I can’t believe how quickly time is flying by - I know I should probably be used to this feeling by now, but it still amazes me a bit! I think it’s just over two weeks since I last wrote my blog and it feels like so much has happened since then. We’ve had a couple of really busy weeks jam packed with a very random collection of things happening...
When I last wrote, we had just finished holiday club and begun the long Easter weekend. We had a day trip to Kitale to go and see some of the local sights. It was good to get out and about and see a bit more of Kenya. The street kids in Kitale were pretty tough going - they were very very insistent, more so than anywhere else I’ve been, and looked like life was giving them a tough deal. It was pretty overwhelming.
Other than that though we took it easy over the weekend. I felt so much better for taking it slowly especially as we knew there was a weeks hard work coming up in the form of building a mud hut.
Mud hut week began on the Tuesday after Easter Monday. We had a rough idea of what we were letting ourselves in for as Gemma had built a couple before and told us a bit about it, but we didn’t really know how it would go. Each day began (and ended!) with an hour long journey along bumpy roads, through various small towns and villages until we reached Soysambu, the home of the family we were building a new house for. The existing family home is currently shared by the father of the family (Edward), his mother (Flora) and his four children (Collins, Hillary, Abel and Linda). This number of people in a small house is not unusual, however it is not culturally acceptable for the grandparents and parents to share a house.
Having spent some time with the family it is clear that they have had a very rough time. The mother left a few months ago, unable to deal with all the difficulties, the father has a problem with alcohol, drinking local brew throughout the day. He often comes home drunk and kicks the grandmother and children out of the house and they have to sleep outside. The kids don’t go to school and don’t look like they’ve had a particularly good wash in, well, weeks...but more about this later...I’ll tell you about the house building first!
I loved it! It was such hard work, particularly in the hot sun, but i’m not complaining - if it had been raining it would have been worse! There was a team of 7 from IcFEM headquarters (including 4 of us who had never done it before) and about 5 or 6 helpers from the local fellowship. It took us about three and a half days to complete...many biscuits were consumed, loads of water drunk and there was some interesting local food to eat as well (including cooked green bananas that looked like bananas but tasted exactly like potatoes...so confusing!)
Here is my 10 step guide to building a mud hut!
1. Find a piece of level ground and set out the building using string, a tape measure and markers made from branches, whittled down to a point at one end and with a nail at the other end to wrap the string around. Use some simple trigonometry to make sure you have good right angles!
2. Dig holes using a long heavy pole to break the earth and a small bowl to scoop it out the hole as you go. Each hole must be about 2 foot deep for each timber column (we had 18 to dig) and trenches should be dug between each hole.
3. Drop the timbers into the holes and ensure they are all the same height at the . To do this, stretch sting between the corner posts and check it is level this with a spirit level (it seems that you should do this by standing on a chair precariously balanced on a table sinking into the muddy floor!) If the post is too tall, take it out the hole and chop the end of using a panger (like a big scary looking knife!) or alternatively dig the hole a little deeper which seemed like the easier option but less preferable! Pack the earth around the bottom of the timber and Bob’s your uncle!
4. Place the wall plates along the top of the two long walls on your well levelled columns and nail down.
5. Nail horizontal vetoes (I’m not sure how that is spelt at all!) to the inside and outside edge of all walls at roughly 400mm centres vertically, remembering to leave a gap for the door.
6. Place the roof trusses onto the wall plates, having carefully measured out their locations then one by one flip them the right way up (ends first) and nail in place, bracing with diagonal timbers in the corners.
7. Lift the tin roofing sheets into place and nail down. Add the roof verge.
8. Position the pre-made windows and doors and nail in place, adding extra timbers where necessary to support these. Cut the vetoes crossing the windows on the internal sides (so they can open) but leave them in place externally for added security.
9. While all this is going on, you need to begin making the mud - turn over a large area of earth using a jembe (a hand held tool that you swing from over your shoulder in to the earth) and add copious amounts of water carried in buckets on your head from the well (hopefully not too far away!) and squelch in with your feet. This is particularly hard if you’re wearing wellies as they get stuck in the mud!
10. Roll the mud into big bricks (lumps), get an army of kids to carry them into the house where you then place then gently but firmly on top of each other. Take care to span across the vetoes so that the weight of each section of wall is carried by the timbers not the mud beneath it. As the mud settles and dries out, sections of wall will fall down - rebuild them! If a bit of wall is looking a bit like it might topple over, shove (that’s the technical term) a branch down the middle of the mud for added strength!
It’s as simple as that! There is more to do, you have to level and treat the floor (with cow dung to prevent jiggers...you’ll understand that bit soon!) and “plaster” the walls inside and out with a different type of mud to level it and finish them, but we left this work to be finished by the fellowship in the community and will return for the handing over ceremony in a couple of weeks.
Whilst we were building the house another story was unfolding. The longer we were there, the more we found out about the family and their situation. I outlined it briefly above and it’s probably worth explaining that the new house we were building is for the grandma and the children, Edward (the father) will stay in the existing house. We were very impressed that Edward came and helped with the house building all week - on previous occasions when similar families have been helped there has been no sight or sound from the father. He does however obviously struggle with alcohol and kept disappearing every now and then for a while and coming back a little worse for wear. His relationship with his children appears to be very broken, although we have only had a brief insight into the family life so cannot really say. Tim spent some time with Edward encouraging him to interact with his children a little more.
It is hard to explain someone’s life when you do not understand it fully and I do not wish to jump to conclusions but, from the history of the family that I do know, it appears that the fathers alcohol addiction has lead the family into greater poverty than they may otherwise have been in. The very real affects of this are clear in the lifestyle of the family. There is not money enough to farm all of the small bit of land they do own so they are unable to grow much food. The children do not go to school, even though primary education has now been made free. They are all wearing clothes that are quite literally falling apart and both the children and the clothes look like they’re in need of a good wash!
We noticed that Hillary, the second eldest boy (8 years old) was hobbling when he walked and Abel, the youngest boy (5 years old) used a stick when he walked and Linda (2 years old) just sat still even though she could walk. When we asked about this, a lady showed us the children’s feet and explained that they all had jiggers. Now, I have to warn you, this whole subject is pretty grim so if you’re squeamish I’d skip the next bit!
Jiggers are little fleas that live in dry dusty soil and burrow under your skin slowly. If you wash regularly, you will probably wash them off before they get in, but once they’re in, the feed off your flesh and in due course, lay eggs which hatch under your skin and become even more jiggers. Not every having had one, I can’t tell you how it feels, but everyone I have asked say they are painful and itchy and you definitely know about it if you have one. Well, we we looked at these kids feet, they had probably at least 20 in each foot as well as a number on their fingers and knees. You could see where jiggers had died naturally and fallen out, leaving behind dead and decaying flesh - no wonder these kids were hobbling. It must have been so so painful.
If the family moved into the new house without infected feet, then they would spread the problem and it would be resolved. It seemed right that we should help them deal with this other very practical need as well as with the house so they could make a new start.
After some research, we found a treatment that you soak the infected area in that will kill the jiggers under the skin. You can then remove them by essentially digging them out with a pin or leave them and once they are dead they will fall out in due course - it seems preferable to remove them from everything we have heard or found out. So, thanks to Tim’s practical get on with it attitude, we turned up on Thursday equipped with the treatment, some pins and some antiseptic cream to help the feet heal.
Removing jiggers is one of the worst things I have ever seen - and I wasn’t even at the feet end! I just helped comfort the kids and encourage them while they were having this horrid thing done. We had seen the infected feet through a layer of mud originally and when the mud was removed you could see the extent of the damage caused to the feet. Thankfully a couple of members of the fellowship who were helping with the house had dealt with jiggers before so were a dab hand and I don’t think we could have managed it without them.
We started off with Hillary who was incredibly brave, but he was clearly in a lot of pain when the jiggers were being removed. When one is pulled out it’s about the size of a smallish ball-bearing and looks like a white round maggot thing. Because it feeds off the flesh, it is essentially attached to you so you can imagine how much it must hurt having it taken out. We decided we could not remove them from the younger children’s feet and hands as they were both clearly terrified and it would have been far too traumatic for them. So we gave them an extra long soak in the treatment which would kill the jiggers and left them to come out in due course. However, we couldn’t really manage to soak Linda’s knee which had 3 jiggers in it and therefore had to remove these there and then. It was awful. The poor little girl screamed and screamed and was shouting “How am I ever going to walk again” because it was so painful. All I could do was hold her still so that the whole thing would be over as quickly as possible. She was shouting and screaming for her dad, but sadly he didn’t even come to see what was happening. I was totally reduced to tears by the whole thing and even writing about it now makes my eyes fill up all over again.
Having dealt with the kids jiggers we checked out the grandma and father and discovered their feet were also riddled with them. So, we treated their feet as well. The grandma was obviously having an internal battle - she obviously wanted the situation dealt with so it was over, but she also knew how painful it was and kept hiding her hand or her knees so we couldn’t see the jiggers in them. Then she would come and show us them as she knew it was better to deal with them even if it did hurt now. I think it is safe to say all of us were physically and emotionally exhausted by the end of the day.
I kept wondering why nobody had dealt with them before? Jiggers are relatively common here and most people you ask about them has had one at some point. The general response is that people remove one as soon as they find they have one and that’s that. It seems to shows a real loss of hope to sort of give in to them and let the jiggers run riot in your feet and those of your family.
We were talking with the people who lived next door to the family and they said they have previously tried to remove the jiggers from Hillary’s feet, but he ran away from them and has refused to go in their house ever since. It also appears that the father has a tendency to violence when drunk so they have not been able to help him as much as they would like. Having jiggers seems a little like the social equivalent of having nits - although a lot more painful. Without wanting to sound too harsh, you were viewed as a scummy kid if you got nits at school (although I think everyone had them at some point!) and I think this makes your pride kick in. In the case of this family, I feel that, despite their dire need, the father struggles to accept help from those around him. I think we were able to give his family this help where maybe his neighbours previously hadn’t been able to because we were outsiders in this instance. The people helping us remove the jiggers were clearly nervous about dealing with the father’s feet and I think this was due to his previous reaction to them. However, amazingly he sat still and quiet without kicking up any fuss while they removed them! A real miracle!
By the end of the day the kids were smiling again and even seemed pleased to see us when we turned up the next day! I’m not sure I would have been as forgiving as them if someone had hurt me so much!! Hopefully when we go back to officially hand over there house there will be an improvement in the health of their feet!
So, I will stop talking about the horrible jiggers now. I’m sorry to share such gross things with you, but it really struck home how hard life here can be and how important it is to be willing to deal with whatever we are faced with. I was really reminded of James chapter 3 verse 14 - 17:
“What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go , I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good it is? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
So there you go, that was mud huts, jiggers and a very intense week!
We followed that by going to a wedding on Saturday...I won’t say much apart from the fact it took the bride about 30 minutes to march/dance up the aisle with her 15 bridesmaids! Apparently that was quick. Sometimes it can take up to 2 hours!!!
The last week has been a lot less emotional, but pretty busy. I think I mentioned the maize and beans project last time I wrote but only briefly. It has become a major task here - the bank are taking a long time to process all the 5000 farmers forms and in the meantime to farmers are all waiting for their maize seed and fertiliser, which they need to plant, well now! I am pleased to say that over the weekend lots of progress has been made and a substantial amount of seed and fertiliser was delivered, so that is good! However, as people have been asking questions it has become apparent that the records held here of who was waiting for what were, well, far from organised! So, somehow I ended up taking on the task of sorting them out!! Anyone who knows me will know what this will have made me do - I’ve sort of been in crazy-overdrive-mental organising mode whilst I’ve typed up 5000 farmers names and details (I’ve had some help) and made a spreadsheet of a joy in excel that added up the amount of acres and farmers and what not so it didn’t have to be done by hand every time somebody needs to know how much fertiliser is needed where. In all honesty, it’s been a pretty tedious task, but now I have a happy feeling of happy organised files! It also means that the information can be emailed to the bank or suppliers when it is needed. So, although it was far less fun than building a mud hut I do think it’s been another worthwhile thing to have spent my time doing. I have a feeling I’ve not seen the end of it all yet though as I think there will be some amendments as the bank finalises their paperwork!
And finally...hurray for birthdays and the weekend! It was Jo Riley’s birthday this weekend so we planned a few surprises, mainly involving yummy food like cake and pancakes and toad-in-the-hole!!! We also had a little party that was a very comedy event involving a few silly games and on Saturday we ventured out to Bungoma - a town about an hour away. We went by bus so had to brave the bus station in Bungoma on the way home - always interesting! There’s no signage or bus stand to show you where to get the bus you want, just a corner that you have to know you need to go and a load of guys all trying to get you to get on their bus! At one point I turned round to see a guy saying to Gemma “I just want to marry you, that’s all I want. I only want to marry you!” It was at that point that I decided it was time to just pick a bus and get on it...which we did without further ado and made it safely home.
So there you go! My last few weeks in a rather big nutshell!!!
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Thank God for:
- the opportunity to help some people much less fortunate than ourselves.
- all the fun and laughter he has given us amongst the work as well as the energy he has given us to keep going.
- our safety as we have been out and about!
Please pray for:
- clarity about what to do and what not to do - every day is busy, but I still feel that I need to put in place a “bigger picture” to make sure I do all the things I originally came to do!
- a closeness with God amidst the busy times. I don’t just want to spend my time here doing stuff, I want to learn to walk closer with God!
