Sorry this is so delayed but between traveling at the end of the month and the availiablity of reliable internet I haven't had a chance to post this….oh and it was supposed to have pics but the internet we have is too slow to load them. TIA haha. I hope you enjoy the post anyways! 🙂
So as I mentioned in my last blog my team and I are at Challenge Farm in Kitale Kenya which happens to be in the famous Rift Valley. A lot of great runners come from this region.
Challenge Farm was established by our contact Cheri to provide an option for the street kids that live in the surrounding slums. If the kids stay in the slums they end up sniffing glue to forget the hopelessness situation that they are in. They come to live on the farm and start to attend school that is on the compound too. If I remember correctly there are 82 boys and 38 girls (120 total) living here now.
Challenge actually has pretty awesome facilities with dorms for girls and boys, a working farm (that includes over 200 chickens and 12 cows and lots of fresh veggies and some bananas), a kitchen and dining hall, and a chapel. There are lots going on here basically all the time. Kids are always out playing football(soccer) or running laps around the field…as long as the cows stay out of the way haha.
The three teams of girls that are here do various activities throughout the week for the kids such as bible class, music, crafts, and games/sports. Those four classes are in the morning and then in the afternoon everyone is busy doing needed work around the facility. Those jobs can vary from organizing the library, counseling, painting, and working on the farm just to name a few.
What project have I been doing while staying on the farm full of kids and animals?
Work the farm of course! 🙂
Every day of the week I wake up at 6 to make sure I’m ready by 6:45 to milk five cows then I feed the four baby cows that still need milk, next I let the youngest three calves out into the field to run and play for about 30 or 45 minutes and then it is time for tea. Tea time is a very important time for Africans. We drink Chai tea everyday around 9:30 and of course since I milked the cows to get the chai I must drink the chai haha. After tea time we either do some planting or weed out garden beds, and then harvest some of the vegetables for lunch time. The first week working on the farm I helped till up the ground and then we planted beans and covered them back up….talk about hard work! We did all the turning on the soil and stuff with just a tool called a gamba which is kinda like a large hoe. It is definitally hard work but I pretty much love it.
The guys that I am working with are pretty cool too, I work with five guys ranging in age from 18-35. Bernard, Ronald, Pastor Fred, Paul, and Ezra. Those guys are always giving each other a hard time making jokes and asking me questions about America and myself. They definitely can keep you entertained while working hard.
I’ve been blessed by hearing some of their testimonies and what they’ve been through and also we get to talk about Jesus a lot and I like that too. The guys call me their head girl on the farm, and tell everyone that I am a real farmer and that I must be Kenyan. The first time I ever milked a cow with them they all were there staring at me because they’d never seen a white person, especially a girl, come and work with them and milk a cow. I can happily saw that I surprised their socks off and milked that cow like a pro. I think my papaw Tolaver would be proud that I remember farming things he taught me when I was little.
Oh, and other exciting news! Because the guys are so convinced that I am Kenyan now they have given me a Kenyan name….Nasambu. Apparently since I love farming so much that they think I must have been born on a farm haha. I like my new name.
Talk about growing a better future…Challenge Farm does that well. With their school and such a loving focus on the kids and the products of the farm to keep them healthy and strong.
Africa isn’t exactly what I expected it to be like but hey when is anything on the race like you expect it to be?
Haha. I know I will be sad to leave the kids and staff here on the farm though, Kenya will have a special place in my heart now especially Kitale because of Challenge Farm.
