Our team has arrived safely in Africa and yesterday was our first day out in the projects. The drive from Kitale to the village is about 23 kilometres which would take about 20 minutes in Canada. In Africa, though, everything is different. Our little matatu truck made it through the most amazing terrain. The road is a dirt road (red dirt) with many ruts. It had rained through the night, so the road was slippery and sloshy. It was amazing to see how well the driver negotiated the obstacles.
There are African people everywhere - absolutely everywhere. In Canada, when you drive down the roads, there aren't any people, unless you are in a city where the people are on the sidewalks. Here, there are people walking on the road, sitting beside the road, in the fields, with donkeys, cows, goats everywhere. Many, many people - people everywhere. They watch us with curious eyes as we drive by. White people are a curiosity.
From time to time, we meet a police check on the road. Here, the police will expect a bribe in order to allow the vehicle to pass. The Kenyan government and many of the churches are corrupt. Corrupt is a word that has a new meaning to me. The corruption is total and permeates every single facet of life. The beautiful corn fields that are everywhere, are off limits to the average African. If they go in to pick the corn, they are arrested. The owners don't want the Africans eating the corn.
As we go through some villages, I look at the "buildings". In Canada, they wouldn't even be called buildings - most of them wouldn't even qualify as shacks! And yet, housed in these buildings are stores, markets, restaurants and all other types of businesses. I saw a motorcycle repair shop and a bicycle repair shop.
The geography of this region is beautiful. Corn fields for miles and then beautiful hills in the distance.
When we arrived at the village, we went to the school which was built totally with funds from the people of North Bay. It is a relatively big building in a nice field surrounded by cornfields. The children were wonderful. They performed a couple of songs for us. One of the songs was called The Butterfly and the other was called The Elephant. It was obvious that we were considered very special guests. I felt very humbled as I am just an ordinary person like them, but they treated us like kings and queens. After the performance - we split up into our work groups. Cathy and I did some teacher training with the three teachers. Mercy, 19, Sarah, 22 and Gladys 27. They were so appreciative of our ideas and the supplies we took to them that it tore at my heart. Our student team members played games with the children while we worked with the teachers. Caren and Sandy handed out new clothes to all of the children. They were very excited. We also gave them all suckers. It was difficult to talk to the children as we don't know any Swahili, but there was much love in the air, so the words didn't matter too much. The children sat on Laura, Stephen, Sandra, Sarah and Emily. They touched their hair and their skin and it was obvious that they were very curious.
We had lunch in Pastor Victor's mud hut. This was an experience in itself. We were served a feast of beef, rice, cabbage, chupatis, bottled water and fruit. The meal had been prepared by Caroline - a girl visiting from Uganda - over an open fire. When we arrived at the hut, one of the women washed our hands for us with a pitcher and a basin of warm water. I was reminded of the biblical scenes where it was common to wash your guests feet. Again, a most humbling experience.
The afternoon was spent painting the school and singing. We worked alongside some African men and sang as we painted and waited for the truck. When the truck arrived, we drove back to Kitale to a BBQ hosted by Transformed International. The guest list consisted of people from all over the world, many of whom live in Kitale permanently and work to help improve conditions for the African people. I met people from Sudan, England, Canada, United States, Holland, Israel, Uganda and Kenyan.
The members of our student team did the dishes. They are awesome!
All in all, it was a great first day to the projects. Now, it is time to get ready to go to Veronica House.
- written by Sally
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