Another day another dala dala

A day with a hot sun burnt the back of my neck a bit as I wasn't wearing a collar today. The shade of a tree or the ever expanding roof are delightfully cool as the breeze floats down from Mt. Meru and dries the sweat from a labourers brow. A mid-afternoon shower (literally a cold bucket of water for me and one sent by Engai) as we again catch the edge of a torrential downpour in the Rift Valley. The sky clears, barely a particle hangs between my eyeball and the peak of Mt Meru as the shadow from the setting sun hikes up the southern slope. The birds are in full song (including some roosters), a pair of curious children have just departed after a solid hour of staring and my mind is turning to dinner (and blogging).

Hard to describe the calm, peaceful happy feeling of the last couple of days. Starting with yesterday afternoon. Darren was busy on Friday afternoon so I had all the tools and all the men at my disposal for building the roofing A-frames that have become my speciality. In the space of 3 hours we almost built an entire A-frame - which usually takes a whole day. The swahili communication was more accurate and diverse than I had managed previously and the men followed my directions exactly as well as showing enthusiasm, initiative and even urgency in building as much as they could before the end of the day. We finished work five minutes overtime and began wandering home, men peeling off to go into their homes on the 1.5km walk back to the FWS volunteer village. Valley Martin (most developed tape measurer and 2nd in charge A-frame builder) lives past our house by a couple of kilometres and we walked home together with thunder storms raging in all directions except on top of us.

The mouth-watering good bolognaise that Heather and I made for dinner was a surprise that ended a superb day. I woke this morning excited with the prospect of continuing to build with the energy of yesterday. And did they ever! The A-frame was connected and prepared for lifting in about 2 hours, lifted into place in 30 minutes and then immediately the building of the next A-frame began and was half finished by lunchtime. Saturday is only a half day of work at the building site, so I paid the men their weekly wage. Pay day is a bittersweet time - I enjoy being able to hand over cash ($15-$18 a week) to farmers who would usually be waiting on their crops to supply food and income. But when they miss days of work or have to make a loan repayment to us and the amount of cash I can pay them shrinks (to less than $10) I feel concerned for their week ahead - will they eat properly? will they drink from the nfareji? will they borrow too much? I remind myself that this income is generally a bonus for them (although they do spend less time working on their farms).

Did I mention it was dinner time?