33. February 26, 1968 - two airmail letters from Barbara to her folks

 33. February 26, 1968

Dear Mom and Dad,

This last weekend was Diane’s half term. It really turned out to be a party! Early in the week we made plans to go to Nairobi on Friday and pick up Diane, so we could all go to the U.S. Embassy Nurse’s Office and have our Gamma Globulin booster shot. I wrote letters to get permission from the school to get Diane and the Ferguson kids (They were to be with us for the half term) out early for the shots as their vacation didn’t begin until ten Saturday morning. About the time I had sent the letters off to the schools I got word through Mr. Hadden, who had been in Nairobi at the AID office, that immunization day was Saturday. They sent word by him, as it was faster than by mail or telephone! (Does that  tell you something about the telephone service??) In the meantime we had a wheel bearing that was complaining louder and louder, and a couple of rain showers that made us decide we would just come back home after picking up the kids and not try to go up country at all. We also had a letter from Mr. Bevin, another Idaho man, who lives in Nairobi. He and a family named Schmid were planning to come up and spend a day with us. (The Schmids’ live in New Plymouth in the States and went to the U.of I. about the same time we did.) So we wrote to them to come and stay the night, we’d be back Saturday afternoon.

Thursday it rained and Frank had to leave the car at the bottom of one of the little hills about a mile and a half down the road. He had taken three other teachers out that morning to supervise some students. They all came home with another teacher. Her car is a little less lumbering than the Commer! Later in the day, after the sun came out, we walked down to the car and brought it home without any trouble. He had left it parked on the edge of the road as far off as he could get it. There was a slight ditch at the other side and at least two people had ended up there and had quite a struggle getting out. It seems real funny. The rain doesn’t stop the traffic, especially the busses. I guess they just have to try or else it just doesn't bother them that much. We give serious thought before we start out, as to whether we might get stuck, and they just go anyway!

Friday morning Frank decided that we’d wait and go Saturday. The garage in Embu had ordered a wheel bearing from Nairobi that was supposed to arrive Friday afternoon. It was nice and sunny and Elias washed all the sheets, and we cleaned house and baked cookies getting ready for the company. About noon Frank came running in. “let’s get ready as fast as possible to go to Nairobi.” The bearing hadn’t arrived as promised. Miss Williams was on her way to Nairobi and would follow us to pick up the pieces in case the bearing went out on the way. (pleasant thought!)

So we flew and by 2:00 we were on the road all packed to stay overnight, the house ready for company, and Elias left to bring in the last of the washing and clean up after lunch. This included putting back on the wheel which was off waiting for the new bearing! We arrived safe but anxious in Nairobi at the parts house five minutes after the parts man closed up shop and gone home at 5:05 pm!

By this time, Kiva had a temperature, and had thrown up all over and was feeling pretty limp. Two days before, Milton had had a similar thing and the doctor in Embu had called it malaria Since he recovered (as the book says you will when you have been taking preventative pills as we had) we accepted his diagnosis, but when Kiva got sick we began to wonder if that’s what it was.

We drove back to Kenyatta College after picking up groceries and stayed in Sentmans’ house. They were off somewhere for the weekend. Kiva spent a pretty restless night, but by breakfast ate a good meal and felt good enough to be cheerful.

We headed back to Nairobi by 7:30 am (Saturday) and got the bearing installed in good time. Frank left the kids and me at the Embassy nurse's office and went to pick up Diane and the Fergusons at school. It was 9 o’clock when he left us, and by 12 o’clock, when he finally arrived, we had had our shots and twenty fits waiting for him to come back! I had imagined all kinds of troubles! Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson and all the kids were with him. They had quite a merry-go-round getting together, as they had missed each other between the two schools.

Anyway, to cut this a little shorter, we  picked up some more groceries and all headed back to Embu. We arrived about 4 o’clock and found Mr. Bevin and the Schmids lounging on the lawn waiting for us When I counted up for supper, there were twenty one people! We started cooking food, and both Mrs. Ferguson and Mrs. Schmid really pitched in. We fed the children first, then washed the dishes and ate ourselves. There was actually food left over! It was amazing how good that meal tasted!

It was the first time the Fergusons and the Schmids had laid eyes on each other, but by the time the evening was half over, you’d have thought they’d known each other for years. Mr. Bevin was delighted with the whole affair. His wife is still in the States trying to settle property so she can come over, and he’s been living alone. 

The Schmids live in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania. He is over here with the Department of Agriculture, AID, working on small scale irrigation projects. They have been here twenty one months and will go home in April. They also have a five week old baby. They named him Dar after his birth place. The Schmids had come to Nairobi to spend their leave time and are staying with Mr. Bevin. They have been there a week and will stay another week. Mr. Schmid is working on getting his pilot’s license while in Nairobi.

Nothing moved too fast. Everyone was busy talking all the time. We discovered we all knew people who knew each other. Mrs. Schmid is from Boston, and so knew places and people the Fergusons knew. Mr. Schmid’s sister lived in the same dorm as I did, and was Carolyn Hansen’s best friend (*girl from Aberdeen the folks know). And Mr. Bevan had taught one of Frank’s classes at the U.of I. We all really enjoyed the evening.

When it came time to go to bed, we put up our tent and had seven children in our tent and car, two children in the Schmids’ car, two more in the house, and a bed for each grown-up. Everyone was quite pleased with the arrangements. (Fergusons slept in our bed. She said it was the first double bed they’d slept in since leaving theirs at home!) By bedtime Amy had what Kiva had had and we were sure it wasn’t malaria.

Breakfast went well. I don’t know how many eggs we ate. I had been buying them all week so there would be enough. Then we packed up a lunch and two cases of pop and started out on a little trip toward Mr. Kenya in a different direction than we had gone. Continue on to the next air letter, only half the tale is told!

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Before I had a chance to start on the story again, Frank came in with a letter to be typed. It was a request for books to the Ministry of Education, that we know they have received from AID, because some of our group at Kenyatta College have been stamping and inventorying them. Now they are ready to go out all over Kenya, but from the rumors we hear, the Ministry just isn’t much interested in getting them out. It takes a little time, effort, and money, that they aren’t anxious to spend. So we are trying a little prodding to see if it will help speed things along. They would have still been in boxes in a warehouse at Kenyatta College if our people hadn’t volunteered to do the inventorying. It is amazing how little interest there is when it isn’t your idea. Now, I have finally finished three readable copies, heaven knows for what, but that’s the Principal’s orders.

Now back to the weekend. By Sunday morning Amy had recovered and it would appear to have been some brand of the stomach or 24 hour flu. (There will possibly be another case for every person who was here!)

The road we took turned off the highway below Embu and went back toward the mountains. We were headed for the Thiba River Fishing Camp. Anne Randall’s (English Volunteer similar to Peace Corp girl) boyfriend worked up there for a while and said that it was nice country and he was right. After we drove for twenty miles and the road had dwindled to two tracks that looked like foot paths, we came to a large field fenced in with a hedge and great big trees scattered around. Over in one corner was a group of little round and square houses, a tent or two, and about three cars. This was the fishing camp! The round houses were concrete with tin roofs, each with a fireplace and two beds inside. The square ones were kitchens with running water and water heaters, which used kerosene or paraffin as they call it here. Some of the square ones were bath houses with showers and hot water heated by a wood fire. You could drink the water out of the tap! A place to eat and sleep rented for five shillings a night! The river ran close by and had plenty of fish in it. We parked in the shade and ate lunch and the kids ran around for a while. Then we loaded up and went about three miles further up the road toward the mountain and stopped at a place where people had built a great big stone house on top of the hill. It was in good shape and probably had not been used too long. There was a pretty waterfall close by. You could walk down a steep path through jungle type vegetation and see the waterfall in two places at once. There was a hydraulic ram there that pumped water up to the old house, and several small houses around it. I imagine it was an estate at one time. Now the Forest Service owns it and there are a lot of people living in the small houses. We found out from some of them that the road went on about ten miles farther, and from there you could walk a ways up on the slopes of Mt. Kenya at the 10,000 foot level There were elephants in that country. You could see places along the road where they had uprooted the vegetation, and there were a lot of footprints and piles of manure around.

That night all the kids slept in the tent and it rained in the night. The top didn’t leak, but the sides sure did, and by morning they were pretty damp. It cleared and around noon we were getting ready to go to Nairobi to take the kids back to school, when the local Bishop came by after money, so they can put lights in the church when the mains come in. Frank was fit to be tied, first because he felt he had to give him twenty shillings and second because the guy stayed so long that we got a late start, and it left no shopping time in Nairobi.

We got to Kenyatta about five, visited a bit, and then took Diane back to school. We had found some things the Schmids left so drove by Mr. Bevan to return them. By then it was 6:30 and the sky looked very fierce, but we stayed and ate supper with them. It started raining hard before we left about 8:00 and it rained until we got about a mile out of Embu. All the time we had figured it would be raining at home. It stayed dry until we were about three miles from home, and then it just poured. We slipped and slid all the rest of the way with our hearts in our mouths! We made  it to the yard about ten minutes before the lights went out. Frank had managed to stay on the road with only one bad skid. We were really tired! It rained the rest of the night. If we had been even five minutes later, we wouldn’t have made it! Next time we won’t cut the time so short. 

We didn’t have much time to visit with Diane. We made doughnuts Sunday night so had a little time to visit then. She’s doing pretty good, she thinks. The house mother is not as hard on her as at first and she’s pretty well reconciled as to what has to go on. I sure hated to leave her, but guess it is better. (?) We have received literature from a boarding school for American dependents in Madrid, Spain. It is a very nice school and sounds so good that if the girls are accepted, we will send both Vicki and Diane next September. Vicki will have to finish her eighth grade correspondence course, because the school is only high school. Sending the two together should be more company and give Vicki a chance to be “out”. They have two trips home each school year, and it’s run American style with no prefects. (English Style) I hope it works out as I’m sure the thought of going somewhere else is all that keeps Diane going some days. The Madrid School sounds nicer and less fancy than the Switzerland School which suits me better.

Today it is still drizzling, so the teachers did not try to go out to supervise the students, but they still send the students out. Lots of them probably had to walk at least part of the way to their schools. We have wet things hanging all over that didn’t get dry yesterday, or got wet again last night. Things sure are looking green and pretty. Next weekend is our mid term break. We have Friday and Monday off, but if the weather keeps on like this, we will just stay here. It’s not worth landing in the ditch. However, it may clear up long enough to dry out so we can go.

We haven’t talked much about birthdays. We will at least have the cakes. That was one of the reasons for wanting to shop in Nairobi. Everyone is fully recovered and fine. Love, Barb