Kenya Day 9

We spent the morning checking on accommodations for the team that will come in June. The local Catholic guest house looks like a good option. They have rooms for 34 people, a dining hall and meeting rooms. All the rooms have fans, trust me that this is a good thing, and screens in the windows, an even better thing. We were able to observe a school building that was being built on the Catholic Church compound. This will help as we make plans for building a girls school on the Agape site. We also went to check on a hotel in town in case anyone required luxurious accommodations. The hotel has three different style rooms, air conditioning and a restaurant on site. After we checked out the hotel we went with Jason to a location where compressed block was being used to build a trade school. The compressed block is made from a mixture of sand and cement. The sand is first sifted, then mixed with cement. The sand cement mixture is placed in a block compressor and formed into blocks. The blocks themselves interlock so they allow for building without using cement between courses of block. The compressor allows three men to make 150 blocks per day at about 16 Ksh. per block. The blocks must cure for 7 days after they are made. Once the blocks are cured they can be built into a structure very quickly because no cement is required in the construction. This eliminates the need to wait for the cement to cure as the walls are being built. It also lowers the cost of construction by eliminating additional cement and labor. The compressed blocks are a pretty clever idea for building in area that is primarily covered in sand. While we were checking out the block compressor Dan mentioned the temperature was over 100 F (this was before noon by the way). I could have told him it was really hot because of the way my skin was leaking. On the way out of the site we saw a small group of camels and it was so hot they were even sweating. We went to the Bethany intern site for lunch (picture). Bethany has six women and two men interning here. The interns work with the local missionaries and attend classes while on site. The internship lasts 16 months. We are going to Jason and Bekkah's for nyama choma, barbecue, for supper tonight. When we stopped by to pick Jason up for the trip to check out the compressed blocks he was butchering the chickens we will have for supper. And Copp's claims to have the freshest meat, ha! Tomorrow we will be going back to Nairobi. It will be nice to get out of the heat but we will be back here soon enough.