The Last Day In September

09/30/05

It was an amazing sunrise; I watched it through my window in a hazy half sleep. I pulled myself out of bed (that fan is a life saver) around 6:30am, and jogged up into the hills. Through the tiny, dense, rocky footpaths, the sun barely peeking out from behind the tall sugar cane stalks. Past an abandoned gold mine, past two young guys tilling an acre (two bulls bridled in front of a steel plow, each boy with a whip.) Past a woman breaking the ground in her shamba with a jembe. I ran for an hour. It felt great, and made my bucket shower and mashed bananas that much better.

Ugh. Daniel walks in. "You have had breakfast!" I am right in the middle of it. "I'm working on it." "Hmmmm." He puts an awkward, freezing cold hand on my bare shoulder and quickly removes it. "I need one twenty. One hundred and twenty." "For what?" "I need to take a journey somewhere." He needs to drink. This is the most he's asked for. "I'm not sure I have that much." Its only $1.60, and what I am implying is that I don't have that much for him. "Then give me what you have." I told him I would meet him up at the house. So obnoxious. Though, I can't help but still feel empathy for the guy. I'll give him 100/=. Let the guy get a damn beer.

I hiked up to our newly purchased sugar cane farm, we have a group of PLWHAs and widows weeding it today. We organized their (porridge) lunch with a mama nearby, and I left Mzee Elisha and Shikuku to handle the rest. On the way back I met with Mr. Benson, the agriculture teacher at Kanga Secondary. I met him last night at the Kaundh's, and enrolled him in teaching some basic farming skills to the OVCs in our program, reminding him that some of those kids would never make it to his class (for a lack of fees.) He readily agreed, and also asked me to come by and look at his welding shop. I went by, and we negotiated how it would be possible to get an OVC apprenticing there with him. We need more craftsmen like him on our team.

Robert got a call from Peter, the kid at the bank opening our account, informing him that he forgot to give us a form to fill out. Robert has to go to Kisii, get the form, bring it here, get Mama and Shikuku to sign it, and bring it back. I am annoyed, but what can I do.

I interviewed Blue, it was funny. 'Youth perspective.' He talked about the conundrum of being in a bar, a few drinks under, seeing a girl in a miniskirt, buying her a couple drinks, getting her out to a tree, and not having a condom.

I just called this guy Adam, he was the leader of some project that was based in Kisii this summer, I met one of the girls on the project and she gave me his number. I don't know why I never called him, it would've been nice to grab a drink with a fellow mzungu. He's back in Nairobi now, but said he comes to Kisii all the time. I actually called because the girl explained that the program was something about buying books for schools, and I want to find out more about it, see if we cant get some good English books up at the workshop for the tutoring sessions.

Robert came back from Kisii and we went over the long list of things I hope get done while I'm away. The group is going to finish the coup on Sunday, buy 10 local layers and 50 one-day-old cocks and enough food to start raising them. They are going to bargain for two more acres of sugar cane. They are going to organize all of the OVCs that need sponsorship for their school fees etc, so when I get back I can get the directory made quickly. They are going to make more bricks so we can finish the room that is going to be used for counseling. They are going to organize more people for me to interview.

Sabbath was hilarious. It\'s Mama, Daniel, Tina, and Blue. Othiees is somewhere else. This is somehow the first time I\'ve celebrated sabbath with Blue. I\'m pretty sure he was stoned. He sang in this little eunich voice, I stuck an octave below with Daniel and tried to sing along. We were sitting next to each other, sharing the hymn book, and we were both on the verge of laughing the entire time. And feeding off that energy from each other, which only made it worse. And Mama and Daniel and Tina are all obliviously singing away... Very funny.

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