Advertisement
Published: March 2nd 2009
Edit Blog Post
The past two days have been pretty uneventful during the day but the evenings have been fun. Daytime activities for Cheryl have included organizing the boxes in Gloria’s office since they moved her into it without much thought as to what goes where. She did the same with her spare bedroom which had become the dispensary de facto storage area. She also made up nearly two dozen Maternity kits for the new mothers. These kits include all the stuff Americans give to expectant mothers at a baby shower only the items are adjusted for living in rural Kenya.
I worked at the office helping the staff with various computer questions and basic instruction in Windows-based applications (e.g. cut & pastes, multiple item selection, inserting photos into Word documents, download & install free utilities to make their lives easier, etc.). I also spent some time with Ben, their MIS guy, on developing an Access database to keep track of patients, their ailments and treatments. He is taking a university course in database programming over the internet. He is very bright but is lacking some initial one-on-one instruction as to how things fit together and why things get done the way they
do. I only hope I didn’t teach him too many of my bad habits.
The evenings however were a different story. Two evenings in a row we were invited to have tea at the homes of local ladies. Yeah, I know, I know, but I got to tag along anyway.
A few years ago when Gloria was in the US on furlough, she gave Cheryl a small beaded keychain fob that she said was made by a lady named Susana in Arsim. Cheryl has been praying for Susana and her needs ever since. When we got to Arsim and they met, Cheryl showed her the key fob and told her (via Gloria as a translator) she’d been praying for her. Susana was overwhelmed. She vowed undying gratitude and promised to also pray for Cheryl. She invited us for tea one evening.
In Kenya, particularly the Samburu area, tea is a big deal. The tea itself is not so much a ritual, but the gathering for fellowship and recounting the day’s activities or as a morning or afternoon work break is very important.
Kenya tea itself is delicious. Usually it is made with about half tea and
half hot milk. The milk is kept in jug made of wood or a gourd that has been cleaned and sterilized inside with hot charcoal. This gives the milk a wonderful smoky taste and therefore, the tea also has that smoky taste. I love it.
Unfortunately, Cheryl has never experienced it because she is lactose intolerant (that means she’s allergic to milk) and has bad stomach problems if she drinks milk. The people are very gracious and always make her a special pot of non-milk tea.
The same held true when we went to Susana’s house for tea. Susana showed us around her home and yard and invited us to sit on stools just outside the door. We sat, we sipped, we talked with Gloria translating for us. Susana speaks virtually no English but she gets her emotionalism across very well, even with the language gap.
She leads the worship singers and the “Old Women’s Coir” at church and has a marvelous singing voice. She has six children. The youngest is age 3 or so and is developmentally disabled. The older kids try to help out, but it’s a hard life.
Susana’s oldest is a son
age 20 who is finding a little part-timework distributing dawa (medication) on the Trachoma project. It hasn’t always been easy for James and he has recently tried to start finding himself and his way in the world. He needs and education and a job.
The next evening we went to Christine’s house for tea. We met her two nieces that she has adopted since her sister died. They are lovely girls and seem to be adjusting well to being with Christine. Her husband, Lawrence is a driver for the dispensary and will be gone all week. We actually finally met him in Baragoi on Saturday while we were on our way through town and he happened to be there momentarily too.
Christine is also a wonderful hostess. She and Lawrence are a little better off financially than most of the others in Arsim. She has a house helper who lives in her own hut in the yard with her husband who tends the animals. She’s quite an entrepreneur who makes beaded handiwork enough to sell far and wide. They own a few other enterprises and live in an upscale concrete house with a corrugated steel roof.
Christine
Christine in her guest house
I tried to call it a gazebo and they laughed at me. also speaks English well enough to translate for some of the other townspeople, but finds it more convenient to let Gloria translate for her when we’re all together.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 5; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0509s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb