My Kenyan Adventure: Into the village we go

Gloria decided I could not leave Kenya without seeing the rural village style of life. Every few days we walk into town to buy our fruit and veggie from a lady named Helen. Helen doesn't live too too far away from us, so she invites us to her home to experience rural life. When we arrive she lights a fire to boil some water in preparation to milk her cow. Every week she walks down to the river to collect mud to re-build the stove. The mud is mixed with cow poop like I had described in a previous post. This gives it the right consistency and also keeps insects away. She says if they had better quality clay then she wouldn't have to rebuild it as often. She is nice enough to let me try to milk the cow. She is very very good at it and makes quick work of this task. I am of course, not so good at it but the cow doesn't seem to mind too much.

After milking she makes us some porridge on the stove. She is even able to lift the hot pot off the fire with her hands and pour it into our mugs even though it had been boiling on the fire for 15 minutes. Gloria jokes that if she ever wants to apply for a passport that Helen would have no fingers prints left on her hands.

After our snack we walk down to the river to see where she does her laundry. The river is much smaller than I was expecting. I was picturing a rushing river, I call this a stream.

There is a fresh spring that feeds this small river. The constant flowing water gives her a location to collect drinking water. On our hike back up hill we collect sticks we find as we walked the trail. This will save Helen a trip later to collect fire wood.

The kids in the village are playing in a big group. They are organizing races and playing tag. I recently learned a song in Swahili so I am able to get the kids to sing and clap with me. Everyone but the very youngest knows the words. The oldest girl helped me lead the song, she also knows the subsequent verses I have not yet learned. Very cute of course.

The kids are excited to pose for a photo and to see the results on the back of my camera.
These two brothers are entertaining themselves by pushing each other down hill on this three wheeled scooter.

We walk with Helen back into town where she sells the milk at her food stand. I am doing my best to sell some of her produce and fresh milk.