Noah and Grandmother Outside House

For Mothers Day I walked from my place down the hill, about 1 mile, to Jam City slum, . They have been hit hard there by the floods over the last two weeks. Their shacks are located close to Athi River. Everything is mud. We went to visit three children and their grandmother that we support with school fees and school materials at a school in Athi, not one of our schools. Just to see the place and smell the sour mud and moldy furniture that was left there. The kids can’t stay there and have found refuge in a friend’s house in the slum. Mwololo and I delivered exercise books which they kids use in school and they have just begun the second term. Noah, Daniel and Rachael.  Some Pics

Not the actual snake . . . .

We have been having a difficult time getting to the small shamba in Ngelani. The rains have made the dirt roads impassable and a muddy mess. As you might have read, we lost a rabbit and watchdog as well as the beans and much of the maize. Today we learned that the remaining two rabbits also died but not from the flood. A cobra got into the hutch and killed the rabbits. The shamba boy attempted to kill the cobra but was unsuccessful and it remained in the hutch. Neighbors came by and helped him remove on side of the structure and as the cobra tried to escape, it was killed by a panga (machete). They said the snake was as fat around as my arm, but I want to see for myself. The scary thing is the number of snakes that are now in the fields and the tall grasses at the farm. I have grown accustomed to many things in Kenya but snakes remain my biggest fear. We have the big ones here; cobras, puff adders, and mambas. Benson’s mom was bitten by an adder two weeks ago and survived in Turkana. We begin replanting the fields on Monday. Can’t wait.

Once again, things are flooded all around me. I live on a hill and am safe but below us in the Jam City slums, things are underwater. We had heavy rains all last night and even streets in the downtown Nairobi area were flooded and washed away cars and buses. There is no good drainage anywhere and new construction and poor planning mess things up even more. Here, we have been warned that last night’s Nairobi rain is dumping into Athi River and the already full river will be flooding the lands, including our farm. Our shamba boy, Patrick is trapped on higher ground, unable to get to the farm and the rabbits. We have already lost all the beans and probably now, the maize. The watchdog also was drowned in the water last week.

Today we were to travel to Kibera to meet with the women doing bead work and purchase food for the coming month. Schools just got back into session for the second term. We couldn’t get to Kibera and we were told that the slum is a mud pit anyway. It is almost impossible to walk the narrow alleyways in the mud; I almost took out my eye on a rusty metal roof last trip. All of the latrines overflow and fill the muddy alleys with sewage. It’s a mess.

So at 9:30 am – the skies are blue, white puffy clouds, but we know that the rains will begin again around 2:30pm. Last night the thunder and lightning were amazing. More to come.

Today was another struggle to travel. It rained hard again last night, flooding the shamba and Jam City Slum, my exit to move out from my house. So I hopped a ride at 5:30 a.m. with a neighbor and got through the mud this morning via the Masai village behind us. From the main road I walked some distance to get a matatu to Kitengela. I met up with Mwololo and we traveled to Bisil to visit the head teacher and discuss a new chicken coop and a meeting with the women concerning the production of beaded jewelry. All the children in Kenya are on break. We will return to Bisil on Thursday to meet the beadwork women. We are also looking into the purchase of some goats to fatten and re-sell at a profit to benefit the school. All in all, it was a good day and I traveled on eight different vehicles – four wheels and two wheels. I even got a haircut (a shave) for 30 shillings in Athi River.

I hear the shamba (small farm) is under water. Everything is flooded. By 8pm last night, Patrick, our farm hand, had to flee the house as the river was rising. He spent the night in a cardboard kiosk (restaurant) because all of the contributing streams were also overflowing their banks. We are not sure what this means for the crops which have germinated. It all depends on how fast the water recedes. I worried about Patrick all night, listening to the rains continue. I knew the water from Athi River would eventually get to Patrick and the farm, but even now, we can’t get there and communication with him is sketchy.

Jam City Slum in Mud

Jam City slum (click to enlarge) is also impassible this morning. I am not going anywhere today. I can’t. Hopefully by tomorrow there will be a way off of our hill to the main road. I took a grainy photo of the slum from our place. It is difficult to make out the shacks in the slum, surrounded by river and waste water.

Kibera Slum School

Mwololo and I went to Kibera Slum today. Any other time that would have been uneventful but the rains have made travel so difficult. This morning, I left as the sun was coming up, walking the back way through the Masai villages, since the main road below my place, through Jam City slum, was impassible. It takes a long time to walk the long way and it is so muddy! Once to the main road (Mombassa Highway) you dodge semis and matatus speeding along. Mwololo met me on the highway since he comes from the other side of Mombassa Road in Athi River town.

In Kibera it has rained as well and there was no good way to get to our school and remain on your feet (at least for me, it was too muddy). But 7 women (parents) met us on drier ground as they were able to maneuver the muddy alleyways. We met to discuss the possibility of forming an income-generating group or cooperative. We have been told that some of the women were able to make beaded jewelry so we wanted to give them some beads and fishing line and see how they did. We met, talked about the need to have an activity that would help them pay their children’s school fees. We will meet again next Monday and see what samples they were able to create.

We also met with a fundi (a builder) from Kibera who we wanted to hire to construct new walls, add two doors and a window as well as pour a cement floor for our little school in Kibera. We reviewed his budget figures and finally agreed. Work starts today and won’t take long.

Reaching back home and Jam City, I got a Masai boda boda (motorbike driver) to take me through the flooded area to my place. We past through water I thought would surely stall the bike – but we made it. At 3:30 pm today, the heavy rains began again. After three hours of steady rain, I walked to my gate to look down the hill at Jam City. The people in that slum are surely flooded, once again. It looks like Lake Victoria from here. I can imagine the overflowing pit latrines, the snakes and rats. My landlady is stranded in her car on Mombassa Road, coming home from work in Nairobi. She is hoping to come through the mud, the back way past the Masai villages. Crazy, this rain. We fear that the farm is going to be too flooded for our corn and beans to be harvested, but we have to wait and see. We also worry about the Athi River swelling to reach our shamba boy’s “house” at the farm. It is frightening, hearing the rain and not knowing how high the river has risen. So after praying so hard for rain, we now pray for some relief.

So last evening it rained. Torrential downpours, lightning, hail. It was good for us, good for the farm. But there was also tragedy. At about 8 o’clock, in the dark of night, no power for lights, a bus traveling down the hill from my room was taking workers to Athi River town from the nearby flower farm. There was rushing water that flooded the road around the slum. There has been some new construction that diverted the usual flow of that water. The bus went off the road and tipped onto its’ side, trapping nearly 100 people inside as the water flooded in. We have heard various numbers of dead – 3 to 6. Fifty were taken to a nearby hospital. I could hear screams from the road below – even when I was inside my house. It was a horrible sound. Other people in my estate were not able to get home, some being stuck in the mud as they tried to come home by way of a different route around the Masai manyattas.

Also flooded out were the houses in the slums, the ones we visited over Easter to get rabbits and the ones which have orphans (Noah and Daniel) we sponsor in school. Flood waters rose three to four feet in the houses.

This morning I was to travel to Nairobi and I knew that motorbikes couldn’t make it to my place so I walked miles and miles in the mud to the main road, then walked some more until I got picked up and bussed to town. Coming home in the afternoon, the water had subsided to the point that I could walk home past the slums and the bus accident. Parts of the road were actually dry! Crazy weather. Water comes quickly and goes just as quickly.

The Masai are almost giddy with delight for the rain. Their cows will have grass soon and the women will be able to stop cutting dead weeds to feed the cows. But, like most things, the rain comes in extremes. I am sitting in the dark, power out for hours and the slum below my place is flooding.  The road I travel daily is covered with water and looks like a lake. There was some new construction near the slum and the building has diverted the water, slowing it and making it into the lake. Cars can’t pass and the people of means who live up by me, can’t get home past the slum. Interesting. Just a few hours ago, the dust was unbearable but then in an instant, rain, hail, wind. The other night there were frogs . . .no kidding, everywhere.

So I am in the dark, hearing mosquitoes but I can’t see them to smack them. We hear all of Nairobi is dark. I can hear the horns of trucks on Mombassa Road blowing loudly for some reason. And at 5am this morning, there was an earthquake, 4 point something. I’m supposed to go to Kibera tomorrow but if I can’t get out, I’ll just stay home or if there is big mud there.

We called the guys at our farm. Finally some rain. And  the new computer battery working great.

Patrick and New Bunny

There has been rain all around us but none here or at the farm! You can see black clouds swirling and hear thunder in the distance, but nothing materializes. So, today is another day we need to irrigate the newly planted maize and beans. It isn’t easy since we have to transfer water from one hole to another and then finally to the maize – uphill! But it is working and the crops have germinated and are sticking their heads up.

We checked out the work on the farm today as well as checked on the new rabbit, the third to be brought to the new hutch. She is pregnant too. So – won’t be long.

On Tuesday we pick up 300 completed beaded wire elephants for sale in the US. We have quite a menagerie of animals collected – lizards, frogs, giraffes and now elephants, my favorite. We will also begin collecting data sheets on all of our students to better track their progress and attendance.

Second Round of Planting

On Monday, Mwololo and I took the bike to see the added two acre plot of land we opened up in Ngelani. We will plant the fields with beans for our schools. All we need is rain. This also means hiring another shamba boy to tend the farm and help with the planting etc. On the way to Ngelani we were able to see the destruction of the land-grabbers’ shacks that we had heard about. Last week, Fred heard about 8-10 pick up trucks pass by his area loaded with what we we told were gangs of Mungiki thugs. They were hired by the true landowners to run the grabbers off the land. So in the middle of the night, Fred could hear shouting, honking and the metal structures being destroyed. There were hundreds of houses taken down. In previous weeks, the Mungiki not only destroyed the houses but killed many, burning houses and cars. On this occasion there were no injuries.  Click to enlarge photos.

Landgrabbers' Shacks Destroyed at Night