Thursday in Kimilili is market day. From 4am people will start to make there way to the town and by the time we arrived at 9am the market was fully under-way. We were there to buy material to make more puppets. We went to part of the market that sold second hand clothes. Michael and Francis were with us and did the bartering, we did the paying. We felt our presence was distorting the prices somewhat but both he guys did a great job knocking the price down. We ended up buying a duvet cover, a black fleece jacket, 3 hats and a shirt. On the way back to the house Michael borrowed a friends car and took us to a shop selling foam. We bought a big roll of this material then when home for a rest as the busyness and difference of the market was a bit exhausting.

The afternoon was spent at the IcFEM HQ where we again worked on puppets. This time a larger and more complex design. Michael and Francis are so excited about the puppets as they have so few resources like this, so to be able to make their own is a huge blessing. We said that we thought a sewing machine would be best so they managed to find one and set it up within 20 minutes. The duvet became the skin of the puppet and the fleece its hair. The hats will become interesting hair and features. The shirt finished a puppet off from yesterday. We were unable to complete the puppet we started today due to its complexity, but next week we hope to have it finished.

One thing that we are keen to do is make sure the puppets are cost effective so we are working with the children's workers to minimise the costs. We think that they can be made for less that 300 shillings for the big ones and less than 200 for the smaller ones. To buy these are 800 shillings in Nairobi. This is a huge saving and if they can be made well and sold locally these puppets could help finance the work of IcFEM allow them to visit more schools and run more holiday clubs.

The last thing to say is how popular the puppets are. At the HQ we had a steady stream of visitors to come and see the puppets and to have go making them. They are incredibly popular and I think they will quickly be adopted by all the churches in the area.

I should also mention that Becky returned from Nairobi today along this Jane and Simon whose house we are staying at. It was great to see her again and we spent a great evening in the dark (power cut) eating great food and sharing stories of the last few days.