Well Digging has Begun!

Hello Everyone,

Today was the first official day of well digging! I'm quite excited about this project. I have been feeling a little frustrated lately about how long it takes to get things going here, so it's nice that something seems to be working out. It will also be nice to have something concrete in place from our efforts.
I can't believe that I have been here for about 6 weeks already! Yikes! Good thing I still have more time.

Today I am in town doing some shopping. My mission is school supplies for a girl who is being sponsored through a friend of Amanda's. Many of the things kids need for school are only available in town, so it's easier if I pick them up. I'm also hoping to get a good price for some supplies that are needed for the well. Sometimes businesses in town are willing to donate or give discounts to work for community projects.

After that, we have a little more work to do for our family fun day, which will be happening next Thursday. Rachel and I are going to print off some certificates for the winners of the races and are also going to look into getting some prizes.

Hmm,,,, other things we are working on. This afternoon we are meeting with the chair person of a local community based organization (CBO). This group has already written a proposal and received some funding to run an HIV/Aids awareness campaign. I think we are thinking of combining this with a soccer tournament or maybe a league, which could be lots of fun. Everyone in Kenya is crazy about soccer, much to Rachel's dismay, most people are Manchester fans.

And lastly, our trip to Kisumu was fantastic. I shall add pictures later. WE SAW A HIPPO! And I'm not talking about in a zoo or wildlife sanctuary. We were in a boat on lake victoria. We also were able to have some pizza, ice cream, cold beer, a real shower, electricity...it was quite the week-end. Before we left we also went to a craft market. I was excited to see a market that had a little more than the basic household stuff. There were lots of beautiful soap stone carvings, and they were super cheap because they come from a town not far away. I think I'm gonna have to get another bag to bring stuff home with me!

That's about it for now. I am starting to think about making some travel plans for April. For as much as I love my little village, it will be good to see a little more of Africa while I am here. I'll keep you updated.

Structural Engineering???

Hey Everyone,

Now I am getting really bad at updating! I have been a busy lil' bee lately. I have so many things to update on that I am not quite sure where to start.

I think I shall start with last week-end. My friend Anerico, who we are working with to try to get an agricultural program going is currently building a new house. He was mudding his house last Saturday and he invited us to come along and see. I would equate mudding a house with a good old fashioned barn raising. It is a lot of work, but you get your friends and family to come out and help then you all eat together when it is done. Unfortunately, Rachel and I had double booked ourselves, so we weren't able to stay for the whole day, we just stopped by for a couple hours.

So... this is how house construction works in Kenya:

First, holes are dug for the posts. You can either do this yourself or hire a fundi (worker) to do it. The standard rate for each hole the 'surveyer' digs is 10ksh per hole (about 12.5 cents!). Then the roof frame is put up, sometimes the metal roof is placed at this point. It depends on whether it is rainy season or not. We have a few more weeks until rainy season starts, so Anerico has not put his roof on quite yet. It is a bit of a risk, the mud will dry better in the sun, but if it rains he might be in trouble! Then, the horizontal reinforcers are nailed between the larger posts. The reinforcers are usually collected or cut down from the property that the house is going to be built on. If there aren't any trees large enough, the vertical posts need to be purchased, but usually a big log is bought and manually split into smaller pieces after.

The mud for the walls is then placed between the reinforcers. They bring lots of water and mix it with the dirt that is in the floor of the house.

After seeing how it was done, Rachel and I decided to try our hand at it!

Bending over like that is a little bit hard...but overall it was actually a lot of fun. Here we are starting to get the hang of it.

We wanted to keep going, but had to get to another meeting. This is what we were able to finish though!

From here, this is left to dry for a few days. Once these walls are all dry, another layer of mud is placed on either side of the wall. Then, the new layers are also left to dry. Once these are dry, the walls are 'smeared'. The traditional way to smear is to mix cow dung with clay and spread it over the walls and floors. The is done every few weeks for the floor and every few months for the walls. The floors are done more often to keep dust down and also to prevent fleas from living in the floor. If people want to make their structure more permanent (and if they can afford it) they will smear with cement.

All in all it was a pretty fun day!

Other than this, I have been very busy working on a bunch of different projects. I think I told you about how the director Amanda does most of the fundraising for the project through her shop in Canada. She wanted to get a calendar together with pictures of the kids from the school to sell at the store, so Rachel and I have been busy taking pictures and also getting the kids to do some little drawings to include. I think we are all finished up with this project, Amanda is getting them printed in Nairobi, so I am very interested to see what it looks like in the end!

I have also been very busy doing some follow up on projects that other volunteers were working on. Sometimes, when there isn't a volunteer here following up, the projects don't get completed as quickly. Last year, Amanda did some fundraising for a house for a widow that she found in the community. I am trying to follow up on all the items that were originally included in the budget.

One of main focuses, however, has been the well at Tumaini School. The well that was originally installed on the site was not done properly (this is pretty common because they are all hand dug wells), so it is currently dry and has been for awhile. This is a huge problem because they need water to wash hands, brush teeth and cook lunch. Right now they are collecting water from nearby wells and carrying it to the school.

We have been arranging to get fundi's from the area to come and look at it and give us a quote for fixing it. The first person we had come around gave us a ridiculous price. He saw white people and automatically tripled the price, it would have been cheaper to dig a whole new well! We met with a different one last week, who gave us a more reasonable price. It seems pretty cheap when converted to Canadian, but the going rate to dig a new well is usually 100 ksh per foot. That is about $1.25! Next Monday, we are going to visit other wells that this same fundi has dug or repaired, to make sure that he actually knows what he is doing. After that I am hoping he can start doing the work right away. It is very important that we get the work done during dry season or they won't be able to dig deep enough.

Another part if this 'well' task is to link the project to the community and the school. It is very important that the community feels ownership for this project. Our idea is to hold a fundraising event. They won't need to fundraise the whole amount for the well, but a small contribution would make everyone feel part of the work. We are planning on having a big 'family fun day'. We want to have each of the kids bring in a small amount of money (very small, like 10 ksh....12.5 cents) to participate in the day. We are going to have three legged races and potato sack races. I think it should be pretty fun and also a good way to get to know some of the parents of the kids at the school.

That's about it for now...I have to get going because Rachel and I have planned a week-end away in Kisumu! I'm very excited. It will be fun to go to the 'big city',,,,maybe have a cold beer? YAY!

Bye for now.

A Day Trip

Hello!
It has been a week since I have updated the blog. I'm not sure where the time is going!
I have been very busy with all of my volunteer work....that I will update about tomorrow.
For today....I would like to write about a day trip that we went on this past Saturday.

Since we had another volunteer visiting from Canada, we decided to head out and do a little sight seeing. Kakamega is a town not too far away from us and very close to the town is Kakamega Forest Reserve. The forest reserve is the last remaining tropical rain forest in Kenya. Way back in the day, this type of forest covered a much larger part of Kenya....






until the British cleared a large portion of the forest for tea plantations. This is me giving Rachel...the volunteer from Wales a scolding about the field of tea behind me.


Let me back up a second and start from the beginning of our day. It was quite the journey to get there! We left early in the morning, we even had to get up before the sun came up to get ready in time. I know that might sound funny as most people do get up before the sun, but without electricity, getting up before the sun is a much bigger deal than you might think! We took a moterbike to the main road, hopped on a crowded matatu and were on our way. When we got to Kakamega town, we had some trouble finding the next matatu, so we decided just to hire a moterbike to take us right from the town to the forest reserve. How far could it really be?!?!?! Let me tell you...it was quite the ride. I'm not sure if I should share too many details, cause Mom already knows we don't use helmets on the bikes...... It was a long ride and our drivers were going WAY too fast. By the time we got to the site, we each had a visible layer of dirt and dust all over. We basically looked like a huge spray on tan job gone wrong.






Due to our early start, we actually did make pretty good time getting to the forest so we were able to go for a longer hike. We hired a guide (apparently it is pretty hard to find your way without one) for a 3-5 hour hike through the forest and up a hill above the forest.

Here I am, about halfway up the hill.









Here we are making it to the top. It wasn't exactly a difficult hike, but it did afford a pretty nice view at the top.

Luckily we had purchased some mangoes in town before heading to the forest so we has a fantastic snack at the top.





On our way down, at one point our guide quite calmly told me to come to one side of the path. I didn't quite know what was going on, but I complied. After we had passed a small section she told us that there was a cobra right beside us!! She didn't tell us until after it has left, because she didn't want to scare us or more importantly the snake. I sure wish I'd had a photo....or at least seen it!


In terms of wildlife, the forest used to be home to gorillas among many other things...but they have long since died off. There are still lots of smaller monkey, birds and insects. We were pretty excited about the monkeys....I think I have approximately eighteen million pictures of monkey now. I will share with you only a few.

This one isn't the greatest photo, but you can see the baby monkey on the mother's back!





These guys are just hanging out, picking a few bugs off each other. Nearby we did see some monkey fighting....but I wasn't able to get a clear photo.






I like this guy on the left's stance, he's just hanging out, relaxing.














We went a little crazy with the monkey shots....last one.












And lastly....this might have been the best part of the day.... We went back into town and had a cold beer on a patio before heading home.

Mzungu x2!

Hello Everyone,

The other volunteer has arrived! It wasn't until I came to pick her up and show her around that I realized how settled into this life I have become!
I was introducing her to everyone, talking about all the projects to work on, and showing her around the village. She has also settled in quite well. We seem to be on the same page for most of the projects, so I think it is going to be great working together. She is also interested in doing some day trips or week-end trips to some of the places around here in our time off, so I'm pretty excited about that. We have even talked about taking a longer trip into Uganda to do a little touring.

Here is a photo of her! Her name is Rachel, and she has come from Wales.


This is right outside of our house. The kids have come to borrow our soccer ball for their break at school. They are from the other school project, Vision Academy. I am planning on helping in this school with PE and creative arts on Tuesdays. The teacher is pretty good, very organized, so the helping out here should be really fun. The kids are very friendly, they are always greeting me whenever I pass the school.

I have now gone for a few runs now, and it has become even more of an event. People are now recognizing me. Groups of kids will run to the edge of the road to wave and greet me. The adults are also waving and cheering. Last time I went for a 20 minute jog, I met four new friends. Each took a little turn jogging with me for a couple of minutes, just enough to introduce themselves and shake my hand. I'm telling you, it's pretty encouraging to my jogging quest, I have my own personal cheering section!

When the distance is too far to run, my piki piki friend Isaa has been teaching me to drive his moterbike. I keep telling him that if he does too good of a job as teacher he will be out of a job, I will be able to drive myself around! Here is a picture of me on the bike.


Ahhh, I am really enjoying life here. It's so nice and relaxing! We tend to either go for a walk or play a little football in the evenings. Here are some photos from our walk yesterday. The is the road near my house. We have decided to head out in search of monkeys. I am told you can see them down by the river. This is me, my friend Daniel and my friend Rose. We are the regulars for walks and football. Daniel has said he would like to jog with me, but he conveniently shows up after I have left every time......



We tend to pick up a few people along the way. We didn't actually see any monkeys, but we had accumulated a crowd of about 20 kids at one point, so I think we may have scared off any wildlife. Rachel and I were laughing at my outfit in this picture. I was telling her that I feel like I dress like a tourist or missionary, but ...it's pretty hot here. I figure I'll stick out no mater what, so I may as well be comfortable!


As we were walking we came across this boy with his cows. It was pretty funny sight, when we jumped to the side of the road to get out of the way. We heard this little kid just screaming at the top of his lungs and wanted to figure out what was wrong......... we were what was wrong. He was terrified of the mzungu! It was funny. I have had that reaction a few times from kids, but it was a first for Rachel.



And lastly, we got back home in time to catch a sunset. Rose took this picture, not bad for someone's first attempt at a camera!