Part III of the Final Day - 2 June 2007

Eventually we continued on our daily journey to Margaret’s, and surprisingly didn’t even get stuck in the mud from yesterday’s rain.

On arrival at Margaret’s there was we were introduced to a newcomer. A ram. A ram that knew exactly why he was there and was fighting with all his might to release himself from the rope tying him to the tree. After the reverend led us in the daily prayer, Mr. Johnson took his mashetti, untied the ram from the tree, and took the unwilling Ram into the trees. Mark, Alex, Duan and Jason followed suit. They all wanted to see the sacrifice. Myself and Khanjan were not so keen and so we headed up to the windmill to begin work. .

Once the ram was taken care of, the women took it into the kitchen hut to begin preparing it. The ram would be cooked and eaten for dinner that night--and when I say the are going to cook the ram, I mean they are going to cook the ENTIRE ram. I’m in Kenya, they can’t afford to waste parts, and they didn’t, trust me.

Meanwhile, everyone else headed to the top of the hill to finish up. The windmill would be complete in a few hours and we were all anxious to see the finished product. The remaining construction went off without a hitch. The inner tower was erected, the generator, blades and tail hoisted up by rope to Davis and Morgan (the Craftskills guys) and assembled at the top.

About mid afternoon, while Davis and Morgan were tweeking the windmill, I snuck away with Sweety, one of Margaret’s daughters. Sweety wanted to show me what she does about two or three days a week as soon as she gets home from school. We walked about a mile to the mill, which in reality was just another person’s home with a mill on the side, to get cornflower for the Ugali. We stopped at the water pump, but it was a Sunday, and the pump is locked on Sundays. I assume because Sunday is God’s day and should be a day of rest, but I can’t tell you for sure. I’ve come to learn that asking “why” in Africa is pointless. Rules and guidelines are made up with no apparent reasoning here, and they change without a moments notice. Asking questions will not bring answers so I’ve learned to just accept things as they are. During our trip, Sweety stopped to chat with some of her neighbors. I could see the woman’s children in the background, staring at me from a safe distance. I smiled and waved. They had been caught in the act, and blushed expressions showed it. Then they slowly approached Sweety and asked her in Luo if I could take a picture of them. I did, and showed it to them on my digital camera. Polaroid cameras may be an item of the past, but at that moment, I really regretted not having one. What good would my digital do? I couldn’t even print digital photos anywhere except the major cities (Nairobi, Mombasa or Kisumu). Nevertheless, showing them the picture on my camera seemed good enough for them. They all bravely put their hand out and I shook each one before Sweety and I continued on back to her family’s home.

By the time we got back to Margaret’s Mr. Masango had begun his “success” speech. I quietly sat down next Duan and we both tried to get some shade off of the 3 foot next to us. Mr. Masango spoke in English for our benefit and the reverend/secretary/translator translated for the locals.

I had imagined this magnificent scene that comprised of a windmill going full force in the background as Mr. Masango gave his motivational speech on how everyone must work together and will work together for the better of the community. I envisioned a great energy would surge through the audience and all the villagers would band together and cheer.

Never imagine such things ahead of time. To everyone’s dismay, the wind hadn’t picked up yet so the windmill was sitting on the top of the hill, idle. And as far as the speech, it was too hot to even pay attention. And looking around at the expressions on the face of his audience, they clearly felt the same way. About 40 minutes in, I realized Mr. Masango wasn’t even going to repeat the JFK speech again. The heat was getting the better of me, so I snuck back down the hill to the house and relief in the shade. Mark and Alex were already down there. We all decided that we knew what Mr. Masango was telling him—we’re the ones that had explained the mission to him after all, so our absence wouldn’t be seen as rude.

Finally, Mr Masango ran out of things to say (somehow), and people started to trickle back down the hill.

Then, the gust of wind we needed came and the windmill picked up and didn’t stop. Everyone stopped and just stared quietly. It was a beautiful site; the last few weeks of frustrations and hardships had finally paid off.

Well, almost. Later that evening, the men were testing the cut-off speed—which means that once the wind reaches a certain speed, it trips a circuit and slows the windmill back down (or something like that, I’m not an electrical engineer)—and they burnt something out permanently. So, the entire generator, blades and tail went were disassembled and packed to returned to Nairobi to get fixed. Dave and Morgan would return the following week with the fixed pieces. And they did, and the windmill is still up and running today.

Part II of the Final Day - 2 June 2007

Stop two – 9:55 am
There have been many bumps, potholes, even craters along the way. There have been doubts and plain misbelieve. Yet, my friends, the tower is up! Well, almost. The 3ft by 3ft structure and the columns to the inner tower that protrude out an extra 5 feet are erected. We’re on our last stretch, the air is light and the built up stress from the project seems to have lifted on our final trip to Margaret’s.

Of course, we make our routine stop at Olary to pick up some of the volunteers. But today is different. Today we aren’t just picking up Elizabeth and Gori and whomever else, instead, there is a heartfelt purpose. I don’t remember the orphan’s name, but I remember his story and I remember what happened on this particular day. And the story needs to be told:

Jason and the boy:

No one knows the exact age of when this boy came to be an orphan, but it was somewhere around the age of 3 or 4. He’s about 9 or 10 now. The people of the village, who also have next to nothing, have taken it upon themselves to help him out. Even Margaret, who is not from this village, gives the boy some change or food on her visits.

On this particular day, Jason got off the bus with a new t-shirt for the boy. As Jason approached, the boy retreated behind one of the nearby woman. Jason tried to give him the new shirt, but the boy didn’t know how to react to this strange mzungo giving something specifically to him. So the woman took the shirt and said she would give it to the boy. Jason returned to the bus and waited. Once Jason was clearly away from the scene, the boy placed his hands at the bottom corners of his own shirt to examine it. The worn in, mud stained shirt may have been white – once upon a time. This was probably the only shirt the boy owned-it certainly looked about 100 years old and clearly had never been washed. The woman stepped forward and helped him take off the rag and replaced it with his new, bleach white shirt. Ok, it was a little big, but the boy didn’t even notice. Any anticipation he might have felt instantly melted away and was replaced with the most magnificent smile I’ve ever seen. The look of pride on his face would bring a knot to anyone’s throat that was witnessing, and it did. Jason’s face lit up as well and he carefully got back off the bus and approached the boy again. This time, he did not run away, instead he shyly walked up to Jason and put out his hand. Jason shook it firmly and smiled. Only a smile and a nod came from the boy, but that was all that was needed. His gratitude was written from ear to ear.

As this point I lifted my eyes off the two for the first time to see that everyone in the immediate area had stopped what they were doing and were smiling just as wide at the boy. In turn, everyone approached the boy to congratulate him with a high-five, a pat on the back, and genuine praise. The boy then took off around the square, tugging at his new shirt so that everyone could see. His feet never touch the ground as he glided through the village. I can not say enough to describe the beauty of this scene, and I doubt a single person reading this blog has, no matter how excited you have ever been over a gift, has ever felt the way that boy did at the moment – over a t-shirt. This boy re-defined gratitude, and I can only pray that one day I can feel that happy about something.

2 June 2007

View from the top of the tower-- amazing, eh?

Morgan and Davies putting the windmill on the tower

“Tower is up!”

Part I of the Final Day
At promptly 7am we all met for breakfast, as usual. Just toast and a bit of pineapple today—best not risk filling my system with too much this early on, this is too big of a day to gamble with my digestive tract.

We told Linos to pick us up at 7:30; which is why we planned for 8:00, so you can imagine our surprise when the bus pulled in at 7:30 on the nose.

Jason busted out the football he had brought over for the local kids, and so Alex, Jason and I tossed it around the front lawn while waiting for the others to finish getting ready. Not that I am any good at tossing a football, but it was nice feeling to just be a bunch of 20 some year old folks again rather than 20 some year old folks that are 1000’s of miles from home, in an impoverished country, building a windmill by hand merely to charge 12V batteries.

Finally, we all pack on the bus and head to Homabay for some very last minute hole drilling before we go to site for the last time. Prior to reaching the welding shop, the bus stops early to drop Khanjan, Alex and Mark off so they can do electrical/wiring stuff. Mr. Masango hops off to get his daily paper. Mr. Masango opens the door, and begins to step onto the bus but before he can even put his foot on the step, the bus lurches forward. Linos takes off, leaving Mr. Masango, in his suit and tie, wide eyed and jaw dropped to the dirt road. No one on the bus could control their laughter while Linos has absolutely no idea what he just did. (You may not be lauging and can’t figure out why this was so funny. I guess it’s more of an inside joke. You need to understand how “proper” Mr. Masango presented himself, and the fact that it was him Linos left in the dust, made the entire scene an absolute delight!) It was going to be a good day…

Tower goes up!

Alex directing Jason and Duan constructing the first section

Up...

Up...

Keep it coming...

Today is a Saturday which means no school, so the crowd is bigger than ever.

It takes two days to get the tower up. We start from the bottom (obviously) and build section by section. Once the first section was up, Jason climbed onto the horizontal bracing that would be the bottom of the second section, Duan took his spot on the first section and we carried on. The chain reaction continued until Jason was on the top (fourth) section, Duan on the next, then Alex, then Mark. I offered my assistance from the ground. I’m scared of heights, leave me alone.

Piece by piece, the steel angles came together.

About mid afternoon on the first day, young Elizabeth came up with hard boil eggs and salt for a lunch (and warm soda, of course). Eggs have never tasted so good. No one had the energy to climb down either, so we tossed the eggs up 30 ft to Jason and Duan at the top. Then Khanjan felt confident and gave the salt shaker a go. The end result: a shattered saltshaker that belonged to a family who lived off a $1 a day; whose wall clock had probably said 10:37 for years since they didn’t even have money to purchase AA batteries. Who woulda thought one could feel so much guilt over a saltshaker.

As I might have explained before, the tower was 3’ x 3’ with an 18” x 18” smaller tower protruding out (see photos). We worked until it was nearly dark again, and the clouds for the 630 showers started rolling in. None of us want to quit, as the tower finally had substance, the adrenaline of it all was stronger than ever. However, standing on a 30ft metal tower, in the middle of nowhere, on top of the highest hill didn’t sound like the smartest idea when lightning and thunder was nearing by the second.

By the time we had our dinner it was pitch black and the first drops of the evening rains were beginning to fall. A whole lot of good my raincoat did sitting back at the hotel! Needless to say, the long walk back to the bus was muddy and drenching, but it was a beautiful evening and the day felt like our first TRULY successful day, so I don’t think anyone minded the walk. If anything, we all welcomed the cool summer shower, washing away a hard day’s sweat.

There must have been at least 20 children ranging from 2 to 13 by the end of the day. Therefore, our usual handful of handful of children that followed us back to the bus and chased it down the road for almost a mile, we had over a dozen. And just like in any group, there’s always that one that just won’t give up. In this case, it was a young boy of probably 8 or 9, and was determined to stay with the bus as long as far as he could muster. And I mean, quite literally STAY with the bus.

That boy grabbed onto the rim above the tire, raised his knees to his chest and held on for the ride! Remember, this isn’t a smooth road. In fact, we’re not even on a road. This is a field, a very muddy field that we almost got stuck in on more than once that night. We’d get to a narrow stretch, too narrow for even the bus to get through without the branches and bushes scraping along the side, and the boy would jump off. Or so we thought. Low and behold, as soon as we got into a clearing he was back again—holding onto that rim! Gone again, back again! We couldn’t lose him or shake him off. My God, we are going to be known as the students who got an innocent African boy killed by a school bus… (Don’t worry, nothing ever happened, eventually the brush got the better of him and he gave up).

Tomorrow, the windmill will be complete. The inner tower will go up, followed by the generator, blades and tail. Everyone in the village will be coming and maybe even the chief. Mr. Masango will give his big “success” speech again and will re-iterate to the village how the business-side of the windmill wil work. Tomorrow is the grand finale, and I only pray everything goes according to plan.

But for now, time for some much needed Tuskerrrrrrrrrr!!!

1 June 2007 - “Life as a Kenyan” - Part II

About a quarter of the bus unloaded, and the locals there to help carry.

Morris carrying steel to the site

Alex bending over...

Right, so off to the site we go. On the way, we make our daily stops to pick up Morris and Elizabeth and any other volunteer that live in the town just before Kochia. On this particular day, Margaret has already ventured in O’Lary (I have absolutely NO IDEA how to spell any of these village names…). Today is a big day. Margaret will be taking us to meet the Chief!! We need to meet the chief of the tribe and get his blessing, she says. So we detour to the ‘market’ (aka cluster of huts and shacks about 20 minutes out of the way). We get off the bus and proceed to walk another 10 minutes to the Chief’s hut. He’s out. We are asked to come back another day.

We dredge on.

As usual, we need to stop the bus about 3 or 4 km from Margaret’s since the ground too muddy to go any further. We unload the steel, all the tools, batteries, blades, generator, tail, boxes of books, and the 5 crates of pop Margaret had picked up at the market (see photo). It was going to be a loooong walk. Fortunately, the small crowd of very excited children and other locals that appeared everyday as we arrived, were back today. They were eager to help in anyway and were grabbing all the supplies as soon as they were taken off the bus and heading to Margaret’s. I started with two buckets; one in each hand. The buckets were full of bolts, tools, a gallon of water, etc. Then Margaret stopped me. She had one bucket that was slightly lighter so told me to take that. She took the two that were full, double stacked them, and popped them on her head. Then she reached for a third and put it on mine. The fourth she carried. Man, Kenyans have strong heads and necks. I looked around and the 5 or so children that had appeared out of the woodwork, we’re all carrying 2 or 3 pieces of steel on their head. Some not even 10 yrs old. I made it about 1km before a 90 lb, 14 yr old laughed and insisted I take the bucket off my head. (Ok, I lied, I didn’t even make it a kilometer.) She traded me a 5-liter water, placed the bucket on her own head and took off. I got showed up by a 14 yr old girl. Note to self: must practice carrying heavy objects on my head.

Khanjan and his freakishly fast pace, (he’s that guy that forces you to speed walk with random jog-steps thrown in to keep up with his normal pace. For a man who despises physical labor, he knows how to get places – and quickly)…. Khanjan and his freakishly fast pace somehow beat everyone to the top. I know that really has nothing to with anything, but we were all shocked he beat us and so I had to point it out. Granted, he was carrying a battery, so the 90lb 14 year old girl beats him too…

So anyways, about midday, with the sun at its hottest, we finally began to prepare the steel. The steel wasn’t galvanized, and so it needed to be scraped of all present rust (which was a heck of a lot to be modest), primed, and painted to prevent rusting. There were 4 to 6 volunteers to help so things went much better and by 6pm, the last coat of paint was on. All the volunteers were very helpful. We even had a one-legged guy named Jared who probably worked harder than all of the rest. He stood and leaned on his crutch and never took a single break the entire day. We were a brush or two short so everyone else was alternating, but he never stopped. And I can’t even imagine how long it took him to get to Margaret’s- if you haven’t figured this out from the photos, her house isn’t exactly near anything. Furthermore, I remember meeting him on the first day, and that was back in the village O’Lary, about 3 to 5km away.

Oh yeah, at the start of the day, Jason started steel brushing one of the columns and realized that there were a few holes that weren’t drilled…to be specific, the 48 holes that connected the four columns to the foundation columns somehow got forgotten. Needless to say, Jason spent the entire day hanging out at the welding/drilling shop in Homabay, which isn’t a bad trade-off when the other option was being out in the scorching sun with us.


I'd also like to take a moment and make a point. Back in Americana, right before the trip, Alex, Mark, Khanjan, and myself made a walmart trip to pick up any supplie we didnt think we'd find in Kenya. Plastic ties were on that list. I really wanted to get the colored ties, as color always helps in organization. The "boys" all agreed, but kind of looked at me as "the girl who wanted them because they were pretty." The tower pieces had an ABCD scheme to it so we knew where and how it got bolted together. It was all marked with permanent marker. WELL, explain to me how you are going to know what holes match up when the label is painted over? Oh that's right, you can't! But thanks to "wanting the colorful ties because they are pretty" we now had a pink, orange, yellow, and white plastic tie to hook onto each drill hole to correspond with A B C D. Go ahead, you can pat me on the back.


Fish for dinner!!
We finished painting just as it got dark. We cleaned our hands with turpentine as best we could – as that was the only cleaner available (which, for you painters out there, know that it burns like hell when you have cuts on your hands…which we all did), then tried to rinse it with soap and water. Then wiped our hands on our greased up/muddied up/paint covered top, and proceeded inside to eat dinner with our hands.

I think it was a good thing it gets dark so early when you’re on the equator. The fish tasted great, but I’m glad I didn’t have to see it. We only had the lantern to eat by and that was just enough to see you had something in front of you, something that was still hole with scales, fins, eyeballs…the works. Duan ate an eye ball. Well done him.


Tomorrow, we build!!

“Life as a Kenyan” - Part I - 1 June 2007

A little help to get the aggregate and sand to site

The drill/welding shop in Homabay

(above and below)

Homabay

The supermarket (Homabay)

1 June 2007

Oh the joy of the Kenyan countryside. Today began much as the days before. Wake up at 7am. Spanish omelet, toast, generic English sausage (if you’ve never had English sausage before, don’t lose sleep over it), pineapple, and tea; a very KENYAN meal—and I mean that with absolute sincerity. I also mean it when I say that I just completely lied to you; I just had tea – Kenyan fine dining at Margaret’s was starting to effect me in ways that I prefer to not discuss on a public blog.

The bus is scheduled to pick us up arrive promptly at 8am.

8:40am, Linos drives up and we all hop onto the bus.

Jason and Duan are already in town. They headed down to the welder at 630am to meet with the town’s welder when he opened—so that they could get everything finished by the time the bus got there.

Yeah, there was a power outage in Homabay. Even though village is hooked up to the grid that by no means guarantees anything, and this certainly was not the first outage this week.

No worries though, it eventually came back on and the welding was finished promptly (about 11:30am).

It makes me feel so safe when I see the cord run across the street, through the mud, with the end stripped, as it was in the Nairobi shop, so to fit directly into the three prong outlet. Not to mention their plastic sunglasses for eye protection...um…yeah…

While we waited for the welding to finish, Mark and I headed over to the internet café to let our parents know we were still alive. Hi mom! Then, I took my first solo venture through Homabay to get buckets to finish up the foundation. “Where is the best place to look for them?” I asked Khanjan. Go to the supermarket next to Platel’s. Yes, we are on a first name basis with shop-keepers in Homabay…

Granted, Homabay is pretty much a square, so you really have to try to get lost, but I was still impressed at my ability to get to the store without any problems. I’ve even gotten used to the way that everyone blatantly stares at you as you walk past; apparently my tan isn’t helping me blend in… So I got the buckets, no problem. On the way back, I passed the butcher stand to see that most of the full cow from the day before was still hanging out in the window, raw as ever. My thought on the cow continued as I strolled along street, so you can imagine how caught off guard when an abrupt stench stopped me in my tracks as I held back a gag. Oh god, before I even looked up to where the vomit like smell was coming from I knew… there was no where else in the village that could possibly reciprocate this odar...the chicken coop. I’m in Kenya…

31 May 2007

Craftskills guys – Davies and Morgan had planned to come from Nairobi once the structure was up, so they could help us to properly install the generator, blades and tail. However, since we were slightly behind schedule, they arrived the day after alex and I had finished with the enormous hole (good timing eh)? They took a Matatu – 14 passenger vans used for a bus service through the country – vans that love to fly over the crater potholes I told you about - to Homabay The trip should only take about 6hrs on a matatu, versus the 12 hrs it took us on the school bus. Unless, of course your particular matatu decided to overtake a truck on a bridge that wasn’t wide enough and get stuck. It took Davies and Morgan 13 hrs to get to Homabay – they win.

Davies and Morgan arrived the day on time to lay the foundation. Good thing they did too. Alex, Mark, Duan and Jason all stayed behind at the hippobuck to pre-assemble the tower (which must have been a site for the other guests to see a 30 ft steel tower laying across the lawn and 4 white people, with white shirts gone black with grease and dirt working on it each day). As I believe I’ve explained before, Davies and Morgan are from Craftskills – a small company based out of Nairobi that build windmills in and around Kenya for small villages. They both speak English (huge plus!) but neither spoke Luo (not such a plus). Fortunately, everyone in Kenya speaks kiswhili. Hakuna matata!! Via kiswhili, I had a translator for the day!! The foundation consisted of first filling the bottom with large rocks to help with settlement of the ground. Then we placed the first section of the tower into the hole, leveled it perfectly and tightened everything up. Once everything was in place, the concrete was poured and the tower leveled again. Morgan and Davies without a doubt made this job a 1000 times easier, so I need to take a moment and thank them.

In order to get the concrete materials to the site (water, sand, aggregate, and cement), they were brought up the hill by children on bicycles and donkeys. I’m in Kenya…

Mr. Johnson and Morris over saw the concrete mixing, which was done by guest-imating the proportions of water/aggregate/cement/sand ratio and mixing it with a shovel in a large pile, on the ground. Barefooted. When the concrete was poured, the I turned to barefooted Morris and suggested he wash his feet off as soon as possible. We finished just enough time to beat out the daily 6:30pm rain.