Visiting the workshop

Day 3            Friday 18^th October

Up in time to see if anyone was taking mass in the chapel … and Father 'Chuggy' was there. (That can't be his real name, can it ? He's from Glasgow). So I was the only one apart from him, but it was good to share it with him.

Before chapel, I'd been thinking of the parable about 'the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few' and could see that applying to the work of HATW here and elsewhere …. and then when in chapel I discovered that parable was the reading for today ! Strange coincidence.

After breakfast we called Morris and his tuk-tuk to go to the workshop …. oh ! that TERRIBLE road again …. and in a tuk-tuk …. Wendy and I suffered from agonising boob-bounce as the tuk-tuk leaped from hump to hollow to mud to dust. We got off the tuk-tuk at the side of a new bit of tarmac, and walked through to the workshop, where Emily (watch-mans wife) saw us and hugs all round.  Her second son Gerald is walking now, but his umbilical hernia is even bigger, I think.   

I think Wendy is surprised at all the friendliness of everyone …. you couldn't walk along the main street at home and be greeted by everyone with hand-shakes and “ 'ow are you ? “ and even hugs from strange women.

The workshop is progressing, but so slowly (but then this IS Africa !) The builders that we were going to help were laid off last weekend as they had run out of bricks; the new bricks came on Tuesday, but the workmen weren't to restart until Monday 21^st, but then that is Heroes Day … a public holiday, so maybe on Tuesday ?

Wendy and I went for a walk around Nyamasaria while Jonathan talked to Paul about the drawings for the upper rooms and the roof. We looked to see if we could find Lilians house, but the earth road has changed, and I couldn't find her house. (Lilian is the lady who cooked for us in 2011, and I hear she has a new baby).   We stopped at a small house where four people were making the paper beads for the necklaces they sell in the craft market.  

So back for lunch at 1, more boob-bounce in the tuk-tuk, which is actually quite painful after ten minutes ! …. but we have found some 'bounce control' bra's amongst the 100 or so we have brought out with us …. and will borrow them !!

After lunch the three of us sorted out the 50 kg of childrens clothes we brought with us, into bags of baby clothes, toddlers, older childrens, etc. We will take some to friends near the workshop, and the rest will go to Pandipieri, and the clothes for the biggest children we will take to the school for handicapped children.

I fell asleep mid-afternoon whilst reading as it was so hot and humid ….

… and that was basically the first day we had planned to work.