imani women's group

i am so happy here (:

for the past 2 days we've been working with the imani women's group. we drove out thursday morning and during the 40 mins of dirt track to the main road saw five lions!! it is apparently really rare to see one lion, let alone 5, on the ranch so it was a pretty exciting start to our day. upon arrival, the chairwoman of the group welcomed us and told us about their role and involvement in the community. imani is in a very harsh semi-arid area and water, food, poverty, hiv/aids and teen pregnancies are all prevalent issues. the women's group was formed so that the mamas of imani could unite together to organise projects and educate the locals in order to improve health and quality of life.

[something i found quite interesting, albeit shocking, is the way in which hiv is spread along the mombasa highway. it's pretty much the main line of access for shipments to travel around the country and therefore used by hundreds and hundreds of semi trailers. these semi trailers inevitably pass through imani whilst on the job and at night there can be up to 200 of them parked alongside the road where the villages are. a huge number of these truck drivers are hiv positive and they pick up local girls and women at imani, often offer them a sum of money, and spend the night with them. these women then take the money to buy food for their families and spread the virus to their husbands and so on and so forth..]

anyway. after our talk we were split up into groups to help with various projects - plastering the walls of a guest house, painting the community hall, building a cement base for a water tank and smoothing long slats of wood for construction. i got delegated the painting task (the boys got asked to do the 'manly' tasks.. -_-) i had so much fun with jasmine and we both got really into it, trying to make the job look as good as possible. we basically had to first cover up the dark patches of cement/plaster with a white undercoat and then coat the entire inside wall surface of the hall with a yellow colour. [i forgot to mention - we've been joined by a handful of new people who are here for the next 2 months] vitza, one of our newcomers, is massively tall and thus got delegated all the high spaces on the walls. i think we were getting a big high off the paint fumes because we were giggling so much..

unfortunately before the job could be finished on friday we ran out of paint so i went to help the cementers instead. they had dug a hole and started filling it up with concrete and rocks to make a solid structure the water tank could sit on, safe from shifts in the sand due to rain or wind erosion. it was glorious playing with the goopy cement again (: i also went around to the tree-shapers and for some reason was allowed to play with machetes.. still high off paint fumes..

all in all i was impressed by how much work we were able to do in two days, having a big group of people makes such a difference.. and the thankyou speech we received from the women was so touching and humbling. it's so much more rewarding when you know why it is you're doing the work and when the people you're working for show so much gratitude.. there are some really strong hearts and spirits in this small kenyan town.

on both nights a small group of us has gone to lie out under the stars or by the fire and just chill for a few hours. it's a nice change to have more than one area to hang out in, it's more intimate.. there are people here i'm really enjoying spending time with (sam is a legend, jasmine is amazing - there, shout out complete). after just over a month so many friendships have formed and i'm in such a happy place. i'm liking the vibes amongst us and the fact that a few people have really surprised me after getting to know them better (: i love it here. i like the space and the openness and the wilderness surrounding us, the red earth, the thatched huts.. i'd be glad to spend another month at camp tsavo if i could (: