Marriage celebrations

Dear friends,
 

it’s weekend! We met one of our friends at 7 am to go to school and get some work done. The roofing of the current building or example is finalized. Just in time as this afternoon we had the first rain since arriving in Kimilili. Tropical rain: Big, heavy drops and within seconds the ground was flooded! We stood outside feeling the warm rain on our dirty skins:

Playing in the rain

The new cupboard for the school arrived (Obrigada Sandra e Olli! Beijo para o Brasil!)!

Delivery of the cupbaord

Now that we have a cupboard that can be locked, we went to pick up the school books in the book shop. In addition to the school books, we bought 200 exercise books for the kids that can’t afford to buy them (Danke Andy! Nich erwartete Freuden sind sicherlich die Schönsten!). The book shop owner was very happy. A lot of handshaking and even a visitor book were involved, then we headed off back to school.

School and excercise books nd some donations in the new cupboard

The holes for the latrines (DANKE Alrik, here ist Deine Spende geblieben!) are ready and beginning of next week we would like to start with the permanent toilet building. For every construction, water is needed. The school doesn’t have water access at the moment, so they either have to get it at the river (a 10 minutes walk) or buy it (very expensive).

Together with the board members we re-prioritized the investments (water access was planned for 2012) to get it as soon as possible to reduce the prize of the constructions of the toilets. Unfortunately, water access is a bit expensive and it involves the ministry of water (handshaking, visitor book and a high deposit) (DANKE Müsli! Bald können sich die Kinder die Hände waschen!). We started with the preparations, so we digged the holes for the water pipeline and bought the necessary materials. Hopefully, on Monday morning the ministry agrees and we have running water by end of the day.

Digging for the water pipe

In the afternoon we went off to a wedding celebration. It was not the actual wedding, but the recognition of the local community, that a wedding had successfully taken place.

The place was way outside Kimilili in the country side. Very romantic. A lot of women were preparing local food :

Rolling Chapatis

"Cooking" Chapatis

Cooking cabbage (and yes, the smoke burns in the eyes...)

 

Enjoying cooked cabbage

Chatting and dancing was also involved:

Traditional dancing to welcome visitors

 We spent three lovely hours with them before heading back to school to construct additional school benches (not finalized yet). 

In the evening we cooked noodles: ahhh, wonderful food! :)

Have a nice weekend!

Alex & Agnes