A long, exciting Monday!

Posted bybmiller910Posted inUncategorized

Today was one of the longest days we’ve had so far. We left the hotel shortly after 8:00am and returned about 7:15! It was a very full day with lots of reasons to be grateful!

Our group added 2 students today who weren’t able to join us on Saturday, so our class is now 24 in number! We spent the beginning of the day going over the business assessments they each completed about their individual businesses over the weekend. This was the first time many of them have had to articulate specifics of their businesses and it was difficult for them to initially understand the concepts through the translators. Once those elements were clarified satisfactorily, they really got excited about what they were discovering about the current status of their businesses! It was so much fun to see their interest in working on their own forms and helping each other with the forms. We have a couple of students who do not have writing skills & others in the class were wonderfully supportive in helping them to complete the forms!

Our entire class at the start of the day. We meet in the church building.
One of our students introduced a game to the group as we gathered after the morning tea break. She named several different animals that one could possibly eat & you jump up if you eat the animal. When someone jumps up for an animal they never eat in Africa there’s much laughter & then they start the naming all over again and “catch” other people. 😊
Working on the SWOT analysis in the afternoon.
They worked on the SWOT analysis right through afternoon tea!! All of the handouts we gave them were translated into Swahili for them & they completed them in Swahili. Pastor Ken is translating their responses for us.
Steve & I enjoyed Eveline’s 5 month old baby girl while her mom completed her business analyses! Such a joy this afternoon!!

One of the highlights today for me was hearing each person’s gratitude for the day! Everyone ended up mentioning specific “ah-ha’s” and learnings from their work today that they feel will positively impact their businesses!

At about 5:00 we headed out with Pastor Ken & 2 women from the class to visit the businesses of 6 people in the class. First we arrived at the shops of Eustine & her husband. They own the land & they have built the mud building which houses their barber shop, a small caffe & a small general store!

Eustine with friends in front of her business.
Eustine & her husband in their barber shop.
A checker game on the table in the cafe.

Next we drove to Dorice’s home. She sells new & used shoes from her home. Dorice travels via the night bus (12 hour ride) to Nairobi to buy shoes for her business and then returns to Moheto that next day. Traveling this way, she is able to avoid hotel charges in Nairobi. She usually purchases 100 pair of shoes at a time on these trips to Nairobi, bringing them home in a large cloth sack on the bus.

Dorice with the shoes she has left after all of the Christmas purchases.

Finally, we went to 2 farms belonging to our students. These folks farm the land & sell the vegetables that they grow.

Eveline in her field of kale. These are the tallest kale plants I’ve ever seen! Eveline is ready to cut these down & replant the field with the small sucker plants that are on these tall stalks.
Eveline’s husband, Thomas by their banana tree.
Steve making friends with Thomas’ cow, which was tied up in the front yard!
All of us walking the path from Evaline & Thomas’ farm to Eunice’s farm
Eunice’s son, Samwel with his water jugs. His business is selling water to people in Moheto.
Papaya tree at Eunice’s farm. She also grows avocados, pumpkins & kale. Everything looked so lush!

There was such positive energy in our group today, which was exciting! I look forward to what tomorrow will bring!

One thought on “A long, exciting Monday!”

  1. Barb, Steve, and David — so fun to read and see photos of your adventures! Thanks so much for the blog posts, Barb. Thinking about all of you and what a life-giving experience this must be for you and our Moheto neighbors. Take care. Mary TJ

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