Repeating Cycles...

3 months since my last post and I could almost use the same title of Rain, Garden and Baskets.  Though this time the news about the rain would be that we have had almost no rain since November.   The situation is dire concerning availability of water in many places, especially Ngurunit.  While there over the December holidays, finding clean water was a challenge.  Since then, the situation has not improved.  Women wait hours at the open wells in the dry river bed that are getting deeper and deeper by the day as men dig down looking for enough water to give to their livestock.  Only after they are done do the women get a chance at the muddy dredges.  Reuben and I are heading to Ngurunit tomorrow and plan to take a water truck with us to help alleviate the strain a bit for the community in finding water by trucking it in from further sources.  This will only be a very temporary boost.  We are still working on getting a long-term solution in the form of more borehole water wells.  We are also waiting for the rains in March.  Praying that they come on time.  Here in Maralal, the situation isn’t much better. Our main advantage here is, that if lucky, one can get hold of a water truck every few weeks to come fill the tanks as the piped water comes only once a week for a few hours, and even that doesn’t always happen.  So, water can be available, but quite expensive. 

The garden, despite the fact of almost no rain since planting and using the bare minimum of watering to keep things alive due to expense and scarcity, has done better than I hoped for.  At least the herb and leaf lettuce garden.  It has the advantage of being in a shady place with the perfect soil for water retention.  I have been having beautiful salads here in Maralal for the first time in years, actually.  My past gardening attempts often ended in nothing edible.  But this time, my green thumb seems to be working better!  Sunday, I finished drying and packing several jars of some lovely herbs: mint, sage, marjoram and thyme.  I still have a lot of fresh herbs growing well in the garden too, mixed in with lots of lovely baby leaf lettuce.  Yum.  Though in terms of the garden, not all is success.  The main garden area has suffered greatly from lack of water and infestations of bugs.  I might get some potatoes eventually, as well as onions and garlic.  But not much else of what I planted, including several other types of lettuce, cauliflower and beets.  I’ll be lucky to salvage any of that.  Oh well.  I will take what I can get and enjoy at least a bit of fresh produce from my own efforts. 

Now to the baskets.  The November 2017 order got delivered in good time.  As well as another December 2017 order we received from The Basket Room. Now with a good start to 2018, we already have another order from Swahili-Imports that the weavers are working on.  On my trip to Ngurunit tomorrow, I will be taking more beads for finishing the baskets by mid-March.  I also have 3 other leads on new markets I have gotten since January.  I’m so excited to see if I can secure any of these.  Another big improvement on the basket venture is our new access database that was put together by my brilliant new friend, Esther, who I met in December.  She came to Ngurunit with me over the holiday, attached to PEAR as an intern, to help with the basket inventory system and getting the group computer up and running.  I am amazed at her computer proficiency.  I am continually amazed at the millennial generation’s way of having technology be more of an extension of themselves, rather than something that is simply used, the way I do it.  So many of them have some sort of innate intuition of how to get technology to do the things they want them to do.  Quickly and easily.  Esther would show me the database and start to hit buttons so fast and move things around in ways that I would never have thought of.  My head would spin.  Despite that, I have started to figure things out and have a better handle on basket stock than I have for a long time.  Though I am happy Esther is only a phone call away when I hit any glitches!!      

So, the beginning of 2018 seems much like the end of 2017.  Life goes on.  Struggles and joys.  Successes and failures.  The repeating cycles of day to day, month to month.  I do have some exciting ideas and plans for 2018.  I will see how they unfold.  Maybe my next post will have something amazing and new to report!!  Happy New Year!! (better late than never 😊 !!).