11.1 September 24, 1967 Frank to his parents

Sept 24 

Hi. I will try to get a few words in here before bed time. Everyone keeps asking about the kids education, where they go to school, etc. They are all taking correspondence courses and Amy, Vicki, and Milton have a complete course for each of their grades. They have a regular time each morning that they sit down to do their work. We try to run it on schedule. They all do so well that without taking recesses they all finish by noon. The courses seem to be quite easy bu the main thing is that they do not have to wait while the rest of the class catches up. It makes you wonder about the amount of time wasted in school. They are not attending public school here for several reasons. There are quite a few schools near, but the teaching staff is under qualified by our standards. Amy and Milt would have to learn the vernacular because they do not start teaching in English till Standard four. Also there are a limited number of places available and if we sent them that would take a place away form an African. So we figure we can give Amy and Milton all their schooling by correspondence and maybe send Diane and Vicki to boarding school later on. Some one asked about street address. This school is seven miles out of Embu and about one mile from Manyatta. You could call each of these places villages, but they are like nothing you have ever seen in the States.  Both of these places probably do more business than Middleton by far, but there isn't a "good" building in Manyatta. They all resemble the worst slum structure. Embu is a little better, but it is not laid out like a town as we are use to. All the area around us is densely populated with small farms, the largest being forty acres. Lots of coffee, bananas, maize, and cabbage is grown and most is substandard quality except for the coffee. It is being hit this year by some kind of virus that no one seems to know anything about.

    We heard from Patty Spearman that you were up and around some, Dad. Patsy wrote that too. Sure glad to hear that things seem to be coming along okay. I have to write Jim so will finish anything I have to say in his letter.     Love, Frank

Oct. 1

Dear Folks, (Cochrane)

    One more week has gone by and they seem to be going faster each week. We started the student teaching last week so we spent the week going to all the schools to observe their teaching. Some of it was pretty terrible. It pointed out what I was going to have ahead in the way of teaching. Try to give them four years of college training in two short years. Some of the places have been rather interesting though. I have sen some first grades with a center of interest being a farm in the middle of the room with plants growing in the fields. They don't have to worry much about water on the floors because all of the floors are dirt, with mud walls and time roofs, no window glass, just 40 kids in a class room. The  buildings are really something but surprising how good a job is done by some of the exceptional teachers and of course how poor a gob is done by  some of the others. It is awfully hard to break these students of ours from just standing in front of the class and talking without giving the students something to do. I'm taking pictures of each place so I'll have some to send home.

    I took some of the Young Farmers Organization to the Nairobi Show Saturday. It is kind of like the State Fair, but much larger. There were about ten different counties with exhibits plus lots of livestock and machinery displays. Quite interesting in all. I didn't have near enough time to look around but what I did see was good. We went down and back the same day by the school Land Rover and I think it was about the most uncomfortable ride I have ever taken and I didn't think my legs would ever stop hurting last night after we got back. We have a bunch of Nairobi newspapers from last week which was during the show. We thought we would bundle them up and sent them to you. They should be fairly interesting. We had planned to all (family) go down to this thing Saturday, but the car had been acting up during the week and we didn't feel like trusting it just yet. It had heated up real bad one day, which was evidently the thermostat. I took it out and threw it away! We may have worse results from the over heating like maybe warped valves. These foreign made cars just do not have the stuff in them that American cars do. We also had fuel pump problems which I fixed by cleaning everything real good...I hope! I have made up my mind to one thing though and that is when we get back we are going to have a new automobile and one with enough horse power to climb a hill without creeping along at five miles per hour! We were talking about that today and thought we might come back through Detroit and pick one up. But that is a few months down the road yet.

    We are still having diarrhea troubles, and poor old Milt has been hurt the worst. Along with that he has hemorrhoids that are bothering him bad. It undoubtedly has been irritated by having to go to the toilet so much. I don't recall  of him ever complaining about them before. If they don't clear up soon I guess we will take him to Nairobi to see what can be done. There is an American doctor there that the other people in our group have been going to and there are some real good hospitals there. I hate to have those removed but he would be better off in the long run. I hope they decrease a little so it won't be necessary. Talking about such things, Dad how are you getting on and how long do you expect it to take for the leg muscles to heal? Hope it is soon. This seems to be a lousy letter, I guess it is just one of those days when writing doesn't go right. It seems things have become too everyday. I should do several letters but I keep putting most of them off, like the one I ought to write Hillside Faculty. I'm afraid some might write back! Oh, we enjoy getting letters very much but when we make the weekly rounds of the important letters that takes all the time and leaves those others to wait. All the kids seem to be doing well, except for Milt's  troubles. Kiva was helping us work on a tapestry this morning. She thought she was being discriminated against when we didn't approve of all that she had done. Milt and Amy thought they got cheated too. We had a contest for a design for a tapestry to go above the fireplace and the prize was five schillings. They were not happy when we chose Vicki's design so we gave some consolation prizes to lift their spirits. All for now. Love, Frank