Class 7 students join us in the warm breeze as we garden. We dig holes, throw in manure/compost, and plant tomatoes, peppers, carrots, kale, and spinach. They are amazed by my insistence of adding mulch and more mulch to protect the roots from the sun and to keep the moisture in the earth. 10 centimeters of mulch? Yep, that would be about right, I say. We work together and all our hands are muddy, but I see that we are all smiling and having a good time, knowing that good food will come out of our labors. I pray that this will be a successful garden, as it hasn’t rained as much as is needed and everyone fears for their produce.
From the garden, we visit Mama Rosaline with the girls. She is old and can’t hear my name well, so decides to call me Hannah. She is old, but she is caring for two little ones who are just adorable and who obviously love their grandma, with one of them cuddling on Mama’s lap while we chat. She is thankful for the water filter, solar lights, and goats she’s received from AFCA and doesn’t hesitate to tell me that she also needs a mosquito net and a bed, as she and the girls sleep on the dirt floor. I like her spirit – she is a feisty one who has no idea how old she is, but she thinks she is perhaps 90 or so, due to when people remember her as a child. Covenant Christian Academy, you did well when you raised money for goats for this little family. Thank you!
Lunch rolls around, but I can’t seem to eat. I try some rice and black tea with ginger, but after 2 weeks of nausea off and on, today my body finally rejects all notion of food and I throw up my breakfast and lunch. My friends decide I will have a malaria test to rule that out, so we drive 40 minutes to Kisumu and they sit with me as I wait for a doctor to see me. After verifying my weight, height and blood pressure ($9USD), a blood test is taken ($5), which comes back negative for malaria. It is decided that I ate something that didn’t like my body (maybe the rolex I ate in Uganda? Or, maybe the suya from Nigeria?) and I am now taking medicine to get rid of any amoebas that have taken residence in my belly, as well as anti-nausea medicine so I can stop throwing up, and something with magnesium ($6.5). I am told that in 2 days, I will be healed of what ails me, but I am hoping for a 5-minute cure because I am not liking this feeling of not being able to eat and of nausea.
I sip ginger and black tea again as I watch a chicken play with a lizard. #afcaids #kenya #covenantchristianacademy