Alex learns to count!!

1. Cooking Ugali
2. Elizabeth


















3. Mark, Myself, Alex, and Mr. Masango onthe first day in Margaret's home for the meeting.


The first day was just formality and meeting all the people. The second day Alex and I returned to the site to dig a massive hole. Mark stayed behind, Kenyan food was not settling too well with him.

On our arrival to the site, Morris, one of the locals, and a few other men are also there to help. Most of the women that were at the meeting the day before were again at Margaret’s house, and spent the entire day preparing food for the evening meal. I’m not sure what all preparing the food entailed, but I can tell you that those women sifted every single grain of rice to pick out the stones.

So, on this blazing hot winter day (we’re south of the equator), Alex, Khanjan, all the volunteers and myself begin to dig a massive hole. It is an extremely rocky hillside, this will be interesting.

Oh wait, did I say Khanjan? Alex, the volunteers, and myself begin to dig a massive hole. Khanjan helped the women sift through the rice.

I must give him credit though. He took some amazing photos of the whole windmill experience and I am very grateful.


Everyone was so excited on the first day. All of the women that had come to help with the meal began their day up where the hole was to be dug. They all wanted to help. We only had two shovels, so the day started by passing around the shovels so everyone got a stab at the annoyingly rocky hillside. The neighbor popped over and lent us two pick axes, which were most definitely helpful. The ax part of the tool fell off a few times, we just popped it back on and kept stabbing away.

There wasn’t a cloud in sky and it had to be in the 90s at least. Mr. Johnson (Margaret’s husband) kept coming up and offering more to drink for everyone. I must be honest though, I hot bottle of coca-classic doesn’t exactly clench one’s thirst in this weather.

I always had one out of politeness and tried desperately to decline anymore (which was very difficult when he was coming continuously all day). Though I must say, I quite missed black current Fanta (a delicious drink you can not get in America but I had England). And that surprisingly tastes lovely warm…

Eventually, digging a hole got boring, as things like that tend to do, and the women went back down the hill to the kitchen hut to prepare the food. All except for Elizabeth; the oldest woman there. Elizabeth looked anywhere from 70 to 80 yrs old, and probably weighed 110lbs. But man could she dig. She jumped into that hole and dug in turn with the rest of us. She was also very talkative. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite fluent in Luhya yet. I spent a lot of time that day smiling and looking around desperately for someone who could translate. She took a liking for Alex and sat him down, and using her fingers as a visual, Alex learned to count to ten. It was a big step for Alex and we are all very proud. From that day out Alex referred to Elizabeth as “apun” – teacher.

By the end of the day, and one massive hole later (about 6’x6’x5’), Tusker—or any COLD beverage for that matter—was all I could think about. Fortunately, for us, it got dark by 630 so our day couldn’t last too long. But first we had our rice, eggs, spinach, ugali and chipote (which is the most amazing sweet, thick, tortilla-like food I’ve ever had in my life). We dragged ourselves back to where the bus was stuck earlier and met up with Linos to take us home. Mark was on the bus, and was perky as can be. Apparently, he was feeling better now.

Back to the ole hippobuck hotel for some quality Tusker time!! Good night!