Wednesday 12/14/2011 - Njoro

Angie working with the kids in Njoro

Today was another wonderful day spent with the people of Njoro.  Our dinner last night was excellent at the conference center and we had another nice breakfast today.  The mornings here are beautiful! Sunny, but cool. The high elevation helps keep this area somewhat cool.  I got to talk to my wife which was very nice!  It was just nice to hear her voice.  The conversation was much shorter than I wanted, but calling from Kenya is extremely expensive!
We arrived again towards the end of the church service in Njoro.  The music they play is wonderful.  Very upbeat and spiritual and the people truly enjoy the worship service.

Man digging bathroom hole!

We learned how they build bathrooms here!  Of course, we knew the bathrooms out here are simply holes in the ground, but we had no idea how big and deep the holes are.  We saw a man digging a bathroom hole on the property adjacent to Pastor Hudson's property.  The pit is 9ft. by 3ft. and 45ft. deep!  When we saw the hole it was only 25ft. deep.  What makes this amazing is that the hole is dug by one man!  He uses a pick and a bucket with a rope.  He will shimmy down the pit, pick away at the clay, fill the bucket, shimmy up, pull up the bucket, dump the bucket, shimmy down, and finally repeat this process hundreds of times.  This job takes 2 weeks.  Once done, they will take the existing bathroom building and move it on top of the new hole.  The will fill the old hole (there will be about 4ft. left unused) with dirt.  What an amazing feat!

I got to spend quite a bit of time with the kids today playing all sorts of games.  They love to play follow the leader, simon says, and ring around the rosie.  I also learned they love to be chased, so I would walk for a bit, they would follow me, then I would turn and ROAR then chase them...this was their favorite game with me.  I enjoyed this alot!

Girl getting served some Kids Against Hunger Food!

Today the women prepared some of the Kids Against Hunger Food and served it to the children.  I was pleased to hear the women talk about how easy the food was to prepare and how much they liked it too!

After our time in Njoro today, we went to the market in Nakuru.  This was not as crazy as the Masai Market in Nairobi, but it was still pretty crazy.  There are no brokers in this market, but the booth dealers are very aggressive.  We were better prepared of course, because of our VAST experience as barterers in Nairobi.  This market was also smaller.  However, it was interesting to see other westerners there.  Nakuru is a safari resort area and thus typically has a fair number of Mzungu (white people) in town.  I was able to get a few things for my kids and picked up a Chelsea jersey for my son (only $1500 shillings! abt $18!).

We played some games this evening back at the conference center and were joined by Joseph, one of our security guards.  Tomorrow will be our last day in Njoro, then we leave for the Masai Mara for our safari.  I can't believe our time here is winding down!