Day 2 in Nyeri – Coffee Anyone?

After the rainy day yesterday, the sunshine was a welcome alarm clock this morning. A bit chilly last night, surprisingly, but today was warm and clear. After a quick breakfast of local coffee and local fruit, we set off for our education of the Diocese’s biggest revenue producer, coffee.

My expectation of the process and the technical infrastructure was not high considering this was still a “developing” country. Much to my surprise, we found a very organized process, and a strong understanding of agricultural practices. The missionaries first developed these fields in 1902, and much of the original coffee trees were still in place and productive. The attention to detail was impressive. More impressive was just how hard these people work. My back got tired just watching the women as they seemed in a constant bent over position. Rarely bending their knees, they adopted a position similar to one where we try to touch our toes and stretch our hamstrings. I don’t know how they do it. I would last maybe 10 minutes, certainly not a full day, and to think these people do it everyday for many, many years. Amazing. And all for about USD $2/day. I don’t think I will drink a cup of coffee again without thinking about the effort going into producing that cup.

We took a little time to stop by the kindergarten and 1^st grade classes. The students were hard at work and of course, extremely friendly. We also stopped by the hospital to meet the doctor in charge. Tomorrow we will spend most of the day with him working with the various patients in whatever way we can. Trying the patience of the Doctor and nurses is probably more like it.

Tim and I have both commented often how different the interaction is here in Nyeri. After two full days here, only today did we see another “white person”. There was a group of 4 tourists who passed through the area. Otherwise, we have been the only two. For many of the children we are the first non-black people they have ever seen. While at first most of the people we come across just look at us, fairly expressionless (unless we are being introduced to them by father JB), but as soon as we smile and wave, they immediately break into a wide grin and couldn’t be more friendly. This is true whether they are children, young and old adults as well. A very friendly people. We went into town today for a brief shop, had to pick up some supplies for the school meal, and being the only two white people amongst the literally thousands of town people, every person we greeted responded with a very friendly reply. Every person. A very cherished experience.

Tim’s “lost” luggage was “found” today after we called a couple of times. The first explanation was that the bag was damaged. After a while though it became clear that the firewall Tim brought was being held by customs and we needed to come “pay” the duty. Clearly just a money issue. Problem is that the airport is 90 minutes away. The plan now is that we will go there on Thursday. I just hope all the items we brought for the children are still in the suitcase. Apparently we should be able to negotiate the amount. (Too bad we don’t have procurement to organize the bid process. JJ)

We hope to have internet access soon, maybe even tomorrow. We went into town earlier today to get the equipment needed and open the account for the parish, but there was a surprise set up fee equal to about USD $500. That would be a lot of money in the States for setup, so you can imagine what a setback this was for this struggling Parish. Unfortunately, it is just very expensive to set up here, but we are trying to get the price reduced as we will do all the installation work for the Parish. I say “we”, but as y’all know, that means “Tim”. I hope we can work something out tomorrow.

Ok, time for bed. Early day tomorrow as we will get dropped off at the hospital and spend a good part of the day trying to be helpful. At least not get in the way. Today was another special day.

Aloha. (I have to learn how to say Aloha in Swahili.) J