43., 43.1 May 4, 1968: Letters from Barbara to her folks and from Frank to his Folks

 43. Sunday, May 4, 1968

Dear Mom and Dad, (Line from Barb)

I am getting started late, so I’ll write instead of type as the noise keeps everyone awake. This house really echoes. It must be the concrete floors and walls.

Frank is finished with the institute, so it’s sort of like Christmas Vacation again. Everyone is gone and it’s very quiet, extra quiet because there is no generator noise. How we do enjoy the twenty-four hour electricity. Ice in the water to drink, hotcakes on the electric grill, made one chocolate today, and we’ve had orange, lemon, and pineapple, no vanilla yet. 

We have had rain every night this week, one night 2.75 inches. The road down the hill to our house was a real mess, as it is shaded part of the way, and doesn’t dry very fast. Saturday Frank hauled a load of gravel which helps a lot. This morning we went right up with no trouble.

Saturday I went to Embu to the market, and there were more people there than I’ve ever seen. It was lots of fun to visit with all of them. There were several I’d never seen before. We bought three more bells for our collection. These are about 2 inches long, shaped like a circle folded in half with two holes in the folded edge for stringing on a string, and two bits of metal inside to make the sounds. The dancers wear them tied on their legs. We have three others, two cow bells and one goat bell. They have a real pretty tone. The cone shape has two splits, one on each side, and it makes a more ringing tone. We plan to bring home several more.

We are all peeling as a result of our sunburn at Melindi. Milton looks splotchy, two-toned on his back, and Kiva’s nose is pink where it has peeled and burned again. Frank’s legs peeled in great chunks. He really cooked himself. Mine isn’t too bad.

Kiva got another chigger in her toe, and I got it out without hurting her. They are fascinating and repulsive at the same time!

I have finally finished one sleeve to Vicki’s sweater. Seems to take forever.

Coming back from Embu Saturday, I wished I had a tape recorder. Two Europeans had gone down with me plus Amy, Milt, and Kiva. Coming back, I had them plus Mrs. Benson and her African friend and Miss Gass’s house man. They all were talking and laughing as hard and fast as they could. All that with the noise of the car motor and the rattles and squeaks made quite a din. There are a few things like that that have to be heard to be believed!

Hope the pictures get to you by Mother’s Day. I didn’t send a letter with them, so they could go for less. Happy Mother’s Day. Hope it is pleasant. We will be spending that day in Nairobi with Diane, as she can get out that day.

We are reading “Elsa” and the kids really like it. It takes place not too far from here, so is interesting in that respect. All for now. Love, Barb

43.1

Sunday, May 4

Dear Folks, (Cochrane from Frank)

Friday finished our in-service institute and we now have another week before the second term starts. We had thought we would do some driving around to see some more of the country, but the rains have been so heavy that many roads and bridges are reportedly washed out. Two days last week I measured three inches of rain and it has rained more than an inch each of the other nights. It has begun to make a pattern. It will start clouding up about 2:30 to 3:00 p.m. and there will be a downpour about 5:00 lasting in varying degrees most of the night. Our drive comes down a rather steep little pace. Its two tracks become drainage when it rains, so it takes until at least noon each day before we can drive out, and then we would have to be back in by 4:30 in order to feel safe.

The in-service course was rather interesting. All these people had to have four years teaching experience and at least seven years education. The completion of this course means a pay raise for them, so they were quite attentive. Their English was terrible, which made it hard to teach, but we got along fairly well. They seem to appreciate what you can do for them which is rather a new experience. I had a fairly full schedule in the sense that I generally taught several hours in a row, and it felt real good to feel like I was really working for a change. I had ordered several films from the U.S. Information Service, which sends them out free, of course. I showed films in the evenings and finished up Sunday afternoon with one class film. I figured anything they could see would broaden their knowledge. Most have practically no concept of much beyond their little circle in which they live. This also makes it hard to teach, because you have to give them the background that children at home have naturally. I mean things like: knowing that there is such a thing as an atom, for instance, and that rocks are made up of minerals.

I guess I told you last week that Barb took Diane down to school and stayed down Sunday night to attend an organ concert that Mrs. Schmid gave just before she, her father-in-law and some members of her family took off to see Europe on their way home. I guess the concert was really good according to Barbara. Some of the Schmids may look you up when they get home.

I have a new job to do here since we got on the main electrical lines. A secondary school up the road about thirty miles bought our old generator, and I have the job of dismantling it far enough so they can load it. This presents some problems. It is a two cylinder diesel engine and 10 KW Generator which weighs at least one and a half tons, all bolted to a cast iron base and bolted down to a concrete base. If I just had one good hydraulic jack it would help. I hope to use the jack out of the schoolbus, but I haven’t seen it yet. Then I hope to get it on skids and move it down to a bank that the truck can back up to. I will need a lot of luck to get this all done. I wouldn’t be surprised if the school that bought it would ask me to remount it at their school. That would be a bigger job.

We haven’t heard anything more about our sea freight, but then they had a holiday in the middle of last week, and we have hardly received mail at all since then I mean the whole school hasn’t received any. I hope the railroads and all other government agencies didn’t react the same way.

You should have all the pictures we sent by now. I hope they got there in one piece. All the kids are well in spite of the rain, and with that I will quit. Hope you had a good trip. Love, Frank