Although it has not been long since my last entry, I didn’t want to keep anyone waiting to hear about the food situation. I am blown away by how many people were willing to immediately respond to our urgent need. Between myself, the Dutch girls, and the American team we were able to raise a little over $6,000 dollars in the less than a week! So thanks to all of you who were willing to throw us a few bucks there are people who won’t go to bed hungry this week. The food supply is not supposed to get any better in the near future, so we have started a food program for our community at Tumaini. Our community is a little bit like Mayberry in the sense that everybody knows everything about everyone so we (aka Rose) know which families are living with the most severe conditions right now. Most of these are widows with many children, or the elderly that is providing for lots of orphans. Every Wednesday these people are going to be able to come to Tumaini and receive their bag of maize and try to make it last until the next Wednesday. It is estimated that the famine will be at its worst towards the end of September so we are really hoping to be able to feed these families at least until then. Our plan is to keep the food program going until the funds run out. Cheryl (the CEO of ISF), is leaving the spot on their website so if people want to continue to donate for our food program they may do that through their PayPal. Again, huge thanks to those of you have helped or plan to do so in the future.
Aside from the food situation some others changes have occurred here at Tumaini in the past week. I have been surrounded by Americans! Rather than sleeping alone I now have six roommates (and absolutely no quiet time), who are spoiling me rotten with American things I had forgotten about. Items such as oatmeal, starbursts, and goldfish have a lot more significance when the highlight of my day typically consists of being served cabbage or beans for lunch. The American team also decided that because I have been here for a while it would be most beneficial for me to act as their camp leader for the Vacation Bible School they are providing for the children. Femke and Eline found my new role hilarious and have been calling me “Captain Alex” the entire week. I’m not sure how well I did at leading the team but I do know that the children had a wonderful time and were given lots of love, and that’s all that matters. Although it will be nice to get back to my calm African lifestyle, I have enjoyed getting to know all the visitors and know they love Tumaini just as much as I do now!
On a sad note, Femke and Eline left to travel yesterday and I already miss them. But we will be meeting up in four days in Mombasa, which is a city on the east coast of Kenya and will be staying in a tree house close to the beach! I hope it is as nice as it sounds! Well, that is all I have for now, the Americans are exhausting me J
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