Staff Development Day

Yesterday (May 9th) we held a staff development day at our house. The Community Development Chairmen (CDC) came over and we discussed everything from banking, to female empowerment, to maps. Philip Mahochi (our head chairman and community business guy) taught the rest of the CDC how to keep a budget and do their own books. The CDC came to Aerie saying that they wanted to be the first to know how to budget and save, as to set a good example for the rest of the community.

Afterwards, somehow a huge and long discussion on women's rights came up. It was really interesting because their were only 3 of us females in the group, and 7 males. The ones who did the most talking were Philip and Francis. The cool thing was that Francis, being the same age as Philip, comes from a more modern camp, while Philip is more traditional. I say traditional in that Philip romanticizes the good ol' days of Kurian culture, back when men walked first on a journey to protect the women; and women got water while the men would accompany her, bow and arrow in-hand, to protect her from lions and rival clans. However, as Francis pointed out, that is no longer the case; and instead, the women do basically everything from washing, cooking, farming, watching the children, etc. while the men sit idle (not all the men, but especially the newer generations). Nellie, who is one of the younger women (younger than Eunice, but older than me) spoke up a few times which was great. Philip even brought up scriptures and then Francis and him were battling out the scriptures interpretation and so that's when I busted out 2 Tim and also Ephesians 5. I really enjoyed having this discussion with them, and that Philip and Francis could offer up the two different views.

At the end of the discussion we walked to Philip's house for lunch; and then walked back to our house for more banking and budgeting talk which Aerie led. Following that, I updated them on what Francis and I have learned about the schools; and then we all had a brainstorm as a group about what needs to be done. Very helpful. When that was through Chris showed everyone the map that he's been working on of our whole area-- including where we live and some places around our house, as well as all the places we work.

Concluding the day, we all went to Border Point Hotel and restaurant for dinner to have some laughs as a team. The whole of Saturday was fun and informative!

Aerie showing off his business and budgeting stylings:



Chris discussing water and showing off his cool map of the area that was created with lots of walking:



At Border point: