efficiency?

Our friend Isaiah who runs the Virtues Project now phoned me last night. He had received a message from the Registrar of Societies that he wanted to meet Isaiah urgently in Nairobi. Does the man even know that Isaiah is a day's journey away? How urgent can anything be? My first reaction was to suggest a phone call, at least to find out the problem, but the Registrar ‘might not like that.’ Fairly typical of the arrogant attitude of most civil servants. So Isaiah left on the 4 a.m bus today. Although Nairobi is only 500 km away, the roads are so bad that it is likely to take twelve hours. He may have to stay over night. Have these people never heard of phones and email? A friend (a Rotarian) was complaining last week that for the past year or so everything seems to have to go to Nairobi and anyone wanting any kind of government service has to go for a face to face meeting. Is there a security reason behind this? if so, it's hard to see. We have to go personally to Nairobi for our work pemits although our identitiy cards are issued in Kisumu. But they are only good for two years and out permits for three. So we seem to be visiting government offices every few months.
We have spent most of the day loading software for the computers to go to a school tomorrow. This is a village where I also have a micro credit group, so I will be taking Magdalene with me to talk to the mamas, encourage them, take in loan repayments and hopefully give more loans.
At supper time we heard a fusillade down in the town. Our first thought, conditioned as we are by the violence earlier this year, was a gun battle. But then we remembered it is Diwali–the Hindu festival of Lights and we were hearing fireworks. A celebration of love and joy which is very welcome.