Mzee, there has been a serious accident! Paul's voice is tense but clear. A number of thoughts flash through my mind before he continues:
    – The District Officer's vehicle, filled with local chiefs ran off the road just outside of Loki this evening. Mark Lolim, our ”local chief” is already dead! I'm at the clinic right now and they may ask us to take their most seriously wounded to the Catholic hospital in Kakuma. I'll be back....!
    We're just about to finish our evening meal on the veranda Pelle, Birgitta and I and I've hardly started sharing the news with them before Paul calls again: – They may need both MAF vehicles, he says and hangs up immediately.

Funeral service for Mark Lolim. With no oooling facilities it is good to have the spray can  at hand to keep the smells of decay in check!

– Mark was also one of our school committee members. I've had quite a lot to do with him, exclaims Birgitta at the shocking news. – I also gave him an English bible which he had been asking for.
    Pelle and I get ready as soon as we can. – Why don't you take some blankets from the pilots' house. They might need them, I hear Birgitta suggest as we climb into the Toyota. From the direction of the clinic, which is just a stone through from our house, we can hear cries and wailing.

Cries of despair. It's 8.30 p.m. Desperate and heartbroken people are crowding outside the AIC Medical Clinic gates. Several women and children have thrown themselves on the ground, crying very loudly. – This lorry stopped and picked them all up at the scene, Paul says pointing at the unusually modern 20-tonnes truck just driving out through the gates. – One or two vehicles have already left with severely wounded to Kakuma. Let me go inside and check whether they need our help!
    We're silently trying to grasp what has happened, Pelle and I. Apparently the DO's Toyota Landcruiser had missed negotiating a small bend and a bridge some 18 kilometres outside of Loki. Paul later confirms that there were 14 people on board and that half of the car roof was torn off in the terrible crash.
 

– It seems like they only need one of our vehicles, says Paul as he meets us outside the gates. – But please, Mzee (Swahili meaning old man and an honorary title!), could you please hurry up to the petrol station and ask them to crank up the pump. I need fuel!

    Pelle and I drive off immediately and manage to get a hold of the robustly built station owner. He pities the tragedy and hauls out the petrol driven generator which eventually will get the diesel pump running. Waiting for Paul we have time to chat a bit with the station owner and he addresses Pelle jokingly: – And how are you big daddy?

    The pickup finally pulls in and we see several drips hanging from the steel bars on top of the floorboard. A mother gently holds the wounded arm of her little child. A women on her back with both legs wrapped from the hips and down is whining heartrendingly. – The last vehicle is soon on its way also and no more casualties are reported... so far!
    We wave him off, Paul Lotaparin, MAF:s senior logistician in Loki, for his 80 some kms journey to Kakuma while praying silently for the victims.

Tragic statistics. As we 

we make our way back to the house, the usual Loki night life has just started with heavy disco beats and diodes flashing from outside the bars and pubs while yet another life has just been added to the depressing Kenyan road carnage statistics. It is said to be the 5^th worst worldwide by one recent report and drugs and speeding are often the contributing factor.

 

An e-mail landed in our inboxes one day not long ago: “Hello Birgitta and KeA. To make a long story short, let me just tell you that Karin, my wife and I, feel that our family is ready to get involved. I'd be ready to come at short notice to help with the school if there's a need. God bless and greetings! Pelle”.

    Under his signature there's a logo which reads: ”Pelle Ankarberg, Music Production Inc”. A father of 3, Pelle is an assiduous song writer, singer, accompanist, producer etc. And also skilled with the carpenter's hammer. His wife is a teacher at the Hannah-school in Sweden, and one of Birgitta's colleagues. We were both surprised and overwhelmed by the Ankarberg family offer. 

Pelle with our team of contruction workers. Happy smiles even at the time of good-byes!

And what a tremendous blessing it has been to have Pelle and our 3 builders from our home church in Örebro for this intense period of construction. All of them have also seemingly taken Loki and its people to heart and it's been touching to see how my Turkana workers have bonded to these vikings for the far north!
    You should also have seen the response from our Turkana friends when Pelle sang in the churches. And at the pastors' conference, the bishop asked him for extra numbers several times!

Three different occasions of singing for the community

 Twisted bananas. They have all left by now and I have to try to make do with what is available here. Which is not always easy like aligning the runners over the trusses of a 32 metre long roof when most of the timber looks like warped bananas, to say it mildly! But it's great fun and a pleasure to see how one classroom after the other is being covered with aluminium sheets. My team is also thankful for everyday they have something to do.

    In just a week's time we will have yet another team of visitors from Sweden, two Hannah-school students, a father and a grandfather, both of them builders as well. And that's when we're into the home-stretch before the inauguration the 15^th of May. The Swedish ambassador to Kenya, Mrs Ann Dismorr, will be opening the school together with local authorities and Margareta Lindéh the principle at the Hannah-school and her husband Jan.

With my foreman Joseph. Now it is "atipei, atipei" (hurry, hurry) in order to finish the work before the inauguration the 15th of May!

How deep can the darkness be? 

Last week Birgitta and Francis met the mother and her little Epus 4 years, who we had seen vomiting and looking very miserable at the Turkana women's meeting some days earlier. Even before that, Birgitta had taken him to the clinic where he had been given drugs both for worms and malaria, but his general health had not improved and the clinic decided to continue their investigation.

    Now they found him with lots of blood stains on his t-shirt and apparently in pain and when they looked closer they found a number of razor blade cuts on his chest!
    – I just wanted to get the evil out of him! said the mother ashamedly when Francis and Birgitta made known their dismay. He was taken immediately to the clinic again and finally they were able to determine that his health problem was TB.

    He now receives treatment and yes, you may easily think that all is well. But if there is no food to eat, your tommie will not be able to digest medicines. Birgitta met the mother again yesterday and thankfully it appears as if she has finally understood how her little boy's health will be restored again. 
Little Epus at the clinic

His name is Cezar, Nils-Edvard Arnlund! 

Just about four weeks ago they finally were able to welcome their little son, Anton and Nathalie, following a C-section, and as parents and families we greatly rejoice with them for this new little life born into a loving, caring family.
    – Don't forget to change your web-site to read 8 grandchildren! was a reminder from Jonathan shortly afterwards. And it's done. Eight fantastic gifts who we can love and cherish. However, sometimes the remoteness feels a bit heavy, but we're also thankful for a well functioning internet via satellite where Skype and other softwares help us keep up the contact with our loved ones.

We're also thankful for all of you out there who take time to read our blogs and for your comments, greetings and notes of encouragements!

Yours - Birgitta och KeA /

KeA

Now the rain may come!

A musician and an aviator following a long day climbing on black impregnated roof trusses.

They call her "Loki City Council"  - the old lady who cleans the streets every now and then. Most of the trash, especially metal scrap, is hung around her neck! She will also sometimes beg for money for chewing tobacco giving you a harsh look!