Money Issues

Couple of things on my mind that I'm milling over today, both having to do with money-

"Tata" (Grandma) with the twins.

•  I went out to see the twins, who are doing really well. They are growing and looking healthy. Lack of milk is still their biggest issue. I was talking to their mother about milk for next month and doing a little math.  Milk from the cow is sold at 400 shillings a cup (about 20 cents). The twins each need 4 cups a day. So eight cups times 400 shillings equals 3,200 shillings a day. Times seven days a week.  That is 22,400 shillings a week and 89,600 for the month (if their amount of milk doesn’t go up, which it will.) So 89,600 shillings for just milk in the month of April. The average monthly income for people with a good job receiving a regular wage is 50,000 shillings. And Apeo and Ochen’s father is a drunkard and their mother cares for them and the other kids, works in their garden, gathers firewood, carries water… all good things but none of them income generating.  

•  Dorcus came over to the house yesterday and said she wanted to talk. All of her money that she had made on banana bread had been in her bag and had been stolen out of it.  She has a little sugar and eggs left but needed to get more oil and flour. She had 38,000 shillings saved (about 19 dollars), now nothing. She was so worried that I would be mad at her. I’m not mad- I know that kind of thing happens here. But frustrated and ticked. This girl is trying so hard to make this work. Who would steal it from her!? It has to be someone that knows her, knows this project and knows that she would have money. Possibly someone on who is better off than she is because you can’t be much worse off. She had used some of her profit to get food for her younger siblings and a mat for her grandmother to sleep on.  

So much of what we do has to be a hand up, not a hand out. But it is far easier to just give money and not try to figure out how to create something sustainable. And then when we do the work and come up with something that seems sustainable,  we discover we have to rework it and rethink it all several times.