Day 5: Dala Ka Liet Ngeny

It’s Hot in Here

Julia here, and let me tell you today was pretty exhausting. After a nice early breakfast we headed out to Miranga to meet with the contractor, Elvis, to discuss the work that needs to be done at the Primary and Secondary schools. Elvis arrived a few hours late (nbd though right?), and while we were waiting for him to arrive, we spent our entire morning walking around in the intense heat inspecting the systems to solidify in our minds what needed to be done at the schools. We discovered that a lot of things from the old contract were incomplete, and that there would also be many new things needed to added to the systems. We needed to fix some gutter systems and tanks. 

While we were inspecting the systems, all the children that were supposedly “in school” followed us around curious and eager to see what we were up to. They also didn’t hesitate to point and laugh hysterically when I stepped in a massive pile of cow poop. Womp, Womp, Womp! I think we all felt a little bit like celebrities with all our paparazzi children following us around and wanting to shake our hands. At one point, I had about 30 children all grabbing and shaking both my hands at once, giggling at my confusion trying to politely escape their handshaking trap. While I was trapped shaking hands with all the children, the rest of the team, still waiting for Elvis, spoke to some of the teachers and students over at the Secondary School. 

Ajay took this free time as an opportunity to visit a classroom, and proceeded to help a student with his geometry homework. He met with a teacher named Henry and decided to give an impromptu physics lesson to some of the older students in the classroom. He started off the lesson by saying “Do you see this book? It falls!” *Drops Book* “That’s gravity!”.  20 minutes later, there was a derivative on the board. Needless to say, I don’t think that lesson went very well.

While Ajay was attempting to educate the older students on physics, Tristen was able to inspire some students, Austin and George, who asked him questions on how to become engineers. After the lessons with the students, and some more analysis of the systems at the Primary School, Elvis finally arrived. Once he arrived we again walked around and explained to him what repairs and additions needed to be made to the rainwater catchment systems.  At this point, the heat was really getting to me, and I sat down in the shade with Tristen and Sri-mom while they walked around. Some of us pretended to hang from a tree and took pictures. Can you guess which one of us is really hung over? 

After things were discussed with the contractor, we sat in the principal’s office. We went over the contract with Elvis and discussed numbers and things to be done. During this meeting, the office was extremely hot and Ajay got very woozy. He had to leave and go to the shade because the heat got to him, but we were all feeling it. 20 minutes later—it was finally lunch time and we got to go back.

Because now there were more of us for lunch with Tom and Ajay, we got upgraded to each lunch in an outdoor thatched hut, which was a nice change of pace. Sri-mom and I spoke with chef Christine after lunch, and she told us how much she appreciated us coming here to help the community. We talked for a half an hour with her where she told us about the culture of respect in Kenya, her dreams of returning to culinary school, and her young son’s aspiration of becoming an electronics engineer. We plan on meeting her son, and we hope teach him more about engineering and what he should do to become an engineer.  

After lunch and speaking with Christine, I was feeling very ill with a fever, so I headed over to my room to sleep. Meanwhile, Jared was excited to help Christine with dinner. And guess what that involved….Chickens. Slaughtering chickens. As legend goes, Jared began the chickens’ death process with a butter knife. As the knife was blunt, the blood shedding process was delayed causing stress to viewers like Sri-mom and Ajay, who soon confirmed their vegetarian roots. Tristen, documenting the experience, was frozen in a state of cringing fear and stomach ailment. He too considered vegetarianism, and he dipped once the smell reached him.  Soon enough though, Jared got his meat and returned with a bloody shirt. After hearing this tale of misery for these chickens, I went back to sleep feverishly and even more vegetarian than before.

As I rested through the evening, Tom and Heather went to Kisumu for supplies, and the rest of the team went to get water samples from the schools. When the rest of the team was traveling to the Primary School, the van got stuck in a muddy ditch, and Sri-mom and body guard Jared got out of the car to push it out (which surprisingly, they did successfully considering John, our driver, and Ajay were still sitting in it). By the time the team returned with the water samples from the school catchment systems, I already reached a high fever of 101.8 and was feeling extremely ill. I know that now Ajay also seems to be feeling ill as well. Sri-mom is making sure to continue taking care of us through the night—and we hope to get better by tomorrow so that we don’t have to go to the hospital. Here’s to getting some much needed rest after an exhausting day in the equator sunshine.