Karibu! Welcome!

Since 2004, EWB@ MSU's professional and student volunteers have worked with community members in Khwisero, Kenya to provide water and sanitation infrastructure at the district's 58 primary schools, making it easier for Khwisero's children to avoid waterborne disease and get an education.

In that time, the group has grown from a small club to one of MSU's premier student organizations, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund seven borehole wells, six composting latrines and a biogas latrine that serve thousands of community members.

Thank you for joining us as we continue to work hand-in-hand with local partners to make a difference in one small part of our world. As Western Kenya's limited internet access allows, we will update this blog while in-country with the successes, stories and lessons provided by our work.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

A Wet Christmas: Eric

We woke up this morning, Christmas Eve, to a thunderstorm and pouring rain (see the poor quality photos). At one point, someone joked that we've ended up with a wet christmas instead of a white one.


Since Maurice assured us yesterday that December is a dry season in Khwisero, it came as a bit of a surprise (when we teased him about his prediction this afternoon, he explained that one of the local tribes is able to control the rain).


In any case, it sounds like the change in weather is an early Christmas present for the local farmers, who've been hard hit by a drought for the past several months.

It was less fortunate for us, since it coated the local roads in two inches of mud. Jackson had set up a meeting with our local management board this morning, but the roads' condition forced us to push it back a couple hours to give all the board members a chance to navigate them.
The meeting itself, however, turned out to be more than worth the wait. I was absolutely amazed at how willing the board members were to sacrifice several hours of their Christmas Eve to discuss our project's status and our plans for the next several weeks.

I'd like to elaborate a bit more, but I'm once again in the process of nodding off at the keyboard--the Kenyan tea Nellie (Jackson's wife) served with dinner tends to put me to sleep, I think. Either that or it was the ugali (a cornmeal-mash dish that's the staple dish here).

Regardless--Feliz Navidad,

Eric

2 comments:

Elizabeth Flesch said...

It is wonderful that all of you are spending the holidays helping people halfway across the world. Thank you for your hard work as always, and best of luck with all of your projects.

Donna Swarthout said...

Eric, It's great to see that you are still involved with EWB and back in Kenya as a Project Manager. I hope all is going well with the project and I will see you around campus when you are back.