Monday, July 24, 2017

First day at Gituamba

It was a great day! We had the opportunity to go back to the Gituamba settlement, where we have had the blessing to work every year for five summers. It is amazing to see the transformation of this community. The first year we came, it was a cluster of homes in the vicinity of a barn that had long ago seen better days. There was no school: the kids had to walk more than 5 kilometers each way to go to school. Some people were still living in tents, several years after escaping genocide and being placed in an IDP camp (internally displaced persons) by the government. Some lived in the old barn under tarps or corrugated metal sheets, anything to find some shelter and escape. They lived among the chickens and rubble. Their future looked anything but positive. We have been eternally blessed to play a small part in this transformation. We've helped to build sanitary facilities (eco latrines), built classroom walls inside the barn during its transformation into Gituamba Jeanette Keaton Conley Memorial Primary School, serving more than 500 children. Last year, we poured the 28' x 60' concrete floor for a school dining hall and began construction on a church for the community. This year, we're scrapeing and painting windows in the dining hall and installing glass, putting up steel wall panels for the newly constructed 20' x 28' kitchen for the dining hall, cutting walls and installing windows in the church, and hopefully pouring concrete for rooms on the back of the church. This is in addition to all of the social activities of playing games with the kids, reading books to the kids and having them read books to us, etc.  It is a great time of reestablishing relationships with friends from prior years. It is such an encouragement to see how this community and individuals are prospering and growing into community. And another exciting thing that I thought would never happen is that electrical power has been run into the community pass the front of the church and right to the school! This community has hope and a future. I will put as many pictures up here as I can, although it is complicated to shrink them to size on a phone or iPad to get them there. I post a lot more pictures on Facebook. If you're interested in seeing more, I'd gladly friend you if you want to track me down. You can find me as James A. Hall. 
This is Jerome, the four month old son of our dear friend Grace Kinyua. I'd bring him home given the chance! What a sweetheart!
Our favorite stop on the way to Gituamba. The Kenya equivalent of Starbucks, only better! This is the entry to the school, complete with school rules and regulations and expectations. 


Everywhere you looked throughout the day, there was construction activity or social interaction. 









The transformer 100 yards from the school!

Andi and Emily got a chance to help Veronica with beating the beans to get her harvest out of the pods.















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