More mzungu musings

As this was my last whole day in Kenya I thought I’d make the most of it by getting up really early to drive down to Lake Victoria to watch the sun rise. I hadn’t remembered how dark it is at five in the morning, but it was a nice trip. Our visitors left today and we had actually planned to do the visit to Lake Victoria a couple of mornings ago. Unfortunately rain stopped play at that particular time. The sunrise was slightly disappointing but we did arrive at the Lake in time to see the fisherman setting off for the day’s fishing. It was a very timeless scene. The same kind of boats must have been sailing out at this time of day for hundreds of years. We had a few offers of a ‘trip around the bay’ from the fisherman, (who clearly think they know a gullible catch when they see one). Fortunately time and common sense prevailed and we remained on dry land. At least one of the boats seemed to have almost as much of the lake inside as out.

It is always sad to say goodbye to visitors, especially when they have worked as hard as this team did. Massive thanks to Madeleine, Nicky, Catherine, Alan, Mathieu, Mike and John from the ‘European team’ and also to Ida and Siv, (who are still with us but deserve a mention in dispatches).

It’s always a pain finishing up a trip to Kosele. On the one hand it is great to anticipate being home and on the other there is always the job left behind that is slightly unfinished. That said this has been a very good couple of months. We have made as lot of progress in key areas, especially in relation to Farming God’s Way, (FGW), and starting the Agriculture College. Despite the weather our farm is in good shape and the harvest on the FGW plots is still looking promising.

My DIY skills continue to develop. I think it fitting that I had to do another minor repair on one of the solar systems on my last day in Kosele this year, (actually very minor – fitting a plug to two bare wires that had been poked into one of the inverters in the classroom system). I must be improving - I managed not to give myself an electric shock this time. I am trying to decide what tools to ask Santa for this Christmas, (having got fairly into the whole ‘right tool for the job’ mentality). I actually covet, (which is, I am sure, a major sin), a carbon fibre Leatherman multipurpose tool gadget, like the one Alan, (one of our visitors), brought out with him. Having previously blogged about how heavy the economy version that I brought to Kenya is I was amazed how light and usable the carbon fibre variety is. The only downside to it that I could see was needing a degree to work out how to actually open it up to get at the tools. This could, I guess, be a test of the user’s commitment to gadget geekiness and completing the job at hand.

Anyway, I digress. I’m not sure how easy it will be to blog from Nairobi airport tomorrow but I will try. If that fails I’ll have to wait until I get home on Saturday before the next instalment. It would, to be honest, be a major disappointment to miss the blog for a day. It’s mildly obsessional but is also a very therapeutic activity.

At this point it seems appropriate to thank God, the staff, the children, my family and followers for being so willing to put up with, (even encourage), my antics over here again, and to look forward to a very exciting New Year as our work in Kosele hits another gear.