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Published: April 12th 2009
Happy Easter Weekend to everyone back home!
Sorry for not writing for such a long time, I had a group from Vancouver and Toronto- they loved Kenya and can't wait to come back. They thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Maasai and Kipsigi ( the two tribal communities that we work with) cultures. Many people have been asking me if they celebrate Easter? There is a very large Christian population, so yes, they do celebrate Easter. Typically they would celebrate by eating goat, cow and chickens. There is no Easter Bunny, egg hunt or gift giving; but they do have a large family gathering.
In the Rift Valley Province, which is where I am located now, they feel enormously blessed these past few weeks as they have been receiving so much rain! It has been difficult to watch, previous to it raining, the amount of cows that have been dying due to the lack of food, as a result of so little rain. In other provinces within Kenya, they have not been so fortunate, and therefore their animals are continuing to die off along with many desperately hungry people. The World Food Program is working hard to help the situation, whereby
they are able to feed 20,000 people- which is a huge help, however the number of people needing food is around 100,000. It's a frustrating situation because back in February the government sold 80 million Kenyan Shillings worth of maize to another country- makes no sense.
There is a group here now from a Toronto High School. They are breaking ground on a new school in one of the Kipsigi communities that we are working in. They dug the trench for the foundation last week and this coming week they will mix and lay cement. After mixing so much cement myself, and lugging the water to do so, I will never look at a cement mixing truck the same way.
I often go the kitchen and visit with the Kenyan staff that takes such good care of us. They taught me how to make chapatti today. I'm hoping to make it when I get back to Canada! I enjoy sitting and talking with them as I learn so much from them and they love learning about Canada and our customs.
Again, my apologies for not writing in so long! Hope everyone is doing well, take care!
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jane
non-member comment
Hi Emily- It was really nice to see those pictures! I hope that things are going well there this week, and things get settled soon about that money. It was nice to talk to you yesterday! I am going to get Skype set up this week, and we will talk to you!! Have a good day tomorrow and we will talk soon, love Sean, Jane and Diesel