Week 9... I think

Monday 13^th June

This last week has felt really productive with lots of progress on projects, in particular the pit latrine, which we finished block laying last Monday and have now moved onto the final stages of making it a proper toilet. Tuesday was mainly taken up by more concrete mixing (which has to be said is always the highlight of any working day!) in order to set the ceramic squat plates, which I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate further on the importance of said item. Once this was done  we headed off to lunch at the hostel, as always, for rice and beans and came back in the afternoon to put the roof trusses and then the actual roof sheeting in place which is very satisfying to see how close we are getting to providing the school with a new toilet block. We carried on working on the latrine on Wednesday also which was mainly making sure the doors fit the door frames and attaching hinges which would have been a bit tricky without Phillipo helping us out and showing us what to do in his ever patient manner especially when we got it wrong.

Boys and Girls Group up at Nyanbeshi Church went well with plenty of football but also some Bible focused time on the Parable of the Sower. Often at Boys and Girls Group we have children coming up to us with medical problems and this week was a prime example of how poor access to health is out here, as one boy had what we think was scabies or some other fungal infection on his hand. As is the case with so many children who have cuts or infections they have wood preserve put on the affected area in order to keep the flies off which solves one problem to cause another as the preserve only supposed to be handled with gloves on let alone placed on raw wounds. It made me realise just how important it is the work Go MAD has done on the health centre in Kamajoje providing health care at the local level for people with no access to transport.

Thursday’s progress on the pit latrine was to hammer all the mozzie mesh in place which is vital for keeping flies and mosquito’s out of the latrine in order to stop them breeding and spreading disease. Thursday afternoon was building the platform for our new Goat Shed for Edwardo which is always good to bash it together. Ella also arrived Thursday evening who is a second year nursing student and will be with us until the end of our trip and will also be working quite closely with Hezbon on all the outreach projects that he organises. I also had a haircut which was done with a beard trimmer and a pair of scissors by two members of the team that have never cut anyone’s hair before, so if you don’t recognise me when I get home then you know why!

Friday was yet more progress on the goat shed with sheeting and supports done. This weekend was mixed really with Tommy, one of the 6 month team, going home early which brought home the reality of how little time we have left here. It was Helena’s birthday yesterday so the whole team celebrated by going up Eagle Rock and watching the sun rise. The afternoon was yet more climbing, but this time up Kamajoje rocks which is where we went in our first week 2 months ago, and the view was incredible as the first time we went. This led to a lot of discussions within the team about how much we’ve all changed since being here. I also finally got a proper application for using the Masai knife I bought in town on some of the vegetation going up Kamajoje which was very satisfying.

I am also going to try and upload at least some pictures with this post, even if the internet doesn’t agree!