The Bees Are In!

We drove out to a Maasai village on Thursday to set up a bee keeping business. Today a text comes that the bees are in!! We are so excited for them. Honey is a very profitable business here and we are surprised that it only took two days for the bees to move in. Notice the termite mound in the background. Fried termites and honey, yummy!

On May 15, Neema Village hosted a bee keeping seminar to show people how to make money with bees. We had around 30 women show up for the seminar along with our head gardener, Ramah. Mama Frankie also came in with her twins for the day to learn everything about bees.
Frankie was our first baby at Neema six years ago. He was the smallest of a set of triplets and at 6 months of age he weighed only 5 lbs. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy but at six years of age now, he is a happy and loving boy. Mama Frankie had twins after she had the triplets!!
Everyone in this loving family wanted a hug from both Frankie and Meshack. Frankie was not afraid on this trip, he usually is a bit frightened. This sweet boy will receive as good an education as we can give him and hopefully someday he will be able to help his village and his family. Looks like he made a new friend in the village. Ramah talked with the adults on how to manage the bees, while I put together a make-do bee suit from a rain suit and my kitchen rubber gloves. We will need to get a real bee suit for them somehow. They will also need a double sieve to clean the honey before they can sell it.
We also got to do a Bible class for the village children. It was a little rough working off the ground but we managed to do the creation story and each child made a necklace with the days of creation. As you can see from the background below there were flowers everywhere which I’m sure added to the bees coming so quickly to the hive.
Maasai live off their cows, buy their wives with cows, count their wealth by cows and put the cows in the middle of the village at night so there are always lots of flies. It is a bit hard to look at the picture below but I have to tell you the children are happy, flies or not.
Baba Frankie likes to cook a goat for us when we come for a visit so we watched as he cut slabs off with his long knife. Even though I don’t normally like goat this was delicious. I think the smoke helps.
The women in their colorful garb like us to buy their jewelry. If you are coming this summer to Neema be sure and look at the MAP store for some of their beautiful jewelry. You will be helping some of the poorest women on the planet.
On the way home, we ran out of candy for all the children with their hands out along the road. Poli Sana Watoto!