Day 20 Kakamega May 28, 2011

Hi all

Today we were to meet with the widows again but something came up and only a very few of them showed up.  There was a guy next door to Pastor John Umala that died last night and he was still lying in his home for people to come and say goodbye.  John asked me if I wanted to go see but for some reason I could not think of why I would do that.  But thinking about it later I probably should have.  If I truly am looking to really dig deep and learn every thing about the Kenyan culture then I should of went.  Death is part of all cultures and during the meeting with the pastors, Liydia, Morris, Hezron, some of the widows and I at least I heard what death is like in Kenya.  I got a sense that the people in the room including myself were not that comfortable whenever someone came to pay the dead man a visit.  Even though he was next door next door was only a few feet away.  I guess I can understand why the widows did not want to come today.

We were able to spend some time discussing a little about the yogurt project and then we decided to bring passion fruit into the equation.  Liydia has all the information about the yogurt project but once the discussion changed to passion fruit she immediately felt that this would be a much better project for the widows.  Pastor John quickly donated a plot of land which is close to a ¼ acre for the widows to use.  Liydia tells me between the 40 or so widows more land can be gotten.  The widows that were in the room wanted to know when we could start plowing the land getting it ready for the orchard.  I told them that I would love to have the orchard planted within 4 weeks time if possible.  But first I want to make sure that the group as a whole agree to do it.  I asked the questions on how much money it would take to get the plot ready for the orchard and she told me that it would take about 2000 Ksh or about $25 to have someone come and plow the ground.  It would take another 25 Ksh per hole for the posts and I guestimated 121 posts or about $38.  The posts themselves are about 100 Ksh or about $150.  The passion fruit seedlings are about 25 Ksh each and I guestimate about 165 plants in this plot or about $50.  Costs of the chemicals, fertilizer, wire and perimeter fencing is unknown at this time.  If I had to guess this ¼ acre plot could be planted for somewhere between $300 and $400.  In six months time the harvesting of the fruit can begin and if the numbers are correct at about $500 per acre per month in income this plot can possibly generate up to $125 per month for 5 years.  With the average income in Kenya less then 2 dollars a day this is really good money on a small piece of land.  We will meet with the widows hopefully on Tuesday to discuss this.  If this is what they want to do then I told them we can start immediately preparing the land for the orchard.

On a side note Pastor John Omala is leaving for Nairobi tomorrow for his first trip to the states.  He his going for 2 weeks and will be attending a CFO Camp in Dayton, Tennessee from June 2^nd thru the 7^th.  John is so very excited and very anxious to be able to come to the states.  Please pray that he has a safe journey and that his trip is a memorable one.  As I said before I met Bishop Hezron at a CFO Camp at Messiah College back in 2008. Here is a link to CFO for those that have never heard of this organization.

http://www.cfointernational.org/

Tomorrow is off to Mt. Elgon to visit an area that Hezron has recently developed into his ministry.

Thanks and God bless

Dave