Bone Tired

I was thinking of the song, "Dem bones gonna rise again." And I'm thinking, des bones ain't gonna rise for a while. Today was the All Africa Helping Hands Day. We had a good time. We worked hard and des bones, da' be tired.

It's interesting that we don't take pictures of us doing the day-to-day things. We had a great cottage meeting in Nyalenda. The Byrds arrived in the afternoon, and they were great sports! We took boda bodas to the Kilo Stage and then walked into Nyalenda. Elizabeth came to meet us. Good thing. We never would have found her house. After we arrived-- about 4pm, they went to gather and collect some people. Since Margaret lived on the road that one could drive into, Elder Fox and Elder Byrd went to help collect her (they walked). We actually began the meeting a little after 5pm. Had good lessons and there were about 10 people there. We felt confident we'd finish in plenty of time before dark. Then there was a bit of question and answer. We were still okay. Then, as I was about to leave, Elizabeth insisted we sit and take "tea" and mundazi. Of course. We'd be delighted.

I think once again the Lord stayed the darkness. When we walked out of the slums it still seemed plenty bright. But as soon as we got on the boda bodas for the ride home it seemed nearly dark. I kept thinking, these are the bikes Tom has to avoid when we drive at night. But there were few cars and we arrived safe and sound.

Thursday and Friday the Byrds taught the Career workshop. I think we had 10 in the class and they learned a lot. The Byrds did a great job! It's fun to see the brother who speaks softly and says little come out of his shell and begin to be more confident. Some of the students were excellent as they practiced their interviewing skills.

We have essentially been without city water since Sunday. We've called. We've called other numbers. Each time we got a different story. Pump down. You're the only one with a problem. Er, not lots of people have no water, but we don't know why. Finally on Friday we called Julius the service rep... who by now knew us quite well... as did John the man on the ground... and said we need to speak to someone higher up. Clearly you do not have the capability to resolve this problem. We got the engineer. He said he'd check into it, call back in 2 hours. We called. No answer. We went to the water company, visited with Julius and asked to speak to Mr. Juma. We actually got to talk to him. They took us up to his fancy office and we were nice and he explained about the difficulties of water in Kisumu and promised to do his best.

Friday afternoon we took the Byrds to Dunga Bay so they could see Lake Victoria. This is the charcoal arrival area. The boats come from Uganda. Those sacks weight 100 kilos. Charcoal is a major source for cooking - and heating.Our favorite heron.The Byrds said they hadn't seen a sunset since they arrived in Nariobi, so that was fun.

We went to dinner at the Green Garden and had a good meal.

Today John showed up bright and early to check the water. He said the big boss was putting pressure on him. Yes!!! We did get some water trickling in, but there was not enough pressure to pump it into the tank. Sigh. So we left and went to the sports ground about 8:40 for Helping Hands. We finally started about 10am.

And we finished our work about 1pm. Then we gathered again at the sports ground and had jelly sandwiches, biscuits and juice. Ahhh. When I sat down, I was disinclined to get up again.

The weather had been lovely throughout-- a little warm, but not bad. Shortly after we got home and took the laundry down from the line and people arrived to clean the church... and to play volleyball... it began pouring rain. And continued the rest of the day. About 5pm we started getting a little water trickling in. Ah. There is Hope!