John came early with the news that Yasintha had a little girl at 2 a.m. but we hadn’t heard a sound! Apparently they don’t usually cry out, perhaps because the babies are so small/fine-boned? All the children get sugar to celebrate.
I felt too ill to do anything, so Bruce went out with John. His mum came to keep me company for a while, then I had a little rice and black tea at lunchtime, before going to sleep.
After being woken for chai mid-afternoon, I felt a lot better and went outside, joining a group of mamas who’d been beading. Esther’s lips were still sore, but her baby was better. Shumbai came up to me when I went back to our hut, asking for medicine and showing me a slightly swollen cut on her leg: she’d cut it with a panga that morning. After applying TCP & a bandage, I prayed it’d get better.
After Bruce came back with John, we went to Susannah’s hut, then to Yasintha’s to see the tiny new baby – I kept well clear. We were shown the candles, matches & fat that pregnant women save up. They also save up to 1 kg of sugar for the children. The fat is smeared on the newborn’s lips after its first feed; from then on it will get it every day!!!! No wonder Esther’s baby had a crook tummy! If the mother doesn’t have enough milk or dies, cow’s milk is heated & allowed to cool. The cream is taken off & cooked until the oil comes off, which is given to the baby.
From 3-4 months, it’ll have a mixture of ¼ cow’s milk: ¾ herb tea. The herb is supposed to prevent diarrhoea. At 1 year, the baby starts to get uji made with milk, mashed potatoes, & pieces of meat to suck. If a mother has plenty of milk, she’ll feed her child until it’s 2-3 years old, unless she has another baby too soon.
During our tea of rice + beans, Bruce told me about his day. First they’d visited a Seventh Day Adventist who’s been building dams to store water. He has planted 3 rows of trees – cypress, blue gum and another kind - around the dams to prevent silt washing in. He wants to build a hotel with 4 ensuite rooms over a large water tank, filled from the dams by foot pump.They also visited a widow who looks after goats, her 10-year old son earns 2,000Ksh/month doing jobs for people.
The last visit was to an elderly man, Saruni ole Reson, an elder in the community. Part of his role is keeping the peace; he assured Bruce he wouldn’t allow anyone to bother us over any matter at all! He’s put 7 of his 49 children through university: one is now a doctor, another an accountant, etc! He’s the only one we’ve met who’s sold cattle to educate his children. Unfortunately the drought has only left him with 43 cows our of 283. He’s keen to let people use his shamba as a demonstration farm.
They returned via John’s house: the choo walls were finished, it was nice to see the fundi had actually done some work – we met him a couple of times going to work on his bicycle at 2 p.m. always with some excuse or other; some days he never even showed up at all!
Unfortunately poor Bruce had hurt his back bending down to demonstrate something near the dams, so was feeling rather sore and spent a bit of time lying on the bed to rest it over the next few days.
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