Watermelon

This afternoon the kitchen sent over a treat - watermelon! There's not much fruit to be had in Korr and it was a hot afternoon so I liked it a lot!

Praise the LORD, all nations!

Praise the LORD, all nations!
Extol Him, all peoples!
For great is his steadfast love towards us,
and the faithfulness of the LORD endures endures forever.
Praise the LORD!

Psalm 117

Cocoa, prayers and scorpion stings

Every Sunday evening us wazungus (white folk) meet to pray. At the moment there are just four of us and yet this has been a special time together. Last time, as we sat drinking cocoa, chatting about recent events and preparing to pray, the night guard brought in a local lad who had been stung on the hand by a scorpion. Nick and Lynne have a simple hand generator and electrodes are placed on the site of the sting and the point the poison has reached. The guard turns the handle and slowly the pain subsides. It is thought that the electric current denatures the protein in the poison. But  this wasn't the first time as a similar thing happened the previous Sunday evening when a lady was brought in having been stung on her foot. Scorpion stings are not uncommon and can be serious so this ‘treatment’ at Nick and Lynne’s may be life-saving. I have yet to see a scorpion so there's no photo of one, but below is the generator contraption. I wonder what will happen this Sunday evening!?

Water droplets in the desert

This picture was taken as the sun was going down. I think the way the late afternoon light is reflected by plastic bottles looks striking and, in some ways, like water droplets. There’s no formal waste disposal in this part of Kenya; most rubbish is burned and the remaining metal/glass is buried or left in piles of ash around the town. Other rubbish is blown by the wind until it is caught by trees and thorny scrub vegetation; ugly in the daytime but pretty at sundown.

                                    

Various visitors

For the first two weeks I was here I think the local wildlife was being kind to me. I didn’t see many small (or large) creepy crawlies other than bees and wasps in my room and the occasional small lizard. The wasps and bees are pretty big and noisy but I am told they are normally harmless.

It seems that at the weekend they decided I’d had long enough to settle in. Cockroaches, beetles and spiders have all been to introduce themselves and most have survived! The most annoying of my visitors are moths; I hate the way they flutter in the light of my head torch and bathe in my basin of water.

Yesterday the pigeon, who lives in the roof, got confused by the washing blowing in the wind. He flew into my room instead of this nest. Try as he (and I) might, he couldn’t find the door. Meanwhile, I noticed a large, furry spider like the one in the picture. I would normally politely ignore spiders but I have been warned about this one and told it is best to kill them. Once I had ‘dealt’ with Mr Spider I resorted to getting the night guard to help with Mr Pigeon (using the only bird-like word I know in Swahili or Rendille - chicken!) and he managed to catch it.

You’d think that word would get out that I don’t welcome visitors to my room? Well, apparently not! This morning Mr Spider’s brother was brave enough to put in an appearance – see him pictured on my pillow! He didn’t last long either! 

However, I have yet to see a scorpion, a snake, a hyena or a lion…perhaps they will be the next visitors!?

 

 

The singing wells

I walk past several wells on the way to town and school. Most now have concrete and brick surrounding walls and trough. I often see people collecting water and also watering camels. However, most Rendille warriors looking after the camels are very reluctant to allow photos to be taken of their camels. 

The other day, as I approached this well, I heard chanting coming from way down in the well. Turns out there were six men in the well, each above the other and braced against the walls of the well. They were singing to keep the rhythm of passing buckets of water up the well. The guy at the top emptied the bucket into a basin at the top which was then either put into the animal trough or emptied into containers.

The view from my desk

My classes were having start-of-term tests today and I so didn't actually teach. This meant that I was able to plan next week's  lessons in advance which is a rarity for me! Above is the view from my desk/classrooms. It reminds me that I am actually here!

Football

Lads playing football on the school field.

My first ride standing in the back of a pickup...

This afternoon I went out with Judy and some other Rendille evangelists to two go'obs. I rode there standing in the back of the pickup (see below) on a dirt track. After drinking chai in a min (one of the homes) I played games and sang some songs with some of the small children (the Okey Kokey went down well!). Then, in the shade of an acacia tree, Judy and her friends sang songs (wonderful Rendille tunes), shared stories from the Bible of God's love and forgiveness and prayed. I think I may have been more of a distraction so I held back at the second go'ob we visited! In the absence of trees they sheltered beside the truck.

 

Women and children were keen to hitch a lift in the pickup to the nearest water source. I counted at least 20 people (it was hard to count amongst the water containers whilst hanging on myself) squeezed on the back, along with the sticks to build one house! As we bounced along they soon started singing traditional songs with wonderful harmonies and leader/response parts. Combined with the tinkling of the women's head dresses it made an incredible sound!

My bedroom

This is my room, in a kind of prefabricated metal building with a concrete floor and corrugated iron roof. It is nice to have my own space. It is in a simple compound next to Nick and Lynne’s house. There is an outside toilet opposite and a shower with running water nearby.

Baking...and I made some cakes!

My first attempt at baking in Kenya...all-bran muffins in the stove-top oven. They went down well with our visitors!

First day of term

Me and another volunteer outside a classroom ready to issue text books on registration day.

Lessons start tomorrow after registration today. I'm going to be teaching Biology and English, as well as being school nurse/first aider. I am really enjoying the adventure and novelty of everything at the moment. I walked to school on my own this afternoon - an adventure in itself when there aren't roads, signs or normal landmarks. However, with a small detour I managed it: head towards 'town', go past the wells, cross the dried up river bed, up towards the town (a mixture of brick and concrete buildings and traditional huts), right past the mosque, line up the two hills on the horizon and towards the school compound. And along the way say hello (neebey) to locals dressed in traditional costume, children dressed in very little and school students! Takes about 20 mins!

Welcome to Korr!

 

Young herdsmen hurriedly cleared the dirt airstrip of their goats and sheep as the tiny six-seater MAF plane bumped to the ground. Children flocked round to see the plane. As I climbed out Nick and Lynne arrived in their well-used green Toyota pickup. They were here to meet me and drop off some other passengers who returning to Nairobi.

 

The plane soon left in a cloud of red dust and I'm left in the middle of nowhere. No roads. No street lights. No mobile reception. No proper shops. We have internet via satellite, solar electricity and an outhouse with pit latrine. The shower now has running water, only recently installed. Water from a borehole is pumped, using solar energy, up to a tank on a nearby hill. this creates the pressure in the taps and shower. By the afternoon the water is nicely heated by the sun so you can get a warm shower, a real blessing when it's so hot, dry and dusty.

 

I am living in a two-roomed prefabricated building next to Nick and Lynne's house and to start with will eat my meals with them. They have been very welcoming and have already shared some fascinating stories of their 30 years living here and the work of which they have been a key part.

I went to church this morning. Much of the meeting was in Rendille and the songs were in a traditional style, often unaccompanied. I quickly picked up the words for God and Jesus and was excited to see that, whilst the style of service is different to UK church, we all worship the same loving creator God who loves the everyone in the world so much that he sent Jesus to earth so that whoever believes in him can have eternal life. I am part of God's worldwide family!

Term starts this week here as well as in the UK and I'll find out what I'm going to be teaching. It looks likely that I'll be teaching a fair amount of English. There'll be lots of differences between Tirrim Secondary School and LCHS but I think I'll save that for a different post!