Blog 8, 15th Feb.
An awful night. Just too hot and humid for a long and restful sleep. Up at 6.30 to go to the morning mass; as the Fathers are letting me join them I can't miss one !
I intended to visit MamaPat and the Covenant Orphanage again, to see her and take a huge quantity of clothes I have been given for the children. Morris came with the tuk-tuk, and we bumped and jolted our way along the awful road (untarred) to Dunga, the fishing village area south of Kisumu. Its good to see the papyrus heads nodding at the lakes edge, but the water hyacinth is just terrible now … it has invaded the creeks and even quite small ponds, choking them and preventing anything else growing.
MamaPat wasn't at the orphanage ! I had phoned a few days ago to check she'd be there, and we had arranged a time, but then after enquiries, I found she had been called away to a meeting. My fault really … I hadn't left her my number. But I left the bag of clothes in the school office. I met the school pastor, a nice young man who told me he had been a street boy once, rescued and taken to the orphanage where he was educated, and had left to go to Bible College, and was now the school pastor.
So I called Morris again, and he took me to Nyalenda, the Catholic centre in the Nyalenda slum area. The slum is on one side of the main road, with Milimani and its very posh European/Asian style housing on the other, with virtually nothing separating them ! Nyalenda is where HATW has been working in previous years, building houses for orphans to live in, and workshops.
I had a look around the art training centre with the art teacher explaining what they teach. The usual tourist type pictures of tall thin Maasai is being superceded by better paintings showing life in African towns and villages. One wonderful series of paintings the students had done was entitled 'Famine.'
After looking round the centre and helping to bath a baby (!) Father Hans arrived and we had a sort of Bible study session. I join in with whatever the Mill Hill fathers do, for its a wonderful experience of how the missionaries work with the local people. I've been given a lovely book written by Hans on the development of the Catholic church in Kenya since the 1880's … he spent ten years researching it and as well as the coming of the church, he also has a huge lot of information about the Luo people and their history.
Lunch followed at Nyalenda … chappati's and green-gram and vegetable stew/sauce. Then back to the guest house. Once again, I just HAD to have a nap in the heat, but set my alarm so I didn't sleep too long. I seem to have managed to do only half a sudoku under my net before sleep overtook me !
We watch Al Jazeera world news here on Sky … and it seems an English vicar has been murdered in his own home in Gloucestershire …
Getting ready for bed here is quite a performance. First yet another shower and washing of the smalls. Then clean teeth … with a mug of boiled or bottled water; I'm NOT going to risk tap water anywhere in Kenya after last year ! Its so automatic to rinse the brush under the tap. Preparing the bed is fiddley. The blanket has to come off (its only for appearance !) Then the net has to be spread over the bed, and I make sure its down onto the floor all round the bed. Everything I'm likely to want in the night goes in the bed with me … bottle of water, phone (for the alarm), torch, book, sudoku book and pen, my glasses, iPod … then I crawl in under the net.
I crawl out again as I've forgotten to turn off the main light ! Open the curtain to let any breeze in … and under the net again. I can turn off the bedside lamp from under the net. Goodnight !!
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