Pokot People Part 2

     So our adventure continues with the men visiting more churches.  At one church, the pastor told the men that a school had opened nearby.  The teacher was so proud of her students, and she wanted all the visitors to see her children and school.  In the middle of a cleared out piece of land, a school with rocks as desks and a tree for shelter bustled with children. 

     The children come for school and to receive (for most of them) their only meal of the day.  You can see the school kitchen in the photo below. 

     And here is what is for lunch today, and everyday, in the school cafeteria.  Corn.  The corn is rock hard so they boil it to make it edible.  One big pot of corn to nourish little hungry bodies. 

And the local granary (below) up on stilts to keep the stash safe. 

     The children learned a song to sing to their visitors, so they all marched in to present their song. 

And then they waited for their lunch.

     The last church visited was quite off the road.  Local people had to hack a way through the brush to make a path for the cars.  Most of the places visited were close to a dirt path and accessible to the team.  The day before the guys arrived, a few people went with pangas (a long knife)  and slashed a narrow path for the cars to use.  When the group arrived, they found a few logs under a tree.  Again, a local woman pounded on her drum to alert the members that company had arrived.  

 
         The trip ended and the men headed home.  Gracious and hospitable, the local people waved goodbye and invited everyone back to visit.  When I host someone for dinner, I am always consumed with the amount of food I have to offer and the house being clean.  I want to make sure I have choices in case a person does not like a certain type of food or sauce.  Often as I enter the home of a Kenyan, they are simply blessed if I take a cup of tea with them.  Sugar is a valuable commodity and expensive at that.  I have learned many things about hospitality here in Africa.  When the sugar is passed to me to put in my tea cup, I think about the sacrifice the family is offering to me by allowing me to dip my spoon in the sugar bowl and take a spoonful or even two.  The small bag of sugar costs a day's wage.  A day perhaps in the hot sun, sweating and working every muscle in their body, to earn enough money to put something on the table for their family.

     The people in Pokot were blessed by the mere presence of visitors.  They insisted the men eat with them in the church.  Precious meat was offered.  Almost priceless vegetables cooked for people who in a few hours would be back on the road and in their own homes with a pantry full of food.  Yet, with a smile and happy heart, the food was placed before the visitors and a sense of pride came over the locals as they watched the men eat.
      I want to be willing to offer my best for anyone who enters my house.  I want to simply be blessed by the fact that people walk into my home and eat with us.  The Pokot had so little to offer and yet they offered more than I ever have to my guests.  I want to be more like them!