(NOTE: It’s probably better to start with Part One below this post.)
Walking to and from town I must say hello or habari? (how are you? usually answered with nzuri – fine) 30 to 40 times. People, especially children, will stare until I great them and then they will smile and be on their way. Some of the children will follow along asking me about where I’m from or how old I am.
Other words I’ve learnt are asante (thank-you), karibu (your welcome), and hapana (no).
I’ve been told you don’t need an electrical license to do work here and one of the first things I did was install a surge protector at Familia Moja. Electrical brownouts and surges are common place. Originally only the fridge was protected by a plug in device. However, a few days before I arrived, a fault left the device and the outlet a blackened mess. The installation is much the same as ours with a meter and main switch leading to fuses for individual circuits.
On Sunday I was asked to attend church with the children. Kenyans are very religious and their homes have many images of Jesus, Mary, etc displayed. The church is a big building of rendered brick, wooden trusses and iron roof. It holds, at a rough guess, one thousand to fifteen hundred people. The whole service was in Swahili but a far as I recall, from the last time I went to church many years ago, it follows the same pattern as the catholic churches in Australia.
Walking home from church.
Walking home from church.
Some of the religious images displayed in the sitting room of the Muiru's.
On the walk back from church I met another Australian on the road. Lynna, a 27 year old nurse from Melbourne, had been volunteering at Thika hospital and had come with Wambui to visit Familia Moja. She will be in Thika for another two weeks so hopefully we have the chance to meet again as it’s was good to have a proper English conversation.
Yesterday (the 16th) was my first day at the polytechnic. I’ll be helping in the IT department to fill in my time as there is not much for me to do otherwise during the day. The polytechnic is in the centre of Mang’u village and is a compound with a large grass area and buildings consisting of roughly made concrete blocks and corrugated iron roofs. The IT room has five computer and eleven students. The teacher, Nicolas, is an easy going 29 year old from the Rift Valley. My role will be to teach students from other department basic computer use and word processing.
In the coming months I hope to go to Tanzania and Uganda to help on other projects. There has also been talk of a four day safari in the works. Until then I’ll be spending my time getting use to a hole in the ground for a toilet, washing from a bucket and spending lot of time with children.
