It's rained...A LOT!

There’s no fanfare anymore. Oh a few people who happen to be around show up to say hi and welcome me home. But that’s it. I love being no big deal.

Rebecca rearranged the house while I was gone and said as I was admiring it; “and here curtains. You room. You bring curtains.”


My bed and box sans curtains.

I can do that. ‘Curtains,’ by the way are sheets that you hang up to make rooms.

The rainy season has been more than plentiful this year. The whole Rift Valley is lush and green. I have never seen it like this. Janet says she can’t ever remember it being this green. The MIDI demonstration garden is gorgeous! No thanks to the caretaker who took off a few weeks ago. He was pretty worthless, I’m glad he’s gone.


Before the rains.


After the rains.


Rebecca and James built a new manyatta!


The MIDI demonstration farm is thriving. They even planted mango trees and watermelon!


The new gate was supposed to keep the goats out, but holes in the fence around the compound need to be mended for it to be useful!


Shout out to all Wingers. The tree planted in February to honor Mary Steiner and Shawn Whelan, co-founders of Give Us Wings is still standing and thriving the goat defense system is holding!


I don’t know if it’s global warming or weather cycles or what, but I couldn’t stop taking pictures of all the vegetation, even the hills behind the school were green.

Janet, Rebecca and I had an “executive” meeting to discuss class attendance and the possibility of constructing a greenhouse as a community income-generating project.

Attendance has been spotty and we needed to look for a way to encourage more regular attendance. We decided to ask the families of the core group of students to invest in their education for six months. By this we mean that they are relieved of their duties to the family during class time. We will ask the families that we know would be most inclined to participate and let their example reach others. That’s the plan anyway.

We will work through the seven women’s groups in Ilkiloret to recruit people to be trained to run and work in the greenhouse. If in fact that is still what the community wants to do. It’s been over a month since we last discussed how utilize the other 3 acres of land Wezesha and the Ilkiloret groups have been allocated.

It was a good meeting and a step in the right direction. I’m excited to get started. I’ve decided that if it wasn’t for the flies I could live in Ilkiloret.

But oh how I hate flies…and unfortunately the beautiful green scenery has done nothing to rid the landscape of flies. Some things never change.