March blog
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Transcript of March blog
To the special people who on our last visit to England asked me to write a blog soon, I am sorry that it has taken me so long to get round to it. The past 6 months have been very busy! Well we have just moved, and life has changed considerably, but more of that later. Back at the old house....... we noticed that our water meter was showing a usage of 1 litre per 7 or 8 seconds, even though all our taps were turned off. Time to call in the water man. We dug up the earth around the pipes, (only about 18 inches below the ground, and in some places about a foot) so the guys would have an easier job on their hands. In doing so, we discovered that from our meter a pipe ran to next door..... Our landlady (who is a good woman) was perplexed, because they have a meter separated from ours. It seemed in the end that the pipe just went to their askari’s (guard) hut, so we had been paying for his usage of water, and the leak was on that pipe. No problem, they said, we’ll sort it out. Unfortunately there was a pipe carrying an electric cable in the way, but we had left that in place for obvious reasons. Not so the water men! How they knew it was a redundant cable is anyone’s guess, but they just bent the pipe up and cut the cable. Now in England, the mains water would be turned off for the area in order to carry out such repairs, but I can only say that it is a good job that the mains water pressure here is not quite so high! The mains tap is too far away, they told us. So there they were, knee deep in mains water freely flowing while they sorted the pipes, bailing out the water every few minutes! By the time they had finished, our meter was a foot above ground instead of in it, and the electric cable pipe with its cable were left sticking up out of the ground about 2 foot, and we had a very big puddle in the garden. Have you ever heard Flanders and Swann ‘The Gas Man Cometh’? it’s very funny, and was all we could think of while the guys were gaily at work. On the water front, we now have a front loader washing machine! It was given to us last May by our friends Kate and Johnny Brooks, who moved to a place without electricity. It was completely blocked and had a U.S. cent caught in the pump, but we got it all unblocked and freed up of its loose change, and it has been a blessing for me. Ok, so it doesn’t fill itself with water and doesn’t heat it either so I have to do that manually, but I am so grateful for it as the mild arthritis in my hands was causing a lot of pain when washing everything by hand. On the electric front, I thought one evening that our neighbours were letting off bangers, and wondered why they jumped in apparent fright since they knew they were letting off bangers, until once during the day I saw for myself their overhead electric cables knock into each other and let the sparks fly, and again, the poor residents nearly jumping out of their skin. There are a lot of trees in the area, and it seems that the tree growth had shifted the position of the wires. Miniature wildlife abounds at our old house, but of particular interest one day was a beetle about to be trodden on by me, so I picked it up and threw it somewhere safer, expecting it to fly or land safely, but it landed on its back, poor thing, so I went and picked it up again to turn it, but in its ignorance of my good intentions gave me a very
firm pinch on the tip of my finger. What an unexpected shock that was! I now had two little holes in my finger. But I didn’t kill it, because I understood its reaction. The wasp however, that decided to sting me for no reason a few days later I’m afraid received no such mercy, and neither did its nest that I had to that point not allowed Matthew to destroy. The rat didn’t receive any mercy either, but did actually managed to escape over the neighbouring wall before the boys fully dispatched it to the world of the dead. It did cause a little excitement as the boys chased it around the corridor. We also saw one of those huge butterflies, and a few days later saw it dead on the ground, so I now have it safely stored for bringing back to England. Now we have realised very clearly, that life here for us is fairly comfortable compared to for the poorer local population, and the main issue is that of medical care. We can afford to visit a good doctor if necessary, but not so for the majority of people. We heard of two difficult situations recently....One was of Kirwa’s friend who had to spend a few nights in hospital for a fairly minor issue, and because there were not enough beds, a very sick man was added to his bed. This man kept convulsing (and was not given any relief or medical care) and kept Kirwa’s friend awake until the man seemed to calm down, and the next morning Kirwa’s friend realised that he was lying next to a corpse. He decided he was well enough to leave the hospital without completing his stay. The other situation was of several young teen girls who had just had babies by c section and had not been given food (I understand that) OR water for several days after the op. (maternity care at this hospital is free) The poor girls were dehydrating and suffering from dreadful headaches. We heard this from our missionary friends who are taking care of young teen girls who have had babies resulting from sexual abuse.... Getting a job is also a huge issue. There seems to be no such thing as a simple application form, even for the local supermarket, but jobs are sorted through agencies, or through ‘someone you know’ on the inside, or you try and make it on your own somehow. But the message from schools to their students is ‘Work hard and you can be anything you like’ kind of thing, often using Bible texts taken completely out of context to convince the children that what they are saying is true, giving the children false hopes and feelings of grandeur, only to have their foundation ripped from under their feet when faced with the harsh realities of life, causing a sense of hopelessness and despair for many. There is no social welfare system, and everything, (apart from some maternity care) including education (which is meant to be free), costs money. But God is a God of Hope, and we continue to look to Him for His provision for our lads to get jobs. A common sight is of hawkers selling their wares, which they carry around with them all day, whether an arm wrapped in men’s ties from shoulder to wrist, or loads of hats piled on their heads, or buckets of cooked eggs and spicey salad stuff, or one of the most interesting but rather alarming, bows, arrows, knives and whips. Those are just a few. There is also the guy who goes house to house with his very efficient knife sharpener operated by an adapted bicycle.
But our town has been changing over the last few months. The first thing was that when we returned from our home visit last year, our PO Box had disappeared! The whole building had been knocked down, and we were not able to get any of our post until the new block had been built, even though our post was put in a box with all the other numbers starting with 181 (That is, from 18100 to 18199). I am actually very pleased about that, because our last box was too high for me to reach, and I had to stand on a ledge to see in to it. Our new one is just at my eye level. The town council is trying to ‘clean the place up’, and the other thing they have done is to tear down the makeshift shacks which served as little market stalls. These shacks were in every nook and cranny you could imagine, and also the hawkers covered the streets with their wares. These have been completely cleared away, causing much distress for the sellers who now have nowhere in town to sell their things, and have had to find new ways of selling it. Some of them have now got themselves a cart to carry their stuff around and have become a mobile shop. The fruit sellers were moved to a purpose built covered area, but of course, now they have to pay rent. We can see why the town council wants to tidy the place up, but there seems to be no provision made for the displaced market people, and some of them had become our friends, and it is so sad. On a more positive note, and changing subjects, we have had some very touching comments from some of our lads that have given us great encouragement.....the first to happen was when Isaac gave us a gift of some food containers. Well, that’s nice, we thought, we always need them. So we asked him why he got them for us, and he said to us, “Well, when you give us something we get a nice feeling inside. I wanted you to have that feeling” (Even now as I type these words, my eyes are watering with the love we felt at that moment from Isaac). The reason he gave to us was of more value to us than the actual gift. The other time was when our 5 lads had just finished school. When Matthew went to pick up Ephantus, he asked Matthew to just stop outside the school so he could pray a thank you prayer to God for his education, which he did with meaningful gratitude. Matthew was told that Ephantus had been the most disciplined boy in the school. Then Kirwa said to us when he got home on the last day, “God has answered my prayer that I prayed in 2002; I prayed for a bed, a home, and an education, and God has answered my prayer.” And Peter also said some things to Matthew that were very touching. These things were made possible by the faithful moral and financial support that we and the boys have received from all our friends and family. Thank you. Now, as I said, we have moved! This has been a very exciting change for us. We have moved to two separate flats, one for us, and one for the boys. That means I get my own kitchen! (Sorry boys, no offence intended!) The kitchen became a major issue for me, with the thought of the 5 boys potentially being around all the time, having left school. So now they have greater independence, which was the idea anyway, and instead of us buying and cooking and cleaning up for them, we give them their allowance and let them get on with it.
The location of the (new) block of flats is amazing, with a balcony view over the National Park. But the finish inside the flat, despite being titled ‘luxury’ is far from perfect. As well as some odd finishes which left us scratching our heads in puzzlement, pencil lines have been left on the cupboard doors, paint, varnish and glue drips and plaster splodges have been left where they fell, and building debris covered every shelf and window ledge, and no, I have not had time nor opportunity to clean it all up yet! (Too busy altering curtains!) The kitchen is as clean as it has to be at the moment, but the sink still has areas of the protective blue plastic film stuck very firmly to it, and the sink had already been spoiled by some acid or something that was put in it, and none of the sink plug holes are made of stainless steel so are already going rusty! Also the dolphin tiles in the bathrooms are all upside down! I think that the builders thought that they were pictures of fish. But I am not complaining about upside down tiles when I have a view of up the right way zebra, Buffalo, Warthogs, antelope and baboons....well, the baboons are not always the right way up when they are in the tree......and whilst the baboons can be entertaining for us at our comfortable distance, they are an absolute nuisance for the people who live in their tin roofed houses at ground level, as the baboons will run over the roofs making a racket, and then jump into the compounds and steal whatever food they can get. The dogs bark like crazy, but the baboons will just sit on the wall with their ill gotten gains and take no notice of the dogs whatsoever, as if mocking the dogs’ very existence. We have just had the dry season and there is a tree within our view that has a little watering hole by it, so in our first few weeks here we saw a lot of the above named animals. It was such a blessing, as we were working very hard at our old place painting in order to get our deposit returned. On one day I had to stay here to do washing and ironing, and it was just amazing looking out of the window and seeing all those animals at the same time as ironing. Who gets that view in England? No one, unless they live right by a zoo! So we are feeling incredibly blessed right now. Now since there has been a little rain, we have not seen so many zebra, as I guess that there is a better water spot elsewhere. Now as with any move, there are new noises to get used to, especially at night. At Milimani we had the frogs, crickets, barking dogs and the Muslim call to prayer, but here we have cockerels, whining dogs, crying babies, neighbours who like loud beat filled music (fortunately not all the time!), churches who have all night prayer meetings complete with loud speakers, the sound of lorries going over speed bumps, the baboons on the tin roofs, and at the moment a man who appears a little crazy and shouts at no one in particular. I heard him around 4am last night, and he is still having bouts of shouting now at 3pm. But we will get used to it, and not all the noises happen every night, and our sleep has been no worse than at Milimani! I do love the sound of the children playing during the day when they get home from school. In Milimani we were a little isolated from the general populace. I love our new flat. I’ll soon get it ship shape, when I’ve finished all the curtains! Well that is too much for now, I’ll have to save the rest for the next time. Love you all!