Tuesday, June 2: Masinde Muliro

Tuesday morning grew hot early on. Pastor Timothy arrived and had breakfast with us. Today I had promised to take him to town to get a new pair of shoes. We walked to Batas and he found just what he wanted. There was a sign in the window: 50% off selected shoes. When he inquired, he was told the sale had ended yesterday, He suggested they take down the signs. We paid full price for the shoes (still a good deal).

I said goodbye to Timothy, and stopped by the Internet cafe on the way home. The owner welcomed me. I asked if they were open on Sunday, and he said no, but if any of us wanted to use the computers anytime of the day or night, he would open specifically for us.

After returning and taking a mini shower (MTTF still has no hot water) I got a call from Geofrey, the artist. He and his wife were in town and wanted to see what I had done on the MTTF website. So, I walked back in town to the Internet and showed him the site, which includes a page about his art (as he is donating some of the profit to MTTF). As we parted, he invited us to his home, so we will try to do that next week. He lives about 6 km away. They usually walk that distance to go back and forth to town.

I needed another mini shower when I got back. Lunch, and then Charles drove me to Masinde Muliro where I was scheduled to give a seminar. I met Juma Kilwake in his office, and he took me to meet the Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice Chancellor of the university. Then we walked to the seminar room, about 45 minutes late.

I was surprised to see about 100 people there! I had expected 5-6 faculty only, as there are no classes in session at this time. I talked about how we teach Assembly Language at the University of Akron, and why I think it is an important subject to study. The whole session lasted about 2 hours with questions and demonstrations of the AT90USBKEY demonstration board that I had brought with me.

Afterwards the faculty went with me back to the computer science office for tea, mendazi, and ground nuts. They were very enthusiastic about my talk, and said it came at a good time for their students as they would be taking assembly language programming soon. They hoped there would be opportunities for collaboration in the future.

There is a lot of construction going on at MMUST. The library is the most impressive. The university choose to have a ramp built to bring concrete to the structure by wheelbarrow, rather than hire a large crane. This would provide more jobs for local workers. The structure reminded me of one of those old Egyptian movies with the pyramids under construction.

Juma dropped me back at MTTF where we had supper. David and I, with the help of one of the boys here, Abendego, installed a water level indicator in the water tower tank, so we can see how much water is left. We learned the tank is half empty (or half full, depending on your view of the world). The indicator is a water bottle with some stones for weight, a string passing through an overflow hole at the top of the tank, and a weight that hangs down the outside of the tank. And now the kids call me an engineer.

I learned that Herb has malaria, but was treated today so he should recover quickly. A few of the children have it too.

The evening ended with a brief worship service in the dining room, and casual conversation over tea. Night, night.