Another Busy Week

It’s been a steady few days since I last wrote…

The church service on Sunday was quite entertaining. We showed up two hours late (on purpose) as Mama Jen did not want us to have to sit through the entire service, which was being presented in Kimeru - the local dialect.  We arrived just in time for one last hymn, the choir, and the closing prayer. Following that, the congregation wanted to hear us sing, and as it was the only song we could think of that we all knew, O Canada was sung loudly, albeit off key to the whole church. Following the service, there was a fundraising auction where bananas, oranges, different types of grains, and 3 live chickens were sold to raise money for the new church that is being built.

Monday saw us visit a very remote and desolate primary school (Kamuketha), and once again I was amazed by the resilience of the people here. They are able to make do with so very little. This school had just had all of their sweet potatoes stolen from the ground and were in the process of replanting…

Tuesday, we were out in the community of Mikinduri with the Ruuju women conducting more food security/diet diversity interviews; and as we have been suspecting the women in this community are far more food insecure – odd given that the area is more lush than around Kiirua.

We are also conducting follow-up interviews with the school lunch programs to find out if they are still implementing recommendations (i.e. using a fortified oil instead of solid fat, or using whole grain maize instead of polished maize) made in 2010 – so far we have been quite impressed.

Wednesday consisted of 5 home visits with the Muchui women in Kiirua. We were all over the countryside for these ones and I was very tired, hot, and dirty by the time we got home. My belly was also tired as we were offered bananas or hard-boiled eggs AND tea at EVERY house. It’s very rude not to accept, especially when many of these women don’t eat this food themselves.

Today we finished off our last 4 of 26 interviews with the Muchui women. Now we will be able to begin inputting the data and comparing it to last year. It will be interesting to see the results as this year has not been as arid as last year. Hard to believe.

We are in Meru this afternoon enjoying a milkshake and making use of the 'higher' speed internet here. I have managed to download a number of pictures that I have thus far not been able to. 

We are hosting a Canada Day party on Sunday for all of our Kenyan friends here. It should be fun.

Mama Jen's Church - the old portion is to the left; the new to the right.

Auctioning off a chicken - it went for about $10.

These are children at the school music festival we attended a couple of weeks ago.

More music festival children.

These ones had the best costumes!

A view of the country side. We were out doing home visits this day around Kiirua.

A plant at the corner of the road by the hospital we are staying at. Notice the dirty red leaves? This is what I look like when I come home every day!

A wild elephant!!! This one was at the side of the road on our way into Meru.

A giant cactus. This was the landscape around Kamuketha school.

Kamuketha primary school. This is the most remote school we have been to.

A typical maize field around Kiirua.  There will be no harvest this growing season.

This is one of our "Champs" home. She is considered the "godfather" of farming in the area and many women model their farming practices after hers.

The newly installed posts of a future screenhouse. This screenhouse will keep out the birds and contain drip irrigation. These are making a world of difference in these women's lives.

Walking to a home. Yet another washed out road.

I took this picture in disguise of capturing the dog - notice how skinny it is? This is very common - animals are NOT pets here.

A home visit with Joaninah (far right - the woman to the left is Rosemary, our translator). She had the most amazing garden I have seen yet. I had fresh guavas and passionfruit here.

The "Champs" singing for us after one of our nutrition sessions.

A little bit of home? This picture reminds me of PEI.