A Visit to the Ndwiga Household
Saturday, July 7, 2007

Today I am visiting with Mr. Ndwiga's wige. We traveled to Embu to see their daughter who is in Form I of secondary school. It is a lovely school wiht nice open spaces and beautiful gardens and landscaping. The guard at the gate was a bit skeptical of me...probably because it was parents weekend.

Yesterday I taught myself how to make corn husk dolls. I made two. One with white hair and one with dark hair - the fringe on the top of the corn. They still need some tweaking but I think it will be a good project for a creative arts class. Maybe they could even make them as a fund raiser. Most of the children don't have dolls it seems and they cost nothing to make.

While in Embu I mailed some letters back home and also some letters for Purity and Judy to Denmark and Japan. It was very expensive! Especially the ones to the US and Japan: about a $1.50 each. I think I will send many letters in one envelope to Mom and she can distribute them from there.

So the secondary school is a strict catholic one. Though the Ndwiga's are not catholic...so I guess its not that strict. In fact Mr. Ndwiga is the Anglican minister. It is a good school: 40th in the nation and 4th in the district. It was a nice trip and I fund Mrs. Ndwiga very good company. I got to see a bit more of Embu and see how a secondary school works. When I returned home Mama was there with one less tooth. I lent her 100 ksh to get her aching tooth pulled out. She was very happy. Though she said now it is alittle swollen and there is a big hole. She made Kitheri for dinner, its very tough and chewey but its her favorite (and mine too) and she had been missing it very much.

Fafa returned late and went to bed with no dinner. I'm beginning to have suspicions about his drinking habits. When I arrived here with Thogo he asked if I would mind living in a house with a dirt floor. I said no. Then he asked how I would react if the father was a drunkard or if the husband beat the wife. I thought he was speaking hypothically. I'm beginning to think he was giving me a preview of this home. Fafa, I finally found out his name is Joshec, smokes often and is often absent or in bed at odd times. The first day I met him he was drunk though I didnt' realize it at the time. So far there has been no evidence of beating. I can only pray that that part of the warning is not true. The worst part is that the family has so little money and I think he spends it on tobacco and booze. Maybe I'm reading into things too much. Its hard to say, I plan to ask some of the kids and maybe a teacher or two about the family.. But word spreads so fast around here I don't want them to get offended. We shall see how this month goes.

Volunteers come on Tuesday! I can't wait!