A Few Thousand Words, Part 2

Here's a look at our compound.

This is Protus, the gardener and my personal chauffeur when I am trapped at derelict fueling stations. We'll come back to him later.

This is the shamba just outside our gate, and one of Protus' major projects. A shamba is a sort of kitchen garden found at almost every Kenyan home. For many, it is a vital source of sustenance.

This is the side view of our whole compound, taken from the college football (futbol) field:

I posted pictures of my house and yard in the last piece. These, however, deserve their own place. These are my favorite flowers, growing a few feet away from my front door:

This is the main house. It was built by some of the local wealthy Indian businessmen--there are a lot of them. When the owners decided to move closer into town, they sold this place at a great price, along with at least some of the land for the college. My place is around back.

This is the front yard of the compound, the tree in the middle being my favorite tree in Kenya. So far.

This is a pull-out from the compound. You can see the front gate, the trees that flank it, and the beautiful flowers that grow all over everything. Notice the gate. Everything is gated here.

I do mean everything. This is the view 180 degrees from the preceding shot.

This is Protus' family farm. It's in between our compound wall and the outer wall of campus. It's one of those many, strange places where modern Eldoret and traditional Kenya coexist in immediate proximity to one another. Squeezed into a fifty-foot-by-fifty-yard strip of land bordering our compound is his herd of cows, chickens, goats, sheep, and rabbits:

This is my favorite resident of the farm. His Kiswahili name is, I think, Mbuzi.

The view from my kitchen window, courtesy of Farmer Protus. I like that Protus' name is Protus, because it reminds me of Proteus, who was the herdsman of the sea in Greek myth (the cool kids already knew that).

This is Andrew. He's Protus' son. He had to be coaxed out to play, coaxed onto the swing, and coaxed to wave. He also spoke approximately three syllables in the fifteen minutes that we played.

Ian, on the other hand, was only too eager to oblige: