Fund for Elifasi's children

The day before yesterday i went with elly out into the hills to the widow of my farmer friend Elifasi, Anna, to arrange for the fund for her children's
education. Elly is going to manage the fund, and talked to her and one
of her daughters,Constancia, and i saw that Anna was pleased by what he was saying,
encouraging her daughter to take this education seriously and talking
about how he could help them to arrange the schools- saw relief slowly enter
into Anna's face to see that someone was helping and was going to start
arranging things- schools here are a big job- Her husband had been in
the process of trying to find a school for this daughter when he died.
and there are 4 other children to arrange for as well. School is free until kids are about 14,(if they can afford a uniform)then those who can afford pay about $500 per kid per year to go to a private boarding school. There are government schools but the teachers' pay is abysmal, and the education too. I've heard tale of large classrooms of kids going unattended to for hours while the teachers chat in the teachers' office. Yesterday after hours of jumping through bureaucratic hoops we managed to open a joint account for those three. All three must be present to withdraw funds, to ensure the money goes to education, with some amount to compensate Elly for his work. Anna says she wants to start using the money to help her two older kids, and then see whats left over for the younger ones. Anyone interested in contributing can send a check made out to me, Daphne Jochnick, at 19 Gin Still Lane, West Hartford, Connecticut 06107. My father will deposit it into a joint account we set up, and wire the money over here. it has been such a hopeful thing to see Elly, Anna, and Constancia start working together!

had another mouse incedent -this
one a baby who was skittering around. Luckily a local friend was over to
handle the event (reluctantly!- thought it was women's work! but i
assured him that it's man's work) the cats keep skreeching and yowling
and landing on my roof like handgranades going off, so i'm hopeful
eventually they do their job.

things here are good. i've been working on curriculum and such things
so more in the office, but wanting to get back out to the shamba...

just had the greatest hike this weekend with three fun tourists in their early
twenties, my guide friend elly and his friends MS and Jerry as our guides,
and friend solomon. it was great- out in the high foothills,
gazing out over vast expanses onto mount meru and mount kilimanjaro,
then decending into little dugout shacks for drinks at night. we had an
incident with a thief and elly and fellow-guide M.S.were quite heroic in apprehending them. They caught one and delivered him first to me to appologize, and then to the village leader, who
happens to be ms's father. then they held the thief there until the
second one appeared with the rest of the stuff, they actually sent out
'warriors' to search for him, and found him very drunk at 3.00 am,
having used my cash to good purpose. it was nerveracking at one point as
our 3 guides had disappeared to catch the thieves. so solomon, one large
male tourist and i ran the half mile to see what was going on- found them w/
thief, surrounded by villagers, with ms holding a machete.... we didn't
know what side villagers were on, turns out they supported the
apprehension of this notorious thief, but it was hard to figure out at
first. In the morning we had a meeting with the father and wife and
someother associate of the first thief, the thieves, and a friend of the
thieves, and the village leader, and my bag, to itimize the returned
things, to determine that only the money was missing, $15, which,
unfortunately as it had gone to booze, was not going to come back. In
this case, once returning the possessions the theives went free, as
opposed to being killed, so it was all quite benign.