day five: dust and thirst

i guess you could call this my first impressions, although this is my fifth full day here. its amazing to think its almost been a week already, the days seem to be flying by. there is always something to do here, always an errand to run, or an opportunity to catch (also called a matatu). on top of the everyday business, jetlag is still kicking my butt. i think ive fallen asleep on every bus weve taken thus far. my favorite was being woken by a kenyan man behind me shaking the brim of my hat, while he and the others sitting around me laughed, quietly amused.

this morning, irene and i moved a pile of bricks from one side of the construction zone to their permanent home on the other. doesnt sound like much, but just as the nights here are cold, the days here can be pretty scourching. we succeeded in moving half of one of four piles. maybe two hundred bricks. i guess we'll have another go tomorrow.

saturday, we hired a truck and a driver and went through kamba land to buy more bricks. there is more required to finish the walls of the childrens home, and then we will have more for future projects. the brick place is a good 70 kilometers away. i dont know how many miles that is, but it was at least three hours away. as you could imagine, i slept for much of it : ). but cramming into a truck cab with six people, sitting crosslegged isnt much fun, and i was mostly numb by the time we got there.

the bricks we are using are made from the earth here. they are a mixture of sand, clay, and a firing process that makes them suitable for building with. we bought 4000 or so, and it took most of the day to load them. btw, we werent swinging the bricks, although tyler and i had come expecting to. a crew of kenyans were more than eager to work, and there were enough that we probably would have just gotten in the way.

kamba land looks like a desert, just sand and dust as far as the eye can see, like something out of an apocalyptic movie. while the truck was being loaded, we took a boda(motorcycle) to the top of the mountain and hiked out to a plateue overlooking kenya, a great stretching landscape, all dust and ashes. it was quite an awe inspiring sight. it is said that the mountains in this part of the world are the oldest anywhere. i believe it. things here have a feeling like a pendulum, they have been going on forever, and will continue in their own way. any change here will happen slowly, with great patience, like a grain of grass that lies dormant until it has enough strenghth to sprout.

there is a drought here, in more ways than one. it hasnt rained in months. but you still see the small stream trickling against all odds. still, the storm brews over head, even if the rain hasnt come. they called this the dark continent for a reason. in many places, there is a tangeable presence of evil. but still, love shines through. things are changing. there is hope, and revival, and song. but this land thirsts. God, let it rain.

grace and peace
jon