I haven't written in
a while because I don't feel like much is going on! School is over. We had
graduation on Friday which was nice. The level 3 students, the ones that
graduated, wore a cap and gown and looked really cute. It was also closing
ceremonies for the whole school so it was just nice to meet a few of the
parents and say goodbye to some of the students. However, it was a little sad
saying goodbye to many of the little ones that I teach because of course they
did not understand that I would probably never see them again and just giggled
and ran away as usual.
Over the weekend we
decided to go to Kitale. We had originally thought we'd go to Mt. Elgon, but we
did not do enough planning or let Reuben know in time. We are going to go to
Mt. Elgon this weekend and Reuben will drive us in a van which will be much
nicer than matatu transport. Anyway, Kitale was interesting. We had some
awesome fried chicken and french fries with ketchup!!! and an ice cold Coke.
Yum. Then, we took a taxi to a nature conservancy which we heard was some sort
of animal orphanage. It was kind of a horrible place. Basically, there are
animals (mostly cows and sheep) with severe disabilities. The thing about it is
that the place runs to make money and only keeps the animals there as
attractions. For example, there was a cow with a large hernia there. We asked
the girl who was guiding us around if it could be fixed. She said it could, but
they didn't want to fix it because it is an attraction. There are more stories
similar which I don't feel like going into detail about... but the place was
just not very nice. We found out about it because the schools sometimes take
the kids their on field trips, which I can't even imagine. So we left there
pretty quickly and explored Kitale town a bit. It was a nice place, they have
huge vultures that fly above you and look like batman!
Otherwise, things
have been pretty easy going on the farm lately. Mama Betty told us to relax for
a few days before we started doing more work, but we decided one day was enough
for that. We went to town yesterday and gathered supplies for the school so
that we could start working today. We painted a few of the classrooms today and
will continue tomorrow. It is kind of tricky because everything is so dirty. We
thought of cleaning the walls first, but when we started we realized that was a
task we probably did not have enough time to tackle, so we just started
painting. It looks alright, better than what was there before!
We will soon go to
the orphanage with Mama Betty so that she can introduce us, and then we can go
back whenever we want. We also plan to go back to Kisumu one day to look around
the market again, we are going to bring Mama Betty with us. Reuben wasn't too
happy about this (he was kidding). He said that he just won't eat all day!
Reuben tried explaining that men are lions... which I assumes means that they
do nothing all day. He said that if he was seen in the kitchen, people would
begin to worry that he was trying to control everything because the kitchen is
only a place for women. We told him that we didn't buy it and he should give
Mama Betty a break ;-) We also plan to go to Eldoret for a day trip. We read
that Eldoret has really good cheese, and cheeseburgers! So that's the only
reason we want to go... otherwise, my time here in Kabula is soon coming to an
end! Collin and I have pretty much planned out our 2 week adventure here and
I'm very excited.
I hope you all had a
Happy Thanksgiving! I will hopefully get to have a turkey at the place we are going
to celebrate.
