The cockroaches, which I'd never seen before, were enormous ... nearly two inches in length, and they scurried out from under the cupboard and stove in the kitchen at night .... not one or two or them, but dozens !
By the end of our first week, we were employing Joseph Adhiambo (photo on right) as a 'house-boy'. I had thought not to have 'staff' but it was soon obvious that he would be useful for doing our market shopping, as he could bargain in the local language. He arrived one day, brought along to us by a (white) missionary who explained that Joseph had no father and an elderly mother, and needed to earn money to save for school fees. He assured us Joseph would work hard and as a mission boy, was honest. He was about 14 or 15 (he didn't know how old he was) and dressed in ragged clothes, with patches and tears. He had on his feet a pair of cut down wellies, which had had pieces of rubber sewn over the holes. He was to be paid two shillings for five hours work, which was more than the government rate, and 'perks' .... usually spare food. In 1968, an English pound, was 17 Kenya shillings, so about half a crown or so for his wages ?
The house we lived in at first, was about 30 or 40 years old, with a corrugated iron roof. The ceilings were nailed directly onto the roof rafters, and were made of some sort of compressed straw board, which mice (rats ?) had gnawed in places. Electricity for lighting from dusk (about 6.30) until 9.30, when the school generator was switched off and we had to use a paraffin lamp. It was often easier to go to bed early and get up just before dawn. One night there was a terrific storm, with wind blowing and whistling through under the mabati (iron sheets) and there was a tremendous crash, and half the bedroom ceiling descended onto us in our beds .... complete with years of bat droppings, dead mice, and goodness knows what else ! The bats which were in the roof sheltering from the storm, fluttered around us in the dark; then by the light of our torches and ultimately the paraffin lamp, we could see what a mess there was ! I didn't write about it in the letters home, but seem to remember we spent the remainder of the night dozing in the sitting room chairs, flapping at the mozzies .... and the bats !
"The view from the house, on a slight hill, is wonderful, looking west towards Uganda, 20 miles away. We look out over African farms, which at first glance look like scrub land, but I suppose are more like English small-holdings or allotments, with strange crops growing all mixed up in small plots. There are banana and paw-paw trees, cassava plants, maize and millet. And mango trees ... which reminds me; can you find a recipe for mango chutney please ?
The people in this area mostly don't speak Swahili, but Dholuo, which is totally different to Swahili, so we are having to learn another language, as well as continuing with Swahili, which is used in town and the country further east."
We spent most of our spare time bird watching, and had taken out mist nets in order to catch and ring the birds we captured. Catching them helped us to identify all the many new and wonderful birds we were seeing; having the bird in the hand and the books on the table, made an impossible task a little easier, but at first we had to let birds go that we couldn't identify, but it got easier. This is the first ever bird we caught at Ng'iya ... the incredibly coloured pygmy kingfisher.
This is the wildlife we had come to Kenya hoping to see !!
No comments:
Post a Comment