Shule Ni Nje

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.