MTO WA MBU!! greetings...it took me weeks to pronounce this properly..each vowel in SWalhili is spoken...so in this case, there are four syllibles to remember..M Two Wa
MmmmmB U...try it! Lindsey arrives Thursday night after a 16 hour flight, leaping eight hours ahead. Can't wait..! Visited an orphanage today,with Charles my Project Coordinator,driving up, ten little kids sitting on the front stoop of the place...age 3 to 6..preschool, each one having lost both mom and dad to hiv aids..it is so so sad...as i got out of the truck one raced up with arms outstretched, i picked him up as the others flooded around me, all wanting to be held, loved.
ON Sunday with LIndsey....we are renting a van and collecting all of them to visit the Manyara National Park just three miles from town....for the first time all ten of them will see all the animals: giraffe,elephant, imapal, gizelle, monkeys, baboons, lions...what else! I can't wait...then in the next weeks when we arenot doing workshops Lindsey andI can volunteer to do art and play with them...I know they are barely surviving on 2,200 aday (around $2.50 US) per child....when comfortably they need 4,000 per child...adding vegetables and fruit to their meagre diet of porriage (ugali: corn meal), morning and night..more later after this remarkable day Sunday....
WE don't have internet access in Mto Wa Mbu...an hour local bus ride with goats and bunches of bananas away up onto the rim through stunning mountains and ridges gets us here, just hoping the electricity hasn't been shut off....!
Arrived last WEd, Thursday to Saturday night late...headed out with Charles, two water experts on irrigation, watersheds, etc from India, and the local Agricultural director for the region, non stop driving across awesome country, huge expanses of mountain, hills, valleys..visiting four Masai villages usually under such drought at this time with precious cows dying, devestated without water, food..but this year lots of rain, lush, green, gorgeous....looking for appropriate watershed projects for ICA to begin working with...At eachstop...after meeting the Masai and local government leaders, signing guest books, a custom observed religiously in every African village i have visited, sitting, talking a bit, discussing what we are doing, why we are there..how long we will be....bringing the community into the project, it is never imposed upon them..working together, all parties taking ownership of the project right from the start....
then allof us..the Masai warriors draped in purple and red sheets with spears and long hardwood poles nimblyleading running easily along like goats up hills and down rocky rough dales...the government guys, the INdians, Charles and me..
picking ourway through stones and deep sucking blackmud dimpled here and there with big deep elephant tracks, dung, on up through raging riverbeds, follow the leader like ants one by one.. leaping across a wide chasmof rushing fiord,scary,but i had
no choice.in my new green gum boots...up up up we all climbed to the top, thick forest, exotic trees winding vines, massive root systems pulled out of the narrow trail through fallen rotting branches, hot,moist,green, wet....finally to the
water source...fascinating so new to me...
This is deep into Masai country...ICA here works predominantly in Masai villages: hiv aids education, testing....micro economics, womens and children's rights...now Water Irrigation Watershed projects....
My fascination for Masai is endless...I have read BOOKS and books on these exotic, ever interesting people, their customs...marriage, their love of cattle..goats...women in charge of children, building mud huts, food, early morning milking...small children with hundreds of animals and a long stick proding them onto new pastures..often alone out there across miles and miles of green meadow, it is all about the cows.... the more you have the richer you are...and because of this, you need more wives..each one bought for 15 or more cows...to raise more children to look after more cows...these people, tall, thin, lanky, high cheekboned, stunning...wearing beads, small round metal disks linked together, white necklaces,long drooping earings hanging heavily off huge holes in their ear lobes the size of an old silver dollar...red, purple, checked, striped, shiny, plain sheets knotted at the shoulder...each one, wrapped with grace around the next...the warriors, glamorous, arrogant, haughty in their prime,red ochre smeared across face, through hair, adorned...old wrinkled ancient elders, most esteemed, most revered....

As I said,my fascination is endless...
....and on..and on....
be wel....is it snowing yet??