The Gift of History

The Gift of History
By: Alfred Opiyo, Alerics Collections, 27/07/2007

This is cradle of genesis,
That never shall it be seasonal,
Like roses blossomed at Winter;
Nor birds of Springtime sung.
Communities and descendants to live,
Must remember, celebrate and pray.
Only for the gift of history and future
Led to us by late Ted Pollock and Dolly his helper.
Thus inclined all our bouquets.

Both blew their horn,
That ripples many parts of Africa.
Despite of lefting all best,
In Western countries and cultures.
Liftup their lamps in Africa as missionaries,
Fishing many to roused from slumber of doom cultures!
And all whispers peace fetching - many to Christ.

Though leaved their mission hunged
But their blessed descendants,
Are there to rescue unfinised pillars,
Firmly after footprints of trotter-claws.
Leaving chance for history to breath.

May our ancestors effort live in our heart,
Throughout our lives, strength, names -
And accomplishment of their dream.

Tho in the gift of history,
That we live to honor

May I know pause to honor.

Today started like many other days, we were up and waiting for Robert to arrive right at 7am. When we got into the matatu Penny was surprised to find two chickens tied up under her seat! She asked Robert if they were his chickens and he said "no they are your chickens." When we got to the site we found out what he meant, the chickens were unloaded in preparation for tomorrows lunch.

The larger part of our group worked the morning finishing up the ring beam in building two! It was a good feeling to have that finished! Dave and Tom proceed on with their regular job of putting up forms, they are hoping to finish the form by the end of tomorrow. The Kenyans finished the plastering in building one and moved on work in building two today, hopefully they'll be able to make some good progress in building two tomorrow.

We had a bunch of neighbor kids come over today, three little ones in particular kept picking up scrap pieces of wire and bent nails and giving them to us. Late afternoon after Penny had given away all the crayons that she had with her, she still wanted to give the three little kids something, so she brought out some bread and honey left over from lunch. Within the next 15 minutes there were neighbor kids coming out of nowhere wanting to get something to eat too. Unfortunately we didn't have enough food for all of them so Penny compromised and gave them all a pencil. :-)

We can't believe that our time here is almost over! It seems like just yesterday that we got here, there is so much more that we would like to get finished by we will have to to do our best with the time that we have left and be excited for all that we've been able to get done. And be glad that Adam is going to be here to finish up the project and that Jim is coming in on Saturday to help him and be team 5!