Too many questions, too few answers ...

I was talking yesterday to a friend who called for a cuppa, and to another friend ... an internet friend who has supported the project.

They were both saying more or less the same thing about street children, that we can't and shouldn't judge other countries by our standards and customs.   But surely its not right even by third world standards for children to be  thrown out of, or run away from the home ?  

When I first went to Africa 43 years ago, the one thing that impressed me more than anything was the sense of family among the Africans we knew and the joy that children bring to the extended community of peoples related by blood and by marriage.  True, children were expected to help around the homestead, and little girls had to look after the babies, just as small boys were sent out to care for the goats and sheep.   All part of training for adulthood.   And the other thing that impressed was that people were happy with their lot in life; laughter and conversations were always to be heard ... people would be walking along a path in the bush, and the conversation would start from a distance as they walked towards one another; a brief hand shake and personal greetings were exchanged, and then the talking and the laughter would continue as they passed and continued walking until they were out of hearing. 

What I am trying to describe is a sort of togetherness; an intimacy, a joy in ones friends that we don't have here ... you try shaking hands with everyone you pass on a walk even if you know them extremely well !  

So with this sort of background, a tradition of concern for each other, its strange that street children even exist.   Its not the African way !    So it would seem that there has been a breakdown in tradition ... why ?  

Well, having been back to Kenya for a month, and seen the way people are, still friendly, welcoming, generous when they have nothing by our standards, then I think what I wrote originally several months ago still partly stands ... see  http://luolaughter.blogspot.com/2010/07/empire-or-independence.html

In the month I was there, we encountered hospitality, generosity, gifts, friendship beyond anything we would have expected.   Can I quote one example of what I mean ?   We employed a lady called Lilian, recommended to us by Paul as someone who was an excellent cook and totally trustworthy.   We paid her the recommended amount, I forget exactly how much, but she was delighted to be earning what to us seemed totally inadequate.  (We gave her a very generous bonus when we left !)   The day before we left she invited ... insisted ... we went to her home for tea.  So we did.  She was living in a one roomed house with her husband and two children ... the room was about the size of the average bathroom.

Lilians house ... the door on the left is the next door house; there were three in the row.

This picture may give a better idea of the size of her house; the white knees (!) are Nigels, sitting with Gill with their backs against the wall.   The blue curtain behind Lilian screens off a single bed, where the whole family sleeps.   The total furniture in this room was four chairs, the table you see, the hidden bed, and a sewing machine !   (She is a superb seamstress.)   In an alcove hidden on the left was a tiny area where she cooked.   Toilets are somewhere outside, and used by the whole neighbourhood, water has to be carried from a short distance away. 

While we were visiting, she gave us cold drinks, and biscuits she had bought specially.  But note this ... she had bought TWO packets of biscuits (together probably a days wages because they are a luxury item) and the second packet was shared out by her and her daughter who had just come home from school, with the children from the other houses around who were gathered outside her open door to watch us ! 

Waiting for the biscuits !

Put this 'tea' party into an English context ... hard to do, isn't it.    Lilian gave us, and the children of the neighbourhood, the equivalent of a days wages ... because she had become our friend. 

A walk to meet some of Kisumu's street children

This is a subject I have avoided until now; the plight of street children is very emotive and upsetting, when I come from a society where by and large children are cared for in a home situation (I know that sadly there are exceptions to every rule).

I wrote earlier in my blog about the street children of Kisumu, and their addiction to glue sniffing; have a look back at  http://luolaughter.blogspot.com/2010/08/sunday.html   and  also http://luolaughter.blogspot.com/2010/08/children.html     

The picture below shows the 'home' of many of the street children of Kisumu.   Its the town rubbish dump, covering a site of about 5 acres, surrounded by a high corrugated iron fence.   There are fires burning and smouldering on it day and night; more rubbish is delivered each day by lorries ... mostly plastic it seems, but also rotting food, ragged clothes ...  I suppose the fires and the heat generated by rotting food keeps the children warm in the nights when the temperature drops.

In the second floor apartment we were sharing with someone from Pandipieri, we were living almost within sight of this dump, and we walked past it every time we went to the supermarket (which ironically is touching one side of the rubbish dump fence !) ... or drove in a tuk-tuk to the work-site.

The smell can be imagined, as can the smoke which at times is choking, and probably full of nasty chemicals from the burnt plastic.   But, almost every time we passed it, there were young  children scavenging among the rubbish, or even playing on it. 

I never found out how many street children there were in Kisumu, and the ones that ventured into residential areas were driven away with sticks or thrown stones as potential thieves ... which they probably were.  I was told by a street worker that the numbers are increasing.

My (copious !) diary for 17th February records a walk at night we had with a street worker.  I wrote:-

     "Paul arranged for us to meet with a friend of his from the mission, Alex, who has worked with and befriended street boys for seven years.  Nigel and I went with Paul and met Alex near the main town market (not Kibuye) just at dusk as it was closing.   We asked him the how and why boys (and occasionally girls) end up begging, stealing, glue sniffing on the streets.  As I expected, the extended family break-ups due to too many members of a large united family  dying from HIV/AIDS putting pressure on the remaining adults, who just can't cope with many children to care for, and often abuse them or send them away to look after themselves.
     Already boys were appearing in two's and three's, glue bottles held in their teeth or stuck to their lip, so that the fumes are constantly with them.  But many also slipped the glue bottle into their pockets or held it behind their backs while Alex spoke to them.  Were they perhaps slightly embarrassed ?  Or ashamed ?
     The boys weren't as ragged as I expected them to be, but it was dark.  We continued to walk round the perimeter of the market and the bus station, and the streets nearby.  We kept stopping to speak to different groups; they all shook our hands, asked us our names, and then asked us for money or food. 
     Several boys were climbing out from of a broken culvert .. a deep storm drain which in the rainy season must be filled with fast flowing rain water - and rubbish, leaves and vermin the water collects on the way through the drains.   But they were dry now, and provided some shelter for the boys living in them.   Many of the boys slept in the open air market area, where there are permanent rough stalls they can sleep under, and there is also all the waste fruit , vegetables and fish lying around ...
     Some of the boys were in a group outside a small lighted duka (shop) squatting on the pavement gambling with small coins or bottle tops.   The fumes of cheap shoe glue (like that in UK from certain brands of marker pens) which eminated from the boys were very strong; many boys were sky high, drunk, incoherent from the fumes, unable to stand without support.  Several of the boys were wearing Barak Obama t-shirts or badges or belts - he is the local hero, as the grandson of a Luo from near Kisumu.   I wonder how he would react to the sight of drunk, doped street children, wearing his image ?  Perhaps I should write and ask him !
     We had been warned not to wear jewellery or a watch or have anything in our pockets; at one point I felt a hand slide into my pocket and spun round to see the grinning face of a boy who had checked to see if I had anything worth stealing in my pocket !   I just grabbed his hand, and shook it and we smiled ...
     We continued our walk around the duka's in the dark, with Alex speaking to many boys that he knew by name.  We saw where they buy glue ... which is sold to street shoe-menders quite legitimately.
     Alex said that many of these children (who were aged between 8 and 15, I'd guess) had been abused in the home and had run away; girls who had done so were rounded up as soon as they were seen, by female street workers, and taken to a childrens home. 
     The street boys were on the whole friendly, polite and interested in Nigel and I, but I was glad I was with African friends while we talked to the boys; in the dark, surrounded by up to 20 doped children and teenagers had a slightly threatening, uneasy air to it.
     It was interesting to hear what Alex had to say about why many of the children preferred street life when they had got used to it.  They said that in the orphanages they got three meals a day, but scavenging around the markets meant they could also find meat and fish to eat, (even if it was going off) which was expensive and scarce in the orphanage diets.
     Boys who do show an interest in moving off the streets are investigated to see if their natural families can in any way take them back; often there are problems either with the child or the adults such that they can't or won't.   Foster families are now coming forward in Kenya and some boys do find new families (who are aided by money to help them support the child).  Otherwise there are orphanages who can take them.  Boys very addicted to glue go to a re-hab centre ... but it was emphasised that the boys themselves have to be willing to change their lives.   Often they prefer the gang life-style that develops on the streets ...
     Pandipieri copes with many ex street boys, and has an 'informal' school to educate boys up to a certain level ... informal because its is outside the state system.    We were delighted to hear that the workshop site foreman builder had himself been a street boy once; he was taken in by the mission and trained as a builder; now he is married and has a child, and he is also a fine artist ... "

I also noted in my diary that later that night, there was the first storm of the coming rainy season ... I hoped that the boys in the culverts got out in time, and found somewhere to shelter... 

Mark's gospel says:- "For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you wish, you can do good to them ... "

Scenes from around the work-site

As well as working for hours each day on the site, we had to have very necessary five minute breaks ... a 'banana stop' we called such breaks ... time for a long drink of tepid (boiled) water and a banana or a couple of sweets or some nuts.   Time also for a visit to the site 'lo-type' loo !  During this short respite from sieving sand (did I mention before the absolute Sahara of sand we sieved ?!) ... we were able to stop and watch life going on around the site, where there were several nearby houses, some very basic, built of earth with a tin roof, and one or two modern brick and cement flats.   Much of every day life was lived outdoors, as space inside was very limited.  Dishes were washed outside, clothes too; and the little children had outdoor baths.  Washing was hung to dry on the barbed wire surrounding the site, and it was possible to see the holes made by the barbs in some of the sheets and shirts !   People came and went all day, and we had some fun trying to work out who was who, which children belonged to which parents and the various relationships. 

This was the site watchmans house; he was a carpenter, and his wife and son also lived in the tin house which must have been terrifically hot ... but the doors were always open.   Luo women do most of their work on the ground, bent double in this posture; indeed I still dig my own garden with an African jembe, bent like this !  Goodness knows when my hips will give out !

One of the twins

This was a small primary school near to the site;

we think it was probably where the watchman's son went off to each day,

wearing his smart uniform.

Fetching water; usually done by women with a wheelbarrow or a donkey.

Bathtime for this little pot-bellied girl who lived next to the site, and who was terrified the whole time we were there if we spoke to her, or came near her.   Our white faces were fascinating to most other children; they wanted to touch us and stroke our hair.

The view of a flowering flamboyant tree taken from the workshop roof.  The big hoarding across the road is just visible ... these huge hoardings were something new in Kenya, and in my opinion, hideous and advertising quite inappropriate things !

The lady who came every day to the site to sell us bananas.

From the roof of the workshop ... local goats searching for banana skins to eat !

The site scaffolding planks and poles,

 which Gill and I laboriously got up onto the roof for storage.

After the bath, time to try on Mummy's best yellow shoes !

A visit to the Covenant orphanage/school at Dunga

A friend of mine in Thailand, who used to live in Kenya, has for several years been sponsoring a girl in the Covenant School and Orphanage, which is in Dunga, a fishing village at the end of the lake road.   He asked me to go there and visit her, so I did !

This orphanage is quite remarkable, and as a Christian, when I heard how it was started, I immediately thought of the story in Lukes gospel ... where a rich man is told he won't  'enter the kingdom of heaven' because he says he cannot do what Jesus asks of him ... "Sell everything you have and give to the poor" ...

The orphanage was started about 18 years ago by an amazing lady, who went to Kenya as a tourist, (and as an atheist !) and saw the children living on the streets, and learned how many of them were AIDS orphans.  Her heart was touched, she had a sudden conversion, and became a Christian.  But more than that ... she returned to her native Norfolk, sold her house and all she had, and returned to Kenya where she used her money to buy a plot of waste land near Dunga, by the lake, and built a small house, where she took in about a dozen orphans.   From that small beginning, grew the school ... which now has about 200 children boarding there, almost all orphans, and several with HIV.   The school is a great success - being the third best school in Kisumu; most pupils are sponsored from abroad as it is a private school, not a government school and therefore is not paid for by the state.  Past pupils have gone on to study medicine; started successful businesses;  gone into law and other professions, and are in their turn, helping to support the school which gave them a start in life.

So here are some pictures of the school and the children ... starting with the lady, 'Mama Pat',  who started it all !

Lucy, sponsored by a friend of mine living in Thailand ! 

The school hall;

as this is an evangelical Christian school,

there are religious slogans everywhere.

Watching TV on Saturday afternoon ...

... and if its too hot to watch TV, then  

a siesta is a better way to spend Saturday afternoon !



A simple wire hoop is a good toy.

A walk through Kibuye Market, Kisumu

Kibuye Market in Kisumu is reputed to be one of the largest in Kenya; it certainly seems quite possible that it is !  It operates all day on Sundays, and on a very small scale in the week.  We walked through a couple of times on a Sunday afternoon.  I didn't like to openly take pictures of people, so I'm afraid I cheated, by leaving my camera turned on, and held at waist level, where I clicked the shutter button every so often, and in that way took about 200 photos ... some turned out to be of the ground or the sky, but looked at together, they provided me with a wonderful record of this very vibrant market and the people therein.

The 'stalls' are mostly on the ground, arranged in 'areas', for example, all the clothes sellers are together, all the cabbage sellers in another area, and so on.   In the dry season, the dirt and dust and rubbish everywhere can't be too much of a problem ... but when the rainy season was in full swing ... I can imagine the ankle deep mud, rubbish, dung, and rotting vegetables must have made the place quite different to what we saw.

Sellers of secondhand clothing from donor countries in Europe and the USA

Sandals made from recycled old car tyres, much favoured by the Maasai !

Cabbages by the thousand !

Tomatoes ...

... and one of the ladies who sold tomatoes.

Charcoal sellers

Slogans advocating safe sex are everywhere to be seen

Baskets ... I bought ten of these to bring back as gifts !  

Sukumu wiki (a type of kale) ... either sold as whole leaves or ready shredded !

This older  lady has a typical Luo face

My all time favourite fruit ...mangoes !



Stall on the right selling combs, clothes pegs and small items

Oranges ... yes, they are green in Kenya !

More clothes for sale

Dry goods ... beans, maize, cassava ...

Small, sun-dried (and rather smelly) lake fish sold by the tinful

Carrying the shopping home

Windows and porridge ...

So once the man with the welding equipment had managed to obtain the necessary square sectioned metal rods, and had also been delayed due to power cuts, we had nine windows made, and ready to be installed.  This work went along at the same time as we continued to sieve sand ...still with one and a half shovels, remember ... the half being a shovel with the handle broken, so it was only about 18" long, instead of full length !  

We continued to fetch and carry, sieve sand, mix cement, make 'plaster' almost the whole time we were in Kisumu ... except for the few occasions when we made concrete for a doorstep ... almost the same recipe as the plaster or mortar, but with the addition of gravel ... which we scraped out from the holes in the road outside the site, which we had a few days before filled with the stones we sieved out of the sand !   

We formulated a motto:-  'If a job is worth doing, its worth doing twice, or even three times' !     This applied to most jobs ... the gravel; moving the scaffolding poles and planks onto the roof ...and then down again; and then to the sand !   Yes, we sieved some of it twice ... because the plasterers needed finer sand for the finishing coat of 'rough cast' plaster for the ceilings ! 

Gill and I sieve the sand for the second time through a fine mesh ...

... and Frederick uses the twice sieved sand in a 'rough cast' mix for the ceilings.  

Note the somewhat flimsy scaffolding he is bouncing around on !

Another job we did frequently, though mostly in the afternoons, was to make 'porridge' ... this was a top coat of liquid plaster made with water, cement powder and lime ... horrible stuff; we wore goggles and face masks to mix the fine lime powder until it got wet and didn't fly up into our faces. It was amazing that the plasterers could make this liquid top coat stick to the walls, but it gave a very nice smooth surface, ready for painting one day.

Finished walls and textured ceiling ready for paint,

and the metal windows in place.

The outside of the building, brickwork rendered and the windows installed

and just awaiting the arrival of the metal doors for the front of the workshop.

Compare this with the photo of the building as it was when we arrived !

Lots of my friends, family and people in the village where I live, and even friends in other countries, made generous donations to the project; I had originally said it would go towards buying bricks for the second storey, but as the project changed we had to spend the money differently.

So, my dear friends, you have paid for nine large burglar proof metal windows, three internal wooden door frames, (Paul will make the wooden doors later), two large metal outer doors, maybe 60 or 80 bags of cement, many bags of lime, a hose, tons and tons and tons of river sand, wire mesh for making the sieve we sweated over every day, string for holding the scaffolding together, water, electric conduiting and associated bits, one or two odd tools like trowels and a hammer, some six inch nails and other things like delivery costs.

Nigel spent time going through the accounts with Paul, (watched by the children living near the site !) ... Paul is meticulous down to the last nail, and then went with him to the suppliers and paid the bills. The men who worked on the site, Stephen in charge, Meshak, Frederick, George and Mbom were also paid ... I don't know exactly how much, but wages in Kenya are VERY low ... even for skilled workmen.  

I think I have forgotten to mention that the boys who will use the site are orphans who are either struggling to support siblings or have nowhere to live except the streets.   We were delighted to learn that one of the site workmen had himself been an orphaned street boy; he had been trained at Pandipieri Mission in the building trade, and was now a very skilled workman, married and with a child of his own !   So very satisfying when you can see the result of just a little help given to the needy. 

Now our group of four have to raise a little more money to get the project actually working ... until the first group of teenagers have been trained to a standard where they can generate an income by making and selling, for e.g. school desks, there will be costs. Paul will have to buy a few more tools ... we took a lot of my fathers carpentry tools with us, but more are needed. There will be wood needed for the boys to learn on. Annual costs will be the Kenya version of Council Tax on the site; and there will also be modest costs for water and electricity. None of these costs are anything like what we would expect in UK, so the amounts we have to raise are very modest ... a few hundred ££ only ... nothing compared with the initial amounts we raised to take out with us. I personally feel that I can raise money through the inevitable coffee mornings, village soup lunches and charging for giving talks to organisations like the WI !!

Two wheel-barrows, a bucket, a small brush, one and a half shovels ... and now a HOSE !

After about a week of slogging on the site, we decided we just couldn't cope with the short hose-pipe that had appeared, consisting of several pieces of garden hose and water piping, joined together with sticky tape, which leaked and dripped along its length into bowls we used to catch the drips ... and we splashed out about £25 and BOUGHT a brand new hose !   Joy, oh joy ... to us and to the workmen.   No more carrying buckets of water !

I was particularly glad, for once some of the plastering had been done, it was the task of Gill and I to throw water at the ceilings and walls, to keep the plaster damp so it dried out more slowly than the heat allowed. Of course, throwing water at the ceiling using the bucket and an old plastic container meant most of it dropped all over us, rather than soaking into the plaster !

But once we had a hose, we could squirt the ceilings and walls ... and each other when the thumb over the end slipped !   However, the low and varying water pressure meant the water that was supposed to go upwards to the ceilings, invariably ran back down our arms and after half an hour of damping down, we were soaked to the skin !   BUT ... in that heat, it was pure pleasure to get soaked twice a day with cold water !   Until we did more sand sifting, when of course the sand stuck to our wet clothes and itched and rubbed ...

(One of Gills pictures)

One afternoon we went to visit the man who was making the windows; these were to be metal opening windows, but with burglar proofing also ... an internal framework of welded square sectioned metal.   Metal workers know about things like arc-eye, and that sparks can burn ... so we weren't really surprised to find the welders using sun-glasses to protect their eyes, while they welded wearing flip-flops on their feet !   

The man who was making the windows for the workshop

Health and safety is a nightmare in Africa ... the scaffolding used on site being very shakey; it had old nails sticking out of the planks, and the whole lot was supported by gum poles and string ... it collapsed at least once, and I was on hand with a camera on one occasion just as it did ! Luckily, no-one was hurt; after lots of laughter and some swearing, the workmen just put it back together.

One day there was no mains water at all ... so we had to buy some from one of the men who delivered water on a hand-cart around the neighbourhood.    I was a little worried about his containers ...

(Gills photo)