18 More Women Have Cows!

Last week we gave out 18 cows. Some of them may still look very ‘scrawny’ to a European eye but all are in much better condition than when they left market in October. Although it is raining on and off in different areas there was not enough grass to sustain them all in one place. There were also reports of cattle rustling by some Kenyan Maasai who had sold their cows here at rock bottom prices during the drought. Most of our cows are Kenyan stock as they are an improved breed and give more milk.


Kivuya

So who are these women who have received a cow?

Several are widows with young children to care for. One has 7 married children but none are able to help her. Another is the second wife of a man who prefers his first wife...............


Ellena

Two or three have alcoholic husbands who are rarely at home and therefore unable to provide for their wives and children.

One has 3 married children but two are girls and husbands are often are unwilling to help their mothers in law as they consider the dowry to be enough help. Her son has married an ‘Mswahili’ (anyone who is not a Maasai) and has moved out of his culture.


Endoyekuna

One woman lost her husband when he went to market to sell a cow. Sadly he celebrated on the proceeds and was then run over by a car on the road home.

Another lost her husband to armed robbers who broke into the shop he was looking after for a friend. When her daughters were married, and she received the required number of cows as their dowry, a relative of her husband’s ‘ate’ them. She still has one younger unmarried daughter and is hoping the cow will give her a measure of independence from this relative and that she will be able to move out from under his ‘protection’.


Nanaito

This cow may not look like much of a gift and has not recovered as well as the others. It’s a start at least to help this couple get back on their feet as they have lost all their cows during the drought. They have two children and thankfully none of the problems common to the other women. We have no doubts that all these cows will be pampered and cared for extremely well.


Nanyoki

One woman has lost her husband and two sons to AIDS and is infected herself but keeps relatively healthy on ARVs. Another has lost 3 of her children and the 4th is unable to either work or look after himself, let alone her.

Yet another widow has two sons but sadly one is in prison and the other is an alcoholic. She is able to earn about £2 for delivering babies.


Grecie
The Maasai love any excuse to eat, drink, dance and sing and all these women are already looking forward to the moment when they can say thank you in this way- so are we!

Eco Lawn Mowers

Graham often arrives home with a ‘thank you’ from Maasaini. The goats are sent straight on elsewhere as they have absolutely no appreciation of a carefully laid out garden and can wreak havoc in no time at all. This flock of ‘lawn mowers’, on the other hand, can be left to graze happily and are a very pleasant addition to our environment.

Demonstration Plot

A demonstration plot was given by Lesingo beside his boma. He announced that he was very happy that he was going to learn the ‘secret’ of the soil as he already knew the ‘secret’ of keeping cows.



The first job was to bag up lots of manure for the planting holes from inside the goat pen.



The next job was to dig the holes but although the ground was sandy it was as hard as rock about 6 inches down and the pickaxe handle was broken in the first half hour. The workforce was less willing at this stage!



But in the end, everyone was very happy with their efforts. Each hole was filled with goat manure and a sprinkling of seedbed fertiliser. It turned out that Lesingo’s only contribution to the process was to go round waking everyone up at dawn each morning! He then sat down for the rest of the day to watch the work and chat to the other elders. As soon as the rains begin in earnest, we will go back and sow the seed.

Dust storms, Rain and 'Dry' Riverbeds!

Last week’s trip was primarily about preparing the first demo plot for Foundation Farming. As always though, the trip was about several things at once.

Alima is a young girl who sustained terrible burns to one eye and ear and was brought into town for plastic surgery last year. Last week we returned her home after 4 months in rehab.



Graham writes: Alima was in the front with me and we got on well, despite her not having very coherent thoughts in Maasai and me trying to speak coherently in Swahili. She had a very engaging way of looking at me from the corner of her one eye, giggling and trying to explain some complicated thought in Maasai with lots of gesticulations. Then she would stop and check and if I looked totally perplexed she would throw her head into her lap, grasp the back of her head and roar with laughter at my incredible stupidity.



Taking Alima home proved a more interesting exercise than anticipated as Graham became engulfed in a twilight shroud of dust masking all known landmarks and trees and causing him to drive round and round and round............until the very man he was looking for came flying out of the dust – ‘in the middle of nowhere’! He had been watching their progress and running around after them trying to get their attention!



This Koko (seen here in happier times) was knocked over by a dust devil outside her hut two weeks ago resulting in terrible pain in her hip. She had not walked since and had been waiting for ‘Olais’ (Graham) to come and rescue her.



Her idea was that she would go home with him until she was better. There was much discussion in the boma - and with a doctor over the phone - and in the end it was decided that she would improve with the help of painkillers which her grandson was to fetch for her. However, Koko had set her heart on going back with the ‘Mzungu’ so she threatened to curse them all, saying that her boma had cows, sheep and goats and there was no reason why they couldn’t afford to take her to hospital. It is very hard to discern the truth in situations like this. ‘Olais’ was adopted by this koko when he came across her lying under a tree in the ‘middle of nowhere’ unable to walk home from hospital. Everyone in her boma was very alarmed by her threats but in the end a good night’s sleep, with the benefit of strong painkillers, convinced her of the merits of the plan.

Other highlights of the trip were:

• Getting thoroughly stuck in a ‘dry’ river bed after a rain storm - thankfully near a boma where the women folk cooked tea while the men did the digging

• Distributing 520 donated mosquito nets on behalf of the leadership of two villages who had no vehicle to do so.

• Taking a young boy with a four year old growth on his foot to see a doctor along with a man with scabies who had been treating it with battery acid! He was not a pretty sight and too unpleasant even to describe.

• Giving out food and identifying four more women needing cows.


The question on people’s lips seemed to be ‘Who brings this Mzungu? Why does he keep appearing out of the dust or the rain storm to help us?’ An opening we are very glad of..................