45. May 13, 1968: Barb's letter to her folks

 45. May 13, 1968

Dear Mom and Dad, (Line from Barb)

Well, I’m pretty late with my Mother’s Day greeting. I hope the pictures got there and since someone (Me) forgot to put a note in them, that they will convey the greeting. Seems like our forgetters have been working over time! We even neglected to get a letter to Frank’s dad on his birthday.

Looks like I’m doing a good job of putting off myself. It is Tuesday now. About the time I got as far as I did, Milt woke up with a headache, and Ellias arrived to go to work. So after putting the sick back to bed, feeding all breakfast, and issuing the orders for work for the day, I started back to the typewriter. No luck. Milkman arrived, Amy started her lessons, and Ellias had to have a refresher course on how to run the washer. (It’s finally here!) Then I pasteurized the milk, put the dishes to soak, got a cold cloth for Milt’s head, explained to one of the workmen that there is no medicine left (at the dispensary), and comforted Kiva, who just caught her hand in the wringer while trying to help put the clothes through. No damage done, just scared her badly, Ellius too, for he had forgotten what I’d shown him about releasing the wringer quickly, so it turned backward to grind her hand out. That sounds awful, but within two hours she was singing again. (By the way, the hired man’s name is pronounced El’-lee-us. How the heck you spell it, I don’t know!)

About this time I remembered that Frank said he needed some clean pants for school, so opened the closet to get them out, and there was his best suit with whiskers growing on the lapels! So I quick - went through all the clothes to see what else was “growing”! After being brushed vigorously and hung outside the rest of the day, there isn’t any sign of it left, so I guess it will be alright for a while.

With the pants washed and on the line, it was time for lunch, and just as I got it started, the truck came from Chukka for the generator. Now that we are on the mains, Chukka will have the generator for their secondary school. That is also where the Dutch people moved. He came back with a truck to help with the loading. So I went up to take some pictures of the whole operation. Frank had spent three days taking things apart enough to get the generator out of the generator house and packed up ready to move. It weighs about four thousand pounds and all those crazy Africans, including the principal, could think of was to get “a lot of men to lift it.”

By using a jack, some pipes as levers, some blocks, and Milton as top help, Frank got the generator off of it’s slab and onto some skids, over to a “bed height” bank where they had backed up the truck. Then by heave-ho-ing, shoved, pulled and pried it into the truck. I took some pictures. It was fun to see how pleased the workmen were to have the job turn out to be easy. It didn’t take them long to get the hang of how to use the pipes as rollers and pries. 

So, Mr. Spreji ate lunch with us. We had Swiss Steak made from beef tenderloin, and it was delicious, even if I do say so! By the time everything was cleaned up from lunch, it was approaching three o’clock, and I'd promised the kids we could make ice cream with the freezer. (It had come in the sea freight too.)

We got the mixture ready while Frank went around the compound to invite some people to come and eat the “celebration batch.” I made French vanilla which has a custard base, and it was the best we have ever made. (Could it be the “Long time without, makes sharp the taste”??) Frank brought back six people and we spent the rest of the afternoon eating and talking.

We also had Jim send us a portable smoker, so after our guests left, we fixed some frozen fish fillets from Nairobi for smoking. They have to soak in salt water for a while and while that was taking place, we fried the rest of the fish on the electric grill. I’m glad now we bought it. I was reluctant because I was afraid it would get broken in transit, but it is twice the pleasure to us here than it was at home. And I have bought a pretty white nylon spatula to use with it.

After supper I ironed. All of our clothes had ended up in a pile. Then we smoked the fish. The smoker is a little box about 18 inches square and three feet tall. It will just fit in the fireplace. It was an electric unit and a little pan that holds the chips. It took four hours to smoke this batch of fish. This first batch was good, but a little too salty. Today we are smoking a chunk of beef. I don’t know if one will be able to get a tooth into it. It looked like leather before I put it in the smoker!

Today seems a little quieter. The students are cleaning up the place and regular classes begin tomorrow. Frank teaches nothing but Agriculture, and by the end of the week he has met with every student in the college. Oh yes, he does have one arts and crafts class This term goes straight through until Aug. 5 or so, with no teaching practice. It will be the longest stretch of school since we arrived.

We went to Nairobi last Thursday and brought home the sea freight. It finally arrived just an hour before we got to the warehouse. We had to go for other things and just took the chance that it might be there. We had to open the box and stuff everything in the car, because the box was two inches too wide to go through the door of the car! It was quite interesting. After you get the paper from the warehouse, you have to go to the other side of town to the Common Services Building to have the list of contents approved and the customs fees determined, and the passports checked, all of which required a rubber stamp (as does everything in this country). When Frank came back to the car I looked at the paper and read the contents of our freight: refrigerator, three bicycles, sheet, and lots of unfamiliar things. The name at the top of the page was Nathaniel Philip Cochrane. He had arrived in February 1968 from Scotland, and now lives at Gilgil, Kenya. All that information was printed there and no one including Frank noticed! So here his freight was passed duty free on a U.S.A. passport! That will give him a shock! Of course Frank went right back in and they got it straightened out immediately. I am going to write that Cochrane just for fun. We visited with Diane on Sunday. I’ll tell you about that in the next letter. Love,