Form 4s day trip

As our Form 4 students have been working very hard recently revising and preparing for their final exams, I wanted to reward them a little. As very soon they will be leaving Motherly Care I wanted to do sthg with them that they will remember for a long time – they wanted to go on a trip but I knew they didn’t have the funds to do so. I am trying to rally economise while I’m here to make sure that my money can last for a long time but I couldn’t resist paying for the trip for them – it will probably be the last reward that they get from Motherly Care. Obviously we will now be helping them to find work or funds for college but most probably they will not get an opportunity to do sthg as a group.

I hired a people carrier and we set of to town on Monday morning. We started with the National Museum – from what I could see the students (I keep calling them kids but they are adults already!) really enjoyed it. At the museum we also went to the snake park – this is not sthg that I particularly enjoyed but as they really wanted to go there so I gave in – after all it was a treat for them J

After the museum we were supposed to go to the National’s Park Animal Orphanage but we stopped at Uhuru Gardens on our way so we could have some lunch. It was really nice there and we decided to take some photos with the monument. After only taking a couple of shots we were approached by the park’s security and told that what we are doing is illegal as we are supposed to pay Ksh5000 (that’s sthg like £45)! This was absolutely ridiculous – we argued with the guard by he was not really listening. He asked one of the teachers to follow him to the office. When they returned we were told that indeed, in order to take photos in that place you must pay the fee – everyone was really outraged and we decided to talk to the guard again. For some reason he would not come close enough to us so we could talk it over. I then decided that if he doesn’t want to come to talk to me then I will go to talk to him. When I approached him with one of the teachers I asked why he just doesn’t come and tell me what the problem is (it was pretty obvious that the reason why he was so persistent that we pay the fee was the fact that I was white and he assumed that I had money). I was then told that he cannot speak English but if we give him some cash he will let us go. I was not really shocked – sthg like this is very common here. I did not cave in though and told him if he really insists that we pay the fee then I will just delete the photos that we have taken. I think he realised that he would not get any money out of me that he could use for himself and all of a sudden he let us go without paying the fee or deleting the photos.

As we already finished the snacks that we had, we decided to leave that place before they try to charge us for anything else. We proceeded to the National Park. As usual, because I am a foreigner – regardless to the fact that I am a volunteer not a tourist – I was really ripped off when it came to pay for the tickets – the children paid Ksh50, the teachers Ksh100 and for me? Well – Ksh1240! To be honest in my opinion that place is not worth paying so much money – it is much better to go to the elephant orphanage as you can interact with the animals much more there, but hey, it was the treat for the children and they wanted to go there – and they really enjoyed it.

As we didn’t have any money left in our budget, it was time to go home. However, the children really did not want to go back just yet. Instead we went to do some window shopping at a new shopping mall. It was so funny when I asked them to go up the escalator – they have never seen anything like that and were really afraid ;) the same thing with the lifts – they found it really amazing and we went up and down several times attracting a lot of attention. At least they were dressed in school uniforms so people knew that they were students and not a bunch of crazy adults ;)

I was absolutely shattered when we returned. I just wanted to shower and go to bed – and it was only 7.30pm! But there was another challenge waiting for me: about 20 min after we returned the power went off so I had to shower (and when I say that I mean bathe in a small plastic basin and 1 small bucket of water) just with candle light. The joys of simple life… ;)

Last night the Form 4s stayed up all night praying for good results in their exams – they start tomorrow. I wish them best of luck.

Today is a national day in Kenya – Kenyatta Day. Kenyatta Day is a day celebrating Kenya's freedom, named after their founding president Jomo Kenyatta.

Daily challenges

I cant believe I have been here 7 weeks already, the time is really flying by. I am so glad that I have decided to spend more time here and to get even more involved with day to day running of this place. There are many challenges here, money is always the top one but not the only one. At Motherly Care there are children from many different backgrounds; some of them only come to attend the school during the day, some are staying during the school terms but go back home to their relatives during holidays, the others are orphans or those whose mother’s are prostitutes… Those with relatives are admitted to Motherly Care as otherwise they would not go to school because the families cannot afford it. There are also few children coming from the IDP (Internally Displaced People) Camps.

Just before I arrived in Kenya, a little girl – Rebecca, was brought by the police to Motherly Care – she was found abandoned on someone’s doorstep. She is cared for well here by the staff as well as other children.

Every time the children misbehave I try to talk to those involved and make them understand their mistakes. It is not easy as they are scared that they will get beaten – this is the most common way of disciplining the children in Kenya – especially in schools. I do assure them that I will not beat anyone but I can still see the fear in their eyes… I now have the challenge of coming up with meaningful punishments for the most severe offenders and I can tell you that it is a huge challenge for me.

I am very happy though because I can see that I am getting through to some of the children already – they now started to come to me to share their concerns and to tell me if there is sthg going wrong or someone planning to do sthg wrong. It’s only just the beginning, as some of the children are not so happy about me being here now that they realised that it’s not all just about fun and nice food. I really wish I could just have fun with them every day but ensuring that they are brought up in a proper way and educated well is my top priority. I hope that they will understand it sooner rather than later. I care about all of them very much and I am determined to succeed in making this place better.

I have also decided not to fly back home for Xmas and stay here until April. That will of course depend on whether my visa can be extended by that much. I am quite hopeful as I know that there are many volunteers coming to Kenya for 12 months and they are able to get their visas so I should also be ok :)

Our kids just completed their midterm exams and have the half term holiday for few days… The Form 4 students will start their final exams on Thursday – they have been working very hard revising in last 2 months, preparing for the exams. I hope that they all do very well. We only have 7 students in Form 4 which means that they have to take their exams at another school as there need to be min of 25 students to be counted as the examination centre.

This month we were really lucky - we were very short of money to pay the salaries and just as I was about to start panicking I noticed that there was a substantial sum of money paid into the MCCH bank account in UK. And although we were still short of the full amount needed, it really helped us this month with the expenses - THANK YOU SO MUCH JAY for all your help. I cannot even begin to explain how much your support means to us.

Cultural Day at Motherly Care

On 24th of September we celebrated the annual cultural day at Motherly Care. On that day many of the children create various groups and perform different songs and dances according to which tribe they are from. There are many tribes in Kenya and tribalism is a major problem in political as well as the every day life.
At Motherly Care we celebrate the roots of our children though and very often kids from one tribe help to perform the others – this year we had Kisii, Louhya, Massai, Kikuyu and Embu tribes performing. The children were all dressed up in kangas and had their faces painted. Those that weren’t taking part in performances were the spectators. We had a lot of fun. This year though I was not able to take part in the dancing due to my ankle still giving me problems (and Thank God for that excuse! I am not a very good dancer ;)

To make the day a little nicer I bought the ingredients for maandazi, some juice and biscuits. The kids were very happy with that :) The unfortunate thing was that due to the lack of funds we were not able to organise the cooking part of the Cultural Day – normally the children, apart from performing, would also have an opportunity to cook different dishes from their tribes – the food varies depending where in Kenya you go. Nevertheless, it was a lovely day and the kids had a lot of fun.

I will post some videos on the children dancing and singing when I manage to get a better internet connection – I am using a pay as you go service and uploading a video would be very expensive… Hopefully I can arrange sthg soon.

It was such a busy week - but so fulfilling... :D

This week we were really happy to host a team of 4 dentists and a nurse from the US accompanied by a local dentist. The team came to Motherly Care to examine and treat our children. I was very glad I had the opportunity to be part of their team for the time they spent at the orphanage. I guess you can say I was the receptionist :) but working with them really reminded me of the job at NCR - arranging, organising, coordinating, ensuring we had correct info, etc... We were so busy that I did not have time to eat or a drink... It did not matter though, I have really enjoyed it, especially that it all resulted in all of our children examined and treated by the dentists and having their teeth cleaned. The kids were also taught about the oral hygiene, how to use the dental floss and all got new toothbrushes, paste and floss - none of our children knew what flossing was...

I also did some more teaching as class 4 was left with no teacher as 2 of our staff are sick... I'm concentrating my efforts on maths and English - I plan to do more work with those children from next week, even if the teachers are back as I really enjoy it and I believe it will really help the children, especially that soon they will have to do their exams...

All of this is not happening without challenges - main one being the children's expectations... So far all my trips to the orphanage meant bringing lots of gifts, especially food... and this time, as I need to preserve the money I have for the most pressing issues I am not able to do this any more... But I think the more time I spent there, the more they understand that I am only trying to help and that it is necessary that we prioritise what we do next... I try to speak to them often and I am already seeing a change in some. One main thing about our children is that they all come from very different and very difficult backgrounds so working with them is not an easy job... There's also a language barrier... - as many of them did not start their education until arriving at MCCH, the level of English is very poor... I am really hoping I can improve this.

I have started to buy daily newspaper so the Form 4 children can read it and by doing that stay tuned to what is happening in their country as well as practice their English. We are going to have weekly discussions about the current events and as soon as I get the new aerial cable for our TV they will also be watching evening news every day.

The situation in Kenya has started to worry me quite a bit - there has been many killings - 7 very brutal ones in last 7 days in Nairobi alone... There are cases of human body parts trade for witchcraft... It is all very disturbing... I am trying to stay at the orphanage or Jane's house and not even go to town at the weekend as I prefer not to tempt the fate...

Today I did some calculations on my spending and, without counting the money that I spent on things for MCCH, I realised that I live on less than £2.50 a day :D this is all thanks to Jane as she is letting me stay at her house and makes sure that I don't go hungry... My weekly expenses only consist of groceries for when I go to MCCH, newspapers and mobile top up really... very rarely I buy anything else... I guess this is gonna be a really good rehab for me :) staying away from shopping hasn't been very difficult though... I have all I need for my work here...

I will post some more photos soon...

The challenge continues

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...

Scary night

I have finally made it to Ruai and was very happy to see the children. They were very happy to see me too and straight away I was surrounded by so many of them - everyone wanted to hold my hand or get a hug. They kept touching my hair and then started braiding it - it was quite a painful process and I lost a lot of hair as a result when I tried to bring it back to normal. But still, it was fun spending time with the kids after such long time.

I spent the rest of the evening talking with Stanley, the manager of MCCH about various things that I want to work on whilst I am here. I didnt even realise when it got really late, we were so absorbed in the conversation. As he needed to get up by 5am we decided to continue our discussion the following day.

I was in bed around 12.30am, I am staying at the guest house where Stanley, Hilda and few of the children are also staying. Ruai is very rual and there are not so many houses around. It is usually very quite except for the airplane noise...

I fixed my mosquito net, locked the door to my room and turned off the lights. Just this in itself was pretty scary for me as I just hate to be alone in the room at night, I think it is some sort of a fobia... I was lying down and listening to the noises outside. All seemed OK... I must have drifted off for less than an hour when I suddenly woke up. I did not know why I woke up but again got really worried about all theh darkness. Just as I was hoping to go back to sleep I heard the noise made by the front gate... Alarmed I started to listen out for more sounds and to my terror what I heard next was the gate to the back of the house. I was completely paniced by then but unsure of what I should do. I was lying in bed, terrified. I could hear someone walking around the house and outside my window. All of a sudden I felt very claustrophobic - it was the mosquito net, the room everything, I was finding it hard to breathe... There are bars in all of the windows so nobody can come in through that but still I found no comfort in that... And then I heard someone trying to open the back door... I really wanted to scream but was too afraid to... Luckily they did not manage to get in and et again I heard someone walk around the house... It was too much to take. The moment I knew that they must have been on the other side of the house I jumepd out of my bed, put the lights on, got out of the room, turn on the dining room lights on and run to Hilda's room to wake her up. However, when I enetred her room I couldnt find the light switch and I could not see which bed she was sleeping in. Instead I just saw the children sleeping there and I really did not want to scare them. Everyone in the house was fast asleep. I decided to wait it out. Too afraid to go back to my room (as it was just opposite the back door), I stayed in the hallway for over an hour trying to decide whether I should wake anyone up or not. Finally around 4am when I did not hear anything else I managed to go back to bed but I left the lights on and could not sleep. I could hear many dogs barking in the distance... I was still scared.
Finally just before 5 am, when I knew that many people will be getting up I was brave enough to close my eyes and finally fell asleep.

As a result I am really really tired today and even more terrified about spending 3 more nights here this week... Maybe the tiredness will help me sleep through the night... I have many weeks to go and I dont want it getting in my way of achieving what I set out for myself.

I spoke to Stanley and Hilda about what happened. We will put on some security lights outside and try to close the gate better. I also want to get a dog, I really believe that we need to make this place more secure. It is not easy though when the funds are so limited and everything costs...

On the happier note - seems like the cold season is finally over - we have had 3 great sunny days now and it is very hot here today.

Sthg to think about

I came across this today and I really like. I think it sums up quite well what I have been doing since last year...

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

I still havent been to see the children as it was time to slaughter the chickens for sale (it's an income bringing project that we started about 2 months ago) and I really did not want to see this. Instead, I am meeting with a potential volunteer tomorrow morning. Hopefully she will agree to spend some time at the orphanage and help with the teaching as the school is starting on Monday and one of the teachers has just informed us that she is not coming back. Now we have to find someone for her place very fast...

More in few days time...