Well, today is our last day in Kenya. We will be flying home tonight and should arrive at Dulles by 1:50 pm Tuesday. It was hard to leave Eburru yesterday but at the same time I think Kari and I are both looking forward to showers that aren’t in a bucket and toilets you don’t have to squat in.
On that note, I was thinking about how different the school in Arusha was from the school in Eburru. In Arusha we had running water and electricity but not in Eburru. As a teacher from the States you really have to be creative in how you teach with such limited resources. The closest copying machine is two hours away in the city of Navisha,. My school alone has four copiers and I complain loudly when one of them breaks. Also, the students do not have textbooks as the school can not afford it. Instead, there is one text book for the teacher to use and she will write on the board for the students to copy in their composition books. It is pretty time consuming and I am hoping this is something DHI can help provide in the near future. I will be going back to my American school in September with a different perspective on things.
The last two days I was able to work with Brandon Neil, a fellow Frontliner and DHI supporter. His background is in business and I could already see he is going to be a great help with the business side of things. On Saturday we went to a local café in Eburru center. It is owned by a lady named Mary who is an active member of Pastor Steve’s church. However, a few years ago she was not a Christian and her café was then a bar. When she got saved she did not know what to do with all the illegal moonshine she was selling. So the church decided to do a “liquor pouring” offering. They would give some money to buy some of the liquor and then they poured it out. Mary is now part of the women’s ministry of the church and a light to the community. However, her restaurant is not bringing in enough income. This is where Brandon comes in. On Saturday he sat down with her and helped her figure out her expenses and profit. He plans to teach basic book keeping classes to some of the businessmen and women of the church since it is something completely foreign to them. We also came up with the idea of selling something that the other cafes would not offer in order to bring in more business. We helped her make guacamole – something they have all the ingredients to make but have never heard off. We served it with their chipotas (flat bread). I even went around the town giving little samples to the townspeople, telling them they could only buy it at Mary’s café. Brandon plans to continue to work with her for the next two weeks and hopefully we will get her a sign to put outside her door that says “American guacamole Exclusively sold here!” I thought it was pretty amazing that God could take my one of my weakest areas (I took economics twice in college ) and still use it to help those in need.
