At a loss; no Internet!

Word verification free blog !

About a week ago a regular follower of my blog mentioned that she'd finally managed to comment after the fourth attempt. I'd just experienced the same problem on another blogger's post so I went into my settings and deactivated the word verification. I notice a little spam, but it is seperate form normal comments so I'm able to delete them. I hope all bloggers will follow suit and de-activate this irritating and frustrating feature that Blogger has deemed fit to add to our posts!

My blog is a word verification free blog!

Last week I made a trip to Shinyanga to buy fresh produce from the market. This town is a mere 30km from our camp and has three produce markets, various small shops opening up onto the street and two larger supermarkets.

Above is a typical street scene in Shinyanga with markets visible in the top two photos

Top left is a row of dukas (informal shops)  which open onto the street. Then you have a beauty salon, a motorcycle dealer and a general dealer

Last week I posted photos of the chickens, especially the handsome rooster in our garden. A few days later a hen emerged from the outhouse with nine chickens. The rooster is so proud of his offspring, is a hands-on father and can be seen strutting around the garden with mama-hen and babies.

The resident rooster in our garden shows his chickens how to scratch for food!

Meanwhile  at the Guest House I started feeding several chickens in a coop greens from the kitchen vegetables and bits of rice from the cooking pots . A few days later I went into the henhouse and saw a hen and very-newly hatched chicks inside the henhouse. The edge of the house was too high for the chickens to get out so mother hen was scratching in vain for food on the floor. I asked the gardener to bring me a cardboard box, placed the chickens inside (I counted ten) and managed to get the hen in with them and then closed the flaps. The gardener then carried the box carefully over to our house where we placed the [indignant] hen and terrified chickens in the outhouse to settle into their new surrounding. I gave them some maize mash and a shallow bowl of water. The hen concealed her babies under her belly for the rest of the day.

That evening when Edward, our askari /gate guard shooed the first hen into the outhouse, she immediately attacked the new hen.  Edward made a barricade between the two hens and soon they all settled down to sleep.

The new mother-hen and her young chicks enjoy the wide-open space of my garden

The next day, the original resident hen and her chickens made a dash for the garden while the new hen had a good look around  first before coaxing her chickens outside. Three days later I'm enjoying the original chicken family, with a dad and siblings from a previous batch of chickens,  and the single mum and her ten fluffy chickens.  Life is so much better in a lush garden to scratch for insects and juicy greenery.

The chicken run at the Guest House which I cleaned out with the help of gardener, Kedia and from where I rescued the white hen and her ten new chicks

When I returned to the cage above, I noticed that two more hens were sitting on more than a dozen eggs each. I removed most of them leaving each hen with only four eggs. My brother , Phillip suggested I do this. Apparently if you take away all the eggs, the hens would become depressed. Now there's a thought: post-natal depression in hens...

And then I just had to add another aaaaawwwwe factor to my post...

A little cat I came across in a shop in Shinyanga. And no, even though it was difficult to resist, I didn't bring it home!

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The long and winding road

Some of you may know that for the past 18 months I've been writing articles and stories for various South African magazines. One such magazine I write for, recently forwarded me my first fan mail. I've copied and pasted the e-mail from the person in yellow here below .

"I was handed a South African magazine today by a friend who had spotted the article, "The long and winding road". He had noted the name "Eldoret" in the article, and knowing that I come from that area, thought that I might be interested. It sparked off many memories for me, as I know the road which Jo describes, one might say, intimately, as my sister, who still lives in Eldoret used to work at the mine in the valley (fluorite being the mineral mined), and, in fact met her husband there. We had a farm not far from the top of that road, and we could drive to a viewpoint a little farther along the same escarpment, and look straight down on the mine workings which are situated in a branch of the Kerio Valley. I still have old black and white photographs taken from that viewpoint, long before the mine started!

I would dearly love to know how you came by this article!! Call it sentimentality or what you will, it was a blast from the past looking at the lovely photographs in the article. Is there the remotest chance that you could maybe fill me in on how you came by the article? Better still, I would love to be able to contact Jo Hedges."

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If you'd like to read my story, The long and winding road, as it appeared in the magazine, please contact me via e-mail; I'll send you the PDF. Although the magazine is accessible via the Internet, it takes a while before the latest articles appear online. One of my previous articles ("Au naturel or not?") which appeared in November, can been read here.

I replied to the person who wrote back immediately and said he has many stories and photos which he's offered to share with me. I've been trying to delve - rather unsuccessfully -  into the history of the South Africans who arrived in Eldoret in the early 1900's; I also searched in vain for material regarding the valley where we spent the best year of our expat lives.

In Kenya I came across a magazine called "Old Africa" which has stories and anecdotes about the first settlers (farmers, entrepreneurs, professionals, missionaries) in East Africa. I hope to be able to do something with my new online friends' stories and photos in due course. I will keep you updated.

BTW the man and his wife live in South Africa now. Ironically they stay in the same town where Grant and I grew up, went to  school, married and had our first son! When they moved from Kenya, East Africa to the Natal Midlands in South Africa in 1978, Grant and I had just moved east to the Zululand coast. They lived next door to Grant's parents and he remembers them well, especially as they all served together on the Anglican church council in town.

Have a wonderful week and stay safe and well.

Blessings

Jo