Monday, August 31, 2009

Liesbeth in Kenya: Namachuma and Ugali!

Day 3 continued
Project visits

The last client we visited was Mr David Kobaai. He and his wife have used the loans from the SACCO to build their house in Kajiado in about 10 years. They have a daughter, Sma, who is 4 years old. Mr Kobaai is a teacher at Iltareto Primary School and is a farmer (he is a Masai).
He has been with the SACCO for 17 years and has had six loans in that time. Currently, he has a loan of KES 200,000(€1900). He explained to us that a teacher’s salary in Kenya is not high, so he has other sources of income, but the fact that the salary is paid through the SACCO helps him to repay his loan on time. The repayment and interest are then deducted from his salary and he does not need to think about it. Being a Masai, he has both cows and goats but because of the drought, the cows were in a different area and we could not see them.

After this visit it was time for a different local experience - the food. We ate Namachuma (roasted goat meat) with Ugali (a maize-based dish). Normally, the Masai men would eat first and afterwards the women can eat what is left. For us, they made an exception and we ate together with the men.

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