Following our acquisition of the two chickens last week, concern was shown by our house worker that they were too cold (yes, too cold!!!!) during the night time and that we needed a couple more so they could keep warm together. She went off and brought us another three, but unfortunately, in the meantime, one of our original two, Mary, disappeared. Was her real name Houdini!! We later discovered a small opening near the top of their fenced run and the conclusion is that a wild cat (all cats are wild here) had got in and taken Mary, the smaller of the two hens. Later still we were offered another chicken for a good price so now we have five strutting round in the run, and today we had our first egg! As it was from the black hen, and she has been the fastest in laying, she has been given the name Jet. Another hen has been named Mary, and a third one ‘Hop-a-long' because she has a bad leg. Our house-workers find it very amusing that we give animals names.
As an economic exercise this is a bit of a disaster:
Cost of 6 hens £14
Cost of food and transport £12
Cost of staff to make run etc ?
£26
Value of 1 egg 5p
Loss to date, more than £25.95
Malcolm has resigned himself to the fact that it provides income to villagers, and at the end of the day, the hens will pay!!!!!!!!!
We also had the opportunity to acquire another “pet” during the week. Two young boys came offering us “kobe” which we mistakenly thought was meat; the words in Swahili sounding very similar. However they returned a few minutes latter with a sack and pulled out a large, football sized, tortoise! No doubt we could have bought it very cheaply but somehow we didn’t think Customs at Heathrow would be too pleased with it on our return. A pity really as our elder daughter has always wanted one.
However, we have also been re-adopted by the friendly, but ‘wild’, hospital dog, Stumpy who has decided it is far more comfortable to sleep in our verandah in the evening even though normally he prefers to live outdoors. We think this may be because in the verandah he doesn’t risk children throwing stones at him. On occasions he meets Malcolm on the way to work, and demands a stroke and leaps around like a puppy. He certainly knows how to get round people!!!!
As promised in last weeks blog Malcolm and Irene took Squashy for a walk last Saturday. We had an enjoyable time even though, once again, many villagers seem terrified of such a ferocious looking German Shepherd dog – or was it Malcolm’s attempts at Swahili??
The finances at the Hospital continue to be challenging. Last week the Electricity company arrived to disconnect the Hospital’s water pump due to the non-payment of the bill. Fortunately the Hospital manager persuaded the engineer it was not a good idea to disconnect a hospital, and promised to arrange for something to be paid. The problem is that although the Hospital now receives grant from Government which includes electricity:
- because Government does not yet pay all staff, despite requiring the Hospital to reduce patient charges, and
- the Training schools ‘freeload’ by refusing to pay their contributions for electricity and water
the electricity grant is being used in part to pay salaries. Even so it is unlikely that the Hospital will find enough money to pay all April salaries
Irene is still considering how best to use her time here (apart from the usual wifely duties, of course!!!!) This week she visited the secondary school to sit in and help at a couple of English lessons. Because the school has recently opened a unit for blind children the lessons included both sighed and blind pupils. Assistance is required to make notes for the blind students so they can then be translated into Braille.
For next week, our concerns are:
- Malcolm has a meeting with Hospital and School managers where he will need to raise the Hospital’s financial problems, and to address the need for the Training schools to pay their fair costs
- He will also has difficult meetings about some sensitive transactions
- The continuing financial problems of the Hospital caused in part be the delay in Government meeting the running costs
- How Irene can best use her time here (including the usual wifely duties)
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