Home Based Learning Project

Having spent a number of nights in Guest Houses or B&B’s during my week long exploration of the Southern and Northern Archdeaconries, it was a particular pleasure to be welcomed into the home of Father Tiru and his wife Margaret for a night. They live in an attractive brick built house in a very large and extensive village. How lovely to watch the sun go down and to listen to the incredible variety of sounds – birds, crickets, sheep, dogs……After so much red meat it is a relief to be given fish and a great selection of vegetables. Father Tiru did mention later that he had been a bit surprised to see I had been given red meat on a Wednesday in Lent as parishioners try to keep Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent as fast days when vegetables are eaten. When I mentioned this to Archdeacon Ngidi some time later he said that is because they are from a more conservative area, perhaps under the influence of the missionaries.
Father Tiru show me round three of his chapelries and I meet Lay Ministers, Church wardens and treasurers and see new church buildings in varying stages of development. Next morning I was glad to visit a Home Based Learning Project he is involved with. I meet a number of women cultivating the garden plot, growing spinach, beans and other nutritious vegetables. Inside the building I meet nearly twenty volunteers; again mainly women, who offer to go round the community providing support and medical advice and guidance to vulnerable families and to people with HIV/AIDS. In another room a preschool group is meeting. It is encouraging to see this community and church project working so well when clearly from the evidence of some other garden projects I have visited sustainability is an issue. Perhaps they have accessed some funding which enables them to provide a small but very strategic payment to the volunteers.