Spending the Sabbath in town so a good time for some observations

Well it seems I get to town more often than I thought I would. But a lot of times I have to print some documents for a meeting that is coming up. The other day when I was coming to town Maurice (one of my KASOW members) asked if I would type up this 9 page survey. I said well I wish you would have told me a day or 2 ago. I could have typed it up on the computer at the Computer Resource Center. Then put it on my Flash Disk and took it town to print. In this way I wouldn't be spending valuable internet time typing a 9 page document. Also that day I had a long morning meeting and didn't how much time I'd have in town. So I told him I'd do it another day. Well I called him this morning and asked if he had the pages he wanted me to type at home (he lives like 5 mins away) as I was just leaving for town. He said yes he does but could I wait 30 mins. So I waited for 30 mins as I thought he was getting ready for church first or something. Then I called him and he said I'll be right there as there's something he didn't tell me was tell me " he had to get it at Johns home." I wasnt pleased to hear this and told him. I was just heading for town. But Angus would bring it to me in town. I will type it up tomorrow at the school and get it printed the next day. They want the survey done by Thur as Adrienne (UBC student) is coming to start doing some food nutrients surveys. So we do have a couple days to get it done. Anyway it was a mess and I feel bad for what happened but internet time is slow and costly to be typing up a 9 page document.
I find that people have to give us a little more warning to get things done. Plus they have to learn to share and not hog it for them selves. I guess it s partly due to their culture of struggling to get things. But this concept has to be changed or they won t grow as a community or country. People are so unwilling to share what they own or know.
There s a teacher at the Secondary School who is taking his Masters at the local university. He s sort of taking ownership of the laptop which was donated by KASOW. He told me that some of the keys get stuck (actually some of the keys on this keyboard are also acting up as the apostrophe and backspace don t work). He asked if I could take it into town to have it looked at (like get it repaired). I said well I could have them give me a rough idea what it would cost. But when I checked all the keys they seemed to work OK. So I said there s no point in taking it in. Then the next couple days I m looking for the laptop but he has it and hasn t come to school. So when I saw him I told him. It s odd that u want me to take the laptop into get fixed but then you monopolize the laptop when it works. I bought a Flash Disk for the Computer Resource Center so they could take their documents to town to print. He told me don t let the principal (Idi Amin) have it as he ll he lock it away. So what does this guy do but put it in his pocket for his own use even though he has his own Flash Disk (his is only 128 Kb while this one is 512). Anyway diplomatic me told him what I thought of these actions.
We ve also noticed that we have to watch what we own as there seems to be a few kleptomaniacs around. Last Sun we were sitting around reading when these 3 guys walked into the house. They shook Katy and my hand as we were the only 2 in the living room. Well they commenced to sit down and we didn t know them at all. So I asked them were they here for a meeting? There was an older man who appeared drunk and 2 younger guys. They said they were next door for a burial and the older man was a brother of the owner of the house we were staying in. That was OK but this older guy was really drunk and wanted me to take a pic of us and them. Well Katy had just gotten up and didn t want one. So I didn t take one but started talking to the young guys. So the older drunk guy goes over to Angus s guitar and starts strumming it. So Angus came by concerned. Suddently they said they d come back again and left. Well Angus noticed his guitar tuner was missing and it s always there as he always uses it.
So he checks around and then goes to ask them if they had seen it. No they hadn t but Angus is convinced that they had taken it. So Angus, the cook Mildred and Ben the assistant cook go over next door. They come back with it. As they got the lady next door to get it from the older man. The guys weren t to just walk in without knocking and take whatever they saw.
Then yesterday morning I was washing off my running shoes which were caked in mud from a run I did a couple days before. Well we were off to see the Kakamegi Forest so I didn t have time to finish it so I was going to leave the shoes in the sun to dry. Well since we were all going out and no one would be home so Mildred put my shoes in the house. I just hung the cloth I was using to wash it on the cast iron railing locking the back porch. When we got back later I went to finish cleaning my shoes. I couldn t find my cloth and told the others. It was only a cloth so it wasn t super important and can be replaced with another rag but it showed us that we can t leave anything out or not watched or someone will steal it.
Our trip to the Kakamegi Forest was good but we didn t see that many wild life. We saw monkeys but they were quite high in the trees. It was nice to see a tropical jungle as where we are it s like a savannah type with trees landscape. We also got a chance to see some of the country side north of Kisumu. It was in the hills so it was a bit cooler and it rained a bit. But it was nice to see.
Anyway I have to get going because I want to attend the KASOW Youth Group meeting. I want to check if they started any projects this week or came up with any new ideas to help the community or raise funding to do so. I want to press them a bit to make sure they have some initiative.
Also this Wed pm I plan to hold a meeting or forum "Taking the Next Step" for the community to better understand what is meant by Self Sustainablity. Also to reinforce to them that new ideas to take that step have to sometimes come from them so they take ownership of completing them.
Catch u maybe on Thur!