Feeding programme week 3

Today was a very interesting and emotional day, full of God-given opportunities.
At breakfast, a German lady came over to ask where in England I was from.  She complimented me on my speech, saying that she found it difficult to understand many English people but had found me easy to understand.  We got talking, and I asked whether she had had a chance to visit an African village.  She said she had not but would like to, so I invited her to the feeding programme that morning.  She agreed immediately and said she would ask the rest of the family whether they too would like to come. In the end four of the five came: Leila, her husband, her older daughter and youngest son.
I phoned Zachariah to ask him to come, as well as the tuktuk I had already ordered.  Sue, Phil and I went in the tuktuk, and the German family with Zachariah.
I took everyone on a brief tour of Utange Baptist Primary, and we even managed to get in to one or two of the classrooms.  Then it was feeding time.
As usual, the children lined up to be served and were sent in a few at a time.

The German family served the food to the children today, and seemed to really enjoy it. 

After being served, the children spread around the school to eat their food.  Today I was able to take some time to photograph some of them.

 

 

Phil got very involved with the local children, organising them into an acrobatics display,

and Sue guarded the window (through which, sadly, many of the "helping" mothers tend to pass out supplies of food to their children). As a result of this, we again ended up with extra food, allowing some of the children to have second helpings, much to their delight.
All got involved with handing out the maize; we had a new system today with the children behind benches, and that really worked well.

At the end of the distribution there was an incident which reminded all us of the fragility of life in Kenya.  A little girl fell over and caused a nasty injury to her toe, removing a chunk of toenail and a chunk of skin.  We did the best we could and cleaned it, which was clearly very painful to her, put a large plaster on it and Paul drove her and her sister home.  It reminded us that without our help, the toe might never have been cleaned or dressed properly and a nasty infection could have set in.
We then returned to Casuarina House, where Debbie gave all the visitors a tour and explained how it had been set up.  The children sang to us, and then Debbie kindly ferried us back to the hotel in her car, since Festus was out with the minibus.
While at Casuarina House, Jess shared with me two photos from Facebook.  yesterday Florence collected the sewing machine for her group of ladies.  It has clearly already been put to good use:

On our return to the hotel, and after afternoon tea, Sue, Phil and I had a very pleasant paddle in the Indian Ocean - Phil even had a swim!  We watched the acrobatics display at the hotel, which was entertaining, and I had a much later night than I have become used to - and a very long sleep.