Day 50 Maralal June 27, 2011

Greetings

This morning after breakfast Ken and I along with Kym went out to Lare-Oibor to visit the school site and kitchen that the construction team assisted with back in March.  It all looks very good.  The Chairman came by today to visit and expressed his thanks to all that helped make this happen for the children.  The children are now using the classrooms and the kitchen is in use.  However the children use the church benches for both seats and their desks to write on.  This morning we measured the benches and the children to get the measurements for the new desks.  A six foot long desk will hold up to 6 to 8 small children.  These kids are tiny.  Presently there are 187 children enrolled in the three classrooms.  Our plan is to make a total of 36 desks which should hold 6 small children comfortably for a total of 216 seats.  The Mama’s were not on the site so I did not get a chance to visit with them to ask about the use of the kitchen.  Here are some pictures of the school and kitchen.

Inside the new kitchen

New School at Lare-Oibor

Breezeway between Church and School

Some of the children in a classroom

New Kitchen at Lare-Oibor

Front of the new kitchen with vent doors

After we left the school site it was time to go into town and visit the Home Depot and Lowes.  Our first stop was at one of the local lumber yards to place the order for the table tops and bench seats.  We need a total of 864 feet of one by eights planed to perfection.  Those of you that are reading this and understand lumber here in Kenya can understand that this is going to be a minor miracle if the wood that we have ordered will be fabricated properly.  After the owner of the lumber agreed to our terms we then went to our favorite hardware store.  The desks will have a pipe frame support structure to give it some durability and stability.  This will also help keep the termites at the school site from devouring the new desks.  The local Home Depot has no problem getting us the elbows, tees, and pipe.  The problem today was the floor flange that is needed to attach the threaded pipe to the wood.  You would think that everyone working in the plumbing section at Home Depot knows what a flange is.  Well it comes to be that there is no translation for a flange in the Samburu language.  We told the lady at Home Depot we would bring her a picture of the part we needed and she can show it to her husband when he comes in.  We told her that we would be back later and then went to the local Lowes to see if they had the flange we needed.

The part with no name 

While at Lowes I noticed what looked like a flange.  It had the center hole that was threaded but did not have the 4 screw holes to secure it to the wood.  Also this flange was much bigger then we needed.  I asked the lady behind the counter what this item was called and she told me that it had no name.  There is an item in their store that has no name.  How can this be?  I asked her what people call it when they come in looking for it.  She told me that they do not call it anything they just come in point at it and say they want it.  Kym came back from the butcher and I asked him what this item was called.  He did not know what it is called either.  Well to make a long story short we went back to the ranch.  I got online searched for a picture of a flange.  Printed it out and took it back to Home Depot.  We have found the flange in Nairobi and should have it by the end of the week.  I still do not know what it is called here in Kenya.

Tomorrow morning Home Depot will deliver the pipe and fittings they have and we will start to build the frames for the desks.  The wood will be delivered later in the week.  It will take some time to cut all the pieces of the pipe and fabricate the frames.  The flanges are the last of the pipe work before we attach the frames to the desk tops and bench seats.    

Take care and God bless

Dave