Mt. Elgon travels

Driving to Mt. Elgon, we hit a bit of a problem. With a bang, the hood our of Land Cruiser came up and smashed against the windshield, causing a golf ball sized divot in the glass as well as a seriously cracked shield. Thankfully, everyone emerged safely from the car, not without a bit of shakiness though (particularly from me). Spencer and the team successfully tied down the hood and off we were again to Mt. Elgon to train the armed forces.

The aftermath. 

I should preface this with the fact that Mt. Elgon is the place I worked in 2007 in an internally displaced peoples camp. This was, and continues to be a quite treacherous place in Kenya as clashes between the Kenyan soldiers and local tribes continually breakout throughout the year.  In fact, Human Rights Watch and MSF came to the area and wrote various reports on the atrocities occurring on the mountain.

But off we went, to Mt. Elgon for a training of army and police officers on international human rights law and its applicability to their work. After about 12-hours of training, lunch, tea and many goodbyes, we finally returned home to Bungoma to sleep very well.

The next day, Dan and I were able to visit the finished third rainwater-harvesting barrel that was installed on the Chebukwa Secondary School last week. The Deputy Principal met both of us on site and expressed his gratitude for the donation from The Nafula Foundation. Though we still will have some continuing work to do on the rainwater-harvesting tank (cleaning, chemical depositing) the bulk of the work and the finished project was handed over to the school that day. So that was a great feeling.

Inspecting the third rainwater-harvesting tank. 

I returned to the Kenya Red Cross later that afternoon along with Spencer, who had spent the morning touring the Bungoma District Hospital. The Red Cross has been extremely welcoming to us, even clearing out a room in the branch that has a desk and outlets. Both Spencer and I are working on projects for the branch – Spencer is tackling management while I am coordinating their peer education group for 10 schools in the district. Though things are a bit crazy with planning, we’re both thankful to have the opportunity to volunteer there.

Spencer and Susan at the KRCS

Oh, and I should let you know that today we had a visitor in our compound. Bright and early in the morning, a homeless man came up to our home window and tried to sell us old television cables. Though he didn’t speak any English and we don’t speak Swahili, we could tell that he was trying to give us a good deal. Anyway, our fence around our compound fell down today too, so I’m sure we’ll have plenty more visitors to come.

Well that’s it. The rain has finally stopped for the evening and I believe power will now stay on until bedtime.

Hope all is well! I hear it’s quite hot in Minnesota this weekend. Enjoy it!

k