The week ahead

Following last night’s blog I was pleasantly surprised when the party noise died out early, (though the drumming from one of the local churches did carry on for a while). I still woke up tired tough. The anti malaria tablets I take are a bit old school and have the interesting side effect of making you have very vivid dreams. Nothing particularly psycho, weird or scary but very active. It’s quite exhausting some nights.

This week looks like being busy. I will be doing two days of Farming God’s Way, (FGW), training on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m looking forward to it, as it will be an opportunity to apply the training I received myself in Lesotho earlier this month. I am slightly nervous about it – there’s quite a lot to get through and it will be my first time fronting a ‘live’ audience on my own. The plan is to train up a small group of people to equip them for training others. As well as the novelty factor I’m also slightly anxious about the plot we will be planting being successful. We will be planting the seed a little bit late in the season. Even though it is a specially selected ‘short season’ seed, which matures very quickly, I will be praying hard for its rapid growth.

Our main FGW crop is doing very well. Some of the maize stalks must be at least 8 feet tall now. The treatment against pests has been successful so far and the cobs of corn are already evident in the first stage of development. It looks like a fair number of our maize plants will produce two cobs of corn. It’s very exciting watching it all happen. The intricate balance in nature which enables things to grow is fascinating. Our maize plants “tassled” a few days ago. The tassles poke out of the top of the plant ready to pollinate the silks on the corn cobs as they emerge. The silks look a bit like a wispy silk beard growing out of the leaves holding the cob. Each individual silk is connected to a kernel on the cob and once pollinated the kernel develops. The pollen is shaken off the tassles by the wind, (or the farmer, depending on circumstances). I’m really looking forward to the harvest.

Later in the week I’m off to Kisumu, an hour and a half’s drive away, to have the windscreen in our Landrover replaced. The crack in the windscreen has just started to draw the attention of one of the local policemen in Oyugis and we are on notice to do something about it. If this is the beginning of a general crackdown on damaged windscreens I think I will invest all of next month’s income in the local autoglass industry – Kenya must have more damaged windscreens per capita than anywhere else I have been to. A function of the wonderful roads. I’m hoping that we will make it all the way to Kisumu on this trip. Last time the Landrover went to Kisumu, to fetch Judi from the airport, the front prop shaft fell off on the return journey to Kosele. Fortunately no one was hurt. Silverline, our favourite garage in Kenya, repaired the Landrover, free of charge. Hamir, the owner, is a great friend to Hope and Kindness. He has generously offered to fix our windscreen free of charge as well. Acts of kindness like this do great things for your faith in human nature. Many thanks to Hamir.