Hello Family and Friends:
Not much happened this week, again. I’m sure most of you can imagine what it would be like if you had to report on what you did each week. Pretty boring!
Still working on a number of things at works, like census reduction. That will be a big effort going forward. I have meeting scheduled this coming week to get things moving. I will meet with all the department managers and front line foremen and make sure they have bought in and will support the actions. I believe most people are expecting something to happen, they just hope they will be survivors. Fortunately for me, it is viewed as a corporate initiative and not the guy from the US driving it, which is a correct assessment. All top management at Magadi knows something has to happen or this place will never make money. So stand by for future developments.
There was a guy that arrived this week from Florida. So another mzungu is in Magadi. He is here to help implement “Lean Six Sigma”. Which is a method of maximizing company profits by using statistical tools to evaluate and solve problems. It is a tool that is being implemented all across Tata Chemical. He will be here off and on for the next six months.
So I had some company. I had dinner with him one evening and spent the day with him on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I took him rock climbing with my African friends. He enjoys the outdoors so he tried rock climbing and enjoyed it very much. He will probably go again in August when Debi and I are back. As usual there was a crowd of Maasai watching. It was so cute there were tiny children that wanted to shake my hand. I bet it had been months since they had had a bath. They were soooooo dirty and cute. Some new kids came to watch, but they thought we were crazy for climbing the rock and didn’t want to try.
After rock climbing, we went to the hot springs and sat in the pools. It was wondering as I watched the women selling necklaces if they were wanting to put in some carrots and potatoes in the hot pools while Mike and I were soaking. On the way to the pools we saw wilder beast, ostrich, and giraffes. We got close to all of them and Mike got some good pictures (I forgot my camera). The giraffes were amazing. There were some that were the normal reddish/brown color but there were some that almost looked black and white.
Then today while I was in church, Mike and a driver went to the Kenya National Park, and the giraffe park. I guess they had a good time at both places. But the thing Mike liked best was the giraffe park. You could feed the giraffes. They had buckets of food and you just filled your hands and the animals would eat it out of your hand. So they had a good time doing that while I was in church. After church we went to an Indian restaurant for lunch. That was great, best lunch I’ve had in Kenya. There is a large Indian population in Kenya so it was authentic food cooked by Indians. Mike wanted to look for souvenirs to take back to his family so the driver took us to an outdoor shopping place. What a place. I will go back to buy stuff for family but only because it is a cheap place. There were people trying to sell you stuff that reminded me of used car salesmen on meth. They were absolutely nuts. I finally told the guy that I would not buy anything if he didn’t back off. They were so pushy!!!! So this is your opportunity girls to tell me what you want from Africa. They had bowls/dishes, jewelry, carvings (masks, animals, people), paintings, African clothes, so if you want something special, let me know. I will go back either next weekend or the following one. So let me know what you want. I’m not going to go to that place very often….. They think that because you are a mzungu, you have to have money and it is their goal to separate it from you.
One comment about church. We have asked a couple of young men who have been asked to teach in priesthood meeting. Both are returned missionaries and both are incredible teachers. They have a good understanding of the gospel and their ability to teach is as good as if not better than what I have seen in the US wards I’ve attended. These young men know the gospel and how to teach.
So that's it for another week. Next week another fellow (Andy Voytko) from the US will come to help me with maintenance. So there will be three of us here. The population of mzungus’ is exploding. Andy will stay until the end of July. In fact we are on the same flight out of Nairobi.
So love you all
Paul/dad
No comments:
Post a Comment