Day Six …..... Monday 21st
October.
Our first day of proper work ! AND
Morris arrived on time, in a borrowed tuk-tuk as his needed repairs
…... not surprised with the roads being so awful.
Today being the deferred Mashujaa Day,
the children were all around the site, and I saw Milly …. read back
through the blog to find out about Milly ! Little Geralds brother
Brighton was there. Some of the other children from previous years
are not …. they seem to have moved away.
Paul got two men to help with the brick
moving …. the 2,500 bricks down in the compound all have to go
above to the first floor, which involves throwing them up through a
window gap, and a man at the top catching them !
Our job was to
stack the bricks as they came up, so the builders when they come on
site tomorrow can start work straight way. Or that's the theory.
Hot, dusty work. We were soon covered
in red brick dust from the crumbly bricks, which stuck onto our
sweaty faces, hair and clothes. But the three of us plus the two
men throwing bricks got about 1200 – 1400 moved in three hours,
which Paul said was plenty for now.
So Wendy and I walked through the
nearby market to find Lilian, past piles of drying fish, vegetables
and cooked 'street' food but couldn't find her little sewing stall.
So we asked and described her and her family …. and of course,
someone knew her and took us there. Shrieks and hugs when she saw
us ! She was surprised I knew she had a new baby … which is a boy
called Davis Maxwell Otieno ! Where do these names come from ?
The 'Otieno' means he was born in the night …. two of my daughters
also have the female version of this name …. Atieno.
Lilian dumped Davis on my lap, and he
gurgled away quite happily, which lots of African babies don't when
they see a white face. Lilian ran to the nearby duka to fetch us
cold drinks, and Wendy also 'had a go' cuddling Davis. We have
brought out lots of baby and childrens clothes to Kenya with us, and
I'll take some to Lilian another day.
While we were having our soda's, she
got a phone call from Paul saying the tuk-tuk had arrived to take us
back to Mill Hill House …. this must be a record; twice in one day and ON TIME !! So we had to hurry through the market and along the
paths to get back to the workshop.
Back for welcome showers which ran red
with the brick dust, and I left my clothes in to soak while we ate
lunch.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I'll write later about Father Hans
Burgman who has returned to Kisumu today from Holland.
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