Reuben ended up leaving early Monday morning and I finally went to the women’s plot to start the skin tanning process. The women had already started some steps of the process on Saturday so I found some skins ready for the tanning step. We have now put one of the skins in the locally available tanning material to see how it goes. It looks like something is happening so I expect positive results. The other skins are in the tanning agent that we buy in Nairobi and those should turn out fine. But if the experimental material proves to be just as good, this would be a great benefit. Then the women could just collect the pods from the locally available tree on a regular basis and store them instead of the difficulties of getting the tanning agent from Nairobi. One of our main constraints for work here is needing some inputs for the improved technologies that can only be gotten in Nairobi. It can take 14 hours to drive straight from Ngurunit to Nairobi and there is no public means direct from Ngurunit. So the more substitutions we can make to use locally available materials, the better.

Tuesday, Samwel, my field assistant, and I went to Seren to check out some things for water supply project proposal that is with the Us Embassy. Reuben had been doing the ground work so I had never actually gotten the chance to see the actual project site. I really enjoyed the day, walking around in the hills and river beds and talking with the community members. We discovered a few changes needed on materials and were able to make some of the adjustments that the US Embassy Self-help fund coordinator had asked for. I am hopeful that on my visit to Nairobi in September, what with the changes we are making to the proposal, we will be successful and get the funds to start the project.

Wednesday, I was back at the tannery looking at the different chemicals to put the skins in, when I heard that some people were looking for me. I ran off to find them where I heard they had gone to water their camels only to find they had gone looking for me at the women’s plot. I ran back to the dairy and finally found them and convinced them to stay the night at the women’s camp. It was a group of Americans do a camel trek to raise money for the Makinde (spelling??) Children’s Home located somewhere south of Nairobi. The leader of the trek, Amanda, is our friend from Ol Maisor Ranch that keeps camels and which the children and I had visited in June. It was really fun to meet them and hang out chatting around the campfire in the evening. One reason they had decided to spend the night was a problem with a sick camel. We tried to figure out its problem and treated it as we could. The next morning, it was better so they decided to take it with. I said good bye and watched them walk off into the wilderness.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the camel was worse off than we thought. In the evening I received a note from the tour group that the camel collapsed and refused to go on so they had to leave it was a man that happened to be walking along the road. They asked if I could please deal with it. That meant I spent the next two days driving between Ngurunit and the camel (not so far) trying to get it to walk back to Ngurunit, either to slaughter it or to care for it if I determined it would survive. Samwel and I took turns driving the car and walking behind the camel with another old man. We got quite close to Ngurunit before the camel decided he was too tired to continue and lay down. As a camel is a very big creature, there was nothing we could do about this. So we decided to let him sleep there awhile. That first evening the camel didn’t look good but we decided he would survive the night and maybe even pass some crisis and get well. In the morning, the camel got up and continued walking towards Ngurunit and even looked quite strong. The camel made it almost to my house before wanting to rest so we left him where he lie down. We gave him food and water and decided we didn’t need to slaughter him because he seemed he was improving. In the evening, I was in my house relaxing with a good book. I was just about to get up and go to see how the camel was and to bring him all the way to my house. Suddenly, the old man comes running in the yard shouting about how the camel had died. I jumped into the car and rushed to the site. Sure enough, there was the dead camel lying in the dirt. Depressing. Two days of trying for nothing. That is the way it is sometimes. Lots of effort with little to show. We disposed of the camel and the women have a new camel skin they are working on now.

The next day, after my unfortunate camel experience, I spent the day with the basket weaving women starting a new basket weaving society. That raised my spirits again as it is so exciting to see the efforts in marketing the women’s baskets starting to bear so much fruit. So now Saturday is here and I have realized that things have been still very busy. But I am happy for it to be that way and look forward to what the next days will bring.