Rabbits don't like Dark

Time is just flying by here and I am so thankful for my fellow travelers because they are doing such great work. Tate is a grad student who is working on a sustainable food sourcing project for Jemo House. We want to start raising rabbits, and add to our current chicken herd so we will have a sustainable source of meat for the future as the children and their appetites grow. We visited a few houses that were already keeping chickens and rabbits to scope out their dwellings. We quickly decided that a well-constructed house was out of our skill range, so we hired a fundi (carpenter) to do the job. His name is Giddeon, and he also gave us lots of helpful rabbit-rearing tips since he seems to be an expert. We chose him based on the meticulous state of his animal pens. He is also a man of few words, so some of his tidbits left us with questions.

Giddeon: "You need light. Rabbits don't like dark."

Me: "Okay. Should I put a bulb or kerosene lantern out here?"

Giddeon: "Yes." Then walks out.

Thankfully he does speaks to Vincent and Daniel (the oldest boys have been designated as the keeper of the rabbits) in length and in Kiswahili, so the information trickles down to us. There is nothing like having a 10 yr old boy as your translator to makes you feel like you are always missing a few pieces of the puzzle. Love this place :)

(Giddeon and the boys talking shop :)

(The finished rabbit house)

 

(One of our hens hatched her eggs the day the roost box was finished. It looks like this little one is trying to escape :) There are 6 more chicks under that mama. )

(James-13 yr, Millie-11yr, and Selah-5yr).

Last week we took a little trek through a part of the village I have never been to, to visit a family that was referred to us for a home assessment and a request for sponsporship. They are 3 siblings living with their grandmother after their parents passed away. The kids have been out of school for some time due to lack of school fees. The oldest boy, James, has been collecting sand from the river and trying to sell it for concrete mixing, so they could buy food. They live in a decent-sized house, but with a very leaky roof and dirt floors. It's raining now as I am writing this, and it riddles me with guilt to sit in a dry home as I think about what theirs must look like right now. But we do have a fundi going there early this week to fix their roof and repair the beds so they are sleep-able again. Catherine and I went to the school to get their school fees sorted out, and also got them enrolled on the school lunch program. We had a little concern about James because the first two times we went to the house he wouldn't talk to us and he ran off before we could even see him. His teachers weren't sure if he would come back to school. When I asked the girls to come to our house the next day to get measured for their school uniforms, the grandmother said she would beg him to come but she didn't know if he would. I was starting to think this kid might be bad news, so imagine my surprise when a sweet, soft-spoken, polite young man showed up on our doorstep the next day with his sisters. I think he was just ashamed to have missed so much school and gotten so far behind, so he started refusing to go altogether. He promised us he would go to school everyday if he didn't have to worry about getting food for his family, so we shook on it, and we are now officially sponsoring them.

The kid are all off school this week so the Standard 8 students can take their big entrance exams for secondary school undisturbed. The kids are full of energy, per the usual, and have been keeping us busy. We found that the swing-kids-in-the-air game is a universal language. We had to limit it to 3 swings per child because a line had formed behind us and our arms were giving out :)

We spent an afternoon in Kisumu on Sunday and went to my favorite tilapia restaurant on Lake Victoria. The girls ate fish with the eyes and tail still on :). #alwaysanadventure

Jessie

 

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