From Geoffrey to you; What does God have up His sleeve

Thursday June 4, 2009

What does God have up His sleeve?

I sat down with one of the leaders of Tumaini yesterday as he voiced his concern for Masii and the ramifications of this drought. He kind of opened up to eyes to some things that I wasn’t aware of before. Apparently the rains have checked out and are no where to be found. The rains never came this past year during the rain season, and this is regularly the rainy season, but we have only experienced a few days of rain but nothing significant. This is generally the time of the year when the shambas are full of food, the vegetation is plump and succulent, rivers are flowing and food is both abundant and affordable, but that just isn’t the case here. The floodgates of heaven have opened and rains have showered numerous areas of Kenya, but not Masii; it was pouring rain the other day in when I went to Nairobi. Our riverbeds are dry and most of the farms in this area are almost completely bare.

This drought seems to have affected nearly everyone. Many people are full time farmers and others use it as an extra income to offset expenses, but there are no crops. This means that this extra income isn’t coming in and not only that but those who live off of their land are suffering from an extreme food shortage. Many people buy vegetables and fruits in other areas and bring them back here to sell so this drought impacts them as well. I think that the cattle raisers have been hit pretty dramatically.

From my understanding, it takes about two to three years for cattle to grow and develop into a good size. This is two years are spent tending to them, watching over them, giving them medicine, grazing them and taking them to water. Right now grass is a big commodity in the market because it isn’t growing anywhere, meaning that there is nowhere to graze. There are no grassy meadows and I haven’t seen to many places abundant with water, this drought has dramatically intensified the difficulty in raising cattle. Those that make their living off of raising cattle are finding that there isn’t any grass to feed their cows so most of the cattle I see are starving. When I went to Nairobi the other day I was able to see what healthy cows look like, what the cows in Masii normally look like, and the ones here aren’t anything like them. The lack of food has left many of them skin and bones; their rib cages are protruding from their sides. Today one of the workers of Tumaini asked me if I noticed a bad stench last month around where they keep the cattle in Masii, and I had but didn’t think anything of it. She told me that it was from some of the cattle dying on the way to the market; this drought is horrible. I had a friend who lost a cow a few weeks ago as well. Raising cattle is extremely difficult right now and takes not only a lot of time but also a lot of money, that people don’t have, to successfully raise them these days. The extreme difficulty and exorbitant price in raising the cattle right now has made most herders sell their cows at a very low price. A full grown cow can sell for anywhere between $100 to $250 normally, but I have heard of some being sold for as a low as $10 right now. These people are making little to no profit off of the cattle that they have invested so much time and money into.

There is an extreme food shortage right now because there is no rain. My question is what is going to happen next year when there is an abundance of rain but a shortage of cattle? If a large portion of the cattle is sold off now, what will these farmers use to plow their fields and pull their carts next year? How much are they going to cost when the demand greatly exceeds the supply?

Times are tough for a lot of people in Masii. I know that God has a plan, I can’t wait to see what is up His sleeve in this situation.

Asante Sana,

Mwendwa

Prayer Requests:
Rain
Janets eyes
Preaching on Sunday
The travels of Jason Nate – woot woot I get to kick it with another white guy for a little while
Tumaini Medical Center
Stomach issues again

Randoms:
I was asked today if I knew any astronauts…
Someone asked me if I had ever come across Church Norris in Texas and if he really lived there
I realized why my shower floods… may hair clogs the drain
Earlier today Janet asked her daughter if she had eaten enough… Anette (who is 2) said she was so full she was stupid… little kids are awesome
In Kenya if you ask someone to go to lunch or to take something to drink that means you are paying for it. One of my friends was babysitting for a few hours today. The mother of the child asked her if she wanted to go get some soda. My friend went and bought a big soda. When it came time to pay for it the mother paid for herself and motioned for the girl to pay for her soda. She didn’t bring any money with her. The way she told us the story was HILARIOUS! We laughed so hard.

Word of the day

Taka taka
Taw-cuh taw-cuh
trash

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