30. February 4, 1968: From Barbara to her folks

 30. February 4, 1968

Dear Mom and Dad (Line from Barb)

This last week was a real exciting one for all the local people. President Kenyatta is touring the country. He came to Embu Thursday and is staying three days. I think he leaves today. When we came home from seeing Diane last week, I counted 250 flags displayed in Embu. During the week they put up lots more and decorated everywhere with small flags and bunting. The place really looked gay. We didn’t go to see him come in. We went to the garden party given that evening at the house where he was staying. There was a long evening’s entertainment given by different groups of school children singing and lots of groups of dancers performing  native dances. It was very interesting and some of the dancers were really good. They were all dressed up and looked like some of the pictures from National Geographic. The school children were not quite so interesting, but they sound pretty good. Lots of the tunes were familiar but with different words. The church groups had the most familiar tunes, and they had twice as many verses to each song as the hymn books ever print! We stayed about two hours and left at seven when they turned the lights on.

Later we heard from some that stayed until the President went in to supper, that it was 8 o’clock before he decided he’d had enough, and the numbers on the program were only half finished. I think they finished the next night, as we could hear bus loads going by here around five, and they were singing and blowing their horns. It was all very festive. 

On Saturday I went down to Embu and just as we got to the Meru Road there were lots of people, and we had to stop. In about five minutes Mzee President Kenyatta came roaring by in his big black car. All the people were waving tree branches and anything they could lay their hands on. He was on his way up to Meru to see the people there. The Women of Embu Dancers were in the crowd too. They wear bright purple dresses and funny little hats and a skirt of reeds tied over the dress with ankle bells and beads around their necks. They are pretty good dancers. All of them are very old women. When the President first took office this group of women went with him everywhere and performed for him. It was the first group that worked to revive the native dances and songs. The missionaries had done such a good job of “Christianizing” that most of the native customs were wiped out. Now almost every tribe has its group of dancers and a certain amount of folk music and dancing is taught in P.E. classes at school. After watching them perform the other night, it made me mad at the missionaries for taking such a dim view of native customs.

We dug our potatoes the other day. They weren't too good, but we had enough for a couple of meals. Today Frank spaded up the garden and got it ready to plant the next crop. This is one time our February spring fever can do something good! I put up a bamboo framework to string up the passion fruit vine between our yard and the Bensen’s. A juniper hedge goes part way, but the bottom part looks right into their garden and a rubbish heap, so I decided that we needed to screen out some of that. It will look pretty good if the vine recovers  from being strung up. It had just been growing in a heap all along the fence which had mostly fallen down. We have started some bamboo growing along the edge of the lawn on the front room side of the house. We hope it will grow up so people walking along the road can’t see clear into the house like they can now. It’s nice to wave to them, but it would be nicer if you could move a bit without feeling like they see everything.

We got some new circle shaped chairs. They are covered with woven strips of plastic in red, gray, and black. They look so pretty and are smaller than the two old blue ones the principal loaned us from his office. They really make the room seem larger. We took the blue one up to the staff room. Miss Williams and Frank have been rearranging the furniture there to make it more comfortable. She got the principal to let her have some money to buy chairs for lounging, so there would be a place to relax a few minutes between classes. She brought back four chairs like ours. We got them in Embu for thirty shillings each.  Miss Williams asked me to go with her to Nairobi to pick out curtain material and a rug for the staff room. Everyone is enthused about what is going on and it is lots of fun to be in on it. Before it was a room with a lot of desks in it. Now the desks are arranged around the walls with a group of easy chairs in the middle. Eventually there will be a rug and coffee table. It never had curtains, so that will be a big improvement.

Frank is teaching Milt, Amy, and Kiva to throw and catch a ball. They sure do enjoy his having time to play with them.

I finally got some money for teaching. I spent some of it on the new chairs. I got 735 shillings. The principal implied there would be more, but we will see, come next payday.

Diane is taking guitar lessons now. She says her teacher plays guitar like a piano.

Vicki is starting her eighth grade math out of the book I took that summer Math course from. It’s making me scratch a little to get it all explained to her satisfaction. It’s good for me too!

We tried altering one of the cake recipes according to the directions you and Colorado sent. I think it would have come out alright, but I had the oven too hot, so it did a Mt. Kenya! It tasted good anyway!

Today we went to a picnic dinner at the Lindleys’. They live in Embu and came to Africa a year ago last November. He’s in charge of the Vocational Agriculture at the boys’ school in Embu. We had a good time. They have a nine month old baby that was born after they came here. Kiva thought he was pretty nice until he pulled her nose.

Milt’s second front tooth is loose, but he decided it wasn’t ready to pull yet. 

Amy is learning her times tables. She knows up to 7 x 5 and is learning them fairly easily. 

The reading has sort of bogged down with Kiva. I haven’t been pushing her very hard and she hasn’t been too enthusiastic.

Love, Barb