Rain

Rain! It rained last night and this morning! It’s the first rain we’ve had since the middle of April. Everything has been turning brown…either from drying out or from being covered with dust. It’s really green this morning just from the dust being washed off all the bushes and trees.

Spiritually Gatab is a dry and dusty place also. This is rather harder to define than lack of rain and brown grass, but is no less true. It’s also harder to define due to differences in culture through which we view what goes on here. For instance, a day does not go by in which we are not asked for money. Understandable, given that compared to most of the people here we have lots, no LOTS of money. But it changes us from being missionaries, bringing God’s word, into a savings and loan. And into the bargain, looked at from within the culture, plenty of the people here are well off. The wealthiest man on the mountain owns around 5000 head of cattle, at an average worth of around $400 each. While he is doing better than everyone else, he is by no means the only one with more than 1000 cattle. It is hard to discern where the real need is (and there is plenty of real need) and where it’s just a case of what can we get from the missionary.

Another struggle is the damage that ongoing relief programs (US AID, World Food Program, etc.) have done. Relief has changed from relief to welfare. The day the relief food truck comes the people who are supposed to be working for us don’t show up, or take off early, and still expect to be paid for the entire day. Plus it’s created a dependency. One lady asked Susan for money about a week before the truck came and things were running short (flour, rice, etc.) We have sukuma wiki (greens, primarily kale and collards, but there’s a local version too. A staple of the local diet) coming out of our ears in the garden. Susan had decided when one of the ladies asked her for money for food she’d offer sukuma. “Oh, I have that in my shamba (garden),” she was told. “Really? What else do you have?” “Tomatoes and beans and bananas.” The people have become dependent on the relief food for things that they can’t grow here, and don’t want to sell animals to buy.

There is also mirah (a local plant, chewed as a mild narcotic). And multiple wives, and…

But there is also rain. Daniel Lemadada is one of two Samburu pastors in Kenya (Job, the pastor here at Gatab is the other). He is working on getting a church going at Ngororoi. The picture is he and his wife Susan the day I dropped them at Ngororoi to live. Ngororoi is about 8 miles from Gatab, about a 10 minute flight including taxi, takeoff and landing, and about 3 hours by road. The other picture is from yesterday’s clinic flight, unloading the airplane with some supplies for Daniel and his family. Despite difficulties, despite a tiny church body, despite the people driving animals right past his house and raising huge clouds of dust, Daniel is there ministering, proclaiming the gospel, and making disciples for Jesus Christ.

Peter is one of the workers at the airfield. Mornings he works on the fence (the picture shows Lemyamyam and Paulin) I’m having put in around the airfield to keep livestock and children out, and afternoons he patrols the airfield to run off livestock and helps with the airplane as I come and go. We have another man who works mornings on the airfield chasing off cows and helping dispatch the plane. Peter is faithful, and cheerful. He’s always there, always willing to work, always at morning devotions. He helps Swahili (and laughs at my mangling the language). He loves his family and works hard to take care of his wife and child.

God sends the rain.

Goats and Fences

I should have had the camera....flying to Nairobi the other day on the scheduled flight I had 4 people...and 2 goats. You know you're a missionary pilot when you start loading goats in the airplane. We stuffed them in gunney sacks and tied them up and then stuffed them in the baggage pod of the airplane. As Manai (the station foreman) quipped, "Jina lake ni 'lunch.'" Their name is lunch. They made it to Nairobi and the guys at the hangar promptly took them in hand for the next day's lunch.

We've also started building a fence around the runway here at Gatab. We're building it out of ano, a local plant that you take cuttings of and plant in a ditch. Lately there've been more and more animals and people on the airstrip, and the houses are getting closer and closer to the airstrip. Time to push back before there's an accident. The options were to either do a wire fence, or the ano fence. The wire fence would be very expensive, something like $2000 for the materials alone, and it would be likely to have sections stolen. The ano fence is much cheaper, (ano is free, we're just paying for labor), but it's not quite as goat and cow resistant as the wire. Still, it should work . Step one was going around the airfield with the assistant chief, one of the village elders, Pastor Job, Jeff Heidorn (the station manager) and Manai and laying out where the fence would go so that everyone was in agreement. Easily done. Now as we build the fence we're constantly having to explain to the people who live nearby what and why we're doing. It's going to take a while before they get the idea I'm serious....every day someone complains about restricting the path the cows take. Send the cows around.

Nairobi next week...inspection time for the airplane.

Back to work

Well, it's been back to work, back in the air. We've had the airplane back in Gatab for about 10 days now...and yes, I've been busy flying hither and yon. It's not been frantic, as it sometimes has been, but it's been good.

Two days after I got back with the airplane, I was at station devotions (every morning at 7:30, about 15 minutes worth for the Haven Home kids and the station workers)... Alex comes running into the church, tugs on my sleeve and whispers, "They need you in Loiyangalani, a policeman's been shot." I was in the air less than ten minutes later, and landed at Loi by 0750. Not to blow my own horn, but I'm pretty pleased with my response time.

The policeman was there as part of the security detail for the German ambassador, come with a bunch of other ambassadors to Loiyangalani to promote tourism. The officer was getting out of a truck when he managed to fire his rifle, which had been set to burst instead of safe. So, an accidental discharge...three rounds fired, which managed to put holes in both legs. He was lucky not to have hit the bones. So...I flew him and another officer to Wamba, arriving there about 9:45 in the morning. The officer was in surgery until 7pm that night. Pretty serious wounds. But the latest word is that the officer will recover just fine.

I was in Loi yesterday, (spent Saturday night there after taking the Teasdales back) and after church on Sunday had a chance to speak with the OCS at Loiyangalani (the police chief for the town). He was very grateful for the help AIM Air provided. I'm glad I was there to provide the help.

The British army has been in the area the last 2 weeks too. A medical support unit has been doing training pre-deployment to the mid-east. So they've been trooping about the desert here doing general health clinics, and dental clinics. Great folks in the unit. I flew the dental team to Gatab for a 2 day clinic, and then back to Loi. The Brits have some really excellent troops, and these folks are among the best.

As side note...it was great fun to be around the military again. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed the military, but it felt right to be around such folks again. Not that I plan to rejoin, but it was a good refresher.

Sunday was another flight to Wamba to take an old man from Loi to the hospital at Wamba. Today was no flying, tomorrow is Olturot, and Wednesday is Nairobi.

Back to work. A good thing, that.

A quiet week

It's amazing how much less hectic things are when the airplane isn't available. We drove up last week (1st and 2nd of June) with the Teasdales, as far as Kurungu, then they split off to go to Loiyangalani. The airplane is still in Nairobi. Anyway, no airplane = no flying, and it's amazing how quiet the place is. I was able to get some good work done, though, catching up on paper work and airstrip development. I was also able to recover about 50 meters of the Luai airstrip, hacking back thorn trees from it. So, a profitable week.

I flew down to Nairobi yesterday in the Caravan, and will fly back up to Gatab in the206 on Thursday. I expect I'll be swarmed by people as soon as I get back with the airplane. Ah well. It was a good break.

Back Upcountry

That's today's project. We leave early Sunday morning for Gatab (a 2 day drive). So today is Pack The Car day. This will be a challenge. Five people, a dog, and 2 months worth of groceries all in one landcruiser. Oh for a trailer.

In Nairobi

Time to shop...for groceries for the next two months. Plus we have a bunch of administrative stuff to deal with like turning books back in to the school, taxes, flight physicals, and so on.

So far so good...knocked out several of the minor things already, and we have company for the road back up the first week of June, and a ride back for me to get the airplane.

Not much exciting to put in the post today, we're just dealing with the niff naff and trivia of life.

Gatab vs Nairobi

Gatab wins, no question.

I spent a few days in Nairobi last week, helping install a new engine on my airplane (the previous one having reached its overhaul time). Driving home, I got as far as the u-turn after leaving the airport before thinking/saying "I hate driving here."

Anyway, that observation aside, we'd already decided to stay in Gatab until the Barnetts return. So we may be here until November or December.

We had some fun, or rather Susan did, with goats on the airstrip last week. She and the kids were down at the hangar (I was in Nairobi doing the engine change) with the dog. The airfield worker/guard went up for lunch, and as soon as he left a bunch of goats were let out on to the airstrip to graze. We've (all the missionaries here) been saying for years "keep your animals off the runway!" Hunter (the dog) decides to take matters on. She gets free from Alex and tears off after the goats, circling them like a wolf would to pick out lunch. Eventually the goats are driven off to the family's property and Hunter makes her way home later.

Later, a man comes to the house and tells Susan one goat is injured and another missing. "They were on the runway. They're not supposed to be on the runway. My husband told you a few weeks ago (when the dog chased a bit a goat on the soccer fields behind the runway) that if that had happened on the runway (yes, this is the same family and same herd of goats) he wouldn't have done anything." The man said something else. Susan reminded him, "Didn't John (the station manager) and the other missionaries tell you not to have your animals on the runway?" The answer, "Yes, but we didn't know there'd be a dog!" Hunter's earning her keep.

A similar situation at Nolpilipili...I went there yesterday to pick up a sick woman to bring to the hospital here. The last time I'd been there I'd told them "fix the fence and keep the cows off the runway or I won't come back. " They'd fixed it, as I saw a week or so later when I went back to pick up a child who'd been bitten by a snake. I landed and stopped...and saw that next to where I'd stopped (the old road) they'd pulled the fence aside. Cow tracks all over the runway. I had to chase two groups of cows off the runway while I waited for my patient. Grrr. I'm not going back until it's fixed. This Saturday is the grand opening of the Nolpilipili church. Lots of folks from Gatab want to go, including a group of 5 ladies who want me to fly them down. They're going to be disappointed, I suspect. Unless the fence is fixed, the airplane isn't going.

We leave Sunday for Nairobi, flying down. We'll be there for 2-3 weeks to resupply and take care of administrivia. Kenya taxes, school stuff, US flight medical, previous internet provider last bill, and so on and so on. Our return date is in flux, depending on when we can find someone to drive back up with. The roads are not secure, so traveling alone is not a good idea just now. Some of the tribes are fighting (Turkana and Pokot south of Baragoi, Turkana and Gabra around Mt Kulal), and there are common thieves, highwaymen, working the road from Maralal to Rumuruti. It's much safer (as well as more fun) to travel with someone else.

So...back to Nairobi for a bit. And then back to Mt Kulal and civilization.