Today we went and took food to the Grandma with her 35 grandchildren. If you don’t know the story, this grandma is caring for 35 of her grand children, as all of their parents have died of aids. Once a month TI takes food out to them. But the TI team must shop for the food first. The first stop was the grocery store to buy sugar and a few other products like soap. After that we went to the store that carries the bulk maize and beans. At this point we have to wait for our driver with a truck to come pick us up and load the beans and maize onto the truck. Although Ann our social worker has talked with the driver in the morning and many times throughout the day letting him know our time frame we wait for an hour for him to arrive. It is not a bad thing to wait on the street for an hour. It is better than going to the movies!! So much is going on I am continually entertained. Someone some how steals two bags of fertilizer without the store workers realizing it. The owner of the store tells the workers he will not pay them their wage if they don’t find it. For some reason this does not faze the workers. They sit down in front of the store on other bags of fertilizer and apparently discuss it. Than a fairly nice small station wagon pulls up and other workers begin to load the back of it up with bags of maize, fertilizer and beans. As they put each bag in the back, the car sinks lower and lower. Before long the car is so low it looks like it may be sitting on the back tires. There is no way this can be good for the car, in more than on way. Our driver finally arrives and Meredith and I stand up in the back of the truck as we drive to the gas station to get kerosene for the home. Both of us standing in the back of truck seems to cause a commotion with the boda boda (bicycle taxi’s) drivers. They are pointing and talking. As we drive away from them Meredith rebukes them in Swahili telling they are talking bad. They laugh hysterically!!!!! I am thinking as we drive to pick up Daniel and Larry, Larry will tell me how dangerous it is for me to be riding in the back of the truck standing up but I am so surprised when we turn the corner and he takes out his camera and takes our picture and tells us how cute we look in the truck!!! They jump in telling us about all the people they met and talked to as they waited for us. It is never, never boring here.
We have to drive a short distance on a dirt road to deliver the food. The grandma does not know that we are coming and we hear screams from the children as we drive up. The grandma now has five houses for her children and an acre of land to plant crops. But by American standards she has nothing!! I mean it, nothing!! But she is happy and grateful to see us. She is all smiles and the children crowd around to shake our hands and great us!! What an honor to be in her presence after all the stories we have heard. It was amazing!! When she found out we were Daniel’s parents she was so happy!! She gave us a speech about what a wonderful job we have done raising Daniel and about how much he has helped her. It was so sweet.
It is truly amazing to be here and see all that is being done. What a blessing!!
