This year, for our high school intercultural trip week, a small
group of people from the club “Friends of Marich” ( a community service club at
ISK) went to the northwestern area in Kenya. Since the beginning of the year,
we have been working on several fundraising projects and events, and the money
was used for projects we did in the Marich region where we went.
The group that went last year built a bridge over the river to help
the locals. This year we went there and fixed it a bit, but our main project was
to build a library (and we were working with the local school).
We had a book drive for this library and we were able to take more
than 800 books which we catalogued and organized that week. The only work we
were able to do was help carrying sand and bricks to the actual building site.
On our second day in Marich, which was monday, we woke up
early, had breakfast then took the bus to go see the clinic. We walked 5km to
get there and 5km to get back, and it was really sunny and hot. The clinic that
was build in the past few years, but is still incomplete, with no supplies or
nurses.
During the walk, we had to cross the Wei Wei River; which
was quite fun even though I wasnt
convinced at all in the beginning. Plus the
water of the river was really cold and it was nice sine it was so hot.
On Tuesday, we visited the Turkewel Dam, the Dam was built by KVDH
and was completed in 1991 with the power to output 106 megawatts of power. We also went underground to see the turbines,
this tunnel was drilled 400 meters into and under the mountain to the Turkwel
power station - with two huge turbines turning out 53 MW each.
On Wednesday, we had to choice to either stay at the camp and carry
sand or catalog books with Mrs. Corrum, or to go to the bridge last year's
group built. I chose to go with the bridge group. It took us one hour to get
there, and once there, we started fixing the bridge.
Last
year, the group built a bridge over the river to ease local movement around the
region. The bridge was quite amazing and impressing. The only repairs we had to
make was to wrap strips of wire around the railings to reinforce the support.
We tightened the wire that was already in place there and removed the sharp
pieces of wire to prevent injury to those crossing.
On Thursday that week, we went to a local market, the Sigor market
and we had to make groups where each group had only 500Ksh to spend to make an
outfit for a fashion we had later in the day.
Our main project this year was to build a library, which we have
been working on with the local school. The foundation for the library was
supposed to be completed in December but it wasn’t, so the only thing we could
do to help was carrying sand and bricks up a hill to the building site, and
that took an entire day of work.
The trip was a great experience, it was also a lot better than what
I expected, the whole group really enjoyed it and some are even considering
coming back next year, and even some people that were there last year came this
year as well. We enjoyed working with the people in Marich and learn more about
their culture and lives.
Photography: David Robbins
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