Weekend in Ruaraka, movies and monkeys

During our past visits, we‘d always put on a movie for the boarding school students at some point, an evening they always greatly appreciated. Last year, as the film we‘d brought with us wasn‘t entirely compatible with the ethical tenets of Catholic teaching (we hadn‘t watched it beforehand), we‘d simply decided to visit the nearby Thika Mall to buy something suitable. That‘s why we opted not to take any films from Europe this year either, a decision which turned out to be a mistake as the DVD store in the mall had since closed down. What to do now… in the end we managed to dig up a copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, not in HD unfortunately but still good enough quality. We‘ll be watching it tonight (and hopefully there won‘t be any power outages).

Not much has changed in Ruaraka itself. There‘s a new rain water tank, a hut for storing wood and coal, and the toilets for the boarding school have been renovated as well. We‘re still hoping it will be possible to install a solar energy system in the future. Money, moeny, money… must be funny…

Sister Maria told us about the monkeys that had been plundering the mango and papaya trees with a great deal of resolve. We had never seen them before. Then, when we went for a Sunday stroll through the Kenya Survey grounds, we saw entire families of monekys, merrily frolicking and tumbling on top of cars, buildings and gates. In the words of Sister Maria, “the monkeys know exactly there aren‘t any gardeners in the grounds on Sundays, so they can run around freely”. Let‘s see when they start showing up around here…