“Morning routine”

Every morning we had oranges, monkey-finger bananas and cookie-like crackers with peanut butter for breakfast. The adults stood around our little portable table, talking and joking while we ate. The youth would take their plates to the termite mound where they sat while they ate.

After breakfast Saturday morning, our first day there, the entire team met at the termite mound to plot our activities for the next two days. We would be running a medical clinic along with giving educational seminars. We each took a section of the health manual to read, teaching about disease prevention. Val and Teri chose to give a demonstration on hand-washing.

It is amazing that something so simple, something all of us Americans take so for granted, is something that people in third world countries have never been taught. Of course, they have never had soap, and clean running water is a luxury that few of them have.

Just down the hill from where we were camped, there was a wide muddy river. It was wonderful that the Maasai living near there had the river for a continual supply of water. What was so hard to believe was that they used that water for everything – watering their cattle and goats, washing their clothes, bathing, cooking and drinking.

I will have to tell you tomorrow all about what we did with that water.