Wonderful sleep, about 10 hours, must be the mountain air and the higher elevation (8000 ft).
First a simple breakfast, instant coffee and granola bar from home while I wrote in my journal in bed. Got ready to go see Catherine, quick peanut butter and jam sandwich for the road.
We walked down the road to find Catherine's new home. Interesting to see all the crops. Mostly cabbage. Catherine met us on the back road and showed us her humble home. It was clean with hard clay floors (like cement), 3 bedrooms, 1 sitting room and a cookhouse outside. The bathroom is an outhouse. Her beautiful daughter, Betty, is 16 and in Form 3. She is tall, and has a beautiful smile with really nice teeth (sometimes that is rare in Kenya). They were so happy to see Denise, tears started to flow as they thanked God for Denise and Terry who are helping them. They are a displaced family from the political problems last year. Had to leave their beautiful farm in the Rift Valley with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
We sat for Kenyan tea, bread and fried eggs. We discussed her story and she showed us pictures of her tractor, which was now burnt by those chasing her family from their home because they are Kikuyus. Her husband was at work today, and the other children at school. Betty had stayed home because she wanted to see Denise which meant extra work the next day to catch up. Catherine obviously had been better off before the almost Genocide, but because they had been chased from her home, they lost everything.
Terry, a friend of Denise's in Canada, has been assisting them somewhat finacially and Denise had come with some extra money from Terry to buy more items for the family. We decided that the family could use beds as they were sleeping on the cold floor. She also needed a pesticide sprayer for the crops. So we headed into the town of Mookayoo. (Not sure of the spelling though, about 1/2 hr away from Limuru). Wow what a dump of a town, dirt hole! We saw a carpenter about 2 bunkbeds ($9,000 or $130) and a double bed and a table. He said they would be ready in a day or 2!!!
Betty wanted to "sit" for a fanta (pop), so we found a cramped cafe for a 3 pops, a tea and 3 plain cake (160ksh or $2). We also went to the church where Denise had fed the IDP's and where she had met Catherine. We saw the clinic area and they were very broke too. We asked them to give us a quote of how much money they need monthly in case we can find a new donor in Canada. It is mostly for wages and to have a mobile service. Very needed to get Dr's and nurses out into the community to see HIV and other patients. They have an HIV testing lab there, Denise says people from the community don't go to it, they would travel to another town to find out and vice versa, don't want the town to know if they have HIV or not.
We picked up a few groceries for Nada's Mary (Nada is a lady that does work thru compassion Canada and helps to support this family) who was working on Tabatha's farm. She has 5 children Steven, Leah, Elliott, Moses and Kelvin. We gave her the items at the farm but carried it to her shack for her so other's didn't see that she was getting stuff. We brought colouring books and crayons for the kids and I gave Mary 1000 ksh (14 cdn) to get some medication for Kelvin (age 15) who has sinusitus and it is affecting his eyes. A nosey neighbour came by to see what "special" treatment we were giving her. Sad.
We then stopped at Denise's Mary to find her. She was home, children filthy, but the house that Denise had built looked good. Denise is worried because she keeps taking off to Nairobi and leaving her kids behind with her parents. We think she might have a new boyfriend.
Got back to the farm around 5:30 pm, had a one hour nap and then dinner. Hillie had arrived with John from the Hope orphanage. Sat up till 1130pm talking about her adventures with the orphans with Paul, Tabitha, and Denise.
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