This morning we drove a while to Cyivugiza Parish. This is an area where they are interested in becoming part of the Food Security Program. The leader spoke excellent English, a man with higher education. He showed us two large patches of land for goats, and eventually cows to graze as well as growing crops for both human consumption and for the livestock. He also showed us a very progressive barn that they have almost finished building to house the goats. This area is one really affected by the genocide and more recently HIV/AIDS. It is an extremely poor area with over 80% of the people living below the poverty line, earning maybe $1 a day. Vincent is a visionary, and presented us with plans for a veterinary clinic, a plan to drain the valley for more crops, and a plan to purchase and install a water storage tank so they can begin to store and use rainwater. Right now, to get water for their crops, family or animals they need to walk an hour and carry it back. The last couple of afternoons we have done a lot of walking and visiting APAP farms! They don't call this the land of 1000 hills for the fun of it! And you know, if you go down, and down and down into the valley, you have to climb back up!! The visits were very interesting. We saw some farms that have acted on the teaching Rachael has done in the past and are seeing some improvement. We also saw some that haven't, and are still experiencing frustration. It is hard to get to the bottom of why - is it money or a lack of understanding. Rachael will continue to persevere!!!
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During the last two mornings, we went out to two of the other areas covered by the 'Food Security' Program, Kiraro and Mugombwa. Rachael, John, Jack, Kristy and Diane continued to teach about proper nutrition in the cow. The rest of us have learned all about the cow's stomach! Did you know a cow doesn't have four stomachs, but four parts to a stomach? There is so much more info we could tell you! The farmers were very interested, and asked many questions. They really appreciated learning the reasons behind why they've been told to feed the cow particular things. Hopefully they will act on what they've learned and this will lead to increased milk production in their cows which will benefit both their families and the community around them.
Wednesday afternoon, Alan and the girls engaged in some soccer outside our guesthouse with some local children. It is really wonderful to see the interaction between our kids and the local ones. Rachael and Carolyn attended a meeting with the APAP group, Food Security and the parish leadership in order to define the relationship between APAP and the Food Security Program. APAP is a local association of farmers that Rachael has been developing a relationship with and helping since 2006. It was good to meet and work out how the two groups could benefit each other. Please see the page on our website, under the agricultural projects, for more information on the APAP association. This afternoon we went out as a group to tour a number of APAP farms and to see how the farmers have been doing since last year. It was nice to get out for a good walk and see old friends. We also were able to see the new APAP bull purchased with money raised by the Udder Project. They have had the bull for two months and he's already impregnated 30 cows. While we were touring, we gathered up a number of local children who followed us the whole way. The girls taught them how to have thumb wars, which created a lot of laughter! Sam even challenged a few of the adults!! Again, great for relationship building! The weather has been very interesting, we are here in the middle of the dry season and the last two nights we have had thunder and lightning and very heavy rain! Tonight as well, and we were still out at the farms! Some rain before we got back, but thankfully it didn't amount to much! This morning our team headed out to Gahira. The drive there was beautiful, some great country side! While we were there, Rachael, Kristy, John and Jack - with some help from Mackenzie, and Origene our translator - spoke to a group of 'Food Security' beneficiaries. We learned all about the digestive system of a cow, and why it is so important to feed them both grass and the food concentrate - a concentration of high energy grains. For more information on the Food Security Program, supported by our 'Udder Project', please see the page on this web site! We spent our last full day in Nairobi shopping at the Masai market, tying things up at the school & packing!! The market was great! Almost three hours of checking out all the possibilities, choosing and negotiating! We all bought a great deal of stuff. In the afternoon we headed out to Mathare North to tie things up at the school! We needed to finish our order with both the Bead group and the Tailoring group!!! So, lots more stuff to bring home in addition to what we purchased in the morning! As well, we settled up with the tailoring group for the uniforms for our students that we ordered! We also were able to give gifts to some of the staff who were around. The rest we left with the Headmaster to give to them! A number of our students from standard 8 came to see us and say goodbye. They sure are appreciative of the support they are getting and asked us to make sure their sponsors knew this!! It was very hard to say goodbye and drive away! This morning, after a crazy time in the Nairobi Airport, we arrived in Kigali. We were joined (on the plane) by the rest of our team, John, Jack and Diane! After getting to and settling into our guesthouse for the one night, we headed out to the Kigali Memorial Centre. Here the group heard the history of Rwanda, the lead up to and the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. A lot of hard information to digest! We were up very early this morning, and have arrived in Rwanda! More in awhile! Still need to let you know about our last day in Kenya - will do! Just wanted to let friends and family know we made the trip safely.
Good morning from Nairobi! We continue to be quite busy - but we are having fun, and learning lots! Friday morning we visiting a project that has some involvement with Rachael's church in Edmonton. She will tell you all about it!
Well, we traveled far out beyond Nairobi, into Masai land to an area called Ngong. It is a beautiful part of the world with many acacia trees and stunning mountains (not as big as the rockies though!!!). It is the area where the gentleman from the book Out of Africa (in the movie- Robert Redford's character) is believed to have crashed his plane. He is said to be buried there. Anyway, we visited a very interesting project where they are trying to help orphans, kids from the slums and the Masai children to get education and health care. They have a primary school, secondary school, health clinic and quite a progressive farming program. The farm is meant to help teach the children the skills needed for farming and animal rearing. I (Rachael) found this area particularly fascinating. They have a biogas program set up where they use cow manure to produce methane gas to run the food burners to cook for the children. Imagine, "poop" from four cows generating enough energy to cook half the food for the kids!!! The ultimate form of recycling. It was a gas, man!!! The project was quite ingenious. It is amazing what you can do with so little. The resourcefulness of the Kenyan people always impresses me. In the afternoon, we had a board meeting with the Board of Tumaini. Here is Carolyn to tell you all about it. Well, we should have known we were in trouble when the meeting started 1 hour late! And it went on for 4 hours!!! We received a report of happenings over the past year, most of it pretty exciting. The music group from Tumaini came first in a regional competition, then 9th out of 25 schools at a provincial level! Not bad for the first time participating! A low of the report would be the struggle to make ends meet due to the rapidly rising food costs in Kenya. We received an update on the building construction - the exterior of the building is due to be finished in the fall of 2011, with the inside completion by the new year. For sure, my faith in Johnstone, our board chair, the rest of the board and staff of the school continues to increase. They sure work hard! More later!!! Today we hit the market - SHOPPING!!!! Below is a picture of Paola, with a student sponsored by her go Well, we had a early start to the day! We headed out to the Nairobi National Park, at dawn, so we could see the animals in their natural habitat, later in the day they are hiding because of the heat! And did we see animals!! We saw: wildebeests, water buffalos, giraffes, millions of zebras (are zebras white stripes on black or black strips on white?), ostriches, gazelles, one monkey, impalas, something that looked like a small deer, many varieties of very cool looking birds - the crown bird, hawks etc.... But the best animals we saw today were two very large male lions!!! It took a while to find them, but they were well worth the hunt! As soon as we spotted them, they laid down hidden in the long grass. But no worries, our driver wouldn't be deterred! He pulled off the road to within 8 to 10 feet of where the the lions were! It was fantastic! But they were just laying there, so the team tried everything from a gentle call to loud banging on the side of the van to get their attention! Finally tired of us, they rose and started walking right towards us!! They passed within a foot of the van!!! Alan managed to catch all this on video, except for a brief shot of the roof of the van when the team panicked and tried to pull him in! (The van was equipped for safaris with a roof that lifted so you could stand up and look out - with enough space for a lion to stick his head in!!) Needless to say, this ended our exploration of Kenyan wildlife on a major high note!! We all left the park in a very euphoric mood! To cap off an already great day, we drove into downtown Nairobi to meet Stephen and Rosemary Mbogo, the couple instrumental in the beginnings of Tumaini Primary School, and very good friends! We were joined by Tumaini's board chair, and our agent in Kenya, Johnstone and his wife Esther. We had lots of conversation and laughter! It was a day filled with hilarity, terror and good fellowship. A day not to be forgotten by any of the team!! Tomorrow is another day.......
Good Morning from Nairobi! I apologize for not writing for a bit - we have been so busy that the energy level is low when we return to our guesthouse in the evening! We spent the last two days at the school. Tuesday we had the honour and privilege of handing out sponsor packages to the students. It was so special to see the faces!! The smiles on the faces of Kenyan children is extremely heartwarming! Below is a picture of Mackenzie, Sam and Hannah with Daniel, one of 18 new students brought into the program. They quickly snapped him up and decided between the three of them, they could manage his fees with their babysitting money. Wednesday morning we picked up Polly, teacher in charge of sponsorship, and Josephat, the Headmaster, and went shopping for books and shoes!! Money goes further here! And who doesn't like shopping! The downtown Nairobi traffic was a real eye opener for everyone! You have to really know what you are doing to drive here!
In the afternoon we returned to the school and were totally entertained in a school show! The girls performed as well! Our little angels! The show ended with most of us being dragged up on stage by the high school students to join them in a dance - what an aerobic workout! We all found it hard to say goodbye yesterday, as it will probably be the last time we see most of the children. We are not back out to Mathare until Saturday! Mor Greetings Everyone from Nairobi! We are here! After two very long flights broken up by a mad 5 hour dash around London to see as many landmarks as possible! We arrived in Nairobi after 9 pm on Saturday night, and after a long wait gong through the line, we purchased our VISAs, gathered up at 17 huge pieces of luggage and walked out to be greeted by our hosts! Unfortunately, they didn't get my warning about all the luggage and only brought one van - but no worries, these guys are amazing packers!!! All 17 piece, the 8 of us and our driver managed to be transported to our guest house! We got to bed around midnight, and managed a bit of sleep before the noises started!
This morning we spent the morning at Muthare North, where Tumaini is, and went to church with all our friends. We saw a fair number of students - but of course they were all in their Sunday clothes, so no purple uniforms to identify them! We were taken to lunch by Johnstone so we could set up our week and here a bit of what's been going on. Our Belgium partners joined us with part of their team of about 39!!! Tomorrow we will head back out to the school and Kristy and the Stewarts will get a more detailed tour and history of the place, and Hannah and Sam will be set up to attend a class!! Then we will here what it is like in a Kenyan classroom from our youngest team members!! Tuesday has been set aside to hand out all the packages sent by our sponsors. Sam's observation for today - what really struck her - was the contrast between sitting in our guesthouse, which is a fairly nice family home and looking out the back window to a family living in only a shack, cooking their Well, it has been an interesting and very busy time getting everything ready! The generosity of our supporters has been overwhelming! We are going with a core team of 8, and being reinforced in Rwanda by 3 more joining us from Ontario! We are leaving Vancouver on Thursday evening with 10 extra bags/tubs and boxes full of stuff!! Including 70 beanie babies to share with our friends in Kenya and Rwanda!
Our first stop is London for a 24 hour stopover and a mad dash to see as much as we can. Mackenzie's goal is to make the guards at the palace laugh! After that we will be heading to Nairobi and spending a week at Tumaini Primary School! Can't wait to see all of our friends there!! Please follow our adventures on this blog! |
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August 2019
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