I can’t believe it’s Thursday already and I still haven’t got round to completing our Kenya journal. I’ve just read through what I wrote last time and realised that I have missed out a couple of things (understandable really I think considering the amount we managed to pack in!). But I think one story is worth revisiting as it was quite amusing.
During the last community visit on Tuesday (after the one that I thought was the last one), we had a bit of an interesting incident. We went to one visit the home of one of the girls we sponsor and her mother. Her mother was very nice and extremely grateful that her daughter was being sent to school and wanted to show her appreciation to us. She didn’t have an awful lot to offer but what she did have was a chicken! Solomon was acting as our translator and as soon as she offered us the chicken, we could see that he was thinking that we may have a bit of a problem. He told us what she had said and I think we all immediately started imagining this live chicken running around in the back of the truck. Obviously, we didn’t want to offend her as it was an incredibly generous offer from someone in her situation, but equally there wasn’t much we could have done with a live chicken. Luckily, Sarah thought quickly and explained that the best present we could have was her daughter’s achievement and success in school. She seemed to take this very well so we were spared the drama of Chicken Run 3.
So, on to Wednesday…we began with a visit to the other of the schools that our sponsored children attend. Again, we spent some time with the headteacher, attended a lesson each and spent a bit of time taking some photos of the kids. It was quite different from the first school we visited, but is a very high-achieving school according to the ‘league tables’ in Kenya, which is one of the most important things.
After the school visit, we made out way to the Wema office again to meet Henry, the programme coordinator, his assistant, the finance manager, and Solomon. We had a really good meeting – our whole trip and the relationship that we’ve been building up with Wema has been great – they are being very supportive of us, which is a great encouragement and gives us even more of an incentive to succeed. After that meeting, we sat down with Lucy again, which was another very successful meeting.
After the meeting, we were picked up by a taxi driver friend of Ray’s (a friend of Sarah’s who she met when volunteering a couple of years ago), who has a disabled daughter. Ray had asked us to visit them and see how the treatment that they had recently started was going. The taxi driver took us to his home, where we met his wife and daughter, who were a really lovely family. There was a real bond and feeling of love between them and it was obvious that, despite the challenges that they have with their daughter, they are still incredibly proud of her. She is a lovely little girl, very happy and we wish them all the very best with her recovery. She seemed to have improved quite a lot since Ray’s visit a month previously so that was great news.
We spent an hour or so there and were then taken back to our hotel. Dinner. Shower. Bed. Sleep – much needed!
On Thursday, we were going to have a day off, but the visit to the family the day before had raised a couple of questions as to whether they were pursuing the right course of action and had they had the right advice from doctors. When Sarah volunteered in 2006, she was staying with a doctor, and wanted to visit him and his family to say hello, so we decided to speak to him about the situation and see if he had any advice. We got a matatu to his house and spent about half an hour there. He was then really good and offered to visit the family himself to see what he would recommend. So, we got a ride in another truck! This one was uncovered in the back and Nicola and I had a wheel hump each. We managed to hold on tightly and avoid falling over the side and it was great fun – a great opportunity to take some photos as it was a bit safer than drawing attention to ourselves by stopping in the street when we were walking to take photos. Needless to say, two white women riding in the back of a truck is going to draw lots of attention anyway – people don’t really see many white people riding in the back of trucks!
We went to pick the mother up and went back to their home again for the doctor to assess the daughter. His assessment was that a lot of the damage came from when she was born as she had quite a difficult birth. She was also treated with adult drugs when only a couple of days old, which caused a reaction that made her come up in swellings on her head and neck, and could possibly have caused further damage. Unfortunately, the mother also had a difficult time during the birth and was completely unaware of her daughter’s treatment. The daughter was given the adult version of the drugs needed because the hospital could not find the children’s version. The doctor recommended that the family continue with a course of physiotherapy to improve the daughter’s mobility – this had played a big part in her improvement over the month since Ray last saw her and it is hoped that with a long-term physiotherapy programme, she will regain a lot of movement. We will keep track of her progress and see how she does and send the family our very best wishes.
The doctor then very kindly took us back to our hotel – the guards at our hotel were completely bemused by us – three white girls who arrived at the hotel with (at different times) taxi drivers, Solomon in a truck, the doctor in a truck, a load of children with us (that was on Tuesday evening when we picked some of the children up from school to go for the community visits and wanted to change before we did them), and a load of boys/men (more to come tomorrow). The Wema truck is well recognised in the area though, so they did have some idea of what we were up to.
We may then have gone to the supermarket to get more water supplies (we got through a LOT of water during the week) and then back to our hotel. We’d missed not seeing Solomon all day so he came to our hotel to join us for dinner again.
On Friday, we decided to have a morning off! We spent a bit of time by the pool, did a bit of shopping from the stalls on the beach (Nicola was a pro-barterer – I learned a lot!) and just generally relaxed. In the afternoon, we went back into Mombasa town (in another matatu – we were becoming quite expert at them (although Sarah was very comfortable using them anyway because of her previous trip)) to see the boys at the Ganjoni centre again. First of all, we met Solomon to buy a load of sandals for them as a small contribution to them. A colleague of ours had given me a donation just before we left, so we changed that into Kenyan shillings and spent it when in Kenya on a couple of footballs, sandals and vests for the boys. Unfortunately, the shop did not have sandals in all of the sizes in stock so we were unable to give them to the boys while we were there but Solomon promised to sort it out and give them out as soon as he could get the rest of the shoes.
The boys were a little less cautious this time, and very welcoming. There were quite a few boys out in the yard so we went out to talk to them. Philip, the Wema music teacher, was also there and they did a couple of songs for us. The boys have got incredible voices and one song in particular was a real ‘hair on the back of you neck standing up’ moment. Philip sang with them and also has a great voice. Another of the songs that they performed for us was written by one of the boys there, who seems to be incredibly talented – he greeted us the first time we visited the centre and did a short rap that he’d written about the dangers of HIV so he sings, writes songs, plays guitar (I think…) and raps. The boys also did a little play for us, about the dangers of living on the street and the way that you’re treated in society. The plot was as follows:
Three boys are on the streets and talking about how to get a job. They decide that knowing some English will help them with this and go to someone’s house to learn some English. The man teaches them to stand and chant ‘we want job’ and then tells them that if anyone tries to move them on, to say ‘we don’t care’. The boys don’t really understand what the phrases mean but go off to put them into practice. On the way, they come across a man who has died and are standing around looking at him when a policeman appears. He speaks to them in English asking what they know about it. They reply with ‘we want job’ as that’s what they know and when he questions them further, reply with ‘we don’t care’. This is misinterpreted by the policeman who takes that to mean that they have killed the man because he wouldn’t give them a job and that they have no remorse.
Although the plot is possibly a little far fetched, it does illustrate that without some education, these boys are very vulnerable as they don’t really understand their rights or how to deal with situations.
After the play, and a short display of acrobatics, we spent some time talking to the boys and finding out some of their stories. A lot of them have a very similar story in that a parent has either died or left, leaving the boy with one parent who then remarries. The new spouse then no longer wants the children of the previous partner around and pushes them out onto the streets. Some of the boys had been living on the streets for 5 or 6 years before coming to the Wema centre. They get hooked on glue sniffing, and then do either casual labour or commit petty crimes to survive. It’s so sad, especially when you think of the way that they got there and then think about how ungrateful a lot of British teenagers are for what they’ve got. These boys are just desperate to get a good education and then we have teenagers who will do anything they can to get out of school and then spend time on the streets, committing crimes, out of choice. Of course, I realise that this is not all British teenagers, but I think it’s fair to say that we do have a fair element of that.
We asked the boys about their dreams, which is something that they can now have. Living on the streets, they don’t have this opportunity as they are living from day to day. However, once they get involved with Wema and start attending school, they can begin to think about their future. One of the boys (the talented songwriter/singer/rapper) said that he wanted to become a tour guide in one of the national parks and do music in his spare time. This struck me as a great dream as it is very achievable. Especially as he’s a great storyteller, so we can only hope that he continues to work hard at school and achieves this dream. Of course, boys being boys, there were a couple of budding footballers but as we didn’t see them play, I can’t comment on their skills. There was also a boy who wanted to be a pilot.
After a couple of hours, it was time to leave. Just as we were doing so, another boy came in and said that he’d heard from Solomon (who had left us at the centre to do a couple of errands) that we were visiting and had come to see us. I felt a bit bad that we were leaving but he then joined us in the truck on the way back to Bamburi. He told us his story. His mother either died or left when he was very young (not even his grandmother knows what happened to her) and he was left with his father. When he remarried, the new wife didn’t want the boy and he began living on the streets. He pointed out the area which he called ‘home’ for these 5/6 years, which was about 3 miles from the Wema centre. He explained that his friends got him addicted to glue and that he did what he needed to to survive. When he heard about Wema, he began going during the day, walking the 3 miles or so each morning and each evening. After he had been doing this for 5 or 6 months and Wema could see that he was committed to changing his life, they offered him accommodation and he began living there. He is now studying mechanical engineering. I found this a really inspiring story as it shows what a positive impact Wema has on these boys’ lives. Solomon dropped us back at the hotel (the time when we arrive back at the hotel with a truckful of young men!) and we had dinner and packed up to leave the next day.
We had one final visit to make on Saturday – we went back to the Wema centre in Bamburi to see the girls one last time, take a few more photos, and see the choir and acrobats perform. Some of the boys are taught acrobatics and they came from the centre in Mombasa town to perform for us. They were really talented, forming big human pyramids and other structures. They must be incredibly strong and what amazed me was that they did it all in quite shiny looking costumes – I have no idea how they didn’t slip off! One of the acts was to do limbo under a pole that was on fire! There was one boy who went under about 8 inches by getting right down on the floor and kind of shuffling under – amazing.
Then the girls’ choir performed for us – they recently won a national competition in the west of Kenya and were really good. They performed a few songs for us, perhaps the most surprising being Dancing Queen by Abba! It was a great arrangement though. We were then given a performance by the younger children, which was also really good. During the performance, we were treated to a solo by the girl who also won the solo part of the national choir competition, and who became our 20th sponsored child while we were there, so that was really good. She has a lovely voice and at only 11 has a lot of opportunity to improve and really make something of her talent.
It finally came to that horrible time – time to say goodbye. I think we were all incredibly sad to have to leave but unfortunately, our airport transfer was looming. We managed to pull ourselves away and were taken back to our hotel, where we showered, changed, and got the airport transfer back to the airport.
So, just a final few thoughts…I’ve found it quite hard since I got back, knowing that there are all these great kids over there that could really do with our help and wishing I could dedicate more time to doing this. I know that Sarah feels exactly the same way, and the trip has made Nicola look at things quite differently too. However, we can’t do everything so we just have to take one thing at a time and focus on our goals to grow. The kids and the people at the Wema centre that we met were really inspirational and had such a great spirit, that it would be impossible not to be deeply affected by the trip, even though it was only for a week. The other thing that struck me, everywhere we went, was the sense of community spirit. Although most of the people we met have very little, in our terms, they all seem to look out for and look after one another, which is just fantastic. I’d just like to share one more story that Ray told us in August when he’d just been to Kenya. It was from when he went to visit the street boys centre…he heard a story where there was a little boy, of around 3, on the streets one night. A few of the boys who go to Wema during the day found him and asked him what he was doing alone. They found out that he was sleeping on the streets and didn’t have anyone to look out for him. So, a few of the boys formed a circle around him to protect him, while another of them went to find a phone to call one of the guys who works at Wema. It was past ‘closing time’ for Wema but the boy who called insisted that they should come out and do something for the 3 year old as they were concerned for him. I find that story really inspiring. These boys have nothing – they sleep on the streets, have little or no family, and have to struggle each day to survive (although they are definitely on an upwards path by going to Wema daily) but they still wanted to make sure that the young boy was looked after. Another example of what a positive influence Wema has on these boys and why we’re so proud and honoured to be working with them.
Now we’ve got a renewed focus and will be working hard to grow FATE and increase the amount of children we sponsor. If you or anyone you know might be interested, please let us know! We have also developed a ‘Christmas gift catalogue’, which we’ll be sending out to friends, families, and vague acquaintances very soon. If you don’t get a copy and would like one, just get in contact!
So, that’s it for another journal. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and it has perhaps inspired you to think about some of the issues faced by these amazing children. If you’ve ever considered visiting Kenya, do it. And visit somewhere like Wema to get a really different experience to that which you’d get on a typical safari holiday or something. If you’re interested in volunteering, they would also be more than happy to accommodate you. If you want more details, let us know. And that’s that. Bye for now!
P.S. I’ll put up some photos soon!
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