An African Day

Today was not as productive as we had hoped. Carl and I still need to adjust to the realities of getting things done in Kenya. We had hoped to pick up need supplies in a nearby town this morning and be working on installation at Laparua school in the afternoon but it did not happen. We ended up taking a large group of people to town that needed items and between traffic and locating things it took until 1:00pm before we were ready to head out to the school. We then need to pick up several tools from the logistics depot on the way out but everyone takes lunch between 1-2pm so we could not get what we needed until 2pm. Once we found someone to help us, we spent the next 1 1/2 hours trying to locate the following.

Drill
Bit
Extension cord
Hammer

So we are now planning a full day tomorrow at the school and hopefully we will have everything we need. We went to the town of Meru this morning to locate 25 - 1" long bolts and washers to fix a problem with the way the local welder had built the solar panel frame. It turns out that bolts are not readily available even at hardware stores. After several stores and many people pointing me to other places, I finally found a metal shop "Shanir Hyads Masterwork Foundry" on a side street off of an alley that I could barely fit through that had most of what I needed. I will now need to do a MacGyver style fix to bypass what we do not have.

While I was out running through town, it appears that Emily, Carl's daughter was very popular while waiting in the car. I think that she had several marriage proposals and it seems she is worth a lot of cows! - John