Monday, June 16/14

Hello folks, this is Ruth posting for Monday, June 16 - even though today is June 25th.
We got up for breakfast - this is  included with the Methodist Guest House fee.
I personally found the night quite noisy - but what can you do?
We met up with Pat and Jennifer Tyrwhitt. Pat was on the 2011 Kenya Mission (Library Team) and this is when Fran and Rosemarie first met her.
We will be travelling to Bungoma with Pat and Jennifer.  They have been working for the past two years to raise funds for the building of five new classrooms on land owned by the Archbishop of Kenya.
Following breakfast we headed to the Junction Mall for some Kenyan Shillings and odds and ends.
We then took off for the Giraffe Orphanage where we had a great deal of fun feeding the Giraffes from an observation deck at the level of the giraffes head.  Fran absolutely loves this spot and she was kissing the giraffes.  I passed on this opportunity. There were many young, shy school children on a class trip to visit the centre. In addition to giraffes, there were a few warthogs running around at the feet of the giraffes, picking up the fallout from the giraffes meals.

School Children at the Giraffe Centre

Interesting face!

Feeding giraffe with pellets.

Foot long tongue.

We had a nice lunch on the patio within easy view of the giraffes.
On the way back to the MGH we stopped Kazuri Bead Factory.  Rosemarie and I had a tour of operation while Fran slept on the bus - this will become a regular thing (that is Fran sleeping).
I then purchased a few necklaces - as gifts to bring back.

Here is the low down on Kazuri - the word is Swahili for small and beautiful.  The founder , Lady Susan Wood, started with two African women - this has grown to a huge business which is very helpful to women in the area.  We were told that a woman will make 1,000 beads a day.  These are made from clay, shaped by hand, then fired, coloured by hand and re-fired, followed by hand stringing into  beautiful pieces of jewellery.  These pieces are now exported around the world.
We returned to the MGH for a rest, then off to the ArtCafe at the Junction Mall for dinner.
Back to MGH to sort out the three suitcases of supplies and get those supplies for Bungoma ready.
Early day tomorrow to catch the flight to Kisumu and then a bus ride to Bungoma.
The weather is cooler than I expected, but it is dry - even though this is the end of the rainy season.