[note: it's currently 1st august and i haven't written in over a week.. the 2-monthers have now left and i decided to spend as much time as i could with them, thus not putting aside time at night to blog.. immersing myself in camp life during their last week seemed more important, so sorry if the recounts are a little rushed.. i'll only write the essentials..]
i've been a bit slack with my photos so i unfortunately haven't got many progress shots (these are george's snaps) but most of tuesday was spent mixing concrete to fill in the few gaps left in the floor and transporting bricks from camp to the toilet site.
the girls have for some reason decided to celebrate campbell's birthday today as her birthday is in one month exactly.. very logical, i know.. regardless we head out to full moon for some dancing (: unfortunately one of the girls who has POTS (dad, help?) has a fit and is rushed away in an ambulance.. a bit of an intense night trying to calm the girls down, watching someone having a seizure isn't pleasant..
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wednesday comes and i'm a little bored of brick transportation so i head over to the nursery where another group is plastering the outside of the building. this pretty much entails mixing up watery cement, slapping it against the walls and flattening it with a trowel. you then use a paintbrush dipped in water to brush the cement and smooth the surface over. yaya, the camp helper, is an expert and seems to find it amusing i haven't quite mastered the trowel 'flick' and thus turn to using my hands for parts of it.
whilst we work, a group of kids come out and decide to 'help' by pushing our wheelbarrow away and stealing our paintbrushes. it's hard to stay stern when their faces are so cute and cheeky.. (:
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thursday is a little different.. it's a pretty full-on day for sam and so him, olly and i take the day off for a meal at leonardo's. the motorbike ride there is loads of fun and the pasta lunch is amazing (: once evening comes, olly decides to return to camp and sam and i move onwards to forty thieves where we stay til dinner and return to muhaka in the evening.
upon our return we're told of a rather unpleasant event that occurred that afternoon - whilst one group was plastering, a little girl started screaming and crying nearby and they went to investigate. turns out she had stubbed her toe really badly and over time the area had become so badly affected by jiggers (little bugs that burrow into your flesh) it had practically fallen off.. she was literally just standing there crying, her toe attached to her foot only by a small hunk of bloody flesh. yaya had to gouge out the jiggers with a sharp stick whilst miranda raced to get her first aid kit to bandage the girl's toe. a lot of the girls were traumatised by the event and thus decided to buy the kids some shoes, which i personally think was a rather positive outcome to a dire situation.. it's just crazy to think that a small injury like a child's stubbed toe would never have such severe repercussions back home..
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friday i'm back at the pit where the others have already begun bricking the toilet block walls. the nearby pump is still dried up so the boys walk back to the school to fill up our jerry-cans with water.. it's incredible to watch the local mamas in multicolored sarongs rhythmically working the pump, often with babies tied to their backs, and leaving with 30L buckets of water balanced on their heads!!
after the concrete is mixed, building continues. we use a simple piece of string as a guide to keep the walls straight and try to find the best fitting bricks for each slot, caking everything in cement as we go. (once again, i fail at the trowel 'flick' and use my hands to cram cement into the holes). the structure is quite different to what i'd imagined but it seems to be working.. it's pretty funny to see my bricks appearing whilst we work - wedging caroline into a wall space and slopping cement all over twix is a lot more amusing than using plain bricks!!
back at camp, the water situation isn't great and even the toilet flushes are malfunctioning.. the entire community is in a drought. only the taps seem to be working so we fill up our water bottles, tip them into buckets and have bucket showers once more. it's funny that when i first arrived in kenya i missed hot showers and now i'm fantasizing over the weak, cold showers functioning again!!
Que tu es gracieuse sur cette vache-taureau verte!
ReplyDeleteJe crois qu'après toute cette expérience on pourra t'engager en construction! . mais pitié pour tes mains directement avec le ciment!apprends à utiliser la truelle
Quelle tristesse pour l'orteil de la petite fille! comme tu dis,triste de penser que de simples souliers auraient empêché un tel désastre
Comme je vois devant moi ces femmes avec le bébé accroché dans leur dos, à la superbe démarche, des jerricanes en équilibre sur leur tête. me Mais ça me souffle de savoir que cela peut aller jusqu'à 30 litres
Yes Leila, concrete is definitely not the best for your hands. Careful!
ReplyDeleteI really understand your deep appreciation of a cold shower in Kenya when water is so precious. This is the hard life of many Africans who live in the drought without any chance of getting a descent shower.
As you know, the drought is just next to you in Ethiopia and Somalia. Very sad indeed.
So keep enjoying any short cold showers whenever possible....
Love, papa
from Wiki *ahem* (clearing throat to read)...
ReplyDelete"Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS, also postural tachycardia syndrome) is a condition of dysautonomia, more specifically orthostatic intolerance, in which a change from the supine position to an upright position causes an abnormally large increase in heart rate, called tachycardia. Several studies show a decrease in cerebral blood flow with systolic and diastolic cerebral blood flow (CBF) velocity decreased 44% and 60%, respectively. Patients with POTS have problems maintaining homeostasis when changing position, i.e. moving from one chair to another or reaching above their heads. Many patients also experience symptoms when stationary or even while lying down.
Symptoms present in various degrees of severity depending on the patient. POTS can be severely debilitating. Some patients are unable to attend school or work, and especially severe cases can completely incapacitate the patient."
et voila :)
loving the blog, Lei!!! my psychology essay isn't loving it quite as much though haha... aaaah well. of all the forms of procrastination at my disposal reading about your wonderful adventures is my most preferred <3 xxo