I'm not fit

That is my conclusion following yesterday’s two games of football. One nice leisurely game with the children on the school “field”, then one not quite so sedate with the local lads down at Murang’a Wembley. I thought I gave a fairly decent account of myself considering I haven’t broken into a sweat since last century. It was funny to see all the kids in a big group charge around the pitch chasing the ball at the same time. Reassuringly to see that’s the same the world over!

But before I come to today I wanted to write a word on last night. Just after football, at about 18h30 the electricity went out during a lightning storm. No news there I agree, but what was a first for me was preparing dinner with a wind-up torch. I mean of course by wind-up torch light, not that I prepared dinner with a wind up torch. That would have been something to write home about.

Anyway, Friday is school assembly day which starts promptly at 07h45. So in spite of the aches and pains I hobbled the 100m to the school to participate in prayers & announcements as customary for all. Apart from the weekly flag raising ceremony for a flag we don’t yet have (we are working on it believe me), the only other points of information of note were :
i) That yours truly is back and will be with the school for the next 6 month … cue generous applause and excited noises. Very touching.
ii) And this is much better than #1, there is a rumour running rampant (like the alliteration?) around the area that there are vampires at the school! (love it). Indeed the rumour even apparently originated from our school itself and has now spread across the valley to the opposite high school. So worrying is it apparently, that the students are now afraid to cross the valley.
The head teacher however moved quickly to quash the rumour pointing out very wisely to the kids that he, Mr. Kuranja and Matthew would not be here were it true. He’s spot on there. That’s why he’s head teacher I guess.

After assembly, James (who is Kenyan volunteer at the school) and I had a meeting with the carpenter to discuss and commission a hutch for the rabbits we will be buying at some time next week. We are due the quote tomorrow. The rabbits are for the children to rear and look after, but as with most of the school projects the aim is to sell them for meat. If all goes to plan, rabbits will do what rabbits do best and before we can say Jack Robinson (or the Swahili equivalent) we will have dozens and dozens.

The afternoon was bizarre to say the least. I didn’t quite get the whole story at the time but it involved trekking across a few fields to look at a calf. Apparently one was for sale at 5,500 Kenyan Shillings and James and I were charged with checking it out to see if it was a good deal. At about 16h00 two blokes arrived to take us to the man who was selling the calf. Unfortunately I don’t recall their names but one was completely drunk.

When we got there to the consternation of man 1 and 2, it turned out that we had been gazumped and the calf had been sold that very morning (if only it had been exchanged for 5 magic beans the story would have been complete). By a strange twist of fate, seller just so happened to have another at 15,000 Kenyan shillings if we were interested. We politely declined and headed home.

On the way home I got the full story. It turns out that the Bishop & his wife were generously proposing to buy the calf for the 2 men who had accompanied us to help them set themselves up. James accurately pointed out to the drunken man of the two: “if you have money for drink, you can surely buy your own calf”. You can’t argue with that.

Night night from the equator where the water goes straight down the plug hole.