Water and Weather

Today was much less eventful than yesterday. And the math tutoring only lasted an hour after dinner so I was done by 8 pm - unlike last night when we were at it until 10 pm! About 11 pm Rick Skyped me, and we had a lengthy visit, so I didn’t get to sleep until midnight. I did sleep in until 7 this morning, but the girls have to get up by 5 am or earlier!

It’s been very hot and dry since I got here. Corner Baridi means ‘Cold Place’, so it’s been cooler than Nairobi, thank goodness. The high temperatures have been in the 90’s in Nairobi for the past several days. Normal temperatures for this time of year are low to mid 80’s. In addition to the fact that it’s a bit cooler here in the Ngong Hills area, there is generally a cooling breeze and, at least since I’ve been here, the humidity is very low so that even when it’s quite warm, the breeze is effective at cooling you off. We are only a few degrees south of the equator here, but south we are. So the cooler wetter weather that passes for ‘winter’ is supposed to be coming. Of course it never gets really cold, and  the shamba can be cultivated year round. I just looked at the forecast and there were showers predicted today - did not happen. And thunderstorms predicted tomorrow. That would be great because we’ve been having to water the lawn areas and the shamba like crazy. As much as I like blue skies and sunshine, we really do need rain.

Fortunately, there’s no problem with drinking water at Hekima. We have a bore hole (well) that provides water for the facility. When they first moved out here, there was no treatment other than a little chlorine, but they soon found that the plumbing was plugging up with deposits because the water was so heavy with minerals that deposited in the pipes. So they had to install a reverse osmosis system to treat the water and save the plumbing. The abundance of good water means that, in addition to selling veggies from the shamba, Hekima Place sells water to the neighbors. When we come and go through the main gate, we see folks lined up with containers waiting to buy water, often bringing their cows and goats along so they can water them.

Gray water from showers, clothes and dish washing, etc. is used for watering the shamba. And sewage is treated on site with a bio-box. All the toilet water runs down hill to a series of four treatment tanks where the solids are removed and pathogens are eliminated. I just told you everything I know about that so clearly I need to learn more about how this process works! When the water comes out the other end, it is safe to use on the shamba and even apparently has some good fertilizing qualities.