Kenya trip by John and Sonja Horse Wood in January 2009 KENYA TRAVEL, January 2009
From 28 December to 19 January we have spent a great and adventurous time in Kenya.
We have experienced a lot, seen a lot, beautiful and frightening and the memory of it will be with us for a lifetime.
We were the first 4 days in Mombasa, where we support since last year under the "helping hands" of the school project Mtwapa Children Centre. In Kenya, the long vacation in December to mid January (for the older students to early February). In that time, the school building "renovation", ie. freshly painted, cleaned, new school supplies purchased ... and we could hardly believe our eyes, so many advances occurred in the last 2 years. Everything is fresh and clean, easily measured in our conditions, but luxury compared to what awaited us in the following week.
On 2 By 4 clock Early January we started the long road to Lake Victoria, in a private car that was pretty rickety. Pastor Okoth decided the night before, we do not accompany it, because he was not strong enough to do so - a wise decision. His brother George was our guide and driver.
the next 28 hours we spent in the first car that brought us to about 150 km from Nairobi, then a breakdown in the Massai country towing, Repair and a new start. By 23 clock recent mishap, 3 hours of sleep test in the car, then find a walk around a bus to Victoria. After 3 transfers and a trip to indescribable roads we arrived at 8 clock in Homa Bay.
shower, Breakfast in the stunningly beautiful hotel ... and then we were on our way to the village Omoya (the well-intentioned, positive prescribed rest, we rejected strict). 2 years ago we had met in Mombasa Pastor Mark, who runs the small town in Omoya.
expected in a beautiful, green landscape gives us great poverty, a lot of suffering and disease. The children of the community greeted us in the parish hall with songs and hungry bellies, many had not eaten for two days, nothing more. We asked the women of the village, in connection to boil, 5 € submitted for crumpets and tea with lots of milk and sugar. The next day, the children get a meal.
We were led to many huts, heard reports of widows with young children about the circumstances of their lives ... we could not hold back our tears. For the state of the schools we find no words ...
The future prospects are poor, the seed should be sown in the coming weeks in the small fields, was eaten ....
A little help we could leave the village - in person for poor families. The women had their Fortunately not believe to hold a bill in hand - in probably the first time for many lives. Pastor Mark was given a small sum to quickly assist hardship cases.
The next day we spent in the village Ndisi, the home of Pastor Oktoth. A Swiss woman has Elsy Amsler, there is a small primary care hospital and a school erected. However, it lacks everything .... Hunger also there so many orphans, widows of AIDS, muddy water, children with distended bellies by protein deficiency ... We distributed clothes, sweets, money and packages of food. A 14-year-old boy asked us to pray for him - he is blind in one eye by parasites, on the other, he already sees a blur. Children sitting barefoot on the ground (and on the bare floor to sleep), suffering from parasite infestation of their feet, they set out on ulcers and be eaten easily. After a long day we could hardly stand up, so much misery, disease and misery. .. How much of it can be endured on a day when you come from Europe? After two days
Warega, again a beautiful, green landscape. Nearby is a sugar factory, the fields are full of sugar .... and it lacks the corn for the hungry population.
Since 2000, the "Warega Center, a school for poor children and orphans, also by Elsy Amsler built and the village was handed over the leadership. Between 150 and 200 children attend the school environment there, their only chance of education. At noon they get a meal - maize porridge - and for most the only food for the day. The corn donated by the community.
17 children (2-15 years old) are orphans without a relative or a person looking for them ... and they all sleep on the floor of the small cooking hut. In each case, a woman from the village it takes to spend the night with them.
The school is poor, but the teachers are dedicated. You borrow one book from which they contend, from a different school. This book is then forwarded to the student given that, one after the other, the texts, write examples and details. Also in Warega we could help a little, we had money from the Christmas market and a few small private donations.
There was a feast .... Pita bread and beans, tea with milk and then a lot of sugar, we bought soap, laundry soap, paraffin for the lamps, matches, distributed clothes and towels. For the 8 classes, there was money for 3 textbooks, examination fees and for food. A very important concern for us was that the children get more protein - but the villagers have nothing but maize.
With 2 students of the 8th Class that we had noticed in teaching, We had a long conversation. Both have the test for the high school with very good success is, but because they are orphans, they have no one to pay school fees. They revisit the 8th Class because there is no home for them and no work. We promised them to look for mentors who support them next year, allowing them to make the other school. That gave the two a lot of hope.
The living conditions of the orphans in Warega Center made us deeply. A cabin with 2 small dorms and a room for the caregiver would be urgently needed. Land belonging to the school, there are enough.
After 2 days it was back in Warega by Homa Bay, the car just made it up the last meters of the mountain, down to the bus station we had already rolling ..... The next service was due. George had a replacement part to Nairobi ... and so we boarded the night bus together. A description would take too long ... The slogan was printed on the bus "Resting on the everlasting arms" .. and that we needed! Change in Nairobi to Mombasa and Mombasa, where we arrived in the evening.
After a rest day went on our program: we visited a piece of land on which a new school building to be built, if money is available, we met Nancy, a young Kenyan woman, which enables a sponsorship from Finland to attend school and was now a qualified social worker (but without a job), we met some of the older sponsored children, completed bank, and now and then we found one or the other hour in which we went to the beach.
We visited many families, sometimes far away from the school in the bush, we brought gifts from the sponsor, bought food and we met Connie, a woman from Germany who has built a few kilometers from Mombasa away in the bush, a similar school .
Then began the school year again. A number of the children was is not yet back from vacation (in Kenya to visit relatives on New Year's Day, you stay there for some weeks and is back only when the bus fares after the peak period have again become cheaper !!!!). Unfortunately, some of the sponsored children moved and no longer visit the center. There are currently many reasons to make a change of location: A few years ago, when tourism flourished, flocks of people came from the interior to the coast, in order to find work in one of the hotels. Now the tourists have stayed away, many of the hotels are closed and the population, hopelessness is spreading. Many decide to go back to their home villages where they can at least stay in the security of an extended family, are not on their own and at least have a small field for maize cultivation. Others who have given up hope yet not quite looking for cheaper accommodations - Mombasa is an expensive place.
in the situation of school: The 3rd and 4 Primary school class to use the worship space as a classroom for the 1st and 2 Class was as an interim solution, a rented building with 2 classrooms (but the cost is 150 € per month). The kindergarten children and the many preschoolers use the "old" building that was donated many years ago by a group from Germany. With this breakdown, the high school population to be reduced in the classes and each class has a private room available (Except for 3rd, 4th)
Pastor Dickson's wife, who has managed the center, in mid-December to acute renal failure died. The pastor himself is in bad shape, he's always in the hospital.
The school administration is led by Judith, a capable, loving 61-year-old widow, who also takes care of the foster children of the pastor. A mammoth task ... and so we have her Nancy, the young social worker, made to the side. For the next 2 months we have paid a small salary advance their private and will see to it that Judith is not overloaded and we also get the necessary information.
We'll see how things develop, how is the pastor. We can wait only hope and pray that everything is going well.
Thank you for all the help and the Benefactor, which we received in the weeks before Christmas on a number of sponsors and thank you for the great interest in the new projects. We will gladly send more information or photos. Please just report ....
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