Sunday, February 7, 2010

Activities Update

This Saturday, I went with my coworkers to check on some of the church’s projects. We went to the Mennonite church in Segerea first, where we received funding for a project called Women and Water for Life. The funding is helping to pay for the drilling of a borehole so that the community can have access to clean, safe water. The plan is to have a group of women from the church be in charge of the water and sell it to their community.

We went next to the Mennonite church in Nyantira where there is a running program for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) on Saturdays. We peeked in their classroom, where the children are learning elementary skills as well as life skills. They also receive a meal if they attend the classes. We hope to be able to provide these kids with school materials (uniforms, notebooks, etc) so that they can go to school on a regular basis. During their break, we watched the boys play futbol while the girls busied themselves with a jump rope. Last June, a revolving loan program started for the women who are taking care of the OVC called VICOBA (Village Community Bank). This way, the women can take small loans in order to help them make an income, either by starting a business or improve an income generating activity that they already are involved in. They have weekly meetings on Tuesdays, so I hope to go to one of them so that I can learn more about this program.

In other news, my host dad hit a motorcycle and knocked two guys off it on Sunday. Luckily they weren’t hurt too bad—just some scraped knees and elbows, and of course a commotion. Drivers here are insane and the roads are crazy, but I still think India’s roads are worse. (Especially when you are riding in a speeding bus high up on a mountain-pass road in the fog with big construction trucks going to opposite way…)

The little dog at my house thinks I am it’s best friend because I feed it as much as possible (usually secretly, because my host family doesn’t feed the dogs—they just give scraps) and sometimes I purposely take a piece of meat that has a lot of fat on it so I can give it to the puppy. Everyday when I leave or come from the house, it gets so excited to see me. It even sneaks into the house when the door is left open and tries to come find me in my room! Except sometimes when it gets excited it pees, which isn’t so cute. The avocado tree in the front of the house is starting to bear fruit, so hopefully I’ll get to eat those soon. Unfortunately I think that mango season is nearing its end because the trees are starting to look emptier. But I will continue eating as many mangoes as possible, and drinking cold, fresh juice made from mangoes in our own yard everyday from a metal cup.
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