Live from Kenya!
After four full days of travelling to Isiolo (which is the main town near Gambella), and visiting villages (Gambella, Ola Nagele, and Bulesa Dima), we finally have access to the internet to share an update with you. 
Before we left, we feared that rain would make the roads to some of the villages impassable, but we have not had any such problems. In fact, the area is in the middle of a huge drought, and they are in desperate need of rain. We took a break from our work in Gambella this afternoon, and spent a couple hours visiting the village of Ola Nagele, where some of the women performed their traditional dance for us. Shortly after they started, it began to rain. We could see rain over the mountains off in the distance, but we have seen that several times since we arrived, and no rain has fallen. But today, the rain moved very quickly from the mountains, to our villages; and it rained hard, for about 20 minutes, while the women continued to sing and dance. We got drenched, but we were so happy for them to finally have rain, that we wanted to stay out with them and soak it all in (plus, it’s not a bad thing to get a reputation as the people that brought the rain)! 
We have been working on a few great projects in Gambella, that we’re very excited about! The Wellness Center (which we were previously calling the health clinic) is really gaining traction now. There has been an intern (Priscilla) in the area for the past three months, and she really has a vision for getting this Wellness Center up and running, and for duplicating the way things are getting set up in Gambella, in other villages as well. Due to the contacts she has been able to make locally, she was given some great advice, to ensure that we are not reaching beyond the scope of what we are permitted to do with this building (hence the new name of Wellness Center).
We’ve been working on building tables, benches, and a desk for the Wellness Center, so that it can be completely set up and functional. Priscilla has also initiated the training of four women to be Community Health Workers (CHW), through an officially sanctioned government training program. This is a huge boost for the village.
One of the other construction projects that we have been working on, is building desks and tables for the grade school. Part of our group painted the name of the school in big, bright letters, on the administration building (it’s the first building you see as you head up the road to the school). The principal has a great vision for the school, and it’s nothing short of amazing! We’ll post more about that in the future, but for now I wanted to get you this update, along with a couple photos.
We plan on finishing the benches for the Wellness Center tomorrow, as well as the tables and desks for the school. We will also be bringing 40 more goats to the village tomorrow, to replace the ones that were stolen two years ago.
Thank you for caring about Gambella—we love them dearly!
If you are a youth in Gambella, and are no longer in primary school, there aren’t a lot of options for how to spend your daylight hours. If you aren’t out with the animals, or fetching water, or preparing a meal, what can you do with your time? Most of the options available are not good ones—until now.
Hassan, one of the GHNI workers in Gambella, came up with the idea of putting up a volleyball net, so that young people can have something positive to do with their free time. So, two days ago they got a couple posts from the lumber yard (or timber store, as they call it there), and put up a volleyball net. I never thought I would see volleyball out in the bush of Kenya! The next trip that GHNI will take to Gambella is in February. Who wants to play some volleyball?
