19 April 2009

Pictures

Currently I am at in-service training with my fellow volunteers in Nairobi. I'll write more about that later, but for now enjoy a few pictures.

The top is the bread oven that I have been talking about. The next component will be an outdoor table so that the students can bake bread at their leisure and I don't have to worry about cleaning my house.

The Peace Corps volunteer in the picture is Matt Palma. He is a teacher at a deaf school about an hour and a half from my site. Him and another volunteer came to help me celebrate the completion of the oven. Together we made pizza with panier cheese and fresh tomatoes. Now that we have had this first success it is time to experiment. When the students return to school they are going to bring ingredients and together we will learn to make delicious bread.

This is the arrowroot that we planted, with our school in the background. You are also able to see an almost finished classroom - maybe it will be completely finished by the time I return to site.

The school year ends at the end of November and by then the students will have 40 or 50 giant arrow roots to eat. The students are very excited to see all of changes and energy around their school.

Arrowroot is purple and white in color and is cooked by boiling it whole. It is similar to potato, but a little gummier tasting.

This is from a day when the teachers and board of governors for my school went to Meru National Park. I have a lot of pictures of the animals, including a herd of about 200 elephants, but those can wait. The man with the hat is our school cook Mr. Mirathi. He cooked us a goat and ugali for lunch. It was a very nice day, we even saw hippos.
I am trying to find a way to be able to share more with you. Currently the tension is between using the internet and remaining with my students on the weekends. There are some options that I am exploring to minimize this conflict, but we will see. Thanks for your patience and remember that if you are not hearing from me it means that life is good.