I hope you're sitting comfortably to read this as we've got LOTS to say. At the same time, I need to do this quite quickly so I'm not going to be able to check it and apologise in advance for the mistakes!
So, let's go back to Sunday. This was our first full day here and our first task was to make our way to the Wema centre. I was very excited to visit as I'd heard so much about it from Sarah over the last couple of years. We brought over a lot of things for the girls there so duly set off with our suitcase!
I think it was pretty much what I was expecting from Sarah's description, although probably better. The spirit of the children there is amazing and they were all very excited to be visited by three 'mzungus'! For those of you who haven't heard of Wema before, let me give you a bit of background information...
Wema was set up 15 years ago to help orphaned and abandoned girls. The home in Bamburi, which is the one we visited on Sunday, now houses 130 girls, as well as working with both boys and girls from the local community. Of the children we sponsor, 8 live in the local community , and the other 12 are Wema residents.
So, back to the centre...we spent a good few hours there, spending some time with the kids, having a look around, showing the sponsored children their videos and having our hair plaited! My overriding impression was of what a good place it was, where the kids could be happy, play, live, study and be part of a family, which is what they desperately need.
Having spent a bit of time there, we then went out and about to visit some of the homes of the community children, accompanied by Solomon, the Wema social worker, who has been absolutely brilliant for the whole week. We visited two homes I think on Sunday (although, having left it so long to do this journal, all of the days are beginning to merge into one!).
The homes were both very basic. The first was one room in a shared house, where seven people lived. However, although this sounds like a dire situation, the family seemed to be very close, the father was supporting them (which we have come to discover is quite rare), and they seemed to have a good relationship. The father works but only earns 4,000 Kenyan shillings
a month, which is about 35 pounds. This is increasingly hard to live on because of rising costs in Kenya. We heard from one person, for example, that his electricity bill has increased from 250 shillings per month to 1,000 shillings per month - this huge increase obviously has a massive impact on people who are on the lowest wages.
The next home that we visited was for one of the sponsored girls, who lives with her mother and younger brother. They are living in a house with the permission of a man...which means that there would have been some compensation. The mother is also nine months pregnant with another child. This situation is really not ideal - this is their fourth home in two years, which have presumably been provided by four different men. This is one of the situations that are being closely monitored by Wema.
Their goal is to integrate children with their families as much as possible and to provide the background support to facilitate this. However, if they identify that the children in this home are being put at danger, they will intervene.
Doing the community visits was definitely an eye-opener. But the one thing that we have noticed, throughout our time here, is how little the Kenyan people moan about their plight. Even though they have very little and are facing hardships, that we can't begin to imagine, every day, they are such positive, welcoming, friendly people. We were welcomed with open arms at all
of the community homes that we visited, and every one of the families has expressed their gratitude at their children being given the opportunity to attend a good school.
By the end of Sunday, we were exhausted. We returned to our hotel and crashed out!
On Monday, we were picked up by Solomon in the Wema truck, which was an experience all by itself. I've been very fortunate and sat in the front the whole time but Sarah and Nicola have been bounced, bumped and shaken around for days! Personally, I think they've secretly enjoyed it though ;0) Solomon took us to the Wema office to meet Lucy, which was great - she is the director and founder of Wema and a truly inspiring woman. She started Wema when she noticed some girls on the street and spoke to them to find out their story. From helping one child, it has grown to the size it is today, with the girls' home in Bamburi, a rescue and outreach centre in Mombasa, a project in Thika, Nairobi, and many, many more plans. They currently help and support around 800 children.
After our meeting, we went to the boys' rescue and outreach centre in Mombasa, which was a different story again from the home in Bamburi. At this project, they house 30 boys and provide a place for around 30 - 40 more street boys to come during the day, to eat, and be in a safe environment. We met some of the boys, who were a lot more cautious than the girls we had met the day before. However, they soon warmed to us when we showed them a video that had been put together by Ray - a friend of Sarah's who was volunteering here in 2006 with her and returned this summer. We spent a bit of time talking to the people who run the centre, who were all very dedicated, passionate people, as with everyone that we meet who is associated with Wema.
Having spent an hour or so there, we made our way to a baby orphanage that Sarah and Nicola were desperate to visit (and for whom we had another suitcase of clothes as Wema only takes girls from 2 years and upwards). On the way, Solomon drove us through one of the areas where the street children hang out, which was heartbreaking. There must have been around 150 children along the street (mostly boys), all either actively sniffing glue, sat looking spaced out, or asleep. Apparently, it is estimated that there are around 20,000 street children in Mombasa alone. Even driving along the main streets, there are children openly sniffing glue. Some of you may have seen the recent programme that Ross Kemp made about the children of Kenya and the background to glue-sniffing.
We arrived at New Life baby orphanage, which houses around 20 babies. They specialise in taking in babies born to HIV positive parents, although none of the babies that they have in the Mombasa home currently are HIV positive. If they are still HIV positive after 6 months, they are sent to the home that they have in Nairobi to be cared for. New Life looks after the babies up to the age of two and a half, at which time, if they haven't been adopted, they are sent to children's homes.
Not being a big baby lover, I don't think I was quite as taken with them as Sarah and Nicola, although there were a couple of strong personalities - one little girl who was incredibly inquisitive and wanted to get into absolutely everything, and a little boy who was a right little bruiser. Generally, they all seemed to be quite happy children, but we don't know how the two ladies who were there can cope with all of them!
My memory's a bit hazy about what we did after that, but I think Solomon took us back to our hotel and joined us for dinner.
Tuesday was another very busy day, which began with a visit to one of the schools that our children now attend. We spent a couple of hours there, talking to the headteacher and director, sitting in lessons, and filming some video messages for the children's sponsors. We came away with a really good impression of the school - it seemed very well disciplined, the director and headteacher seemed very passionate, and the children seemed generally very happy.
Again, my memory fails me again as to what we got up to afterwards, but I think we went to do a couple more community visits.
One of these was to the family where Nicola's sponsored child lives, which I think was a great experience for her, although he's not in a great situation so that again needs to be closely monitored. We thought he was living with his uncle but it turns out that he was living with his grandmother, who we believe is a drug dealer. Another one on Wema's watch list.
Thinking about this, I think we visited his home on Sunday evening. On Monday we visited a couple of the boys' homes, which weren't fantastic situations but they seem fairly settled. It's incredibly difficult to judge these situations because the standards are just so different to those we are used to. However, we trust the people at Wema in their judgement and they seem happy with first boy's home we visited. He lives with his mother, who is an alcoholic and his brother. He seems fairly happy and is an incredibly deep and intelligent boy.
The other lives with lots of people (I didn't quite manage to suss it all out) and the most upsetting thing was that we were shown where he sleeps - the dirt floor in between the rooms. He doesn't even have his own patch of floor in a bedroom. I think that's one of the overwhelming aspects of these visits - the lack of privacy for anyone. I know that it just depends on what you're used to but still, it must be hard. Wema are also monitoring this boy's situation because they are concerned that he is being moved around from one family member to another.
Finally, we visited Nicola's sponsored child's mother's home. She lives with a new husband and 3 younger children, but the new husband is a violent alcoholic and kicked the child out. It was quite upsetting because the standard of their home was so much better, but from speaking to the mother, it seems as though the child is almost better off and safer where he is. The new husband appeared a bit later and it was the first time we had felt slightly uncomfortable in a situation. All of the local kids (who had gathered to see the 'mzungus') kept a lot of distance from him and it was obvious that the children that did live there were not happy. This situation is very much being monitored by Wema to work out the best course of action for all concerned.
After a very full day, Solomon dropped us back to our hotel and we crashed out again!
I still have another two very full days to fill everybody in on but I need to go now as it's going to get dark soon and we want to make sure we get back to our hotel before this. Besides, you've probably had enough for one sitting!
We may not be able to update this until we're back in the UK but check back soon for the rest of our adventures. Bye for now.
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