Susan's Blog - June 28, 2008

We interviewed all the women at the house yesterday afternoon and evening and two men too. We videotaped it all. It was very hard to hear their stories, one lady named Helen who is 60 is being thrown off her land since her husband died. All have children and not enough food and the men are also trying to learn crafts to help support their families. It was tiring, but we got some great footage. Everyone wanted to tell their story. There is also a family living behind us that Karambu rescued from the refugee camp after the violence this year in Kenya. Their home was burned and they can't find their oldest son who is 19.
Today we did home visits of the women who can benefit from the loom project and walked for hours on dusty roads to get to their homes. These women also walk for hours when they want to get together for their weekly women's meetings with International Peace Initiatives. Although the land is beautiful, all the women are single mothers living in shacks with their children without running water or electricity. The children fetch water from the stream, and cooking is done with gathered wood. All have chickens for eggs, and two have cows for milk. They have no source of income except for casual work, which means working in the fields from 9-5 for 100-200 Kenyan shillings ($1.50-$2.25 per day). Prices are high here gas is $6 and food is expensive. They use that money to pay their children's school fees, but we have met several of their children who have been turned away from school for outstanding school fees of around $100. We got some great footage again of them fetching water, cu
tting sugar cane, feeding the cow, cooking etc., but had to conserve on batteries as there was no electricity anywhere to recharge it.
We are completing our time for the loom. Tomorrow Paul will show several women and men how to warp the loom (string the yarn on it) and then we will go. Karambu is in touch with one Nairobi weaver, but it is unclear when or if she will come. We hope the project will carry on, but we see inherent difficulties such as people not following directions. Yesterday some of the women mixed up our washed wool and not washed, but I think we sorted it out. We have to buy some tubs to organize all the wool since there is so many steps to getting the wool to a point that it can be spun.