The Nashukuru Women's Group

Nashukuru means, "I give thanks". It's the name chosen by a group of widows with a savings and loan program who feed orphans every Saturday. I visited the Nashukuru Women's Group for the first time today, riding a piki-piki 6 km to Dongokundu, through rolling hills dotted with farms and stunted trees. The Nashukuru Women's Group greeted me outside their mud-and-stick shelter with a song. The words, I later learned, meant "Women of Kenya love development! So if you don't like development, you're no friend of Kenya!" They were clapping, laughing, slapping my hands. They gave me, their guest of honor, the bearer of money, a new lesso. It's an uncomfortable position to be in, the privileged mzungu swooping in to help the "3rd world" community, but unlike much of the community, waiting helplessly for aid they feel they deserve, the gift and the song came from a more wholesome sense of appreciation. I hope.

We talked for a few hours, and I think the kitchen garden idea will work well for them. Widows who eke out a living on the land and peddle their farm produce miles away on foot, they pool their money, week after week, for the sake of orphans. I'm impressed by the strength and dedication of these women. And by the community mentality, which seems to be a Kenyan survival skill and fact of life. Religious pressure, social pressure and pressure in school build on each other, enculturating a widespread spirit of volunteerism and community outreach. Without the prevailing willingness of people to help one another here, development work at Bamako initiatives like MCI would not succeed. Given the number of obstacles staring them down - the lack of money and cultural infrastructure to support things like savings, safe sex and hygiene - I think that's the main reason they've succeeded so admirably.

I tasted cassava today, a popular white-fleshed root that was growing in their soon-to-be kitchen garden plot. You can munch on it raw. But they gave me my own giant cassava and Kibibi is boiling it for breakfast. Tastes just like a boiled potato.