Just Stuff

It's quiet here at Gatab just now. The Kenyan schools are on break between terms, so all the children at Haven Home have gone home to their families. The weather has been very dry. We've had no rain since mid-July, and that was a one day event. So...the baboons are back in the garden, plus a porcupine that comes in the night to nibble the vegetables.

The fence around the airfield is nearing completion. We're about 2/3 done. It's already starting to have an effect, too. Lots less critters on the airstrip. This is good. MAF (mission aviation fellowship) just had an incident at Mfangano Island (a Kenyan island in Lake Victoria) due to people and animals on the airstrip. I've been to Mfangano Island. The people there use the runway as a main road, and seem to delight in playing chicken with the airplane...how slow can I go and still get off the runway in time seems to be the game. Not one of my favorite airstrips. Anyway, the MAF pilot was turning the airplane around at the end of the runway, saw some goats run past, said 'oh well, diced goat' then saw the herd boys coming (on the side the plane was turning to) and put the airplane into the ditch next to the runway rather than dice the herdboys. Good decision, but it's probably about $200,000 worth of damage to the C-208. This is why I'm building the fence here at Gatab, since that sort of incident ranks high on my nightmare list.

Alex, Beth and Samantha are in the middle of home-school. It's going well so far. Alex is enjoying the science experiments. All of them enjoy the reading. We're using the Sonlight curriculum which is reading based rather than text book based (though they do have math and science texts). Susan is doing well with it...it hasn't driven her crazy yet, anyway!

No flying this morning...we're fogged in. Gatab looks alot like the popular image of London at the moment...misty and grey and you can see about 100 yards is all. This is good as it means water put into the ground as the fog condenses on the trees and bushes.