Meru and Victory Academy

These are in random order, but I will try to keep things logical.  This is just a sign that is typically Kenyan, perhaps African.  God is everywhere, including in "butchery"!  And, I might add, corruption...

We went from Nairobi to a small town outside of Meru, and this is Mama Diane, whose name I learned later is Rosemary.  Here we are taking a LONG walk to a town about 2 or 3 miles away, all on this knotty dirt road.  Rosemary got tired only for about a 15 second break and then just kept on trucking.  The next morning she was up at dawn to walk the 8 and a half liters of milk up to the dairy.

This is the way ALL the women do tasks whether they be chopping, washing, cooking or baking.  Here we are making chapatis, which I will happily make for anyone when I return in one piece, probably fatter from lack of exercise and intake of leaden chapatis!

This is the consummate grandmother, Mama Diane, with her grandson; she has both a grandson and granddaughter who live with her, both of whom seem to scream for her to pick them up perpetually.  Such a bosom makes for comfort!

Because I am no longer teacher and want to grow things, I feel belonging to the Kenya Farmers Association Limited is probably the way to go.

These two are returning from school and are runners.  They train at altitude in bare feet.

After a 4 hour church service during which I was asked to "make an offering," which has nothing to do with money and everything to do with standing in front of a sea of beaming black faces and speaking.  It was at once exhilarating and terrifying, but they were all so delightfully friendly that it was a piece of cake.  Before easily 300 people, I was introduced as the "one white person in our church today..."  So much for political correctness!  This is a photo of Rosemary and her best friend, Jane, with whom we laughed and laughed on the way home from church.  I love the orange girls against the orange wall.

At Victory Academy, 8:00 Assembly involves raising the flag and songs with clapping.  These are some of the dear little children who sang.

For those of you who saw my TWO pea plants and/or witnessed my first "harvest" of exactly THREE peas, you can appreciate my awe at Mama Diane's garden of peas that she sells for export to the U.S. for 75 Kenyan shillings per kilo, a good crop considering cabbages only get 10 shillings when sold. 

During church there was a sort of auction, during which one man bid on this enormous piece of sugar cane that he announced he was giving to me; of course, I had to haul the sucker home.

Later that same afternoon we went to visit a neighbor who also chopped down sugar cane as a present, and this time, I had to trudge home with TWO long stalks of sugar cane.  We gobbled them right up.

Finally, Mama Diane and I walked to Jane's farm where she, too, had cows and loads of vegetables. I feel so inspired, not to buy land or a house in Kenya (my children would be glad!), but to work within the confines of my own space.  Goodby Mama Diane, friend Jane, husband Julius and ALL the children and grands and students of Victory Academy!  Onto Nanyuki.