The local people who inhabit the highlands here in western Kenya say this is ‘mvua vupi’season, which means short rains. Today began in typical seasonal fashion as the first orange glow of the suns rays on the eastern horizon pierced the dark night, appearing to make the canopy of stars flee to their hiding place as they rays stretched higher and higher from beyond the hills they silhouette. The odds are that by noon, cotton ball clouds will begin to decorate the bright blue sky and, unnoticed by the folks below, after turning, to ever-darker shades of gray, a sudden crack of thunder will announce the arrival of a rain shower. Kids will run for cover under trees, open air venders cover their wares under soiled plastic sheets and people will crowd beneath overhanging shop canopies until the heavy shower ceases before they all immerge and carry on their business.

Makeshift bridge, Kipsongu slum

I was up early this morning to see off friends who stayed with us at Brittany’s House this past week or so. Soon they will arrive home, no doubt lost for words and perhaps a little dazed form the sights, sounds and experiences of this past week, but also perhaps, with different perspectives. Africa tends to do that, if one chooses to allow it.

Houses in Kipsongu slum

It’s been a busy week of travel for me. Trips to Runo, Kisumu, Eldoret and Kapenguria add up to several hundreds of miles covered or several thousands of miles by U.S. standards if measured by ware and tear of man and machine. Today I’m on the road again, this time to Bungoma where I’ll deliver a load of tree seedlings to be planted. Over 12000 have been planted since I arrived back in May, they will be used to produce anything from firewood to furniture once they mature. Deforestation in Kenya has had significant impact on soil erosion, and therefore river pollution, as well as causing scarcity of firewood, the main source of fuel used for cooking here in Kenya.

Tap this spring

Next week we begin work digging out and protecting a spring in the infamous slum called Kipsongu, on the outskirts of Kitale. During rains the water from the streets of Kitale town washers down a wide gully, cutting right through the center of the slum. One can only imagine what the thilthy waters carry with it. During rain storms the people who live in the slum have to cross the gully by way of a make shift bridge to access the spring on the opposite side. Our plan is to pipe the water across the gully once we’ve protected the spring. We’ll see.

Meantime in Runo, west Pokot, the work continues with the buildings. Foundations for additional classrooms were dug out and walls built up to ground level. On top of this a concrete slab is being laid this week. Most of the roof structure has already been erected and is supported on steel columns although funding is needed for the final portion of the roof. At that point we’ll leave the building without walls until a later date but it will still provide shelter for kids and so they’ll begin to use it as classrooms.

Kids ferry bricks to buildingsite

The site for a dormitory block has been cleared and building materials are laboriously being gathered. Construction will begin on this structure hopefully next month and once complete will house the 108 orphans who attend Runo school. Over 2000 wheelbarrows full of small stones have been gathered to date to be used mixing concrete. A fence of thorn and sisal is being constructed around the orchard of Mango trees we planted and we have our first employee for this project, an elderly lady who takes care of 3 of the orphans mentioned, in her home. Previously she was getting up at 4a.m. and walking 4 kilometers to arrive first in line at a nearby farm where, if she was fortunate enough to get work, she would earn around $1 a day weeding maize, hardly enough to feed herself and the 3 kids.

I enrolled Amos in a nearby private school but the ominous date approaches for a trip to Kisumu and his monthly chemotherapy treatment next week. He’s a tough little guy though and is usually the first of all the kids who are treated, (all at the same time,) to recover. I’m told by sister Freda that he gets up and goes round helping the other kids. Perhaps one day he will be a doctor, as he says he will, after all.

I built 10 desks and delivered them to a bunch of excited kids at sister Freda’s cottage hospital where she holds day school and a feeding program for little kids from the slum. They of course all wanted to sit at a desk and somehow all 60 of them managed. They looked like sparrows on a telephone line when they were all seated.

Kids with new desks

Sometimes the most bizarre sights come at the most unexpected times. Like when Anne, Brittany’s caretaker ran out of a room screaming while a large owl, which had somehow entered through an open window, flew over her head. The truck blocking the road, laying on it’s side for no apparent reason and the mini bus full of goats with heads hanging out of the windows. Every day is an adventure it seems, some more fun than others. But whatever the day ahead brings, I remain in His grasp.