This was
the local community day of our trip. After breakfast we headed out to visit the
Nanyuki Spinners and Weavers Co-operative. The seed money for the buildings and
equipment came from both the US and Canadian Embassies and the program was set
up to help women “in distress” who had no support to learn a skill and then be
able to earn money in a flexible work situation. When the director, Annie,
started the program they had 5 women learning how to spin wool into yarn and
from there to weave wool into fabrics and into blankets, mats and décor pieces.
Now they have 137 women in the project and are completely self-sufficient.
Their work is excellent, so good that they have won contracts to supply mats
and decorations to hotels. Here are a few photos:
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| "Carding" the wool to take out the dirt and clumps |
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| Spinning wool into yarns |
Here Annie is showing us some of the plants from which they get the dyes for the wool. Light green comes from adding sage leaves to the dye mixture, the yellow and orange come from African marigolds, and the dark reds and purple shades all come from a bug that lives on cactus leaves. You can see the staining on Annie’s fingers in the photo.
And here they make the finished product - wall hangings and mats in various patterns, and some loosely woven fabric for shawls.
Once we
were done at the weavers, we headed next door to the nursery school. This
school is for children from ages 3 to 6 and teaches them basic English skills
so they can go on to primary school. All lessons in public schools in Kenya are
taught in English, but the children come from different backgrounds, and often
different tribes, and would not learn English at home. The kids were all very
sweet in their blue and white uniforms. We arrived just at morning break time
and helped pass around the snacks we had brought with us – healthy cookies and
bananas.
As part
of the Tauck community support program, we had an option to bring some school
supplies to present to the school. This school is only supported by school fees
and by community support. It does not get any government funding, so there is always
a need. This trip Rachel had decided to focus on art supplies and the driver/guides
bought the items at local stores and had them ready to donate. As guests, we
were also given an option to bring small supplies for the school, so we took
some regular and coloured pencils. One of the other couples brought soccer
balls and a hand pump. Everyone had something to add to the donation.
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| Putting out our donation |
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| The 3-4 year olds' classroom |
After
the visits, it was back to the Mt. Kenya Safari Club for our last afternoon. We
had decided to play some golf on the 9 Hole Par 3 course, so we made our
arrangements right after lunch. The price of the round was quite reasonable – greens
fee, rental of TaylorMade R11 golf clubs and caddy service for $41 US! The
caddies were selling golf balls at a very reasonable price, so we bought from
them instead of the shop.
Remember
that the equator runs straight through the middle of the Club, so there is one
hole, the 7th, where you tee off in the northern hemisphere and putt
in the southern! Here’s a picture of Larry on the tee – too bad they don’t mark
the equator on the course.
We took
a few photos, but the camera battery gave out just before we reached the 9th
hole, so we don’t have a picture of us at the end of the round. Once we put the
camera on the charger, we went to spend an hour or so at the pool. The hotel
had been very busy over the weekend, but today was very quiet. In fact the only
people at the pool were our travel companions!
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| The top of Mt. Kenya, second highest mountain in Africa |
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| Along with the guests, there are a few resident birds at the Club, including this stork and about 6 peacocks |
Duffel
packing, dinner and some time organizing a blog post were the order of the
evening. Tomorrow we head out for our last stop, the Mara Safari Club in the
Maasai Mara National Reserve.
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