21., 22. November 21 and November 27, 1967: Letters from Barbara to her folks

 21. November 21

Dear Mom and Dad (Line from Barb)

Just a quick note to let you know your Christmas letter got here yesterday. It seems so strange to think it is getting so close to that time.

Tomorrow we are having a potluck dinner for the faculty, about twenty people counting the seven of us. That’s what we are doing to celebrate Thanksgiving. We will have pumpkin pie. The kids insisted on that! No turkey, but sauerbraten instead. I’m very curious to see what the other people will bring. Everyone seems real enthused at the idea.

We won’t be gone the entire vacation, just most of it. I’ll tell you the details later. 

Thank you so much for the check, that’s two hundred forty five shillings. I imagine we will use it for traveling. I’ll tell you about it when we spend it. Don’t worry about coming out short. What we sent isn’t much, but even with the postage we wanted you to have something. We are working on Christmas cards, so will write to everyone on them.

Thank you for sending for the baking information.

Frank is finishing a guitar he built out of a large gourd. It looks real snazzy and sounds good. He and Diane are going to take lessons from the Dutch lady, Mrs. Sprey.

I know this is sketchy, but I’m trying to get it ready to catch the mail today, and my class starts in three minutes! Will write more later. Thanks again for your generous present. Everyone was so tickled, and the train Christmas stamps looked so pretty. Aren’t they fancy?

Love from all of us, Barbara

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22. November 27

Dear Mom and Dad (Line, from Barb)

Well, Thanksgiving is over and we ended up having a couple of celebrations. I told you about the pot luck for the staff at our home. They came loaded with food, native African dishes, curry and rice (from the Asian girl) a Goen spaghetti and sausage dish, Dutch appetizers, three English Jellies (Jello to us!) besides our Sauerbraten, mashed potatoes, and cauliflower with cheese sauce. It was a wonderful meal. I made pumpkin pie too. Everyone ate until they were miserable. I wish you could have seen the principal. He piled his plate to capacity and then sat himself in the middle of the room with a small stool for his plate and ended up being the life of the party. He really enjoyed it! I think it was a good idea in more ways than one. Everyone has seemed so much more friendly to each other since that night. I suppose it gave all of us a chance to know each other a little more. There was so much food left and no one would take any away with them, so we invited everyone back the next day for lunch. We just warmed it all up and ate again. That went over big too. The Dutch lady brought her guitar along to help Frank tune the one he built, so we ended up singing a lot of folk songs. It must have been painful to listen to, but it was fun to sing!

The next day the Adult Literary Society invited Frank and me to their end of school party. This is a group of volunteer students that have organized classes for the local adults to teach them to read and write in vernacular, and some English. They have about fifty students and most of them are doing pretty good. When we got to the room where they were having the party, they had arranged the tables in a long line down the center of the room and had laid out plates of cookies, bottles of pop, and bananas, and you stood by the table and ate. Then after eating, everyone sat down and there were some speeches. Frank was asked to tell about illiteracy in the United States, if there was any and what the government was doing about it. For only having about two minutes warning such a thing was going to happen, he did a very good job! He told about evening classes, Job Corp, Head Start, and I can’t remember what else! After that, the party was over.

Today is the last day of classes and tomorrow we check in books and clean up the place. I’m glad to see it end. My only problem is what to do when the cooking class starts next term. I’m hoping to get some help from the Curriculum Development Center in Nairobi. And while I think of it, Colorado sent the pamphlet you requested about the high altitude baking. They just wrapped it in an air letter and it came airmail. Can you beat that? I haven’t had time to do the necessary experimenting it suggests, but am hoping it will bring the desired results. Thanks for asking for it.

Our second Thanksgiving was an invite to an American with AID who lives in Embu. They have been here a little over a year and go home next July. They had three other couples and two women, all Americans that are around the area. Each one is here under a different program. The Haddens, the hosts, have perhaps the most lavish layout of all. They brought a big freezer with them. They get their rent paid by the U.S., and I’m not sure what else. But they have no electricity in their house at all. Some kind of a political deal, as their house is owned by the country and the electric company is owned by the province and the two aren’t on friendly terms. I’m glad we have lights for at least a while, for they burn an atrocious amount of gas just for light. Anyway, the dinner was delicious, with roast turkey and all the trimmings, including mince pie and pumpkin pie. The turkey was the best meat we’ve had since we got here. It was flown in from the United States. I didn’t ask how much it cost, as I wanted to be able to enjoy eating it, but I’ll bet it was plenty! As we started home at about midnight, it started to rain, and it rained the rest of the night and most of the next day. We got home just as the road was becoming pretty slippery. I’m glad we didn’t have to go anywhere the next day.

Sunday the college had a carol service, and they asked our family to sing an American Carol. We ended up singing an American Negro Spiritual while the dutch lady played her guitar. It started out pretty bad but ended up in fair shape. We had fun doing it anyway. It was a nice service. There were several Bible readings about the Christmas happenings and then various carols in among them. It was cold and wet just like at home! We came home and built a big fire and had popcorn and tea and banana bread for supper.

The church is built of stone with a tin roof and you can see the rafters and the light shining through the little holes in the tin roofing. It has windows with round tops all the way around the building, but no glass, just iron bars, so people can’t climb in or out I guess! In front there is a raised platform about six inches high that leads up to a large recessed place where there are some more windows and a concrete table for the altar. There are wooden benches with backs for the people to sit on, and they have a little tray affair on the back for the people in the next row to put their books on. You can hear very well all that is said, unless the rain comes down too hard! This church is uphill from our house, about half a block past the tire swing!

Today it looks like the rain is over for the present at least. I guess this is the longest short rains they’ve had since 1960 when it flooded the whole country and took several lives.

The kids are doing fine. No upsets in the last week. They were invited to the Dutch peoples’ house the night we went to the Haddens’ and did they have a good time. They had Dutch pancakes as big as your plate with bought syrup out of a can and with bacon in them. Then a big fire afterwards, and Mr. Spreiji recorded a song they sang and let them hear it. Mrs. Spreiji let them draw with her magic markers. So they thought it was great fun and a successful evening. 

 Love, Barb