ours have the instant hot water heads and Mary has gotten a few small zaps! Me, I take my showers at the club….not taking any chances. The weather man says at least another month of this!
The last of our troubled kids is getting sorted out… just has taken so long with all the red tape in Kenya. But the worst is over and they are accepting their changes (downgrading in status among other students the most embarrassing unfortunately). My last afternoon in Gilgil we ran into three of our Cu-cu’s and had tea and good talks….one was in bad need of medicine and another had been out of food for days. We fixed her up with a big load and then gave her pikipiki (motorcycle) money to get her home (6 miles out that she had walked that morning!) Susan and I popped into another store for something and as we came out we saw 87 yr old cu-cu on the back of a pikipiki speeding down the road. Couldn’t help but start laughing at the sight as she bombed down the road waving at everybody like a homecoming Queen.
Today I meet up with Susan at the Maasai Market to pick out goodies to bring back…..such fun! She’s bringing her eldest daughter with her as I haven’t had a chance to see her yet this trip. She is a busy college girl who is a very good student…makes Susan happy. Susan never got the chance to go beyond a 5th grade education although you certainly wouldn’t know it! She knows 7 different languages and is very clever.
Last Friday when we came into town we had a chance to stop by Honorable Karume and thank him personally for donating the land to Wana Duma. He is incredibly busy and people wait for weeks to get an appointment with him….we were lucky and I feel better that we were able to. He mentioned coming to the land in September when I return and walk it with us. That would be special indeed.
Ok off the Maasai Market and the hot sun (during the day we get very hot sun before the rain starts again!!)
Hello Susanne,
Wow have you been busy. Trying to sort out kids, get accustomed to your new house, cui,cuis in great need and following up with consequences for your non working students! Am an avid site of your blog, love the updates.
So, either drought or killing rains, so hard in Africa. Never a soft, happy medium. I hope crops make it through, people survive and the wild animals start to recover from the crippling drought of the past 5 years.
Maasai market day makes me want to be there so baaaad..
Keep up your important work, make those hard decisions and keep on giving heart and soul. Your work is profound. I am glad you were able to visit Honorable Karume and continue to let him know how very grateful WanaDuma is for is exceedingly generous and helpful gift of land.
See you in July Grizzly Girl ..love Griz