Saying good-bye to the children at the Vihiga Children’s School was much more difficult than I would have imagined. Before I left Friday afternoon I taught the older kids another Queen song ‘Somebody to Love’. I wanted to just teach it to the Grade 6 and 7’s, but many more kids packed the room. So I put it up with chalk on the blackboard-type thingy on the cement wall, and they learned it quite quickly, the different singing parts and all. There was one part they didn’t seem to get, so I broke it down into the doe-ree-me’s, using my hand to show when the notes went higher, and so every time they came to that part, their little hands went in the air like I did, thinking I suppose that it was part of the song. Anyway, we went outside and did a little concert for the rest of the school. The kids were so proud, and I was of them. But it’s things like that that make it hard to leave. Also knowing that most of the grade 8’s that will graduate in December, will probably not be able to afford the $300 to go to high school. After high school you can get a job, but without high school you’re out of luck. It’s a shame, as these kids are quite bright, and it’s hard to believe their future depends on a few hundred bucks. But with every challenge there is opportunity, and so the birth of ‘micro-Eduloan’, a new idea as an extension of the micro-finance programs that are quite popular in developing countries. So this is how it will work: we lend high school students the money to go to school, they pay it back when they start working, and any money paid back is then re-lent to other graduating students. Since it will be hard to administer from Canada, we make a school like Priscilla’s responsible for collection, for any money they can collect will go toward funding one of their newly graduating students. So the school is incented to ensure collection. We’re going to fund a few students this way to start the program and see how it goes.
After a sad good-bye to the children of the school, we took a matatu over hugely potholed roads to Kima - part two of our volunteering, with the Kipepeo Community Empowerment Program. Kima is an hour fromVihiga. We pulled up to the office of Kipepeo - it was odd knowing where we were going in such a remote part of the world. We met Jethron, the third member of Kipepeo who was away the last time Scott and I were here. He’s a bundle of energy, very outgoing, and with a heart of gold. He has the same values as Jesse and Julius, whom we knew from the last trip. We had a short meeting to set out the next few days. Jesse and Julius soon joined us - it was really great to see them again.. Interestingly, they took all our comments last year quite seriously. They implemented many of them, for instance, we challenged them to expand and get themselves into a better office. And to our surprise, they did! Their new office opening is tomorrow. They now have about 15 or so volunteer projects on the go, with about 8 volunteers from abroad working with them for several months. These guys really make things happen, which solidifies why we are comfortable being involved with their fund-raising activities, as we know they will do what they say they will. We also met some of the volunteers - Kim (guy) from Denmark, Jenna from Finland, Helene from France, Cameron from New Zealand, Philip from Czech Republic, and Konomy from Japan. Quite an international group. Some are teaching at a school, some were laying cement on a school floor, and so on.
About the cement floor - school floors are mostly dirt since the walls are made of a mixture of mud and clay, and these microscopic worms called ’jiggers’ jump from the floor to the kids’ feet and burrow there, growing and laying eggs. Abad untreated case is quite devastating. If the school has the money they will lay a cement floor, like the project Kim is working on. If not, then they scrub the floor with cow manure once a week, which keeps the jiggers away for at least a few days.
We checked into a hotel called ‘Uncle Sam’s’ which is a basic room with - get this - running warm water! Quite a luxury on this trip thus far. The following morning we walked into Kima to the celebration of Kipepeo’s new office opening. It was a great event and the guys were so proud. There were representatives from the village government as well as many others. Speeches, cutting of the ribbon, cake, and an 70-year-old accordian player who was constantly playing in the background.
We soon took a matatu to Luanda, a larger town near the village of Kima. Kipepeo organized a meeting with the street children and teens of Luanda. Many of the kids come from homes where the parents have died of aids and they are left on their own with no education or jobs. Many don’t even have ID’s which would at least get them in the running for a job. So they sleep on the streets and scrounge for food. We gave them soccer balls and had a big soccer game with them and got to meet them. Of course Nikki was in her element with the soccer, though the competition was quite fierce. The accordian player appeared out of nowhere and continued to fill the background with music. It was reminiscent of Monty Python’s ‘Cheese Shop’ sketch. Afterwards we took the kids to a nearby church and gave them a lunch of beans, cabbage, rice and chapote (a grilled flat bread). We were quite impressed with this organization that we gave some of the non-‘Vihiga Food For Life’ donation money to them to continue helping the street kids.
That night was the worst sleep so far. The mosquitoes get into the room (can you say malaria?) and we couldn’t get the mosquito nets set up just right. They had to move the bed to the side of the room to bring in another bed as the rooms are made for only 2 people and they don’t believe in roll-away cots. So the hook for the net was not centred over the bed any longer so we had to rig up some other way to hang the nets. We were well covered, but uncomfortable. Anyway, learning from our mistakes, we fixed it quite comfortably for the remaining nights.
The next morning the Kipepeo gang met us at our hotel and we talked about the events for the day. First Kipepeo wanted us to teach them some business skills. Such a general topic, we narrowed it down to what they were having problems with, and put them on a plan to be able to successfully manage a project. For example, one idea they had which we strongly recommended was to open a Cyber Café and offer internet services, cell phone charging services, and printing sservices. So we showed them how to make a plan and set deadlines. If all goes well, they should be open for business in their new office by the beginning of March next year. And these guys can make it happen.
Dan came by to see us. He was a man Scott and I met last trip. Years ago he contracted AIDS and was so distraught that he had brought death to his family that he dug graves for them and was planning on poisoning them. Before he did that he went away for some time to think, and when he came back, the new AIDS medicine gave him a new lease on life, and he became the spokesperson for AIDS awareness for the area, devoting many volunteer hours to getting people to be tested and to follow safe practices in order to prevent contracting the disease. Dan was happy and gregarious as ever, it was good to see him again.
Then we presented Kipepeo with a cheque from our non-lunch-program fund-raising efforts. The interesting thing with these guys is that they have never asked us for money. Even before we came, when we asked them how much it would cost to be part of their projects as is the case with most volunteers, they said that just having us come and teach would be enough, that they valued our friendship. Fair enough. And remember, these guys don’t have jobs, they volunteer on a full-time basis, I still can’t understand how they eat. They say they’re used to eating when there’s food, and going without when there’s not. So when we gave them the cheque, I will always remember the look on their faces - surprise, gratitude, shock, happiness, almost tears, all in the same instant in time. And at that moment I could see straight into their hearts - it was quite amazing - these guys are completely and utterly in this to help people only. I have not witnessed such humanity, it was so refreshing to share that moment.
We were then to take a hike through the hills to Luanda, about a 3-hour hike. It took us thru the many small villages dotted across the landscape. Once we heard music and looked into the opening of this church. We were immediately invited in. The service stopped and they welcomed us and had us introduce ourselves to the congregation, They sang some songs for us and told us we were welcome back anytime. What amazing people. And since their church, Pentecostal, apparently started in Canada, they were convinced that God had sent us for that visit at that moment in time. It was a wonderful visit.. Though the hike took us through beautiful scenery, moments like that made this hike spectacular.
As we hiked through villages, children would run out to greet us. People always waved and watched as we passed by, very interested in us. We hiked through amazing landscape, as this part of the country was dotted with these huge boulders and rock formations, massive rocks balancing on each other, just amazing sites. In one village we saw black-faced monkeys come down from the trees. The hike ended in the streets of busy, loud Luanda. We were invited to meet some officials for the town of Luanda. The councillors put their days on hold to meet us. It gave us some insight into the people running the local government offices.
That night was very special, as we were to stay with a host family for the night and experience a night in the life of a western Kenyan. We took a matatu in the dark, got out and hiked about a kilometre past corn fields and villages to the family’s home. It was a mud hut for lack of a better phrase, it had a few rooms but had a comfortable feel to it, especially with everyone sitting in the same main room for some late evening cultural entertainment. We sang songs, played some games, and had a nice, Kenyan dinner. When it was time to sleep, 5 slept in one of these rooms, and Ute, Nikki and I slept in another nearby home of the host’s parents. There was no electricity, only a kerosene lamp and any flashlights we brought with us, The Kenyans are used to the dark; through the evening kids would show up at the door having hiked from somewhere in the pitch dark. My headlamp spotted a nicely-sized spider on the wall just outside of the mud-walled room we were to sleep that night, and all that talk of jiggers made me a tad uneasy, particularly when I found I was to sleep on the dirt floor - like a gentleman, I gave Ute and Nikki the raised bed frame where they put their sleeping bags on the slats of the bed. Actually, I fought them for it but they ganged up on me and won. Anyway, back in the main hut, there was no place to hang mosquito nets for the other 5 of us, so we tied our rope from one log holding the steel roof in place, to another log, which made a tight line to hang the nets. Our room had roof logs low enough to hang our nets directly on, so nestled in our sleeping bags and under our nets, wee actually had a decent night’s sleep. I woke to the barnyard animals’ noises. It was nice to just lay there and listen to the Swahili spoken in the morning in the other rooms as the family members awoke and tended to their morning. The light streamed into a small window cut in the outside wall of our room - it was to be a beautiful day. Then a little chicken walked into our room looking for something to eat. It was bizarre and intriguing all at the same time - what a wonderful experience.
We had breakfast in the hut and Jethron told us stories of the refugee camps in northern Kenya near the borders of Somalia, Kenya and Sudan, a few hundred miles north. People are starving up there as it is very arid, there is no food, and many people are packing into these camps, running from the fighting in Somalia and Sudan. He went up there for volunteer work recently, and he said that you feel quite guilty eating the little food volunteers get when the guy next to you is dying of starvation. But the volunteers are needed and he did some good work up there. We wondered why there were no female street children the day we visited them in Luanda, and he told us they hide during the day and sell their ‘services’ in the night. They even get into knife fights over who gets the next customer, as they are so eager for money to eat with.
We walked from the huts to a nearby church where there was a meeting of the leaders of the microfinance groups, eager to hear some words of wisdom from the ‘mzungus’ from Canada. Scott, Matias and I spoke about business matters and gave them some ways that they can expand their small businesses or differentiate themselves from all the other vendors in the marketplace. They seemed to appreciate the advice. Then we went into Luanda to see the Monday Luanda market, the second largest market in Kenya. It was a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells. There were so many people crowding around the many stalls. All sorts of things were being sold, from agriculture products laid on plastic sheets on the ground, to rusted tins to be used as kerosene lamps, to dried fish laying on wooden tables, hunks of meat laying in the open air covered in flies, baskets, bracelets, and so on. At one point a man who was following us came right up beside me. He was much too close, so something was up. He quickly brushed against my pant pocket with his hand. I said ‘What, are you looking for my wallet?’ He smiles and shook his head yes, and then left. He didn’t make for a good thief. But at least he was honest.
Back in Kima Nikki and I had a meeting with Kipepeo to design their new website. Nikki and I decided to create a website and blog for them when we returned to Vancouver, aimed at the international volunteers.
Today, Tuesday, was a great day. Sadly, it is our last day with Kipepeo. We started the day helping some medical volunteers to inoculate children 5 and under from polio. We were to roam the nearby villages looking for any family with children 5 years and younger. The medical staff would administer the polio vaccine in the form of droplets by mouth, 2 drops per child. Then we would colour the fingermail of the baby finger of the child on the left hand with a marker to signify they were inoculated, and a volunteer would write with chalk on the door of the hut how many children lived there and were inoculated. The medical staff told us stories of how they used to give out a mosquito net for each child inoculated, But since the staff didn’t keep track of which kids were inoculated, some mothers would have their child inoculated, take the mosquito net, and then have their child inoculated again to get a second net. The problem was that the inoculation is strong, and as a result, many children actually died. So now they are more careful and colour the fingernail. It was really great being part of this project this morning, as it took us into the bowels of the Kima villages, deep into the rural parts of the town. We all enjoyed the experience.
Afterward, we toured a nearby hospital. Scott and I had been there last year, and in the same fashion, the head of the hospital invited us in for introductions and to answer our questions. We then toured the women’s ward and the birthing room. I won’t get into details about the rooms or the cleanliness or the equipment, just be glad you have access to the hospitals in Canada that you have. We saw the HIV wing where people are tested and given medicine monthly which allows HIV positive people to live fairly normal lives.
We went back to Kima to meet up with the Kipepeo folks and all the other international volunteers. Today is Laurissa’s buirthday and the Kipepeo guys put together a great, very touching party. They also made a huge cake, and we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ in about 10 different languages as per the customs of the people at the table. It was a great time, and Laurissa’s tears showed she was quite touched. A sad good-bye to all the volunteers even after only knowing them for a few days. Then back to the hotel. There we met Dan and his whole family - we had heard so much about them it was nice to finally meet them. They are great people. They live off of the crafts that Dan and his family make - if there is a way for us to help him sell his wares on the Internet, then we’ll help him, he’s such a great guy and an inspiration to all of us.
Then we met the Kipepeo guys at our hotel for a final meeting on next steps and their future plans. Nikki called Michael during the meeting and the guys met Michael over the phone. It was really great to talk to him. Then we said our good-byes and went into our rooms to pack. Tomorrow we’re off to Masai Mara. Our work here at Kima is done - for now.
Paul
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