Poa Kicheze Kama Ndizi (cool and crazy like a banana)

Brook, Shedrack, Mwana, Kurusumu, Georgie and Winnie

It's hard to believe we've been here for two full weeks!  Things have started to go by so fast.  Today Jackie and I went to the orphanage early to help with chores and more rice drying.  Brook went with Auntie Lucy and Bright, the little girl with HIV, to the local hospital KCM for Bright's appointment.  It went well and she was deemed sick enough to get prescribed anti-retro viral medication.  KCM is the most equipped hospital for this area, but health care here is pretty minimal.  A few days ago the three of us went with Bright for a chest x-ray.  Chest x-rays are mandatory for HIV patients to check for tuberculosis before they can be given medication.  The hospital is in a nice looking five story or so building, but only the bottom two floors are actually in use.  The rest of the building is empty I guess.

Maria, Jackie, Kurusumu, Neema, and Bright

        After we were done at the orphanage and Brook and Lucy got a hold of us, we went with three of the girls from the orphanage to town.   We met up with Dr. Greg and Daniel who were busy meeting with the Irish Volunteers from the preschool.  Their organization sponsors a few local kids to go to public schools here.  Last week they wanted to check in on some of the kids at school.  When they got to one of the schools they were greeted by a line of children on their knees being beaten by the teacher.  Not an uncommon thing to see here in public school, that's why Greg's made sure most of the kids from the orphanage are going to private schools.  The Irish women were upset with the site but told Greg at their meeting today that they'd seen the same thing at a school in Korea except the kids had to kneel on pens.  They were understanding of the systems here and will still be sponsoring the kids to go to the school.  I'm very thankful that beatings aren't an acceptable form of discipline at home haha.   Anyway once we all met up we went looking for furniture and rugs for the computer room.  We were very successful and found good deals on two rugs and two small couches.  Now that we have those and the painting done all we'll need is a few lamps, a shelf and a couples days to organize all the books they have  and the room will be ready.

Jackie holding Maria and Brook with Julius on her shoulders

       Yesterday we went to the orphanage's half acre banana plantation with a bunch of the kids.  It's about a 10 minute walk from our neighborhood.  We cut down a few bunches of bananas but most of them won't be ready till the end of next month.  They aren't sweet yellow bananas that we're used to, they're hard and green and taste more like potatoes.  After going into town for lunch we went back to the orphanage to hang out with the kids and help clean.  Jackie and Brook were there for a bit but then went home to start making tortillas for dinner as tortillas  are vastly absent from the stores here and we all wanted a slight change from stir-fried veggies and rice.

Jackie, Lucy, and Mary-Stella

Walking to the Bananas

Jackie and I got back to the house and looked up a tortilla recipe. Unfortunately we opened what we thought was corn flour only to find out we had bought a large box of corn starch, We ended up having to make flour tortillas. I was pleased that they were so easy to make. once the dough was made we couldn't really figure out how to get them into a tortilla shape, especially because excessive pressing down on our table is not good for the fine African craftsmanship. As the table is already falling apart, we didn't want to break it anymore. Good thing Jackie came to the rescue with her intuitiveness and decided to use her water bottle as a rolling pin. Jackie would role them out and I would fry them up in the pan. It took at least an hour to complete 12 tortillas but it was totally worth it. I also decided to cook up some beans with chili powder and cumin to give it a little Mexican flavor. I went slightly overboard with the chili powder, Elena said it was a little unbearable so I ended up rinsing the beans and cooking them up again. The turned out good but still on the spicy side. Cooking here has been really fun, Jackie and I usually end up with a story or two by the time dinner is served.

Baobob tree at the maize field

On Saturday we went to pick maize with Greg, a few of the older kids and two of the matron, at the property three miles from our neighborhood.   The property is 17 acres of maize and beans.  The rainy season was a little dry this year so there's almost no beans, but there will be some maize.  In February the crops were planted and the land was hand tilled.  The neighboring property used a tractor on his land and his plant are beautiful but there is no maize on them!   We picked for three hours and brought back about five, 100 kilo bags of maize back with us.  It was a nice overcast day and we left early so it wasn't too hot.  Hopefully by the end of the year there will be a well drilled on the property so they'll be able to irrigate and really do well with the crops.

Bringing the Maize home!

It's been a busy few days and a lot of fun!

-Brook and Elena