Lteroi

Today, I went with Sister Rosario to Lteroi, a small village two hours away from Barsaloi. We went because the Sisters of Santa Teresita del Niño Jesus are going to open a new class for the shepherd’s children, and she needed to bring a water tank and some materials for the classroom.  There is no road to go to this village so the Lodokue leaders have been cutting trees to make it possible to cross with the car. Lenaigeron, one of the Lodokue leaders came with us. He helped us to clear the route. Every time he saw a big branch he asked the sister to stop and he would cut it to allow the car to cross. We needed to cross the river, and since it has been raining a lot (what a blessing!!) the river actually has some water!! Some people, specially men are taking advantage of this and they were taking a bath in the river while we were crossing (please see the picture). How fortunate we are to have water in our houses…

In the picture you can see the sister giving instructions where to put the water tank. While she was doing that I went to give my “class” with Ntua, of course. Today, two new things were different. The first one, Two small children started crying as soon they saw Ntua. They were really afraid of the puppet.  Ntua shook hands with each one of the children to make them feel more comfortable, but not even that made them feel better. They stopped crying but they were scared the whole time. The second one was that one small girl, I would said around 8 years old was carrying her 1-2 year old sister in her arms. I have noticed that the oldest sibling take care of the younger one, even if the difference between them is very small. Sister Rosario told me that one time she went to a Mayata and saw a two year old girl taking care of her 6 month old brother. I would said that there are two ways of seeing this. On one hand, this is good because it promotes brotherhood but on the other side it is very hard because it doesn’t allow the child to be child!! Anyway, Today, Ntua told them his story of his dream of coming to Kenya, Africa. The purpose of this story is to invite them to dream and believe we can make our dreams come true!!!. Later, I read an English book, of course they needed a translation.

After reading with the children, we went to visit the village. Lteroi only has mayatas. I saw a woman bulding her Mayata. She was sewing the sticks together, it was very cool!! After that, another woman invited us to her place. Sister Rosario understood that, but she really wanted to show us the new place where she moved her belongings. She hasn’t built her Mayata yet because she needs a big plastic to cover the roof. She asked Sister rosario for one but we didn’t have one for her. Going back to the car I saw a small mayata and Sister Rosario told me that it is for an animal (picture). I need to ask her why an animal gets its own mayata and I’ll explain it later. 

While walking to the car, we saw some new warriors. I offered them some candy but they refused to receive them. Sister Rosario explained that because there was an older warrior with them, they needed to follow the warrior tradition that they cannot receive food from any woman. The warrior needs to provide for himself. I like this. I think it teaches them to be responsible adults. However, Sister Rosario said that if the elder was not with them, maybe the would have receive the candies. It seems like this tradition is just for appearances (at least saying no to the candies). I’m pretty sure that they have to follow this rule in their community because of social pressure.

In the afternoon, I went to have my workshop with the high school girls. Today we worked on human rights. It was very interesting because they themselves brought up topics like female mutilation and gender inequality. I empowered them to work on these topics to change this reality. I told them that I hope to come back to Barsaloi in some years and see that their female children are free of those traditions.