Lorry Rolling Next challenge Disc Plough

Keeping folks on a schedule here in Kenya is a bit of a challenge. I've heard it referred to as "Africa time". Most of us own a watch and we schedule our days by the hours or even minutes. In Kenya the sunrise and sunset ocurs about the same time of the day year round and timed events or tasks for the most part are not narrowed down to hours and minutes but to morning and afternoon. While waiting I've learned to socialize with the locals and entertain myself surfing the net on my cell phone.

The good news of the week is the Fuso now has a new clutch and tires and passed its "safety" certification and can now be used to haul local and distant goods and generate some much needed income.
The next challenge for me and my "apprentices" is to revive the two disc ploughs. They are in very poor mechanical condition and not usable even though they tried. Disc plates are split  and worn down to about half of the origional diameter. As a result the disc bearing housings have been dragging on the fields wearing away the metal of the housings. All of the disc plates and most of the bearings need replacing. Tasks include removing nuts and bolts that have been worked over by a pipe wrench.  They are now nearly disassembled, the next challenge is to locate and finance the needed parts.

 

Cooking for 300 Orphans is done in huge cast iron pots that fit into specially designed wood stoves

 

Saturday is bath time. A sister bathes her younger brother

 

The new High School is progressing well and hopefully will ready by Jan 10th. That's the start of their new school year.

 

 

Spreading hand mixed concrete

The high school construction is progressing well. This morning locals were mixing and spreading the concrete for the floors.  As part of Omwabini's plan toward sustainability it is hoping to cover most of the cost of education for orphans by opening the high school up to the community. Unlike in  Canada, Kimilili families must pay school cost for both elementry and high school of about $500.00 US

There is only a few of us in the compound this afternoon because Mama Mary went to campaign with her brother and most of her family are attending the funeral of a relative. Unfortunately funerals are too common an occurance for younger people here in Kenya.

Excitement here for Christmas is growing. We are looking forward to celebrating Christmas, Kenyan style.