Hello Family and Friends:
Another week shot!!!! The weeks are better with Debi here than by myself. She may be kinda board but there will be more for her to do in the near future. The Doctor here contacted one of his dentist friends so Debi will begin working with her to get the dental equipment needed here to do some “tooth work”. School also starts next week, so if she wants to read to brats and help them learn English she could do that too.
Work is still a challenge. Production is in the toilet so still a lot of pressure to get operations turned around. The Board of Directors will be here in two weeks so that may be interesting. I keep telling myself “what can they do, fire me”. I sometimes think that would be a blessing. So I just do the best I can and try to improve my performance and that of the group here each week.
Next week begins the changes in census. Once people begin losing their jobs, it may wake up those that think nothing can ever go wrong in their lives. It is incredible to see how nonchalant people are with their work ethic. I’ve been told that part of the problem has been that the union got a 9% pay increase and that same amount was given to the salaried workers. The thinking is that if a 9% increase was given, things can’t be too bad. That kind of increase would never have been given in the US. There was one year things were bad at General that no increase was given to salaried employees. They got the message, things are bad. Well maybe the message will begin getting out now. Will keep you posted.
Went climbing on rock Saturday with Debi and another guy here from Florida; it was a good day. The African villagers came out and were singing while I was putting up the rope. By the time I got that done, they were all up talking to Debi. They were taken by her long blond hair. One little girl kept running her hands through it. They loved having their pictures taken and so Debi posted a number of them on her blog (will give you her blog address in another email, don’t have it now). They were cute and as usual, it looked like they and not had their Saturday bath in about a month. When water is so difficult to come by it is understandable why they are dirty. The little boys had tattered robes. It looked like they got the hand-me –downs from everyone in the family and by the time it got to them there wasn’t much left.
After rock climbing, we went down to the hot springs. I was shocked when the water was too hot for Debi. I have been in it and it was not too hot for me so I thought Debi would love it- not; too hot for her. That was disappointing, but the good part of the trip was that we saw, zebras, giraffes, wilder beasts, baboon, flamingos, and a bunch of other birds. So now she feels like she is in Africa. We are the ones in the cages, not the animals. On the trip to Nairobi today we saw pea hens that were pretty and then on the way back we saw an Eland. It is the biggest member of the antelope family. I thought it was a cow until I saw the horns. It didn’t look like a cow so I turned around and went back and got a better look at it. You can ask my kids, I don’t turn around very often so it had to be funny looking for me to take a second look. Not sure what we will do next weekend for excitement, but we’ll think of something. We may go on a cheap safari to the mountains west of the plant.
Kind of a quiet day in church. It’s winter here and today it was overcast and kind of rainy so not many people were in church. I have a hard time relating to winter when it’s still in the 60 – 70 degree range. The primary president didn’t make it to church so Debi and a teacher had to handle the primary. Good thing not too many kids were there today. The branch president indicated today that the paperwork for splitting the branch will be submitted in September so we may be attending church a little closer to Magadi in a few months.
Well not much more to talk about. Sorry if there are boring letters. If you have any questions about Africa or Kenya, let me know and I’ll try to answer them.
Love you all
Dad/Paul
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