Fred and Students in Classroom

Today I hopped on the back of the motorbike and headed to see the kids at our preschool – Esarunoto.  There are 91 students in four classrooms.  It was great to see the kids and teachers again.  I also walked over to the manyatta to greet some of the women who are eager to begin beadwork once again.  Hopefully we can find the right products and the right market for them to be successful.  Fred took me to see the goats we bought last year.  All are well and many are ready to give birth.  He has branded them all so that they are not absorbed into the men’s herds and can truly be used to support the women, the children and their education. The project seems to be successful although we have 35 more goats to purchase but right now the grass is green and the price of goats is high.

Ed and Daniel in Classroom

I met with Daniel, Fred’s older brother and seemingly the head of the family.  Daniel is the chair of the Education Committee.  We will have a formal meeting on Thursday with updates and concerns.  So, after visiting, I joined Mwololo on the back of the motorbike and Daniel hopped on behind me.  The bike was truly built for two but – TIA.  We went to the store, the ATM and then back to my room to type and copy the February exam for the adult education classes.  It’s a simple A,B,C and number recognition test.

Tomorrow we visit St. Timothy School in the nearby slum.  Hoping there is no big production, songs, hoopla for the white guy’s visit.  There are now close to 150 students in the school and we provide porridge and lunch.

Interested in what I eat?  Some have asked.  Here are some highlights.

Saturday – to celebrate my return, Benson and I bought minced meat! We cooked it with onions and tomatoes and put it over pasta.  Drank water with Quencher added to it. (mango flavored syrup).

Sunday – Starbucks coffee (thanks Karen and Kathy) Benson drank it and was hyper all day.  Ate the left over meat and pasta (fine art of deciding when it has gone bad – no refridge) PB&J. For dinner, lentils and tomatoes over rice and Quencher.

Monday – morning – left over lentils and rice, PB&J.  Bread and butter. Water

Tuesday – Eggs, Ramon noodles. For dinner, rice topped with a stew of tomatoes, onions, cabbage, Quencher.  There’s enough rice for breakfast tomorrow.

These items are pretty standard.  I always eat a variation of something over rice (tomatoes, cabbage, lentils, beans.)  Once in a while, when Benson or Fred are here, we make pasta and make a thick sauce made with Wyler’s Cream of Chicken soup and put some canned tuna in it – but the tuna is expensive here.  You can get Ragu-like spaghetti sauce but anything processed is really expensive.  It’s fine and according to the Maasai, I am too fat.

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