We were all so excited today - Blessing, the new 7 month old baby who came to us two weeks ago limp as a dishrag and weighing only 9 pounds, was strong enough to sit up, play with a rattle, wave and smile at everyone. She has come so far in such a short period of time.
The other exciting news is that Emma, Hekima's first college graduate, and her husband Eric had a baby boy. Eric called Kate today to tell her about it. And it was so sweet - they named the baby after Kate's late husband, Fletcher. Emma works for an insurance company and Eric is a civil engineer in Mombassa.
Wednesday, Kate and I enjoyed a girls’ afternoon out. We
went into Karen to run some errands, got those done and stopped at Janet Mathenge’s house to have her sign some checks
for us. Janet has a beautiful home in Karen. She is, as I have probably
mentioned, a member of the Hekima Board of Trustees as well as president of the
Karen Rotary, and a great help to us. we got there, she surprised me with
a “Welcome to Africa” gift basket full of goodies to eat and drink as well as
some carvings, a cute little Maasai key ring and a Maasai blanket. I was overwhelmed – thaWhen t was so sweet of her.
I need to get a nice card to thank her.
After leaving Janet’s place, Kate took me to the Kazuri bead
factory. Kazuri employs local women who make ceramic beads and from them
necklaces, bracelets and earrings. In addition to the ceramic beads, they make
wonderful pottery .The factory store also sells purses and locally made
sculpture. We were disappointed that, though the store stayed open until 6 pm,
the factory itself shut down for the day at 4:30, so I didn’t get to see the
process of making the beads or pottery. But we could still shop! Kate bought a
gift for a friend and a purse. I bought a bag of loose beads for my own jewelry
making and a cup and saucer as a gift for Kate’s morning coffee.
We were hungry and the traffic was bad, so we decided not to
fight our way back through it to try to make it to Hekima Place in time for
dinner. We stopped at Osteria Karen (an Italian restaurant) for dinner. I
hadn’t had any fish since I’d arrived in Kenya, so I ordered red snapper and
Kate got tilapia. All the eateries that cater to Westerners have lovely outdoor
garden seating areas, so we ate outside and watched ibises feed on the lawn and
children play in a swimming pool while their parents enjoyed dinner. My snapper was delicious, especially
accompanied by a glass of wine, and Kate enjoyed her tilapia.
When we did get back to Hekima, dinner was over and Kinyua was
doing the tutoring duties, so Kate and I had the evening free. Kinyua is the
man in charge of education around here, among other duties. He is a former
teacher, and keeps track of how all the girls are doing, visits the secondary
school girls, checks out potential boarding schools, tutors, etc. Since we have been without an assistant
director, Kinyua has taken on additional responsibilities and is a very great
help to Kate. Anyhow, Kate and I went over to Karibu guest house, settled down
on the couch with her doggies and enjoyed watching a movie, “American President”,
while munching on chocolate and macadamia nuts.
When the movie was done, Kate went back to her place and logged
onto email to see if the woman to whom we offered the resident mum/social
worker job had responded yet. The next
thing I knew, Kate was at my door in her bathrobe to tell me that, hallelujah,
praise the Lord, Brendah accepted the job and will be coming back out here to
finalize. That was a wonderful note to end the day on!
So I proceeded to do some emails and went to bed happy.
Kate, not so much. Apparently there was a problem with her tilapia – she hadn’t
eaten some of it because it was undercooked but evidently she didn’t set enough
aside. All the warnings in restaurants
caution about eating undercooked seafood, and this must have been what the
warnings are about. Kate was up every hour on the hour being sick at both ends.
Fortunately, by the end of the day Thursday she was better, but what an awful
way to spend a night!
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