More on those Fires . . .

This morning one of my students said the fires had made headlines on BBC. So I did some investigating, and sure enough, there's a picture of a soldier standing at the crater on Longonot. Apparently lots of animals were trapped and died in the crater or from fires on the sides of the mountain. We can see smoke coming out the top of Longonot.

Then I landed at the surprisingly well-organized website for our local paper, the Daily Nation. They had this picture, with the appropriate caption below:

Ill-equipped army officers use tree branches to put out a raging fire at Nasuit Mau-East forest on Tuesday, March 24.

Ill-equipped? Tree branches? No kidding.

There were some interesting comments on the page about lack of equipment and also one on the "natural cycle" of forest fires and how we should stop blaming people for arson and just leave it alone . . . (and watch the world burn down?) but they are gone now, so they must've been edited away. See for yourself: www.nation.co.ke

But we're a-ok and keeping it real and praying, as always, for rain.

Sights and Updates

Over the past couple days, I've been packing to head back to the States for a month of family time and wedding planning. VERY excited about this! As I anticipate all of the conveniences of America, I'm also noticing some of the special things that make this place different. Interesting sights from the past couple days:

Spiders making themselves right at home in my house:

(This one is still at home in my house, simply too big for me to kill. Also very inconveniently situated on the curtain. After zooming in on him and catching sight of his big hairy body on my camera viewfinder, I couldn't stomach the thought of taking care of that. Ick.)

Monkeys getting bolder in the dry weather. Today on my run one of the guards was throwing rocks into the trees to try to dissuade the monkeys from crossing the fence into RVA. I was grateful. This guy was really close to my open front door during lunch yesterday, but I scared him away when I got up to take a picture:


There's a polio 'epidemic' in Kenya so all kids under 5 are required to be vaccinated. Last I heard, the epidemic consisted of two cases but I'm thankful that the government is getting involved. This is rare. I heard there are some cholera cases at the hospital this week, too. Just a reminder that we live in Africa.

Carjackings, unrest in Madagascar and Yemen, evacuations, fires . . . there are many things on the minds of these kids.

But there are many blessings as well.

Hanging out with Baby Hope. Such a joy, and such a privilege to watch the Riches as they trust God to care for her, as He cares for all His children.

A doctor riding his dirt bike home from the hospital with a bunch of roses peeking out of his bag.

My flowers are blooming.

And three days until Vac.

Kijabe Fires

It is so dry here.

This weekend we could see fires on Longonot. On Monday fires started up on the hill just above Kijabe. For the past two days we've watched smoke pour out of the trees as the fires eat away at our already-suffering forests. At night we can see flames in several areas on the hillside. Obviously it's not like California forest fires here but it is sad to see our trees go. And there is no way to put out the fires, not water, no fire brigade . . . and no road up there even if there was water.

Tonight Matt and I were headed down to visit a family and say goodbye before we take off this Friday. On our way we passed a smoldering pile . . . apparently someone had tried to burn leaves earlier the day but had unsuccessfully put out the fire. After contemplating the strength of the fire, we decided that the dryness of our area and the fires raging for the past two days definitely required some intervention. So we formed a two-man bucket brigade and that little fire is no longer a danger to middle station. We can sleep peacefully tonight. And we looked like Jack and Jill with our buckets when we finally showed up to hang out with our friends.

While we were there, the fifth grade teacher showed up to ask for a medical opinion. He'd felt sick today so he asked Dr. Congdon to check out his throat. The living-room diagnosis: strep throat. So guess who's subbing next door tomorrow afternoon? Matt! I'm highly amused by this little turn of events.

Just thought you might like a glimpse of some of the events of our day.

Fourth Grade Point of View

One of my students came to school pumped about a new camera her dad had brought her back from a trip to Switzerland. A few weeks later she presented me with the flash card and told me to pull whatever pictures I wanted . . . cute thing! I thought it was fun to see life through her eyes.

The drain out the pottery sink. Zed's creation, of course.

hibiscus

mt. longonot and clouds.

Kijabe Wind

Actually, I'm told Kijabe actually means wind in Kikuyu. And it is fitting, because year-round we are blasted with high speed winds every evening, and sometimes during the day. This is especially noticeable when it is dry and dusty. It is dry and dusty right now as we have had very little rain. This is fantastic when your laundry is out on the line - nothing better than to watch a giant plume of sand rise up off the road and coat your freshly washed clothes. But really, that's not a big deal . . .

Just this week Gladys was telling me that she goes home sometimes and doesn't know what to cook for dinner. I was a little confused by this (I mean, I definitely run out of dinner ideas, but I had a feeling that wasn't what she meant). She explained that the lack of rain means her garden isn't producing and the food prices have gone up too high to buy much. So she really doesn't know what to fix because they don't have much to fix. Meanwhile, she was cutting up a host of fresh vegetables for me and making salsa . . . humbling. Embarrassing. Reality.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about wind, not rain. The Kijabe wind was really going to town last week. I was standing in the doorway when the wind blew the door out of my hands and banged it against the wall. This had the very negative affect of splitting the wood near the top and middle hinges. I couldn't get the door to close after that and, being incrediby independent and resourceful . . . called Matt. He devised a lovely system to tie me in for the night and I went to bed with the wind whistling through the 1/2 inch crack all the way around the door.

In the morning I propped the door shut with a chair and placed a call to maintenance and explained to them my dire need of a new door. You'll notice in the above picture the strange "dead bolt" above the handle which is not really a dead bolt at all . . . thus my only lock is a skeleton key, which can be opened by the same key that unlocks the inner door of the piano building. Ahem. So I was thrilled about my new door that I was sure would be installed by lunch. Well, true to form, I forgot my gradebook at home and ran back to get it while the kids were busy.

I threw open the door . . . and it ripped off the hinges completely. So we went from this:


to this:
in a few short seconds. And I was NOT strong enough to lift the door into the frame and my kids were up in the classroom without me and I was starting to panic (not really, I was laughing and grabbed my camera to document) . . . when the women's basketball coach walked by and with a heave, stuffed it in place. Later I heard the satisfying noises of drilling as we walked to chai . . . and returned at lunch to see . . . the same door. Reinforced with a steel plate at the top. How resourceful.

An Excuse

-----Original Message-----
From: IT Manager
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 12:57 PM

To: staffrva@
Subject: Equinox outage broadcast

FYI,

The Equinox is here again which means the sun will be causing temporary Internet signal weakness and/or outages. You can read the details below. The layman explanation is the bright sun blinds the satellite dish in Nairobi so that it can't see the satellite in the sky very well.

If you're really into this kind of stuff, the attachment is the predictions of the times when they sun will affect the signal each day during the equinox.

The other side of this phenomenon is that our connection in Kijabe is so poor most of the time that you won't even notice the outages anyway, so you can delete this message and pretend I never said anything about it.

-JH

Computer Services Manager

Rift Valley Academy

** It's nice to have something to BLAME the bad internet on . . . and it gives me something to look forward to in AMERICA! I vow now to never again take the internet for granted.