Veronica's House (part 2)

We traveled back down to the floor of the Rift today--yet another spine-jangling, head-banging, butt-rotting ride on the worst road in the world--to finish up our work on Veronica's house. There, we found Dickson with a real pair of crutches! Dickson had been run off the road a couple weeks ago by a semi-truck and suffered a tib/fib fracture. Last time we were at Veronica's house, he was walking on his long leg cast or hopping around using an old crowbar as a cane. We also found young Veronica home from school with an injured hip--not the fault of a vehicle this time, though no one is exactly sure how her injury occurred. Hopefully, she'll be better soon. Sammy was the only one at school and we didn't get to see him at all today :-(

Anyway, today Veronica's front door was hung, her window frames built and cemented in place, her window "shutters" hung, and the inside wall extended to the ceiling. Also, the inside door frame was built and installed and then we flung the leftover concrete all over the inside walls as a sort of 'plaster.' Veronica, bless her heart, lit her little charcoal cooker out in the grass and made us chai while we worked--this after the 70 year-old woman made three trips across the fields to the refugee camp and each time carried a 20 gallon jug of water back to her house.

This evening as we were leaving, Veronica began moving her meager belongings into her new house. We would have loved to stay and help her, but John had to get home. It was so lovely to see how thrilled she was with her new digs--because of the new inside wall, Veronica Sr. and Veronica Jr. will have one room; Sammy, Dickson and Sammy's dad will have the other room. Believe me when I say this is the lap of luxury compared to the tent they have all been living in.

Our ride back out to Maai Mahiu was made even more exciting than normal because of the broken down pickup truck attached to the back fender of our matatu. We towed the darn thing from Veronica's house, 2 miles through maize shambas, through one refugee camp and out to the highway. At which point the matatu driver got sick of the whole production, got out of the matatu and demanded the owner of the truck pay him to tow him all the way into town. Apparently, the truck owner refused because the matatu driver promptly untied the rope and left the guy sitting in his truck on the shoulder of the highway. Just another African travel moment!

We are all so happy to know that tonight Veronica and her family are sleeping between 4 stone walls and under a solid roof. It is humbling and pretty much downright appalling how much we have compared to these beautiful, gracious, hospitable people.

Photos: Veronica's house with door and windows; the interior wall and door; Opa setting a window frame; Kristin supervising the concrete work; saving Brenna from scaffold failure; Stanley the Fundi; matatu a.k.a. tow truck; the finished house!