Village Life

I have been in Kenya for two weeks and have been enjoying every moment of my experience. However, the greatest joy was spending time in the village working with teachers and community members. One afternoon my colleague and I attended the local ladies group meeting where we visited over tea and mandazis. Besides teaching us some local dance moves they also shared their various income producing projects they are working on. Some are raising sheep, others poultry, while others have small shops with a variety of commodities. Often women in this community are not given the opportunity to support their families and must rely on their husbands, which means not always having the family's needs met. The ladies group is a support system where they invest into various projects together and individually, supporting each other both as friends and financial partners. When I told them that I also have animals, they were interested in hearing about what I do on my hobby farm. When I mentioned soap making, they were excited to hear about the process. When I shared that it was a fairly simple technique they began to inquire about recipes and instructions. Sooooooo..... now I am on a mission to help them learn how to make their own soap, something that is not really done here. The soap available to them is very low quality, costly and not readily available. They use bar soap for all their bathing and washing of their clothes and linens, so it is important that they have access to soap that works and that is affordable. When I return I will begin doing more research into what resources are available to them for making soap economically and plan on collaborating with them to make this basic necessity a reality. If you have any simple soap recipes, or would like to help in any other way let me know.