Visit in the country

Sitting at the cyber cafe again. These posts are shorter... maybe that's a good thing for you, I'm not sure. There's so much... Yesterday was a glorious run through busy streets, a quiet and cool forest, down quiet dirt roads and up, over and through freshly plowed (by hand) fields. Joined as always by cows, pigs, exotic birds, kids and even a nun -- smiling and calling out to her friends, "they are training me!" One of the Kenyans asked Terry, "Are you very late sir?... Why are you running." They find us quite amusing.

We had a chance to meet with Dorothy from the Care Centre yesterday at her home. She lives in a nice home in the country, about a 15 minute drive through quiet dirt roads. We sat and chatted about the suffering of Kenya. Especially the teachers strike which I have mentioned before. Again, teachers here make and average of 10,000Ksh per month, while MPs make 1.4 MILLION Ksh/month. I had heard the million figure before, but assumed it was per annum, not per month. She talked of the so called coalition government that was formed last year and the disappointment since. Seems the opposition are enjoying the good life now too and corruption is still rampant. Dorothy told us, "We don't mind being poor, we are used to it. We just want peace."

She told us once again how she built the Care Centre. The men thought she couldn't do it. But it is women that get things done here. One of the conditions for her funding through the Quaker church is that the centre be run by all women. African men have a bad reputation for squandering money. Dorothy was uncomfortable talking about this in front of her husband, but he was full of laughter and seemed very comfortable with it all. We took tea together, which is never just tea. Dorothy served us boiled bananas. Yup, boiled. They are a variety that is good boiled when green and eaten raw when ripe. They tasted just like a potato with butter, though they were just served plain after being boiled with salt. Very yummy. Just about everything served was from the farm; eggs, bananas (boiled and fresh), the milk for the chai was from their cows.

Ooops, gotta run. More later.