When we first arrived in Kenya, we would hear loud gun-shot type sounds pretty frequently throughout the day. As no one else flinched or dropped to the ground or even made reference to the sounds, we ignored them and secretly wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.
Turns out, the land on three sides of our compound is a rock quarry and the sounds were blasts breaking out rocks. Richard and I took a hike through the quarry yesterday as I had never seen what was on the other side of our wall.
We each took a big stick just in case.
The quarry is full of huge pits and piles of rocks and sand and scrubby brush. We didn't hear any blasts as we walked through. Instead we saw lots of men quarrying the rock by hand with pick axes and other tools. Some were standing on small ledges and working their way down to the floor.
Many of the pits had clear, green pools at the bottom. They were beautiful, because everywhere else is dusty and dirty and parched.
My shoes and socks were filled with a fine dust from walking through this.
These stones were waiting for a lorry to come by and transport them. Again, all of these rocks were hewn by hand.
As we were leaving, several of the men congregated underneath a sprawling tree to eat ugali cooked over an open fire before going back to work.
I'm glad to know what's out there.
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