Hello Again,
Charlotte and I are really excited that we can now add “purchasing of a cow” to our CVs!! We got up at 6:00 this morning to go with Susan to a local market about 45 minutes away from her office. What a spectacle market day is!! You can not imagine the visuals, smells and sounds that assaulted our senses. There were cows, bulls, donkeys, goats & dogs. That being said we must admit that Charlotte and I were the featured attraction of the day. We actually had to leave the “corral” after a period of time because we were causing a definite distraction. The price was going up due to our presence. Even Susan does not allow it to be known that she is interested in purchasing a cow – she has scouts working on her behalf and they discretely report back to her. Even when Veronica was chosen Susan left to allow the negotiations to go on without her. We walked around a little and made our way back to the car. People were actually gawking at us!!! It felt rather strange to be so obviously white!
I have attached (if I keep the internet connection long enough) a photo of Veronica and I am sure you will agree that she is a fine specimen. I must admit that I really felt a connection with Veronica right away – she is long in the body and has short legs! We also like the tuft of reddish brown hair on her forehead. As an added bonus – she is pregnant and is also giving milk. All this came in on budget!! She should calf in October.
This whole process took until after 10:30.
As we were preparing to head back to Kakamega we noticed a shop that had some children’s shoes. Thanks to a very generous donation by a compassionate young girl in Beaurepaire we had decided to purchase shoes for the educational sponsorship students. Because these students do not have shoes they have numerous health issues with their feet. Our task was to find 27 pairs of shoes that fit within our budget. We negotiated the price per pair of shoes as 700ksh down from 950ksh. Right away we found 9 pairs. After a quick cup of tea we continued on our quest and actually found another shop where, after much negotiating, we found all but two pairs of shoes – all for the 700ksh each. We are thrilled that all of these children now will have brand new shoes.
We made a quick stop at a school supplies store and purchased new exercise books for each and every student at Mwirembe/St. Paul’s school. Again this is thanks to specific fundraising carried out for this specific purchase. We also managed to purchase some early reading books in Keswahili for the early childhood development class – all within budget!! How rejuvenating it is to tick off the tasks that are on our “to do” list?! We accomplished all this before a late lunch.
We met with the Khayega Sewing group at 2:30 – they have created some really nice samples for us. We also had a great meeting with Phylis, who is a young lady whom SFA has sponsored through a tailoring and dressmaking course.
We finally reached our home in Maseno at 6:30pm. David arrived at 7:15 for a budget meeting – are you getting tired!?! We are. It is nine o’clock and it is shower time.
We bid you all Lala Salama – pleasant dreams. We will be in touch again soon.
Wendy & Charlotte