I'm back...sorry for the radio silence

First of all, apologies for not having updated my blog yesterday. I realise that for many of you they have become an indispensable part of your day:
. Seb: whilst stuck on the RER
. Towz: in the cab on the way home
. Fabien: as you fly to and from Manchester
. Guillaume: when you should be listening to that bloke who replaced me
. Jeb: as you walk Blue
. Des: in your supplier management meetings
. Mike: as you sing along to Brooks & Dunn and rev your engine looking for some one to race at the lights
. Stu: as you hunt high and low for that Columbian arms dealers lost Bottero (have you tried the back of the sofa?)
. Junior: as you load the nuclear fuel rods into the reactor (you really shouldn’t you know)
. Ali: whilst dropping the kids off at the pool

What can I say? Sorry for the void left in your day…I ran out of airtime.

So what has been happening? Well, we currently have 4 Swedish visitors/sponsors with us. The 2 guys, Äke (pronounces Errke) and Güte (pronounced Yerrte) are both retired now but now work as carpenters. Gunbritt is a retired dermatologist and Gunilla a practicing nurse.

They arrived this past weekend and will be with us for the next week, so James and I have been charged with showing them around, introducing them to the children and incorrectly translating everything they ask ;-) ... of course we're not!

The day before yesterday the guys went to Nairobi to purchase a large all-in-one electric planer/circular saw/drill machine. I don’t know how much it cost but it sure weighed enough when we unloaded it last night. It’s gonna be a nightmare to get back to Sweden! Only joking, it’s for our workshop of course! 3 cheers for the Swedes …

Yesterday morning the machine and all who sail in her were blessed by bishop.

The ladies have been spending most of their days with our new school nurse. One thing is funny though, since the new nurse arrived at the end of last week, everyone has become sick. Really, until she joined us no-one was ever sick, and now…well, the kids are dropping like flies; there is practically a queue outside the dispensary. If anyone has one of those ticket number distributor machines, we’re interested.

One of our children does really appear to be sick however. I learned yesterday that over the past few days, Joyce (class 8) has lost consciousness 2x here at the school. It turns out a few weeks ago she slipped in the bathroom and banged her head. The school nurse and the 2 Swedish ladies took her to hospital yesterday for some initial tests and the doctors diagnosed her condition as psychosomatic.

Well, Joyce lost consciousness again yesterday late on and so the ladies were taking here again today to the hospital demand a more thorough examination. If I need to go and “talk” to whoever, believe me I will. I’m not sure if the local hospital in Murang’a has the equipment to perform a scan of some kind, but if not we will make arrangements to get her to Thika or Nairobi. I will keep you all posted.

Yesterday afternoon we all paid a visit to St. Michael’s High School at the other end of our school track. The high school only opened 3 weeks ago and currently has 1 class of 24 students. We met the head master and the children, 8 of whom were at St. Anna last year and although not on the curriculum, I was asked if I would teach French. Sacré bleu…les pauvres enfants!

Not that I will refuse, but I was saved by my 4pm phone call to a company called Stack in Rhode Island to discuss working together to transform one of our shipping containers into a library and the other (if it ever arrives) into a clinic or teachers’ quarters. It looks like we’re gonna need about $7,5k per container… which when you consider the cost of doing the same with traditional materials isn’t too bad. They have the added advantage of being moveable and modular, so should we wish to expand we just plop another on top. Hmm…need to think it through a bit more.

Meanwhile as your general education is of great concern to me, I feel you should know that all of my adventures are taking place against the backdrop of a degrading political situation. To cut a long story short, after 2007’s disputed elections, President Kibaki & Prime Minister Odinga formed a coalition government. This has limped along from one argument to another for the last 2 years or so, and last Sunday appears to be the final straw for one of them. The prime minister suspended 2 ministers accused of corruption (corrupt MPs? Surely not!) only for President Kibaki to re-instate them a few hours later. The agriculture minister is alleged to be complicit in the disappearance of $26m earmarked for Maize, and the education minister in $1m destined for schools.

The Prime Minister has now decided he can no-longer work with the President and called for Kofin Annan to mediate (he must know I have my hands full) as there is a real chance of the coalition collapsing should this dispute not be resolved. More worrying as they both represent different ethnic groups there is then the risk of it all kicking off again (at this point I will be having a whip round for a flight home).

Finally, as you may have read in my last post, I have begun making a series of videos to show different aspects of the childrens’ daily lives here at the school e.g. dorms, fetching water, washing, cooking, picking mangos, the cross-bar challenge etc. If there is anything in particular you feel you would like to see, Thursdays are video day so please let me know and we will add it to the list. I probably won’t be able to upload them to the blog until I pop home in April, but they should be worth the wait.

Tuonane kesho (see you tomorrow)

PS: I found a good stick on the track at the weekend so over the last couple of days I have been sanding it down to make myself a walking staff. Tomorrow I will varnish it and then I will be able to tread the hills and valleys like a ginger Gandalf.