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| I hardly slept, as the other guests at the ‘Y’ were
making a lot of noise. The monkeys were banging on the doors and rattling the door handles
as well. I got up early again and continued to read "Rich Christians in an Age of
Hunger" by Ronald Sider. Someone else had picked up my normal early morning reading
– Stott. Tom and Peter went to Malindi to sort out a few things, including
accommodation for us. I spoke to Harrison, my Pakomo friend, for the last time, as he was
leaving the ‘Y’. He told us about his children, and showed us his late
son’s artwork. We waited an hour for a matatu. Eventually, Alison and I asked the
YWCA staff to give us a lift in their land rover. They agreed but, unbeknown to us, we
passed Pastor Alfred on the way. Such is life! |
We visited another Orma village in the morning.  It was
about half an hour’s walk out of Garsen. We were treated to chai with ginger, as we
had been in Kipao, and we learned more about their way of life. We saw a school that was
less than half-built. It was apparently being built (very slowly) by the headmaster and a
teacher. It was very small, but was supposed to house about 50 children per class. It was
to be just a nursery school initially. That would mean that the children would not have to
walk the long distance to Garsen each day, with the threat of meeting wild animals. We had
seen warthogs, baboons, monkeys and zebra in the area, but there was also a risk from
lions and elephants.There had been two lions in the area, up
until El Nino in 1997. The Tana River had burst its banks and most of Garsen was flooded.
The roads were washed away, the telephones were down and Garsen was pretty much cut off
from the rest of the world. The lions had left for drier parts, and never came back when
the water went down. |
The people had suffered greatly though. One of the families we  visited had been
totally flooded out. They had gone to live with the Masai’s for some months in their
tiny house. They were clearly very grateful. Some of the sacks of grain that had been
airlifted in as aid were now being used, stitched together, to make dividing walls.One of the biggest problems was that people had come to rely on the aid.
While there were handouts coming in, no-one was interested in growing their own food. Many
of the cattle had died or been slaughtered and the Orma were never keen to grow crops
anyway. Aid had continued for quite some time, but it had seemingly been in the form of
free handouts. Very little, if anything, had been done to encourage independence or
self-reliance again.
Fried Goat Anyone? |
| The aid had recently dried up, though they knew not why, and they
were struggling. A glance at the "Daily Nation" newspaper
back at Garsen told us why the aid had dried up. Money from the IMF, the World Bank and
other wealthy donors had been stopped months before, because of allegations of corruption.
That very day the Kenyan government had failed to pass an Anti-Corruption Act, which would
have created an anti-corruption task force. There had been disagreements on the details,
particularly regarding whether they should look at past misdemeanours. There was little
time left before the IMF and World Bank deadlines past. After
much sitting about on mats on the ground inside different Orma houses, we returned to the
building site for an hour and a half of stringing. We passed some warthogs by the road on
the way back to the YWCA. Some people think warthogs look a little strange, but there were
stranger things around that evening. |
 
I knew those knots would come in useful someday.
African Creosote? |
| At the girls’ insistence, all the boys had to spend the
evening in sarongs and headscarves. In order not to offend the Muslim Orma, the girls
spent much of their time wearing both sarongs and headscarves, but feeling constrained.
The boys had no special dress code to follow, so the girls decided that the boys should at
least get a feel for what they were having to go through – restricted movement,
difficulty sitting and standing, and a hot head. Obligingly, the boys all attended dinner
suitably (or should that be unsuitably?) attired. I’m not quite sure what the men
attending the headmasters’ conference at the ‘Y’ thought. |
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| We all retired to Paul and Nicola’s room after dinner to
discuss culture and the way we all felt about the differences between life at home and
life in Garsen. After a time of prayer, we headed for bed, Fiona and I having a long chat
first. |
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