10-1-06
This section is about Sunday the 1st, it's the
morning of the 2nd.
Carol is a bit (and understandably) freaked. This little town is where she and Danny took a taxi, and the driver left them in the middle of nowhere (Njagga's paid the driver to do this). Then one other time, several men surrounded and threatened her here. Well, she had reason to be freaked, the lady serving her in the morning said "you're from the watering hole, aren't you?". Then another lady came to her later and said "you should not be here!". Also, she recognized one of the men that surrounded her, at another table, then he came and sat down at are table. We think somebody called Njagga, and told him to come and spy, so this is a reality, I believe this is actually serious, and she may be in danger, particularly when the court case comes around. If we were to loose Carol, things would never be the same. I've seen her in action now, and I believe she belongs to the great people of history, Mother Teresa, and many others. Carol knows what she is doing, and knows what works and what doesn't and communicates this to people firmly, and with great understanding. Carol has tried to make this so it will work without her, but I know of no one else that can pass this along with a strong hand as she does. Also, the love she has for her children is equal to that of any I've read about. She's also very humble, I was going to tell her what I was thinking, and she saw the conversation headed that way, and completely blocked it. I believe she's just doing what she is compelled to do because of her love.
Ok, well, We ran out of money, and there was no ATM in town, we're out of gas. They will simply not take American money. We have enough for some soda's and to fix the flat. Frederick pointlessly but wonderfully washes the car while we're waiting. Some folks help him. I take pictures of children, then show the picture to them on the screen, they absolutely laugh and laugh every time! We decide to go back to the safari (we stayed close to it last night, at a dive), but there is a real safari place nearby. Maybe they can change some of my American money. We walk in, what a contrast! All enclosed in gates with guards. Beautiful lawns, a truly beautiful place, and such a contrast to anything I've seen here so far, I'll bet there are chocolate mints on the pillows! Yes, they can rip us off with a bad exchange rate, and change some money. I did $100, thinking this would be enough. We go back to town, fill up the car, buy some water, and then head back to the orphanage. By now it's noon. We find that Frederick has already taken the Pokot sick back to Riongo, I'm really glad. We play with the orphans, and have fun. Then I'm discussing the water situation with the Riongo chief. He tells me each family uses about 30 liters of water per day, and there are about 500 families. This is distressing to me. I think I need a second opinion. That's 15,000 liters per day. If I use solar, that would be 1500 per hour for 10 hours, or 25 liters per minute. I'm pretty sure the pump capacity will not do this, but the big problem is that is only one community, what about the other by the watering hole? Double it? Not gonna happen.
After this, I joined a meeting with several people from the orphanage, and IHF. Here there is a serious problem, Yusuf has been "running" IHF, even though he had resigned the last time Carol was here. Yusuf is a good man, and would never steal, but he's a "politician", and uses his power with the church, to position people in IHF from his church, completely against IHF rules. So now there is a bunch of people (really great people) that are on the board, but have basically been appointed by Yusuf. So Carol has had enough, and uses the fact that Yusuf resigned last time, and then just appointed himself secretary again, and started running IHF, to say that really he is not on the board because nobody voted him back on. She was fearing mutiny because many (maybe all) of the people are going to his church. So now that Carol is insisting that Yusuf not run IHF, she is afraid other people will get mad and quit. Carol did a great job in discussing this, and I believe that she has the support she needs, and man if Yusuf starts running IHF again, this will truly be incredible. I'm still not sure it will not happen when Carol leaves again, but who knows. Christians rule here, and gives political power under the name of Jesus (more about this later). Now there is a danger that these people will "missionaryize" (Is that a new word?) the children. I expect they will, and this is truly one fear of the Pokot folks, who have really been mistreated by "Christians". The Pokot folk have their own traditional religious rituals, I'm not sure what they are, but I hate to see people tell other people that their spirituality isn't real because they aren't Christian (or whatever). Well, Carol couldn't have been more clear, and I hope things are better. Also, what I've heard Carol say is she hates politics that hurt the hungry children. It couldn't be more true.
Next, I want to go back to the well, and collect some data about volume of water. Frederick and Kachaya take me there. There are about 30 people waiting around for their turn to use the pump. There are two women "manning" the pump. I take a video of them. The are filling a 20 liter jug. They can't fill it so some boys take over. Now that is a laugh, the girls completely outdid the boys, wow! Anyway, they were able to fill the 20 liter bucket in 2.5 minutes, with some stopping in between. I'm encouraged with this volume, maybe I will be able to get enough for at least one community.
There is one person here, who is now a volunteer (I think they're going to vote him on staff today). His name is Kachaya. He was a Pokot orphan, and told me his story, how he worked so hard at school to get good grades, now he wants to help his people. Kachaya is a wonderful person, with great understanding and spirituality. He is a Christian, but a true "Christlike" Christian. We've both shared a lot of our stories, and he's a true friend now, with a lot of respect between us.
Now we try one last time to set up the scope for the kids. I can see the moon between the clouds, so I have hope. I put the scope together, and align it. Now I'm looking through clouds at the moon. Very disappointing, the clouds seem to be "distorting" clouds. Well, now the clouds completely block the moon. The children have been watching me and are very anxious to see. Finally we can see the moon again. I race over, get the 1st child in the line, and she's too short. By the time we come up with a stool, the clouds are back, but this time, they're really back, it's hopeless. We explain to the disappointed children, and I start putting the scope away. Now it starts raining, so we move all the parts inside, where I continue putting it away. Maybe better luck in Asia! While I'm putting it away, I feel very faint, and I think it's because I'm tired, and no food all day since breakfast. I find another power bar and share it with Carol, and I feel a bit better. We're almost out of water again, but we're on our way back to Nakuru, and we stop at the first town. I gave the rest of my money to Moses, because he had to take more children to the clinic. Kevin is one of them. He's the one that can name the 8 planets plus Pluto. He is sooo hot, must have malaria. It seems like an epidemic here. Anyway, we didn't have enough for a meal we bought soda and bread at the first town. I drank two large soda's just like that. I realize I must be dehydrated. We had given the water we purchased to the children earlier in the day for another reason, too long to write here, so we were skimping on water to make it through the day. Now I can make it to Nakuru. I slept like a log.
10-2-06 This section is about Monday the 2nd, it's the morning of the 3nd.
Yesterday was extremely busy. We had a meeting that was supposed to last 1 or 2 hours, which lasted about 12 altogether! I barely had 1 hour to make it to the Internet cafe! Anyway, I'm not going to bore you with details, it was about the Muhia case, and for the first time, there is some kind of a defense put together. All I can say is it's a good thing we didn't go through with this case last week. Many new things came out of our discussion, and it's now easy to see how Muhia planned this from the beginning!
There was also an IHF training meeting that I didn't attend (That's when I went to the I-Net cafe.
Wow a long day, but a short section!
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