Feed & water shortages, a miracle and seminar part 2.

Sunday July 5th Clear skies, cloudy/breezy later. We were taken outside after breakfast to where the cattle were eating mineralised salt out of hollowed-out tree trunks. 2 lively young calves ran out to join their mothers, but John said they won’t be like that in another month’s time.
After eating salt, the stock go to the water hole, then up the mountain to graze. Bruce advised the men to sell steers, surplus heifers and aged cows when the prices are high, and to buy more heifers when prices are low. We also shared a bit about NZ dryland farming. John’s dad in red in the goat/sheep corral (above); 2 little girls in their best clothes (right).
On the way to the baptist church, we passed one of Moses' 2 dams for stock/house water, where we saw a neighbour watering his small herd of cattle and his wife getting house water. Moses is sharing his scanty supply with neighbours who have none.







Left: June 2005 - full of water. Right: July 2009 - the small pond left at the back of the reservoir.
Moses actually got to church today, we walked together until our paths diverged: it was rather miraculous as he’d been practically housebound for weeks with painfully-swollen legs.
We arrived at 10.30 for another 6-hour service cum seminar - great fun! Several pastors preached, there was singing & items from different church choirs inbetween. I love the way they dance and sing so exuberantly, although afterwards I was a bit saddened to hear each choir is trying to outdo the others! Ezekiel’s little boy was part of one, his dancing outshone them all & received lots of applause! Dust was a problem today, both what was kicked up from the undampened dirt floor, and what was blown in from outside during strong winds. The floor was dampened the floor towards the end of the service, a bit too late really!
Bruce shared again, encouraging them to help each other in love. As most of the speakers weren't translated today, we couldn’t understand a lot of the preaching, it was mostly in Maa. I could translate the Kiswahili parts for Bruce though.
When a few went up for prayer at the end, John wanted to know if I wanted to take any pictures - but I refused, saying I prefer people to have their privacy. Afterwards I was amused when he asked how many cameras we normally have in church - he was so surprised when I said none! They are so used to seeing Wazungu taking photos during services that they think it’s normal! I had to explain we only take them at special events like weddings, dedications and baptisms.
It’s so easy to give the wrong impression! We’re sometimes asked how many servants we have in NZ, and in Bukoba, people used to ask us for work. Many missionaries do employ folk, so people end up believing that’s what we’re used to, & that we don’t know how to look after ourselves!
We had yesterday’s meal served again - cold: “God bless our stomachs!” We talked with a pastor from near Mai Mahiu, who has four children. He'd heard about the Inkoirienito tank, and was hoping we could help build another near him!
Back at the manyatta, we chatted with John’s father before having ‘supper’ at about 9 (the 5 p.m. meal at church was our lunch!). He was really sad we were returning to Luka's the next day, having waited 4 years for us to return, he’d wanted to have more time with us! He brought out the book on NZ we’d given, so of course the others wanted to see it which kept Bruce busy explaining the photos! This time we gave him a German chopping board; I'd been unsure about buying it, but he was delighted, & John said it would be very useful as normally they just cut up their meat in their hands!
We were woken up by what sounded like a stampede in the early hours - I thought it was the goats as they were making so much noise, one young one kept bleating for some time. In the morning, we were told it was the donkeys, they aren’t shut away at night here! We woke up feeling VERY tired!

A day in Nairobi

Wed July 1st It was a cold morning, grey and cloudy, but it got hot later when the sun came out. We were up at 7, I was feeling VERY tired and scratchy, which made reorganizing & repacking my bags very slow. Chatted afterwards with Agnes and her oldest child, Maurice (4), also with Emily, Agnes’ younger sister, who has very good English – although she doesn’t think so! She’s in Standard 7, so should finish Primary School next year.
After breakfast of bread & chai, we started towards the city centre by ute. Bruce drove at first, but they thought he was going too slowly on the dirt roads! The next problem was not giving him directions in time! Maa instructions were shouted by those on the deck to John who was sitting inside, so by the time he'd translated them into English it was too late to take the turning! We were very glad when one of them took over! We were dropped off at a petrol station to take a bus to Barclay Plaza to the Precision Air office.
The most wonderful lady, Sarah Wachira, helped us, she deserves a gold medal! What we’d thought would be a quick job turned out to take many hours! Each time she tried the on-line payment system: “Transaction declined”! The proble: a missing office code on our voucher which hadn't been issued by Precision Air after all but by the travel agent. She said it might be possible for us to give her the voucher + the balance of the fare to send Arusha: a ticket would be issued manually from there! Oh dear, we know the African postal system is rather dodgy! However, we agreed to go away for a few hours so she could get it all sorted.
After lunching in a cafe, we spent over an hour in a taxi trying to find the Amex office to report the loss of the travellers’ cheques. We'd been told to go to Upper Hill, and that it'd be easy to find the office there, but no-one knew where the office was when we got there!
Some fun encounters in the city: 3 guys in a truck gave Bruce a thumbs-up, totally delighted when he returned it. A motorcyclist gave him a big smile and was overjoyed to have it returned. A lady in a phone card shop was really excited when I greeted her in Kiswahili!
We were very surprised to only see a total of 6 Wazungu during our few days in Nairobi. On previous visits there have been lots! Perhaps they were all on safari or keeping away after last year’s fighting.
Public toilets are a bit different: you pay the outside attendant 10 or 20 Ksh (20 or 40 NZ cents) & get some toilet paper. After using the squat toilet, you flush it with a couple of dippers of water from a barrel outside the door. I was pleased there was also water for washing your hands too, sometimes outside.
As we arrived back at the Plaza we were thrilled to see Sarah just outside the main entrance – no need to leave Bruce’s passport at the desk this time in exchange for an ID tag! Back in the office, she gave us a huge smile, handed over our tickets and we paid the balance, which was much cheaper than the amount I’d been told on-line. So it was smiles and thank you’s all round! It was so good to get all that sorted out, we couldn’t leave it till our return to the city as it would be at a weekend, and no offices open. We cashed up the extra 100 USD, so we could buy supplies and pay for transport over the next week.
We were surprised to be taken to an up-market supermarket, but it was good to use some clean Western-style toilets. When Nicholas turned up, he treated us to huge lattés in the nearby cafe – I’ve never seen such stiff foam before! The severe headache I’d developed eased off a little.
Back in the Maasai shopping 'centre', we stopped to greet a pastor who has a church there called Harvest, he wanted us to visit him after tea.
Our tea was different: ‘Nescafe chai’! It was strange that it was still called 'chai' even though it was made from coffee, not tea!
I tried to phone Amex using John's cellphone, but got no reply. John was too tired to visit the pastor, so we stayed at home talking to a young teacher who had come to greet us. He teaches a class of 70 Standard 3-4 pupils!
We had more chai at 9, dinner at 10: cabbage, potatoes and chapattis, but couldn’t eat very much! I was a bit disturbed when John told me we would be discussing transport arrangements the next day, we'd thought it had already been sorted!
Had a few hours’ good sleep once the talking stopped, we'd been given 2 blankets this time!