Andrea and Olivia

Beginning the journey back to Canada.

Our last farm visit was on Wednesday. We visited a small farm in the Embu countryside of a farmer who was just getting into dairy. He had 2 crossbred cows and one healthy looking bull calf. We dewormed his animals, and then along with Faith, we (Anna, Olivia and Andrea) walked to another 2 farms to deworm their animals while John and Simon waited for the other farmers to arrive. On our journey through rural Kenya, we passed a school with both primary and secondary students. They were on recess and when they saw us coming, about 200 students rushed the fenceline screaming “Hello” and “How are you?”. We shook a few hands and moved on so as not to get them in too much trouble with their teachers. The deworming at the other farms was uneventful, but at the second farm we walked to, we met a woman who is 120 years old, according to her daughter in law. It was phenomenal to see someone who has been alive more than four times as long as we have. We couldn’t help but think how much change in the world she must’ve seen. She was sitting under a tree in the shade outside, and shook all of our hands. She could not speak, but communicated with us well. She had apparently had 13 children, 3 of whom are still alive today.
After leaving the farm the departure started, but not before Daniel got stuck in the country in Charles’ broken down car (apparently due to a fuel pump problem), putting us a few hours behind schedule. We took our last walk through Embu to the Embu Dairy and said our goodbyes. We all received gifts from them for our work while we were there. We expressed our sincere gratitude and also left gifts, and loaded up in the van to head to The Chairmans House in Mukurweni for our farewell to the Wakulima group.
On arrival to Mukurweni, we were greeted by many smiling faces. We met up again with Ken, Teresa, Heather and Shaad. Many of the members of the WSHDG arrived, including our billet families, and we had a fantastic dinner with them. After dinner, we were all given kikuyu names and presented with gifts.
This experience was quite something for the three of us. We were called up to a chair in the middle of the crowd and offered 2 Kikuyu names, and were asked to choose one. Andrea chose Gathigia, Olivia chose Wanjiku and Anna chose Muringo. After having chosen our names (and usually with a cheer from someone in the crowd -because most of the time someone had a daughter or son with one of the names we had chosen), we were each given ‘kiondos’ (which are purse type baskets made of woven sisal or cloth). These kiondos are traditionally carried by Kenyan women when they hunt for jobs, are shopping or for special events. We were then wrapped in a ‘chuka’ which is a woven piece of fabric which Kenyan women wear around their shoulders for warmth. These beautiful pieces of fabric and bags were the perfect touch of Kenya to bring back home with us and exactly what we had been searching for as mementos.
We were also given WSHDG t shirts. Teresa was given a similar gift but with a bigger kiondo and chose between two Kikuyu names, one which came from a great leader and another which came from a hardworking woman, which must have been difficult for her to chose, since she has both of these qualities in abundance. John, Ken and Daniel were made elders, and were given hats made of sheepskin, WSHDG t-shirts and hats and also chose Kikuyu names.
We gave gifts for the group members, although we all feel that they deserve much more and hope that we can continue to contribute something to these wonderful peoples’ lives for a long time. We each gave our personal thank yous to the group and to those with whom we made special friendships. We told them we would remember Wakulima forever.