Day 30 Kakamega June 7, 2011

Greetings

Today Hezron and I went out to the orchard site to meet up with the widows.  We met with the Chairlady, Treasurer, and Secretary to discuss the progress to the site.  I really need to learn Swahili I stood there for at least 30 minutes while they talked and discussed the two issues that needed to be addressed before the next plowing.  Tomorrow the women will finish moving the red dirt out of the way and spread out some of the darker dirt over the plot.  On Thursday or Friday the ox and plow will be back to finish the second plowing.  Starting on Saturday going into Monday or Tuesday the women will work the soil to break up the clumps and get the rows ready to plant.  On Tuesday the women will start to dig the post holes and Mathew will come in to cut up the raw timber for the posts.  Hopefully by next Saturday the rows will be ready for the seedlings. 

Before we left Mrs. Omala prepared some sort of banana stew for Hezron and I.  One of her sons went out and picked a bunch of small green bananas.  She prepared them in some sort of a creamy lite tomato broth with some cut green and red stuff in it.  I was really surprised that these bananas tasted almost like potatoes.  They were not sweet at all and the consistency was as if you ate a piece of boiled potato before it was mashed.  It did not taste like banana at all.  I must say it was quite tasty.

Tomorrow I will spend the morning making some phone calls relating to the NGO’s here in Kenya hopefully finding someone we can partner with.  Late morning into the afternoon Hezron is going to take me to the Kakamega Forest National Reserve to have lunch and to tour Kenya’s last remaining indigenous tropical rain forest.  Here is a link from the Kenya Wildlife Service.

http://www.kws.org/parks/parks_reserves/KNFR.html

Afterwards we will head back over to the orchard site and check on the progress with the widows.  Hezron also has asked if I wanted to go and see the larger of the gold mines here in Kakamega.  I think before I leave here I do want to go and see.  I still have not decided if I am going to go down in one or not.  Last year three guys were killed in this mine from lack of air.  I have that problem already and I am not sure I care to chance it.  However I do think it would be pretty neat to go down in and check it out.  I might even be lucky to find a golden nugget.  I wonder if they would let me keep it.

Take care and God bless

Dave