Tuesday was the big day for delivering the embroidery machine to the trade school. Geri had been to the place before, but it was a first for me. It was about a 30 minute drive from the farm, but I don't think it was that far in distance. I say I don't think, because there is no way I could get there by myself if I tried. We went out to the main road, turned left at the road to St. Theresa's Secondary School, and then it was all sugar cane fields. We drove and turned a few times and then all of the sudden we came to a clearing with a building sitting in it.
The school was originally set up to train girls that had dropped out of school for various reasons, such as pregnancy. Nothing new, huh? Now it also serves men who are trained in carpentry and masonry. Don't think of training in the same since as in the US. It is very basic and the school is very small. They have no begun to train pre-schoolers, but there is no physical room for them.
They had a program arranged for us. First, they all introduced themselves and gave a brief history of the school. Then, we introduced ourselves and received the Kenyan version of applause which consists of these 3 claps and some words. The whole community turned out for the event. Not counting children there wer probably 50 people or so. It may not seem like much, but since we hadn't really passed many houses on our way in, it sure seemed surprizing.
The "band" that played all had homemade instruments that our native to their tribe our culture. I really should not have put band in quotation marks, because they were a trued band for their culture. I have to admit that the instruments were nice to listen to, but the man that sang needed some more training.
It could have turned into an all day event, but we told them early on that we had to be back to the farm by 2:30 because our transportation was also a bus for the kids in school. They served us lunch which was a banquet unlike what I had seen since being out in Western Kenya. Not only did we have meat, but we had two kinds -- chicken and beef. We also had potatoes, ugali (I'll explain that one another time), rice and sukumo wiki (I'll explain that one later as well). They were truly grateful.
As we left, the director of the school explained that because of the time constraints and such, they had not been able to feed us properly. So, he presented Geri and I with a chicken to take home and fix in a "delicious and proper way using good spices." The chicken was kind of nice looking as chickens go. They wrapped it's feet in jute so that it was easier to tuck under my arms and carry away.
The chicken had one night of freedom on the farm, but it got cooked last night. I'm glad I didn't have to wring it's neck, but it was really delicious.
I will try to get anothet entry in tomorrow. Some volunteers have lefted and three more have arrived. They seem very pleasant and will make the rest of our time enjoyable. I think that if we can have one of the cars, we will all drive down to Kisumu this weekend. It sits on Lake Victoria and is famous, for among other things, Hippo Point. You guessed it, a lot of hippos hang out there. I hope all is well wherever you are sitting and reading this.
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