The scary night incident has not been repeated so far, much to my relief. However, I am not spared the stress as there are many issues here which need to be resolved asap but due to the luck of funds they keep dragging on... On Thursday morning we had a visit from the electricity company - it was due to the unpaid bill for last 3 months - as a result we were cut off... Luckily, on Friday Mary managed to convince them to reconnect us but they only did it under a condition that this week we sign an agreement with them about how to reduce the debt. To be totally honest, I have no idea how we are going to do that as we simply have no money, not only to spare but just to cover the essential monthly expenses like staff salaries and bills... I am very stressed over this. I have however started to monitor how we are using the electricity and look for ways to reduce the costs... This will not make the problem go away though - we still need more donors and finding them has been a real struggle.
I was supposed to come back to Motherly Care on Sunday but the driver has not showed up yet again (we pay him very little and it is quite likely that he has found a better job - it is quite common for people just not turn up). I asked Mary to look for a new driver as the one we had was very unreliable - it will be a difficult task though for the pay that we are offering.
Because the driver did not come to work on Sunday, we could not collect the food from Uchumi (this is a supermarket near Mary's house that donates all unsold fruits and veg to us). Luckily for us, when Mary came to collect me on Monday we went there and all the stuff for MCCH was still there waiting to be collected.
The food that we get are the rejects and a lot of it is half rotten - so you can just imagine what a horrible task it is to go through boxes of vegetables that are going off... But if it means that we get food for children for free, we have to do it. I have attracted a lot of attention as you never see white people doing this sort of job, but I wanted to get this done asap so we could get to Ruai before it gets dark. There was a lot of stuff - pineapple, watermelon, spinach, beans, potatoes, carrots, etc...
These days we do not have such a big problem with feeding the children as we get food donated from few places. The problem is the lack of money for petrol, salary for the driver and also the vehicle. The car that we have is ancient - really on it's last legs and it is costing us a lot to keep it going but as we do not have money to get a better one, we simply don’t have a choice. I must tell you - every time I need to travel in this car I am worried that we will break down on the way - and the areas that we need to drive through to get to Ruai from Nairobi are not very safe... I am very glad each time I reach my destination...
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