BECOMING ONE OF THOSE STORIES – When visitors come to Kenya we always do some sort of orientation, words of advice etc etc, and usually cover some sort of security info. Sat round the dinner table with friends the issue of security comes up a lot, we talk about stories we have heard, ‘I heard the other day a guy was car jacked near...., did you hear about that house that was robbed the other week....’ its not like its in every conversation but it can come up quite a bit. Then on trips back to the UK or talking with friends I relay those stories on to people, almost in the vain hope that perhaps it sounds quite cool and a little bit dangerous working in Kenya, living on the edge you know and all that. But despite the stories, and as much as I have tried to take care of myself and those of the people with me I guess I never truely believed I would become one of those stories myself...
It was Christmas eve, a frenetic time organising Christmas for the kids at Cheryl’s, greeting visitors, organising volunteers. I was tired, excited, overwhelmed and rushing around like a mad man. At 4pm I offered to drop a volunteer off at The Junction (a shopping centre) and 2 of our girls (aged 15 and 17) who were helping house sit Samuels house while he was up country. Both the girls and the volunteer needed to be at the places by 4:30pm. I needed to fill more soda crates for Christmas day as I had only filled the ones from my house earlier in the day because the ones at Cheryls had been locked in a room and Rose had the key but was out at the time. I normally fill crates near my house at a wholesaler but didn’t have time to go there. We rushed into Dagoretti Corner where I knew of another wholesaler, thinking lets get this done on the way to dropping off the girls. We went into Corner but the wholesaler was shut... time was ticking on, I went round to a kiosk i knew and tried there. They had crates but were selling at 100ksh extra per crate and that meant an extra £3:50 in total. Knowing I could definitely get them cheaper at my house even though it was a hassle going back there I decided lets not pay more than we have to. The kiosk lady said there was another wholesaler near by we could try there, almost over the road from where Cheryls is. We wizzed round to the place and found it. Its virtually on the main road, next to a few tin shack house. There was a small entrance with a corrugated iron gate and about a 30metre track to the Coca Cola containers where they sell. The way my car had been facing I decided it was easier to just reverse in and then I could unload the crates. The drive way was only big enough for one car. Just as I had arrived at the gate there were 3 men walking into the depot, i asked if this was the depot and they confirmed, one of them kindly offered to open the gate fully so I could get in. I reversed up the drive and got out, there were some staff around and other shoppers buying sodas. I open the back of the car and started to unload crates. I had put 2 crates on the floor and then it all kicked off.
The next 60 seconds has taken some time to piece together in my mind but I think I have finally got it. As I was about to unload the 3rd crate I looked up and saw a guy take a gun out of is jeans, for a moment I puzzled thinking ‘why does a guy have a gun and why has he taken it out and unlocked it ready etc...?’. Instinct must have kicked in because I don’t quite remember but i must have shut the boot door leaving 2 crates still inside my car and I headed to the drivers seat. Just before I could get in another guy grabbed me and twisted me round. I had my wallet in my back pocket ready to be used to pay for the sodas, he went to grab it and at first I tried to stop him, again instinct took over and my left hand quickly moved to my left pocket knowing my phone was in there and trying to prevent him taking it. As we struggled he yelled over to the guy holding the gun, who was moving it from pointing at me to pointing at the coca cola people by the containers. He yelled ‘Shoot him, Shoot him.... shoot shoot’ as I struggled with him. Realising what he was saying I released and he emptied the pockets. I resisted again him taking my inhaler and office keys almost arguing ‘wait whats the point, they are worthless’. The keys fell to the floor and at that point he left me to walk round the other side of the car. I turned and looked at the gate at the bottom of the drive. One door was closed but the other opened. The gate was not bolted into the ground and didn;t look too strong. Some how I don’t know but I still had my car keys, I think they were in my hand and the guy had not tried to get them. I heard them arguing with the volunteer on the other side of the car as they were trying to grab her bag and she was trying to get them to just leave the camera with the photos. I climbed into the drivers seat, with the pure determination we were getting out of there, the guy had left me for a few seconds and this was our chance. I started the engine, tried to rev the engine to make sure we didn’t stall, and I looked again at the gate and put my foot down. We raced down the short drive and with the bull bar on the car we blasted through the gate onto the dirt road getting to the main road. We raced onto Ngong road and I could hear the 2 girls in the back of the car upset, crying, shaking, I put my foot down and had one arm behind trying to comfort them. We quickly turned left and within about 30 seconds from leaving the depot we were back at the gates at Cheryls, I was banging on the car horn. The gates opened and we rushed in, everyone surprised I was back and confused with all the fuss etc. I opened the car door and got the girls out to hold them and to find people to come and be with them.
I was shaking, confused, felt like crying, angry, I paced around thinking what to do. My phone had all my contacts, I thought I had lost my keys and couldn;t get into my office, but eventually I found them in my car, I must have picked them off the floor when the guy dropped them, but don’t remember doing so. I got onto skype in the office and found the number of my sisters work trying to get hold of her but she was out. Then I realised i could cancel my cards myself using the skype phone. Eventually things calmed, the volunteers took taxis home rather than walk. The girls calmed and settled and I eventually left back to my house and then over to David and Juliets on the other side of the city which was the original plan for a Christmas eve meal.
THE AFTERMATH – Its been a strange few days, most of the time I have just felt sad, not sure why but just that feeling of depressed. On Christmas day we went to the police station to report and get an abstract for records, but knowing telling the police was a wait of time in terms of solving it. They had heard about the robbery from the coca cola people and were not surprised to hear from us. The rest of the day was spent with the kids and running Christmas. I’ll update the blog in the next week or so with all the Christmas chat, but for now I just need to write about this. The next morning I went to church early to do the worship and then over the David and Juliets who were having about 16 people over for a boxing day lunch etc. Everyone there was shocked at what happened and were trying to comfort me. In a way I hadn;t believed when the guy had said shoot shoot that he actually would. But as we shared stories of other cases i realised I was very lucky he didn;t. Often these guys are all drugged up and high, and with all the adrenaline people get shot in these situations. One guy was car jacked near the safari park, and while asking for the gunners to leave him with 100ksh to get a taxi they shot him in the stomach because they thought he was messing with them. Obviously as I wasn’t working so much it has given me more time to think and consider everything. Although I had heard the stories I still have had in my mind, that ‘ hey I’m white what can they do, too big a risk to hurt a white guy’, but that arrogance is just foolishness. People who have nothing to loose, who are probably high don’t care about that. Because of that at times since I felt like a fool. I questioned if I took too many risks and what if I had just gone to the wholesaler near my house, what if I had just paid the extra £3:50 what if I had been able to get the crates earlier in the day, what if I hadn;t been rushing round like an idiot would I have been more aware???? I felt guilty. But then I though what if I hadn;t reversed in, would I have driven away as I would have been facing tthe shooter while trying to revers, if we hadn;t reversed in I wouldn;t have driven away and escaped. So as much as I question my earlier decisions there were others that perhaps helped us. On reflection I don’t think we did anything majorly wrong, the guys had already walked into the depot to rob it, when we drove in it was simply a bonus for them and bad luck for us... literally wrong place at wrong time.
So now... I’m a bit more nervous, still very sad and still need to process. I need to review security at Cheryls and review my own security. The odds are slim of ending up in these situations but that doesn’t matter any more for me because it has happened. The odds of it happening twice are very slim... people have said well ok, you’ve had your one.. thats it, you came away unhurt, passengers were unhurt. But if I think too much like that I’ll relax and end up being arrogant that I’m untouchable now which would be foolish. As a guy I replay the situation over and over and feel should I have done more, could I have taken the guy robbing me down etc, but as its been pointed out to me most guys go through this feeling and again feel guilty they were not macho enough, but apparently all the security experts say the best thing a guy can do is to give up, hand over what they want and you stand the best chance of protecting the people with you. Goes against your instincts but if you feel as a guy you should protect the ones your with then just surrender. I guess this makes sense. Now I need to be strong, but I’m finding it hard to focus, hard to find energy to do anything, I’m exhausted and seem to have lost motivation. But i know this won’t last, I’ll come through it, I’ll be stronger for it, I’ll be more alert now and will be praying hard this never happens again. I am now one of those stories that people will tell, I’ll be that guy the was robbed at coca cola that got away with his life, his car and most importantly hsi passengers. I don’t want to be this story, its not cool, its not glamorous and I hate that its happened. But that’s it.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Friday, 27 August 2010
SEASONS
THE HUMAN ZIMMER FRAME – It was lunch time, I popped down to Nakumatt Junction to pick something up. As I headed to the washrooms I spotted an old lady coming out of the supermarket, she was very frail, slightly stooped over and had a teenage Kenyan girl on each arm helping her walk... I chuckled to myself as I headed into the washroom, picturing a supermarket scene in the UK with an old dear coming out of Tescos with her shopping bag, firmly gripping onto the metal zimmer frame, here if you have the money you can do away with the NHS provided metal frame and just employ some young girls to walk with you everywhere. It also reminded me of the labour markets here compared with home. In the West with think up and invent new gadgets that can reduce time consumed and the cost of employing someone, hey if a machine can do it then that’s much cheaper than a human (or so we think). But here in Kenya and I guess most of the developing world employment is low, so any excuse for someone to work the better, any possible job that can be done, forget a machine if someone can earn a living doing it so much the better. In many ways people in developing countries can be much more entrepreneurial than maybe us in the west. When you have no job you have to come up with something to make something, otherwise you starve! Occasionally I head into the city centre, but I try to avoid it when I can. Parking is a bit of a nightmare, the city council charges for parking on the streets, but thats pretty much all the options you have. The good thing is you buy a ticket from a city council worker (not a parking ticket machine of course) and that ticket can last you all day wherever you park in the city, whether you move your car or not... something I think they should do in the UK!! Because security is not always great and us white folk are paranoid about our shiny big 4x4’s there are various guys who spend their days hanging on the streets and when you park they offer to watch it for you, I mean you don’t really have a choice, so you go off and do your business and come back, the guy has watched your car so you give him some money. This happens all over, even in the slum market I sometimes go to buy stuff for the home. But some people have taken this even further, in the city centre they park a car in a bay... then wait for someone to come along who need a space, they offer the space, move the car and you take it, almost like they reserve it for you, then of course you pay them something. This is their job, this is what they do all day, thats how they make money. Any opportunity to create a job thats not even needed, but we still pay them because hey, thats a parking space and I need it, even if they have held it to ransom! Alan Sugar eat your heart out!
HERE COMES THE SUN – So its winter time here, or as they say at church Sumwinter... because no-one really knows what it is, for us in Kenya its winter, but for all the expats its what we traditionally call summertime and the private international schools this is the summer holiday, but anyways, we are all confused, but the one true fact is that there is not much sun at the moment. The good news though is that through a few connections Cheryls has been hooked up with Solar Aid, an organisation that helps primarily to provide solar power to schools and communities who are not on the grid and just using candle and lamps etc. Well they have decided to come and install some solar power at Cheryl’s to help reduce our electricity bills! It is truely amazing and we are so pleased. We are not sure the extent of how much we can put on solar but I know that Solar Aid is hoping for the whole institution to go Solar and basically take us off the grid, if we can do this it would be amazing, but even if it was just 50% it would still be amazing! It seems we have built up a good relationship with them, they are doing fantastic work and hopefully this installation will be mutually beneficial. If they can do a good installation, when their donors or visitors come into Kenya they can bring them to Cheryls and showcase what they are capable of, otherwise it’s a 10 hour drive into the country. It’s nice that this project will basically help both organisations. It also means our kids will learn about using solar power and protecting the environment and when there are power cuts in the city we will still have light and it won’t affect us, which is great because some of the kids can get upset and a bit traumatised when it’s so dark. Such a large solar installation will need maintenance and future investment, for example when batteries die (I think they have a shelf life of about 5 years). The suggestion from Miguel at Solar Aid is that we use a scheme they have called Sunny Money. We act as an agent, and get about 5 people who are basically sales persons to go around and sell these small solar products which cost about £5 - £10 for use in people’s homes, such as a solar powered light bulb, mobile phone chargers etc. These are everyday products that your average Kenyan citizen can use and will in the long run really benefit them. The sales person gets half the profit and the agents get half the profit from each sale. So if we take on the scheme, we can save the profits in an account and then use that when our main installation needs repairs or maintenance, and at the same time we can be creating jobs for around 5 people! Everyone wins, including the environment... all because of the sun.
SICK RON – so my big shiny 4 x 4 is called Ron after legendry Anchorman ‘Ron Burgundy’, in case you hadn’t figure it the colour of my car is Burgundy Red. Well last month Ron became a little sick and I have learnt a big lesson about how these roads and the quality of the petrol can really affect cars out here. The blocks my engine sits on where cracked, the distributer leads were blocked, spark plugs worn out, front brake discs gone, new brake pads needed and other bits and pieces such as fuel filters. This is even with the car being serviced every 4 months!!! The petrol can be very dirty out here and I have realised I should when possible put in the performance fuels when I can which are much cleaner. It’s an extra 5 shillings per litre but should be better on the engine. The roads are so bumpy and dusty that even with a 4 x 4 the cars really take a beating. I’ve had to spend over £500 in the last month on all these little jobs and the car still needs a proper service doing but I can’t afford that right now. I think as far as I can remember in the UK I never had spark plugs changed. I’ve gone to different garages and it has amazed me how much care these big cars need, I cannot imagine why anyone would drive a saloon car (well I guess money is a factor) but the saloon cars really don’t last long at all. Hopefully Ron will stay well for a little while, but I see the tyres are starting to wear out and a new set will cost around £450... woah! So keep up your prayers for Big Ron, he needs it!
PEACE OUT – Last time I updated you on the blog I was talking about the referendum on the new constitution, well miracle upon miracles everything went through peacefully and smoothly, it was fantastic. We all stocked up on food and water in our house ready to bunker down if needed, but the day went well, was just like a Sunday or a holiday, the result came in very fast and people seemed fine with it and accepted it was a fair vote. I wonder if people are a little optimistic expecting the 2012 parliamentary election to go as smoothly (mainly because that really will affect people’s jobs, i.e. the MP’s and they don’t go quietly) but at least it’s a step forward and there is a very positive vibe in the country. This morning as I am writing this they are signing the new constitution in Uhuru park in town with the full pomp and circumstance, military bands, big flags, dignitaries from other African countries and lots of speeches etc! It seems like the new constitution could be good for the country and although its not perfect it includes a lot of things that people want. The problem comes though with the leadership, because it’s fine to have a piece of paper that states what the laws should be, but if the guys at the top don’t enforce them then actually it becomes meaningless. We need to hold these guys at the top to account but time will tell if they really do change, or basically stick to being greedy and stealing from the poor to give to the already rich!
WE’RE ALL GOING ON A SUMWINTER HOLIDAY – the last month has been holidays for the school kids as we prepare to enter into the 3rd term of the year in September. Holiday times are great as the pressure eases for us in the office. Many of the kids go to stay with a relative which is great because this keeps them connected with the communities they come from and it also means we only have 20 kids left at the home which eases the burden on resources. Everything slows down a bit and many of the staff take some leave, and even for us who stay we tend to come in to work a little later and go home early. I think for some of the visitors this last month they have wondered if we are lazy or not... but in truth all of us are exhausted, not just the late night – next day feeling tired exhausted... but the 3 or 4 months of solid work, no rest, 6 or 7 day working week, seriously high pressured filled working days exhausted. When the holidays come it takes the pressure off myself and Samuel and we feel we can breathe a little. I personally have felt very worn out and exhausted the last month or 2 and I know I have started to get irritated at small things and I know that’s a sign of being worn out. Not sure I have been the happiest person to work with lately but hopefully I can come out of this dip. In the next week or so things hot up again as we hit the 3rd term. We have a number of kids doing their final term of high school and also primary school, its exam time for them and crunch point. I find myself in the parent role at the home encouraging the kids to revise, helping them put a programme together and buying past papers so they can practice. This is it, there are no second chances. So as they revise in this last week of holidays Samuel and I must try and find the financial resources to send them back to school, their fees, shopping, staff salaries for our teachers and food to feed the kids. The holidays are great and we do enjoy the chance to take it easy a little, but the end of the holidays sucks, it becomes the biggest pressure time as we scramble to get back into term again. I look forward to a proper holiday to the coast when my parents come out and visit next month.
SWING TIME – A couple of months ago a family that was moving donated loads of clothes and toys and a swing set! The swing set is designed just for a family use, and I knew it wouldn’t last 2 minutes with the 250 kids from school. We stored it behind the classrooms during the school term and in a way that was very unfair because the kids have been going crazy asking when they can go on it. In the UK we have so many public parks and playgrounds we often forget how lucky we are to have these free facilities. Swings for kids at the home are an absolute luxury and amazing thing to play on. So as term ended and most of the kids left I decided we could get them out and put them in the playground area. Many of the kids we have staying are quite young, around 4 and 5 so having these swings has been amazing. The ground was too hard to peg it down, but we used big stones to try and hold it down, I was a bit worried about injuries. We are having new classrooms being finished and there is building supplies everywhere, its a bit of a bomb site at the moment, and not the ideal playing area for kids, but these kids are very different to the UK. Here they learn to avoid these hazards and many visitors come and worry that kids will get hurt sometimes, but the kids have learnt to adapt to their environment, avoiding hazards and it always amazes me how few accidents we have. In fact most of the accidents are usually the older kids cutting their fingers on the sharp knives when chopping vegetables. When term starts we will have to put the swing set away, but I’m hoping when we have completed the building process we can raise some money and build a proper sand pit and some industrial strength swings like you get in parks... the kids would love it!
LUCKY – So I came to Kenya to work with orphans and vulnerable children, but in the process it seems I have also turned into the RSPCA. We have 3 dogs at Cheryls, not pets as such, in fact the kids don’t really like them, they just hang around, grab food when they can and basically we keep them here as guard dogs, or at least to alert us if there is trouble. They stay at the home most of the time but sometimes they do just wonder off. Recently the large brown dog, about 4 years old, came back from being out for a few nights with a nasty cut on his forehead. He stopped eating for a few days and just didn’t look himself. In the end I took him to the Vet next door to see what was up. It seems that he had never been castrated and must have ended up in a fight after cruising the Dagoretti Corner area looking for a female dog to hook up with. I’m amazed he hasn’t been killed yet as he always crosses the very busy Ngong road and cars are swerving and dodging him all the time. Anyways the Vet said he needed to have the snip, get some medicine for an infection and also get his wound stitched up. Oh by the way his name is Lucky... and Lucky has never been handled that much by people, getting him into the car was a real drama, some serious howling and wining, he was not happy. He spent a night at the Vet, got the snip and the medicine etc and we went to pick him up. Feeling very sorry for himself we brought him home and decided we should tie him up during the day to stop him wondering off while he recovered. For the first time ever Lucky got real dog food, as I went to Nakumatt to get him proper food to make sure he ate well during recovery. Well being a big dog he easily managed to rip off the special plastic collar to stop him licking his wounds. He went to get his stitches removed but down in his .... erm.... nether regions he had kept licking and the wound wasn’t dry. Ok the vet said, plan B, we took a plastic waste paper bin, cut a hole in it, attached it to a collar and lucky spent the next week with a bin on his head to stop him licking his wound. This worked, although perhaps his pride was dented slightly by everyone staring at him with a bin on his head. As he was tied up most of the day we took him for short walks up the road on a lead, again something in his whole life he has never done. Thankfully I had support from some visitors in helping Lucky get Vet treatment and the Vet himself gave us a massive discount because we are childrens home. But after about 3 weeks looking after Lucky, he has basically decided that us humans are not bad afterall... me in particular, and although I don’t buy him proper food any more (it costs a fortune) he comes up everyday when I arrive and loves to play. He has bad manners for a dog, loves to nip and snap (but only playfully not harmfully) he is still quite young and now he is getting a little rowdy, he keeps trying to contest for who is boss, so I have to keep reminding him that its me!! Anyways no-one else at Cheryls was going to do anything for him, but I couldn’t stand and watch him fade away... I think everyone thought I was crazy, but the staff and the kids do think he has lived up to his name... he is in fact very LUCKY to have got treated and be as strong as he is now.
CHANGE – so I decided to change the look of the blog, I’ve been here a year now and time for things to look different... 100 points if you can guess what the image is... and I would like to dedicate the new style of blog to Mike Wilson, he knows why... enjoy the read!!!
HERE COMES THE SUN – So its winter time here, or as they say at church Sumwinter... because no-one really knows what it is, for us in Kenya its winter, but for all the expats its what we traditionally call summertime and the private international schools this is the summer holiday, but anyways, we are all confused, but the one true fact is that there is not much sun at the moment. The good news though is that through a few connections Cheryls has been hooked up with Solar Aid, an organisation that helps primarily to provide solar power to schools and communities who are not on the grid and just using candle and lamps etc. Well they have decided to come and install some solar power at Cheryl’s to help reduce our electricity bills! It is truely amazing and we are so pleased. We are not sure the extent of how much we can put on solar but I know that Solar Aid is hoping for the whole institution to go Solar and basically take us off the grid, if we can do this it would be amazing, but even if it was just 50% it would still be amazing! It seems we have built up a good relationship with them, they are doing fantastic work and hopefully this installation will be mutually beneficial. If they can do a good installation, when their donors or visitors come into Kenya they can bring them to Cheryls and showcase what they are capable of, otherwise it’s a 10 hour drive into the country. It’s nice that this project will basically help both organisations. It also means our kids will learn about using solar power and protecting the environment and when there are power cuts in the city we will still have light and it won’t affect us, which is great because some of the kids can get upset and a bit traumatised when it’s so dark. Such a large solar installation will need maintenance and future investment, for example when batteries die (I think they have a shelf life of about 5 years). The suggestion from Miguel at Solar Aid is that we use a scheme they have called Sunny Money. We act as an agent, and get about 5 people who are basically sales persons to go around and sell these small solar products which cost about £5 - £10 for use in people’s homes, such as a solar powered light bulb, mobile phone chargers etc. These are everyday products that your average Kenyan citizen can use and will in the long run really benefit them. The sales person gets half the profit and the agents get half the profit from each sale. So if we take on the scheme, we can save the profits in an account and then use that when our main installation needs repairs or maintenance, and at the same time we can be creating jobs for around 5 people! Everyone wins, including the environment... all because of the sun.
SICK RON – so my big shiny 4 x 4 is called Ron after legendry Anchorman ‘Ron Burgundy’, in case you hadn’t figure it the colour of my car is Burgundy Red. Well last month Ron became a little sick and I have learnt a big lesson about how these roads and the quality of the petrol can really affect cars out here. The blocks my engine sits on where cracked, the distributer leads were blocked, spark plugs worn out, front brake discs gone, new brake pads needed and other bits and pieces such as fuel filters. This is even with the car being serviced every 4 months!!! The petrol can be very dirty out here and I have realised I should when possible put in the performance fuels when I can which are much cleaner. It’s an extra 5 shillings per litre but should be better on the engine. The roads are so bumpy and dusty that even with a 4 x 4 the cars really take a beating. I’ve had to spend over £500 in the last month on all these little jobs and the car still needs a proper service doing but I can’t afford that right now. I think as far as I can remember in the UK I never had spark plugs changed. I’ve gone to different garages and it has amazed me how much care these big cars need, I cannot imagine why anyone would drive a saloon car (well I guess money is a factor) but the saloon cars really don’t last long at all. Hopefully Ron will stay well for a little while, but I see the tyres are starting to wear out and a new set will cost around £450... woah! So keep up your prayers for Big Ron, he needs it!
PEACE OUT – Last time I updated you on the blog I was talking about the referendum on the new constitution, well miracle upon miracles everything went through peacefully and smoothly, it was fantastic. We all stocked up on food and water in our house ready to bunker down if needed, but the day went well, was just like a Sunday or a holiday, the result came in very fast and people seemed fine with it and accepted it was a fair vote. I wonder if people are a little optimistic expecting the 2012 parliamentary election to go as smoothly (mainly because that really will affect people’s jobs, i.e. the MP’s and they don’t go quietly) but at least it’s a step forward and there is a very positive vibe in the country. This morning as I am writing this they are signing the new constitution in Uhuru park in town with the full pomp and circumstance, military bands, big flags, dignitaries from other African countries and lots of speeches etc! It seems like the new constitution could be good for the country and although its not perfect it includes a lot of things that people want. The problem comes though with the leadership, because it’s fine to have a piece of paper that states what the laws should be, but if the guys at the top don’t enforce them then actually it becomes meaningless. We need to hold these guys at the top to account but time will tell if they really do change, or basically stick to being greedy and stealing from the poor to give to the already rich!
WE’RE ALL GOING ON A SUMWINTER HOLIDAY – the last month has been holidays for the school kids as we prepare to enter into the 3rd term of the year in September. Holiday times are great as the pressure eases for us in the office. Many of the kids go to stay with a relative which is great because this keeps them connected with the communities they come from and it also means we only have 20 kids left at the home which eases the burden on resources. Everything slows down a bit and many of the staff take some leave, and even for us who stay we tend to come in to work a little later and go home early. I think for some of the visitors this last month they have wondered if we are lazy or not... but in truth all of us are exhausted, not just the late night – next day feeling tired exhausted... but the 3 or 4 months of solid work, no rest, 6 or 7 day working week, seriously high pressured filled working days exhausted. When the holidays come it takes the pressure off myself and Samuel and we feel we can breathe a little. I personally have felt very worn out and exhausted the last month or 2 and I know I have started to get irritated at small things and I know that’s a sign of being worn out. Not sure I have been the happiest person to work with lately but hopefully I can come out of this dip. In the next week or so things hot up again as we hit the 3rd term. We have a number of kids doing their final term of high school and also primary school, its exam time for them and crunch point. I find myself in the parent role at the home encouraging the kids to revise, helping them put a programme together and buying past papers so they can practice. This is it, there are no second chances. So as they revise in this last week of holidays Samuel and I must try and find the financial resources to send them back to school, their fees, shopping, staff salaries for our teachers and food to feed the kids. The holidays are great and we do enjoy the chance to take it easy a little, but the end of the holidays sucks, it becomes the biggest pressure time as we scramble to get back into term again. I look forward to a proper holiday to the coast when my parents come out and visit next month.
SWING TIME – A couple of months ago a family that was moving donated loads of clothes and toys and a swing set! The swing set is designed just for a family use, and I knew it wouldn’t last 2 minutes with the 250 kids from school. We stored it behind the classrooms during the school term and in a way that was very unfair because the kids have been going crazy asking when they can go on it. In the UK we have so many public parks and playgrounds we often forget how lucky we are to have these free facilities. Swings for kids at the home are an absolute luxury and amazing thing to play on. So as term ended and most of the kids left I decided we could get them out and put them in the playground area. Many of the kids we have staying are quite young, around 4 and 5 so having these swings has been amazing. The ground was too hard to peg it down, but we used big stones to try and hold it down, I was a bit worried about injuries. We are having new classrooms being finished and there is building supplies everywhere, its a bit of a bomb site at the moment, and not the ideal playing area for kids, but these kids are very different to the UK. Here they learn to avoid these hazards and many visitors come and worry that kids will get hurt sometimes, but the kids have learnt to adapt to their environment, avoiding hazards and it always amazes me how few accidents we have. In fact most of the accidents are usually the older kids cutting their fingers on the sharp knives when chopping vegetables. When term starts we will have to put the swing set away, but I’m hoping when we have completed the building process we can raise some money and build a proper sand pit and some industrial strength swings like you get in parks... the kids would love it!
LUCKY – So I came to Kenya to work with orphans and vulnerable children, but in the process it seems I have also turned into the RSPCA. We have 3 dogs at Cheryls, not pets as such, in fact the kids don’t really like them, they just hang around, grab food when they can and basically we keep them here as guard dogs, or at least to alert us if there is trouble. They stay at the home most of the time but sometimes they do just wonder off. Recently the large brown dog, about 4 years old, came back from being out for a few nights with a nasty cut on his forehead. He stopped eating for a few days and just didn’t look himself. In the end I took him to the Vet next door to see what was up. It seems that he had never been castrated and must have ended up in a fight after cruising the Dagoretti Corner area looking for a female dog to hook up with. I’m amazed he hasn’t been killed yet as he always crosses the very busy Ngong road and cars are swerving and dodging him all the time. Anyways the Vet said he needed to have the snip, get some medicine for an infection and also get his wound stitched up. Oh by the way his name is Lucky... and Lucky has never been handled that much by people, getting him into the car was a real drama, some serious howling and wining, he was not happy. He spent a night at the Vet, got the snip and the medicine etc and we went to pick him up. Feeling very sorry for himself we brought him home and decided we should tie him up during the day to stop him wondering off while he recovered. For the first time ever Lucky got real dog food, as I went to Nakumatt to get him proper food to make sure he ate well during recovery. Well being a big dog he easily managed to rip off the special plastic collar to stop him licking his wounds. He went to get his stitches removed but down in his .... erm.... nether regions he had kept licking and the wound wasn’t dry. Ok the vet said, plan B, we took a plastic waste paper bin, cut a hole in it, attached it to a collar and lucky spent the next week with a bin on his head to stop him licking his wound. This worked, although perhaps his pride was dented slightly by everyone staring at him with a bin on his head. As he was tied up most of the day we took him for short walks up the road on a lead, again something in his whole life he has never done. Thankfully I had support from some visitors in helping Lucky get Vet treatment and the Vet himself gave us a massive discount because we are childrens home. But after about 3 weeks looking after Lucky, he has basically decided that us humans are not bad afterall... me in particular, and although I don’t buy him proper food any more (it costs a fortune) he comes up everyday when I arrive and loves to play. He has bad manners for a dog, loves to nip and snap (but only playfully not harmfully) he is still quite young and now he is getting a little rowdy, he keeps trying to contest for who is boss, so I have to keep reminding him that its me!! Anyways no-one else at Cheryls was going to do anything for him, but I couldn’t stand and watch him fade away... I think everyone thought I was crazy, but the staff and the kids do think he has lived up to his name... he is in fact very LUCKY to have got treated and be as strong as he is now.
CHANGE – so I decided to change the look of the blog, I’ve been here a year now and time for things to look different... 100 points if you can guess what the image is... and I would like to dedicate the new style of blog to Mike Wilson, he knows why... enjoy the read!!!
Friday, 23 July 2010
A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF IRISH MUSIC – Its been a very busy time over the last month, perhaps the busiest since I have been here, but I was expecting it mainly because for the USA and UK this is holiday season so loads of visitors. In my house I have been at the stage of having 9 guests... crazy! Anyways a few weeks ago we had visitors from Ireland, they have been here many times, sponsoring some of our kids and they are professional musicians, one of them performs with the Celtic Tenors. They came to do a number of concerts around Nairobi at various venues with the kids from the home in the choir also singing a few songs. It was a busy week but the kids loved the experience, it ranged from performing in some very posh restaurants around the city to a Hindu auditorium and the old Muthaiga Club. The nice thing at the restaurants was that people basically had a diner music evening, so after the kids performed all the places provided some food for the kids. The first place was Lord Errol restaurant in Runda (where all the diplomats live) the kids had dinner in a private room, served by waiters etc and got a full meal. The funniest thing was getting the bread rolls at the start. The kids were not sure what to do so trying to do the right thing they picked up the rolls using their knives and forks, and proceed to try and cut them open using their knives and forks and then adding butter. It was quite a display, and they were really struggling so I stepped in to show them they could just pick up the rolls with their hands and rip them open, no need to be so formal. The whole thing was a great experience and it was fun to see them being waited on with lots of fresh juice etc. Not all the places were so accommodating but the best places were Lord Errol and also the Rusty Nail, the owner was so excited seeing the kids perform and really wanted them taken care of well. The songs they sang included Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (or spelt something like that) also Happy Talk, Something inside so strong, Happy Day, Amazing Grace and some Swahili songs. At the end of the week the irish people spent a couple of days in a school hall we borrowed to record the kids singing, hopefully a CD will be produced soon, so they will be a great thing to buy and use to raise money. The whole experience was awesome for the kids, and every audience loved hearing them sing. The Irish guys did such a fabby job and it was wonderful to see how much they cared for the kids and also the encouragement they gave to us was great! Good times had by all (Although a little tired by the end)
15 MINUTES – Kind of related to the story above, for the concerts we had a friend organising some promotion for us. On the Wednesday before the start of the concert some of the kids and James (the Celtic Tenor) were invited on to Capital FM, Nairobi’s biggest radio station. They were on the programme for an hour, one of the coolest programmes on the station targeted at young people. There was a great response, normally on the programme they talk about relationship stuff but loads of people called in and emailed asking about the home and saying it was sooo good hearing about the work Cheryls was doing. A couple of the kids told their story and the presenters were really moved by it. Musa did a rap that he wrote a couple of years ago (he is only about 13) but the DJ’s loved it and invited him back to record it with the DJ. Everyone at CAPITAL thought it went really well and are very keen to support us in the future. When we begin fundraising for the High School project hopefully Capital FM will help us out! After the interview there was a small media buzz about us and we were invited on to the Citizen TV breakfast show. Unfortunately they didn’t invite the kids to come they just wanted me a Samuel, which I thought was a shame, because I always think its best to hear straight from the kids, they have such a big impact on people. But anyways was fun to head down to the TV studio for the interview. I was very nervous.... not sure why but I guess the pressure of getting our message out. We had a 15 minute interview by a nice lady called Kobi, which was mainly focusing on the music and the concerts but we tried to say a bit about what we were doing. Afterwards I was a little dissapointed we didn’t get to discuss a few of the things and also disappointed we didn’t have kids there but still at the end of the day it was free publicity! And well I guess that was my 15 minutes of fame!
INDIANA JONES TAKES ON LARA CROFT – Last weekend I managed to sneak away from the house for a night and David and myself headed down to Bisle to visit Mo. She has I think about 180 acres set out in the bush. She has a basic house set on top of Lorry Containers, relying on Solar power and borehole water. The land is just virgin bush and although a little dry its beautiful. She has an amazing view over this massive valley, just stunning. It was nice to get out of the city for a night. We arrived at 6:30pm just in time for some quick sundowners, ate dinner and slept, very exhausted. The next day we decided to go on a walk around her land and also the next door land. I was thinking, ok a short walk around the land, see the sites, all good stuff, maybe last an hour??? So 4 hours later there we are crawling on all fours and climbing through the bush, with no food and water... hmm not the best planning I’ve ever done! I just hadn’t thought really, you know, its virgin bush, there are no real paths, and at times it was thick bush. Mo, David and I had on our bush hats, which tend to be brown and styled a bit like Indiana Jones’ hat. They are fantastic for keeping the shade off but also as you are moving through trees and bushes they keep the branches and stuff from flying in your face. We climbed up to see some old Rock Art by tribes long long ago. It was funny at times I really felt like Indiana Jones as I took of my hat off to wipe the sweat from brow and place the hat firmly on my head, but just don’t think I’m as cool as him, and well we didn’t find any buried treasure! But a fun time was had by all, we got back for lunch and then hit the road back to Nairobi. That evening I was back again at the airport picking up visitors, and it just felt surreal, that morning I was really in the Dark Continent, exploring through the bush, and then in the evening in the big capital picking up visitors at the busy busy airport.
NAME DROPPING AGAIN??? – SO I happened to go to the airport early one morning (arriving at 6am) only to figure out after 3 and a half hours of waiting I had come on the wrong day... its a long story. But it was not all in vain, as the various flights from around the world came I happened to spot someone I recognised coming through from customs. Now it took me a second to realise who it was, mainly because you just don’t expect to see him here. One of my all time favourite programmes.... ok actually THE all time best programme in the world ever ever ever is ER. I love it and have all the seasons. And of course one of the best characters from ER was Dr Green played by Anthony Edwards. Well he walked into arrivals escorted by staff and with his family. I was like NO WAY!!! How cool. He pottered around arrivals getting money from the machine, sorting stuff out and it was funny because basically no-one else knew who he was... but being one of the few Mzungus there I knew who he was... yes Dr Green... or Goose from Top Gun! How bizarre, but also cool. I assumed he was here on holiday, but decided to google search him and Kenya (is that really sad? Perhaps) and turns out he supports a project called Shoes 4 Africa and he is on the board in the USA. I think he has helped build a childrens hospital in Kenya. So awesome, much respect Mr Edwards... and welcome again to Kenya!
WOBBLY WHEELS - Recently I’ve been cruising down the Nairobi roads.... or should I say bouncing down the Nairobi roads and I’ve noticed a high number of cars with back wheels that seem to be falling off. There are so many bad roads and I’ve had a number of slow punctures and one particularly bad flat tyre, but it seems some people don’t quite put the wheels back on properly, and everytime I see one of these wobbly wheels I pull back a bit expecting the wheel to come flying off and the car collapse on the floor! And then in fact just the other day i saw a car at the side of the road, with the back wheel off fallen off!
AND THE WINNER IS... – Today on the way to work on Capital FM they did a mock Oscar award ceremony, and the prize was for the government organisation that takes the most bribes. In the running was the ministry of lands, ministry of immigration, social services, health fund, prisons etc etc. The winner this year, at the number 1 spot was: THE POLICE! As I got to work I quickly glanced through the paper and spotted an article covering the same thing, and in fact it was official, they actually do research into this each year and they have a league table for the worst corruption in the government. I think the Police force have retained the number 1 spot 2 years running! To be honest if I had to guess which was the worst I would had said the police... how can a country function without an honest, reliable police force, without the rule of law... in truth it can’t.
ONCE UPON A TIME – there were some Irish people, tall ones, thin ones, big ones and all with very strong accents which the lovely Kenyan people struggled to understand. The strong Irish people travelled on a long journey, across many lands from their home land to a far off distant country in deepest darkest Africa. The Irish people were not alone though, others travelled to the same destination, from America and the Netherlands. It was an international gathering of hero’s ready to take on a big task, completing the building of the most finest classrooms, library and computer room in all the kingdom! The workers were only given 1 week by their mighty leader... Sir Basil Love. They put to the task with great earnest and constructed and built, and built and constructed each day until the sky was dark. The week went by in the blink of an eye and as the days passed by the international gathering worked harder and harder, the sweat dripping off them day by day. The young children from the kingdom looked on in awe and the building grew bigger and bigger and looked more and more finished, like a palace, fit for royal children. On the last day the international gathering pressed hard to do all they could in the final moments, with Sir Basil directing things, finding the resources to get closer to completion. By the last moment, the team had done all that was possible in a week, but unfortunately there was still a little left to do. The wise knight, Sir Basil was able to stay a few more days and set about to engage the local craftsmen to complete the work as the international gathering of Irish, American and Dutch prepared for their departure. Before they left they gathered one last time for a big feast... a feast of every meat known to man in the kingdom, a good time was had by all! The gathering left for their various countries satisfied they had worked hard and given all they could, the people in the kingdom celebrated their achievements and the knight Sir Basil completed his work of organising the craftsman, and he headed back to the irish land with a smile on his face. The servants in charge of the new building now set with the task of furnishing the library and computer room were pleased as 5 laptops had already been donated and some funding from a school in the distant land of England was promised to come and help buy book shelves and materials for the library. The quest was now set to find as many books as possible for the children from the kingdom, books they could enjoy reading, hopefully sat on a carpeted floor or bean bags. The King knew that if all the children could read many books they would grow up to wise and successful, he also knew if they could learn computers they would become creative and be able to use them for the rest of their lives. The King and his followers have begun to search the land and far overseas for help with this final quest, knowing that if successful all the children in the land will live happily ever after....THE END
TOSPY TURVY – Well if you have been reading this blog for a while you will know we are trying to buy land for our future development. A few weeks ago and after much work we got very close to signing a deal. I had worked really hard to get everything together, did some negotiating and it seemed we were almost there. Then just at the last minute our lawyer was doing some final checks and found there was something wrong with the documentation. Its a long story but it seemed the deal was about to fall through. I was gutted, we had put so much work into it and at the last minute it was about to collapse. However Samuel and myself talked it through and agreed if its not meant to be its not meant to be, we will just find somewhere else. So last week I set off up to Naivasha again to find some land. I met the land agent and we checked out a couple of places. They seemed good, but the locations were wrong and also the price a little bit more than the other land. I was a little sad, feeling that the land we were about to buy was so good and wondering if we would find somewhere as good for that price. I was planning to go back to Naivasha this week to see more land, but yesterday we got a call from the lawyer. She has been working hard to get things into place and see if with the vendors help we could get the land deal back on track. It seems that that could now be a possibility. So having felt that deal was over, it seems its back on the table. We will have to make sure everything is in place and proper but in the end we could be back at buying this land. We still need £50,000 but we have enough to pay the deposit and get going. Its been a really difficult and stressful time, my emotions have been up and down about it, but if it all works out then we will be very pleased!!!
COUNTDOWN TO VIOLENCE – Amongst all the busyness and tiredness working here at Cheryls something bigger is happening in Kenya which is playing on my mind a little. Kenya is trying to change its constitution and there will be a referendum on 4th August. This will be the first election since the violent elections back at the end of 2007 which brought chaos to the country. There is deep division over whether to approve the constitution or not. I feel the tension in the air as everyone is talking about it and wondering what to expect. Most people are just hoping it all passes smoothly, but there is worry that 2 of the tribes will start fighting over it. Its constantly in the news and in the papers and each time we meet up as a bunch of friends we are talking about it. I guess the reality is that for white people we shouldn’t have to worry too much as we are not involved in it all, but obviously what happens around us affects us and the staff we employ etc etc. We all need to pray hard that this referendum will go smoothly and will not see the violence as of last time, but each day the whole country seems to be watching the clock tick down... hopefully its not a simmering pot ready to boil over! For those with friends and family over here, please don’t worry, everything will be fine for us, but it will be sad if parts of the country start messing around, it will be sad because once again the tourist industry will collapse again, and really the country can’t afford that. The good thing is the government has deployed huge security forces to the areas that may see violence. The good thing is Nairobi doesn’t seem to be a hotspot. I guess I feel apprehensive but at the same time sure everything will be ok. We will see.... tick tock... tick tock...
15 MINUTES – Kind of related to the story above, for the concerts we had a friend organising some promotion for us. On the Wednesday before the start of the concert some of the kids and James (the Celtic Tenor) were invited on to Capital FM, Nairobi’s biggest radio station. They were on the programme for an hour, one of the coolest programmes on the station targeted at young people. There was a great response, normally on the programme they talk about relationship stuff but loads of people called in and emailed asking about the home and saying it was sooo good hearing about the work Cheryls was doing. A couple of the kids told their story and the presenters were really moved by it. Musa did a rap that he wrote a couple of years ago (he is only about 13) but the DJ’s loved it and invited him back to record it with the DJ. Everyone at CAPITAL thought it went really well and are very keen to support us in the future. When we begin fundraising for the High School project hopefully Capital FM will help us out! After the interview there was a small media buzz about us and we were invited on to the Citizen TV breakfast show. Unfortunately they didn’t invite the kids to come they just wanted me a Samuel, which I thought was a shame, because I always think its best to hear straight from the kids, they have such a big impact on people. But anyways was fun to head down to the TV studio for the interview. I was very nervous.... not sure why but I guess the pressure of getting our message out. We had a 15 minute interview by a nice lady called Kobi, which was mainly focusing on the music and the concerts but we tried to say a bit about what we were doing. Afterwards I was a little dissapointed we didn’t get to discuss a few of the things and also disappointed we didn’t have kids there but still at the end of the day it was free publicity! And well I guess that was my 15 minutes of fame!
INDIANA JONES TAKES ON LARA CROFT – Last weekend I managed to sneak away from the house for a night and David and myself headed down to Bisle to visit Mo. She has I think about 180 acres set out in the bush. She has a basic house set on top of Lorry Containers, relying on Solar power and borehole water. The land is just virgin bush and although a little dry its beautiful. She has an amazing view over this massive valley, just stunning. It was nice to get out of the city for a night. We arrived at 6:30pm just in time for some quick sundowners, ate dinner and slept, very exhausted. The next day we decided to go on a walk around her land and also the next door land. I was thinking, ok a short walk around the land, see the sites, all good stuff, maybe last an hour??? So 4 hours later there we are crawling on all fours and climbing through the bush, with no food and water... hmm not the best planning I’ve ever done! I just hadn’t thought really, you know, its virgin bush, there are no real paths, and at times it was thick bush. Mo, David and I had on our bush hats, which tend to be brown and styled a bit like Indiana Jones’ hat. They are fantastic for keeping the shade off but also as you are moving through trees and bushes they keep the branches and stuff from flying in your face. We climbed up to see some old Rock Art by tribes long long ago. It was funny at times I really felt like Indiana Jones as I took of my hat off to wipe the sweat from brow and place the hat firmly on my head, but just don’t think I’m as cool as him, and well we didn’t find any buried treasure! But a fun time was had by all, we got back for lunch and then hit the road back to Nairobi. That evening I was back again at the airport picking up visitors, and it just felt surreal, that morning I was really in the Dark Continent, exploring through the bush, and then in the evening in the big capital picking up visitors at the busy busy airport.
NAME DROPPING AGAIN??? – SO I happened to go to the airport early one morning (arriving at 6am) only to figure out after 3 and a half hours of waiting I had come on the wrong day... its a long story. But it was not all in vain, as the various flights from around the world came I happened to spot someone I recognised coming through from customs. Now it took me a second to realise who it was, mainly because you just don’t expect to see him here. One of my all time favourite programmes.... ok actually THE all time best programme in the world ever ever ever is ER. I love it and have all the seasons. And of course one of the best characters from ER was Dr Green played by Anthony Edwards. Well he walked into arrivals escorted by staff and with his family. I was like NO WAY!!! How cool. He pottered around arrivals getting money from the machine, sorting stuff out and it was funny because basically no-one else knew who he was... but being one of the few Mzungus there I knew who he was... yes Dr Green... or Goose from Top Gun! How bizarre, but also cool. I assumed he was here on holiday, but decided to google search him and Kenya (is that really sad? Perhaps) and turns out he supports a project called Shoes 4 Africa and he is on the board in the USA. I think he has helped build a childrens hospital in Kenya. So awesome, much respect Mr Edwards... and welcome again to Kenya!
WOBBLY WHEELS - Recently I’ve been cruising down the Nairobi roads.... or should I say bouncing down the Nairobi roads and I’ve noticed a high number of cars with back wheels that seem to be falling off. There are so many bad roads and I’ve had a number of slow punctures and one particularly bad flat tyre, but it seems some people don’t quite put the wheels back on properly, and everytime I see one of these wobbly wheels I pull back a bit expecting the wheel to come flying off and the car collapse on the floor! And then in fact just the other day i saw a car at the side of the road, with the back wheel off fallen off!
AND THE WINNER IS... – Today on the way to work on Capital FM they did a mock Oscar award ceremony, and the prize was for the government organisation that takes the most bribes. In the running was the ministry of lands, ministry of immigration, social services, health fund, prisons etc etc. The winner this year, at the number 1 spot was: THE POLICE! As I got to work I quickly glanced through the paper and spotted an article covering the same thing, and in fact it was official, they actually do research into this each year and they have a league table for the worst corruption in the government. I think the Police force have retained the number 1 spot 2 years running! To be honest if I had to guess which was the worst I would had said the police... how can a country function without an honest, reliable police force, without the rule of law... in truth it can’t.
ONCE UPON A TIME – there were some Irish people, tall ones, thin ones, big ones and all with very strong accents which the lovely Kenyan people struggled to understand. The strong Irish people travelled on a long journey, across many lands from their home land to a far off distant country in deepest darkest Africa. The Irish people were not alone though, others travelled to the same destination, from America and the Netherlands. It was an international gathering of hero’s ready to take on a big task, completing the building of the most finest classrooms, library and computer room in all the kingdom! The workers were only given 1 week by their mighty leader... Sir Basil Love. They put to the task with great earnest and constructed and built, and built and constructed each day until the sky was dark. The week went by in the blink of an eye and as the days passed by the international gathering worked harder and harder, the sweat dripping off them day by day. The young children from the kingdom looked on in awe and the building grew bigger and bigger and looked more and more finished, like a palace, fit for royal children. On the last day the international gathering pressed hard to do all they could in the final moments, with Sir Basil directing things, finding the resources to get closer to completion. By the last moment, the team had done all that was possible in a week, but unfortunately there was still a little left to do. The wise knight, Sir Basil was able to stay a few more days and set about to engage the local craftsmen to complete the work as the international gathering of Irish, American and Dutch prepared for their departure. Before they left they gathered one last time for a big feast... a feast of every meat known to man in the kingdom, a good time was had by all! The gathering left for their various countries satisfied they had worked hard and given all they could, the people in the kingdom celebrated their achievements and the knight Sir Basil completed his work of organising the craftsman, and he headed back to the irish land with a smile on his face. The servants in charge of the new building now set with the task of furnishing the library and computer room were pleased as 5 laptops had already been donated and some funding from a school in the distant land of England was promised to come and help buy book shelves and materials for the library. The quest was now set to find as many books as possible for the children from the kingdom, books they could enjoy reading, hopefully sat on a carpeted floor or bean bags. The King knew that if all the children could read many books they would grow up to wise and successful, he also knew if they could learn computers they would become creative and be able to use them for the rest of their lives. The King and his followers have begun to search the land and far overseas for help with this final quest, knowing that if successful all the children in the land will live happily ever after....THE END
TOSPY TURVY – Well if you have been reading this blog for a while you will know we are trying to buy land for our future development. A few weeks ago and after much work we got very close to signing a deal. I had worked really hard to get everything together, did some negotiating and it seemed we were almost there. Then just at the last minute our lawyer was doing some final checks and found there was something wrong with the documentation. Its a long story but it seemed the deal was about to fall through. I was gutted, we had put so much work into it and at the last minute it was about to collapse. However Samuel and myself talked it through and agreed if its not meant to be its not meant to be, we will just find somewhere else. So last week I set off up to Naivasha again to find some land. I met the land agent and we checked out a couple of places. They seemed good, but the locations were wrong and also the price a little bit more than the other land. I was a little sad, feeling that the land we were about to buy was so good and wondering if we would find somewhere as good for that price. I was planning to go back to Naivasha this week to see more land, but yesterday we got a call from the lawyer. She has been working hard to get things into place and see if with the vendors help we could get the land deal back on track. It seems that that could now be a possibility. So having felt that deal was over, it seems its back on the table. We will have to make sure everything is in place and proper but in the end we could be back at buying this land. We still need £50,000 but we have enough to pay the deposit and get going. Its been a really difficult and stressful time, my emotions have been up and down about it, but if it all works out then we will be very pleased!!!
COUNTDOWN TO VIOLENCE – Amongst all the busyness and tiredness working here at Cheryls something bigger is happening in Kenya which is playing on my mind a little. Kenya is trying to change its constitution and there will be a referendum on 4th August. This will be the first election since the violent elections back at the end of 2007 which brought chaos to the country. There is deep division over whether to approve the constitution or not. I feel the tension in the air as everyone is talking about it and wondering what to expect. Most people are just hoping it all passes smoothly, but there is worry that 2 of the tribes will start fighting over it. Its constantly in the news and in the papers and each time we meet up as a bunch of friends we are talking about it. I guess the reality is that for white people we shouldn’t have to worry too much as we are not involved in it all, but obviously what happens around us affects us and the staff we employ etc etc. We all need to pray hard that this referendum will go smoothly and will not see the violence as of last time, but each day the whole country seems to be watching the clock tick down... hopefully its not a simmering pot ready to boil over! For those with friends and family over here, please don’t worry, everything will be fine for us, but it will be sad if parts of the country start messing around, it will be sad because once again the tourist industry will collapse again, and really the country can’t afford that. The good thing is the government has deployed huge security forces to the areas that may see violence. The good thing is Nairobi doesn’t seem to be a hotspot. I guess I feel apprehensive but at the same time sure everything will be ok. We will see.... tick tock... tick tock...
Thursday, 24 June 2010
VUVUZELLA'S REACH KENYA
THE BEAUTIFUL GAME – So some people refer to Football as this... especially during this world cup time, but for me the real Beautiful Game is of course RUGBY!!! Its my favourite sport and thankfully is growing and growing in Kenya. More and more locals are getting into the sport especially as the Kenyan 7’s team is doing so well on the IRB world Circuit. In Kenya there are now a number of 7’s tournaments but the highlight of the year is the “Safari Sevens” tournament which takes place at the Harlequins Ground not too far from Cheryls. Over the last few months they have been building a new stand, and as the reputation was so positive proceeding it I felt it had to be something that cannot be missed. Unfortunately I could only make the Saturday, but I booked tickets and took James, Lillian, Neema and Mary (one of the current volunteers). Now as a fan of the original 7’s tournament at Melrose I was very excited to see what the Kenyans could offer. There were plenty of teams taking part from France, UK, South Africa and various countries around Africa. The place was packed with thousands of Kenyans, and a few other international folks. The infamous Vuvuzela used in the current World Cup in South Africa had been on sale in the local supermarket and there were those out in force using them. There were a couple of Kenyan teams playing, including the national one, when they came on the pitch the sound was deafening, the screaming was electric and the dancing was probably vibrating the ground for about a mile around us! It was a carnival atmosphere, which looked very promising. To begin with I was loving the event and vowed to book to come to the whole weekend next year. But the day progressed on and as the crowds swelled with numbers I became more and more disappointed with it all. The rugby was fantastic and of a very high standard, but I began to realise that most of the people that continued to arrive were not that interested in rugby, they just wanted to cheer on the Kenyan teams when they played and get drunk. Fair enough, national pride is important and the Kenyan national team is very good. But a sevens tournament is a festival of rugby, its an exhibition of loads of teams from around the world. As a rugby enthusiast, you appreciate all rugby, even when its not your team playing, at sevens you encourage all teams, welcome them onto the pitch, pick a side and cheer them on, clap and cheer at great try’s etc. Ok ok, so I’m a rugby purist, but as the day rolled on I found that I was amongst the few actually interested in the rugby... the crowds around us kept singing vulgar songs which I would expect more at a football match, they sang bad songs about the ref, and everytime the ref made any decision against a Kenyan team they booed and sang songs slagging him off. Hang on... thats not rugby, thats what happens at football. One of the great strengths of rugby is the respect given to the referee! As the day progressed it got worse and worse, to the point whenever any team did anything good against a Kenyan team like scoring a try the crowd would boo and jeer! Again thats not rugby, if you don’t want to clap just keep quiet. Then as the day drew to an end and we began to leave people started to run on the pitch which is usual at most sporting events and quite funny, but as security tried to catch people the crowds stood and watch as the gladiatorial events took place below, then they began throwing bottles and beer at the event organisers and officials. We left promptly. The papers and press hailed the whole event as a success, the huge numbers of support, but for me the Beautiful Game was spoiled, something that had the potential to be great was ruined. I hear Kenya wants to get a spot on the IRB world Sevens circuit, but I hope it never does, carnival atmosphere is whats required at sevens events, not football crowds. Next year I think I will get folks round to my house and watch it on TV, because at the end of the day, the rugby players were great, the teams were good and they know what rugby is all about, its them who I want to support!
BACK 2 SCHOOL – We have about 35 children in High School, mostly boarders. Each term parents are given a visiting day where they can come and spend time with their kids. We have 7 girls all in one school (All Saints), and when they were home at Easter they requested I came on visiting day with some of the little children. In the end Samuel and myself decided to go together, the 2 dads. We took Chege, Otis and Ruth with us, all aged 3-5 and James and Lillian. We wizzed up the road on a Sunday (which was nice and quiet) and got to the school at about 11am. We were the first parents to arrive. We found the girls and it was great to see them. We caught up with the head and were then escorted round the various teachers to find out how the girls were doing. Its a bit like a parents evening but during the day. There are mixed results with our girls, some are struggling in subjects like Maths and Chemistry, but we are very proud of one of our girls who came top of the year in Form 4 (the last form of school)!!! Also the teachers said our girls are so well behaved and set a great example to the others and are positive role models in the school. It was great to hear this, a real sense of pride for our girls. We then all sat around in the garden area and proceeded to dive into lunch. We had brought cooked chicken stew and beef stew, still warm in the pots, with some rice and chapatti. Lots more parents had arrived at this point but we were definitely the centre of attention, mainly because we were such a big group, 7 girls, 3 toddlers, 2 young adults and the 2 old men, me and Sam. Also being white you tend to stick out at these events, making me a little self conscious, but we were having a blast, laughing and making jokes and everyone stared on. We went round and took some photos (which can be seen below this post). I guess the sad thing was seeing a huge number of girls in one section of the school just staring on to all the visitors, these girls didn’t have anyone coming on that day, perhaps parents were working or couldn’t afford to come, it was sad they could watch everyone else having a nice time, but I heard later that after we all go home, the treats left with the girls are then shared with all the others who didn’t get visitors so thats nice. It was a fabby day, and although it had been a very hectic week it was worth taking this Sunday to head to the high school and see our girls. We really miss them when they go away. Its days like this you are reminded we are one big family and we truely are the parents, fun times!
PETER UPDATE – So many people are asking about Peter which is great, awesome to have so many supporters for him and people praying for him. Well he is doing well, test results recently are looking good, i mean we won’t know fully whether he has recovered or not until he finishes treatment but everything is looking positive. Currently he is receiving treatment every 3 weeks. His next treatment is due sometime this weekend. He has 7 left in total on the current plan, but the good news is that he only has one more which involves injecting chemo into his spine, called the I.T. This is good because its always the most traumatic part of the whole treatment process and the one thing I always worry about. He hates it and being a smart kid he knows its coming each time, but he is dealing with it well, and although he gets nervous before hand he has learnt to just accept and get on with it. BUT great news he only has one more like this and then he will just be receiving future treatments through a drip. This is also good news because hopefully it means we spend less nights in the hospital, but then again it all depends how he reacts each time to treatment anyways. Funding is very low at the moment, we have pretty much worked our way all through the money we raised earlier in the year. We have enough left for the next treatment this weekend and then we will have run out. After this weekend he will still need 6 more treatments and then probably further tests to see what happens next. Based on costs of treatments so far (which average at about £400 per session) we need about £2,400 for the final 6 treatments. If anyone is interested in helping Peter with his final course of treatment please do get in touch ASAP. My email address is: kjbkenya@hotmail.co.uk We are so close to the end and we have come so far we really need to make it to the end to make sure he has the best chance of getting rid of the cancer! Its a shame he is still not allowed to come to school because the chemo reduces his immune system he is at risk of infection, I know he is incredibly bored, but thats a consequence of the situation and he is coping with it. We try and get him work to do but its just not the same as being in school. Anyways please do continue to pray for him, especially as he receives this last I.T. and then please pray we can find the resources to complete the treatment.
THE DROPPING OF NAMES – So who would have thought I would be wining and dining with football superstars???? OK well maybe thats a slight exaggeration, but basically from Kenya there are 2 famous football players: Mariga and Oliech who play for Inter Milan and Auxerre. Oliech grew up in the slum just where Cheryls is based and used to go to the same school as James. He played in the same junior football club as some of our boys. ANYWAY.... Mariga came to the sevens rugby which was kind of cool, but then a few days later James and I were sat at Java house having a bite to eat when this big HUMMER turned up and a small entourage. I joked saying that probably was the famous football guy and of course it was. They came and sat at Java and had lunch... on a different table to us. But I thought it was funny I was dining in the same place as an Inter Milan player... definitely wouldn’t happen in the UK, I don’t move in the same circles as Premier League players! But as I’m in the process of name dropping, I might as well drop another...Jonathan Scott... so do you know who he is... well if you watch Big Cat Diaries on BBC one then he is one of the presenters, the one with the moustache. He lives up in Karen not far from Cheryls, I often see him driving passed and then occasionally he is doing his shopping in Nakumatt and having coffee at Dormands. Apparently he is a really nice guy, but I;ve never spoken to him, but anyways cool to see the odd famous person here and there.
THE DARK SIDE – ok so the title for this section is a bit flippant, but probably due to the fact that I recently watched the entire Star Wars series, which is the first time I have watched them all the way through, 1 - 6, but thats really not important. Recently I have been reminded again about the children we are working with. A week ago one of our foster kids came to school all beaten up, with cuts on her lips and hands and marks on her back. She was very shaken and still in shock I think. The previous night the mother had beaten the girl because she accused her of stealing 5 shillings which is about 4pence. I was so angry and couldn’t believe what had happened... all that over 4 pence, but it demonstrates the poverty and situations people are dealing with and the pressure some of the parents etc are under. However there is no excuse for this kind of behaviour. We know the mother well and this is very much out of character. We provided the girl with medical treatment and she stayed over night with us. We then pursued the situation with the mother and dealt with it all. Many of our kids have gone through this kind of experience, but with all the joy and laughter at Cheryls its easy to forget. Also on our day trip to the high school we met a girl who used to be at Cheryls, but left a few years ago. Her story is very sad, and I can’t go into it all here, but basically her mum started prostituting her out to her friends when she was about 13 years old. The girl ran away from home and managed recently to get to another childrens home. The head teacher at All Saints is giving her a free high school education but now in the holidays she has no where to go, when she ran away from home, Lillian found her working in a hotel near Cheryls, only 14 years old. She is a very smart girl, but its aweful what has happened to her. Its a long story why she is not at cheryls, partly to do with the mother who was causing problems, but we are now stuck in a position where we cannot support her, which is sooo frustrating. When the girl goes to boarding school she doesn;t get any shopping, for example when we send our kids to high school we have to provide things like shoe polish, shampoo, toothpaste, toilet roll, sanitary towels etc etc etc its a huge cost to us but they need it. The sad thing is although this girl gets free education she gets no shopping. I was so encouraged when I heard that our 7 girls share what they have with her (and our girls only get the bare minimum). So although as an organisation we cannot formerly support her its great that our girls have seen her need and are standing by her. Some people question the need for childrens home, and I hear from some of the big NGO workers who think they know everything “I believe every child has family” meaning why put them in childrens home... well I too believe every child has a family but some families are dangerous environments for kids and they are safer with us, thats the real world, unfortunately not every parent or relative is a good one and kids need protecting.
HURRAY HURRAH – So it only took 9 months but I have finally got my work permit. Just as my visitor one was about to run out! But even then it was really crazy to actually get the stamp in my passport. You would think after 9 months and all the red tape I could just go get the stamp, but NOOOOOO, i had to join various queues... go to various offices, back and forth which took a whole day, was then told it would take a week to get the stamp in my passport, but as I explained my visa was going to run out, they did it on the day... but come on thats ridiculous... 9 months of waiting and then still another week for the final step. I shouldn’t be surprised, no one was when I told them... thats life here in Kenya... the government loves the red tape. But at the end of the day I am finally here, legally and have a 3 year permit which is fantastic. I never really felt like I belonged before, always feeling still like a visitor, but now I have this I feel finally I am truly here for the long haul, thats a great feeling and a huge burden off my shoulders! Phew RELIEF!
BACK 2 SCHOOL – We have about 35 children in High School, mostly boarders. Each term parents are given a visiting day where they can come and spend time with their kids. We have 7 girls all in one school (All Saints), and when they were home at Easter they requested I came on visiting day with some of the little children. In the end Samuel and myself decided to go together, the 2 dads. We took Chege, Otis and Ruth with us, all aged 3-5 and James and Lillian. We wizzed up the road on a Sunday (which was nice and quiet) and got to the school at about 11am. We were the first parents to arrive. We found the girls and it was great to see them. We caught up with the head and were then escorted round the various teachers to find out how the girls were doing. Its a bit like a parents evening but during the day. There are mixed results with our girls, some are struggling in subjects like Maths and Chemistry, but we are very proud of one of our girls who came top of the year in Form 4 (the last form of school)!!! Also the teachers said our girls are so well behaved and set a great example to the others and are positive role models in the school. It was great to hear this, a real sense of pride for our girls. We then all sat around in the garden area and proceeded to dive into lunch. We had brought cooked chicken stew and beef stew, still warm in the pots, with some rice and chapatti. Lots more parents had arrived at this point but we were definitely the centre of attention, mainly because we were such a big group, 7 girls, 3 toddlers, 2 young adults and the 2 old men, me and Sam. Also being white you tend to stick out at these events, making me a little self conscious, but we were having a blast, laughing and making jokes and everyone stared on. We went round and took some photos (which can be seen below this post). I guess the sad thing was seeing a huge number of girls in one section of the school just staring on to all the visitors, these girls didn’t have anyone coming on that day, perhaps parents were working or couldn’t afford to come, it was sad they could watch everyone else having a nice time, but I heard later that after we all go home, the treats left with the girls are then shared with all the others who didn’t get visitors so thats nice. It was a fabby day, and although it had been a very hectic week it was worth taking this Sunday to head to the high school and see our girls. We really miss them when they go away. Its days like this you are reminded we are one big family and we truely are the parents, fun times!
PETER UPDATE – So many people are asking about Peter which is great, awesome to have so many supporters for him and people praying for him. Well he is doing well, test results recently are looking good, i mean we won’t know fully whether he has recovered or not until he finishes treatment but everything is looking positive. Currently he is receiving treatment every 3 weeks. His next treatment is due sometime this weekend. He has 7 left in total on the current plan, but the good news is that he only has one more which involves injecting chemo into his spine, called the I.T. This is good because its always the most traumatic part of the whole treatment process and the one thing I always worry about. He hates it and being a smart kid he knows its coming each time, but he is dealing with it well, and although he gets nervous before hand he has learnt to just accept and get on with it. BUT great news he only has one more like this and then he will just be receiving future treatments through a drip. This is also good news because hopefully it means we spend less nights in the hospital, but then again it all depends how he reacts each time to treatment anyways. Funding is very low at the moment, we have pretty much worked our way all through the money we raised earlier in the year. We have enough left for the next treatment this weekend and then we will have run out. After this weekend he will still need 6 more treatments and then probably further tests to see what happens next. Based on costs of treatments so far (which average at about £400 per session) we need about £2,400 for the final 6 treatments. If anyone is interested in helping Peter with his final course of treatment please do get in touch ASAP. My email address is: kjbkenya@hotmail.co.uk We are so close to the end and we have come so far we really need to make it to the end to make sure he has the best chance of getting rid of the cancer! Its a shame he is still not allowed to come to school because the chemo reduces his immune system he is at risk of infection, I know he is incredibly bored, but thats a consequence of the situation and he is coping with it. We try and get him work to do but its just not the same as being in school. Anyways please do continue to pray for him, especially as he receives this last I.T. and then please pray we can find the resources to complete the treatment.
THE DROPPING OF NAMES – So who would have thought I would be wining and dining with football superstars???? OK well maybe thats a slight exaggeration, but basically from Kenya there are 2 famous football players: Mariga and Oliech who play for Inter Milan and Auxerre. Oliech grew up in the slum just where Cheryls is based and used to go to the same school as James. He played in the same junior football club as some of our boys. ANYWAY.... Mariga came to the sevens rugby which was kind of cool, but then a few days later James and I were sat at Java house having a bite to eat when this big HUMMER turned up and a small entourage. I joked saying that probably was the famous football guy and of course it was. They came and sat at Java and had lunch... on a different table to us. But I thought it was funny I was dining in the same place as an Inter Milan player... definitely wouldn’t happen in the UK, I don’t move in the same circles as Premier League players! But as I’m in the process of name dropping, I might as well drop another...Jonathan Scott... so do you know who he is... well if you watch Big Cat Diaries on BBC one then he is one of the presenters, the one with the moustache. He lives up in Karen not far from Cheryls, I often see him driving passed and then occasionally he is doing his shopping in Nakumatt and having coffee at Dormands. Apparently he is a really nice guy, but I;ve never spoken to him, but anyways cool to see the odd famous person here and there.
THE DARK SIDE – ok so the title for this section is a bit flippant, but probably due to the fact that I recently watched the entire Star Wars series, which is the first time I have watched them all the way through, 1 - 6, but thats really not important. Recently I have been reminded again about the children we are working with. A week ago one of our foster kids came to school all beaten up, with cuts on her lips and hands and marks on her back. She was very shaken and still in shock I think. The previous night the mother had beaten the girl because she accused her of stealing 5 shillings which is about 4pence. I was so angry and couldn’t believe what had happened... all that over 4 pence, but it demonstrates the poverty and situations people are dealing with and the pressure some of the parents etc are under. However there is no excuse for this kind of behaviour. We know the mother well and this is very much out of character. We provided the girl with medical treatment and she stayed over night with us. We then pursued the situation with the mother and dealt with it all. Many of our kids have gone through this kind of experience, but with all the joy and laughter at Cheryls its easy to forget. Also on our day trip to the high school we met a girl who used to be at Cheryls, but left a few years ago. Her story is very sad, and I can’t go into it all here, but basically her mum started prostituting her out to her friends when she was about 13 years old. The girl ran away from home and managed recently to get to another childrens home. The head teacher at All Saints is giving her a free high school education but now in the holidays she has no where to go, when she ran away from home, Lillian found her working in a hotel near Cheryls, only 14 years old. She is a very smart girl, but its aweful what has happened to her. Its a long story why she is not at cheryls, partly to do with the mother who was causing problems, but we are now stuck in a position where we cannot support her, which is sooo frustrating. When the girl goes to boarding school she doesn;t get any shopping, for example when we send our kids to high school we have to provide things like shoe polish, shampoo, toothpaste, toilet roll, sanitary towels etc etc etc its a huge cost to us but they need it. The sad thing is although this girl gets free education she gets no shopping. I was so encouraged when I heard that our 7 girls share what they have with her (and our girls only get the bare minimum). So although as an organisation we cannot formerly support her its great that our girls have seen her need and are standing by her. Some people question the need for childrens home, and I hear from some of the big NGO workers who think they know everything “I believe every child has family” meaning why put them in childrens home... well I too believe every child has a family but some families are dangerous environments for kids and they are safer with us, thats the real world, unfortunately not every parent or relative is a good one and kids need protecting.
HURRAY HURRAH – So it only took 9 months but I have finally got my work permit. Just as my visitor one was about to run out! But even then it was really crazy to actually get the stamp in my passport. You would think after 9 months and all the red tape I could just go get the stamp, but NOOOOOO, i had to join various queues... go to various offices, back and forth which took a whole day, was then told it would take a week to get the stamp in my passport, but as I explained my visa was going to run out, they did it on the day... but come on thats ridiculous... 9 months of waiting and then still another week for the final step. I shouldn’t be surprised, no one was when I told them... thats life here in Kenya... the government loves the red tape. But at the end of the day I am finally here, legally and have a 3 year permit which is fantastic. I never really felt like I belonged before, always feeling still like a visitor, but now I have this I feel finally I am truly here for the long haul, thats a great feeling and a huge burden off my shoulders! Phew RELIEF!
Monday, 24 May 2010
SAUSAGES, GUNS AND RETREATS
SAUSAGES – So we have just had the rainy season... the LONG rains. Although it seems to have lasted longer than normal I think and also been more rain than normal. One of the strange things you sometimes get when it rains is sausage flies. Its weird, you never see them any other time, and it doesn’t happen every time it rains, it must just be when the conditions are right. Anyways it starts to rain, then you hear a fluttering sound, looking up at any light which is turned on (oh by the way it only tends to happen in the evening) you begin to see a few sausage flies flapping about by the light, then a few more, then a few more. When they enter a room looking for a light they flap everywhere. They have long white wings and so are easy to spot. Sometimes they are flapping around you and you have to keep brushing them off. In just a few minutes they seem to be everywhere. Once driving back from the hospital I saw them on every lamp post, its like a swarm. Where do they come from??? Where do they go after the rain? Its the strangest thing. I saw them years back when I lived in Zimbabwe. We were having a party at someone’s house, it began to rain and they all turned up, flying everywhere. Pretty soon the house was full of them, all dying on the floor (they don’t last long). The host was picking them up and putting in a bowl. She went to the kitchen, took the wings off and started to fry them. So a long with the crisps and snacks at the party, there in a few bowls dotted around the house were fried sausage flies. One night a few weeks ago, we had a movie night at the kids home, the flies turned up just before we began the movie and before the kids had dinner. Some of the young ones love it when they come because they have fun trying to catch them. They collect them in a pot and start plucking wings, a competition to see who can get the most. One of the wee girls, does this and doesn’t even bother cooking, she is happy to just start eating them, raw, still riggling around! Living in Nairobi you can feel very westernised in many ways, but its times like that when you are reminded where you really are, a lot of these kids have come originally from up country and this kind of activitiy would be normal, a treat even... hmmmmm think I prefer chocolate as my kind of treat!
YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE – A very sad thing happened the other day, just on Friday. Both Samuel and I left work a little early, at about 4pm. I was heading across town to David and Juliets, he was heading to pick up his girls from school. After he got them, (up in a small place called Kiberia, not to be confused with Kibera) he was leaving the school and another car bumped into him, deliberately. Everyone from the village and the school kids flocked around to see what had happened. Any car accident always draws a crowd, I mean come on... free entertainment! The guys got out of the other car shouting to everyone to go away, and of course they ignored that request. Samuel was waiting to talk with them about what had happened, when the main guy took a gun out of his pocket and fired some shots in the air, before pointing the gun at Samuel. At this point everyone scattered. They took his wallet (which he had just been to the bank with to get some money for his family and also money for building materials for the new classrooms being built), they took his wedding ring, phone, pushed him to the ground demanding his laptop. As they went into the boot for the laptop (which also had all the cheque books) he managed to escape running away knowing that he could be killed, although the girls were trapped in the car (and unlikely to get hurt but you never know). He waited a few minutes in a villagers house, before going around at the side and seeing their car had been gone. Terrified about what had happened to the girls he raced back to see they were ok. When he was telling me what happened on Saturday, he said he was watched movies like this, but on Friday it was like living in a movie. It must have only been 4:30pm in the afternoon, broad daylight!!! He was lucky to be alive, many people are killed over such petty things. He was very shaken up and you can’t imagine how the girls felt. Its horrific. Again these are stories we hear happening to others, then suddenly the reality hits when it happens to someone you know so well. Everyone was shaken at Cheryls. It seems so unfair, someone who sacrifices so much for others, and yet suffers such injustice. But at the end of the day we are all grateful he is still alive and unhurt. He was very shaken over the weekend, but I am so impressed by his strength, he is pressing on, coming to work today with a smile on his face.
DEAL OR NO DEAL – So the latest on the old land issue. We have gone into a deal with the land owner, an old mzee, a tycoon, who certainly has plenty of cash! He has agreed a price with us that we are happy with. He gave us 60 days to do our surveys and then if all is fine we can begin the real deal! I can’t believe we have finally got to this point, it is so exciting! For me there will be 3 important days this year. The first is when we find a piece of land and begin the process of purchasing. The second will be when we sign the formal agreement and pay the intial deposit, and the third and probably most important day will be when we have payed the balance and the land belongs to Cheryls Childrens Home! Our future will secured! So day one has arrived, we have reached that mile stone, I wanted to crack open champagne, even though I don’t drink, but we were being cautiously optimistic, we still have a long way to go to get to day 3. So we have engaged lawyers who are doing the surveys, checking everything out. So far we have raised about £70,000 and to reach the full amount we need to raise a further £50,000. According to the deadline now in place it looks like we will need the full amount by September. Not long now to go, but we are pressing forward. This will be the biggest milestone of the whole project. Many people want to help raise money to build a school and the other projects, but buying the land is the hardest stage, lets be honest it’s not exciting buying a piece of land for most people, also maybe some have doubts it can be done, but without the land there is no future for us beyond what we are currently doing. Even then at any point the Kenya Railway Authority could demand their land back and we would be homeless. This land we want to buy is our future, another £50,000 and we are there, the clock is ticking. You can download the updated building project proposal, which has all the latest details and new details from: www.box.net/shared/01ldis939k
RUNAWAY TO THE HILLS – Sometimes life here can be from the sublime to the ridiculous. It’s been a while since I have been to the Muthaiga club (a very old colonial private members club, I think the one in Out of Africa). I can only go if invited by David and Juliet, occasionally we go swimming there, or have afternoon tea. It’s a small treat from David and Juliet I really love. It’s where Kenya SOCIETY like to hang out. We often laugh at how on earth David and Juliet were invited to be members, but even so they are there! Sometimes the club runs a special event, and one thing that I think happens every year or certainly regularly is “Beating the Retreat”. I was a little confused about what this was all about, but said yes to the invite. I pitched up from work, trying to look reasonably smart in my £3 white Tesco shirt and Marks and Spencers trousers... am sure no-one would really know! Juliet and I sat and had some tea and cakes as the others arrived. Slowly by slowly Society turned up along with the KTB’s (the Khaki Trouser Brigade, of which I am a fully fledged member, my regular uniform for work) and we headed out to the lawn. Although the club is international and is increasing the number of Kenyan members, this event was predominantly white, and mostly British. We had our drinks, caught up with some friends, and it was nice to see I was getting to know more people... not Society people, but the middle class whites, teachers etc. Eventually the beating of the retreat began. In processed a small group of pipers and drummers in their green camouflage. We sat for about 25mins in the failing light, as the small band piped through various tunes including highland cathedral etc. At one point 2 off the group did some highland dancing to the tunes, which did look a bit odd in their camo army uniforms and not in highland dress, I did wonder who plucked the short straw in having to dance. Eventually it came to an end, the head piper marched forward to some old chap in a panama hat, said a few words and they then processed out. In Kenya there is a large British army contingent, partly as an aftermath to colonialism and the good ties between Kenya and the UK and also because the northern parts of Kenya make great training ground in preparation for Afganistan. Now I presume, the beating of retreat is done when an army group is heading home, or heading off to wherever their next destination is, possibly Afganistan. So its a traditional thing. It was the oddest experience in many ways, 300 expats and old colonials sat drinking pims and various drinks as these army boys carried out the old ritual. Although I don’t truely belong in such places as the Muthaiga club, and if I was around it long enough I would begin to despise it possibly (or maybe not its kind of nice...) but I do love these brief encounters and experiences, and a taste of the old colonial history. How many times has the beating of the retreat happened at Muthaiga, how many dignitaries and members of high society have sat and witnessed the same thing. It’s kind of fun, kind of surreal, and a bit of a laugh, and for a brief moment transports my mind from the daily struggles and pressures from Cheryls, to focus on something different and see a whole different side to life in Africa. If only Society knew who I really was... I chuckle inside myself as I hob nob with the rich and... well rich.
3 FUNERALS AND NO WEDDING – Imagine I have been here in Kenya for about 8 months, I know a few people, not many but a few. The strangest thing happened the other week. In the space of about 10 days 3 people I know died. I didn’t know some of them that well, but in the space of 10 days, out of the limited number of people I have come across, 3 die in 10 days. The first to go was Mo’s mother, a lady called Tinka. I haven’t seen her since our youth trip in 2004, but I remember long ago, back in 1995 I was spending a Christmas in Nairobi while on my gap year in Zimbabwe. I was staying in the guest cottage next to the house I am living in, with Mike and Gerry. Tinka lived opposite, and on Christmas day invited all the waifs and strays in Nairobi, people who had no-where else to go on Christmas day. She was a lovely, fun, slightly crazy lady, but I will never forget how she opened up her house for so many people. She has been in a nursing home recently and her daughter Mo was living opposite me. Sadly she passed away. Following this a guy I met before Christmas last year committed suicide, an old school friend of David. I only met him once but you could clearly tell he had serious problems. He hadn’t worked since school, was on various medications, but nothing helping. He had tried to commit suicide once before but failed. David is one of the few people left who spent time with him. We would often talk about it and he would beat himself up that he doesn’t do more for the guy and his brother (also with mental health problems), but in reality David was the only person left in Nairobi who would even bother to give them the time of day. Eventually it obviously got too much for the guy and he killed himself. He lived just down the road from me. Finally the third and the saddest one for me is that Geoff has passed away. I met Geoff and Dorothy back in 1995 when Mike and Gerry took me to Geoff and Dorothys house in Naivasha for new years day (I think a tradition for Mike and Gerry). We were the only guests, I had never met them before but they knew Mike and Gerry were bringing this young lad with them from Zimbabwe. They welcomed me into their home and as Christmas presents were passed between the 2 couples I was shocked and humbled to be given some Christmas presents from Geoff and Doroty. Having never met them, they still wanted to welcome me and give me some Christmas greetings. I have never forgotten that, and probably never will all my life. I have never met anyone like them. They were missionaries here for most of their life, doctors serving the poor. Even into their 90’s they were still providing medical to the local community from their house. When I brought youth groups from the UK in 2004 and 2007 I took them to meet Geoff and Dorothy, a little worried a bunch of teenagers would overwhelm them but they welcomed us all in and I think Geoff particularly liked chatting about the education system with the youngsters, I was just praying in the corner everyone would behave and remember their manners (I needn’t have worried, they were always great teenagers). We only spent a couple of hours there in 2007, but when I visited Kenya for 10 days in 2008 I had coffee again with Geoff and Dorothy and David. As we went back to Davids house Geoff phoned him, he was desperate to send a message to me. Both him and Dorothy wanted to say thank you, because 7 months earlier when we had visited with the teenagers, 2 of the leaders had done the washing up for them, they had wanted to say thank you! I couldn’t believe that they had remembered something like that, they didn’t even have to say thank you, but again I was humbled. The last time I saw Geoff was October last year, we were up in Naivasha with David and Juliet and Claire. David and I popped down to see them, but Dorothy was asleep, we saw Geoff walking around the garden, still in his shirt, sweater, formal shorts and long socks, enjoying the birds and flowers. We chatted for a while and caught up. They have a guest cottage there I have been meaning to use for a while, but never got organised enough. I was even going to use it the other week, but it didn’t happen. Dorothy is very old and frail, deaf and blind and relied heavily on Geoff, we all thought she would go first, but sadly Geoff fell in the shower the other week, he went into Nairobi Hospital, he took quite a bump to his head. David managed to see him, both him and Dorothy were there, a week or so later he passed away (in fact it happened during the night of the Beating of the Retreat, we had just been talking about them over dinner). He was muched loved by so many people in Kenya, it was a privilege to know him and have a few moments of my life with him, I regret I didn’t organise myself to spend more time with them. His memorial is on Friday, I won’t be able to make it, but I will be thinking of him on that day, and if any of the young people are reading this who met him, i hope you can spend just a brief moment thinking of him on Friday.
THE NEW TIGER – Having watched the Constant Gardner and seeing there was a golf course right by the Kibera slum, I thought I would never play golf here, its like in England where Golf is usually for the well off (unlike Scotland where everyone plays). However I discovered there are other courses and David wanted to play and was probably as bad as me. So when I came back from the UK in March I brought my clubs over. After many cancellations we finally had a round on a course called Vet Labs, which is part of a university. It’s not the poshest course but its still nice. The kind of informal golf course I like. Of course here you don’t carry your bag, a caddy does it for you (a source of employment and only costs £2). I loved playing golf with my best friend Mark back in Edinburgh, just the 2 of us out at melvilles, slicing, hooking and occasionally striking the ball well, in and amongst the trees, not taking it too seriously but competiting a little with each other, thats the golf I play. This time there were 4 of us in the group (including a 12 year old who I knew was going to be better than me!), plus the 4 caddys. Hmm too much of a crowd for my liking, and having not played in nearly a year the pressure got to me. Thats my biggest weakness, I phsyc myself out, rush, try and hit the ball as hard as I can, and any golfer knows that’s all completely wrong. It was strange because it had been really wet weather all week, and despite the warmth, it was wet and drizzly and like playing back home. I totally managed to embarrass myself by rubbish play, but we made it round, and thankfully the 12 year old didn’t laugh at me too much. My first strike I topped it, and it kind of dribbled off the tee not going anywhere (hmmmm good start infront of the club house). Alice, the 12 year olds mum, just said casually “thats what you call an air shot” trying to lighten the mood and help me relax, and the 12 year old quickly piped up “no mum, thats what you call a DUFF”, Alice all embarrassed now by her cheeky son. But it was all cool, i didn’t even hear them, and actually I wouldn’t mind, he was right it was a duff. We laughed the whole way round, sweated in the heat and altitude and despite some stress on my part it was a bit of fun. David and I both agreed, it was embarrassing, but we need to play more often, get some practice in and its good fitness! So hopefully tomorrow we will hit the course again, hoping to do a little better next time. OK not Tiger woods yet, but getting there (golf wise).
SACK – I had the toughest day a week or so ago. I had a friend visiting from Uganda on her way back to the UK. I was waiting at home to go the airport to pick her up in the morning when I got a call from Samuel. “The teachers are on strike”. I rushed in, emptied my bank account almost, I knew it was about money. I came in to find some of the teachers in Samuels office, I had 30 mins before I needed to leave for the airport. Its a very long story, but in brief this is what happened... until we can get most of the kids sponsored we will struggle to pay for all our running costs. Our priority is the kids, they must get fed and also get their education, which usually means it’s the staff that go without being paid. This is the hardest bit of my job, as Samuel and I discuss how to spend the little resources we have its when we see its the teachers and staff who must suffer. We talk about it a lot with them, we understand their difficulties, and its often people like Samuel and the other core staff who go the longest without being paid, the teachers tend to be the first to be paid because we don’t want to lose them. We know that if we can dramatically increase the child sponsorship we can pay everyone every month, its hard asking someone to work when we can’t pay, knowing they have their own families to provide for, food to buy, rent to pay. If someone is in real trouble we always give them something, and when they are not paid there is always a record kept. We know one day we will generate enough monthly income and will also pay everyone what they are owed. We talk about it at almost every meeting. But the sad thing is a few teachers wanted to cause problems. Samuel offered to meet with them, sat and discussed it and gave chance for them to talk more, ask questions, but everyone left agreed with the situation. It then transpired that they decided to sit in their classrooms not teaching, and then on the Friday had a strike by sitting in the staff room refusing to teach. Samuel invited them in again to discuss, they refused, he went down to see them, they refused to talk. I came into work that Friday, they didn’t talk. We discussed it and had to find what money we could to pay them all they were due. The Head teacher was furious with them, 2 other teachers refused to strike and carried on teaching. As in the UK there are strict laws about industrial action, you are obviously meant to negotiate as long as possible, and then striking is last choice, and if you do strike you are required to give formal notice. The first we heard of it was when the kids came to the head teacher asking why is no-one teaching us. This was the worst thing. Although we have no problem staff coming to ask for money, we totally understand, but these teachers had made a big mistake, by not talking it through with us, and then punishing the kids with an illegal strike. We discovered that some had not been teaching properly since the Easter holidays. For us the kids come first, and to punish them because the teachers were unhappy was wrong. We had no choice but to let all these teachers go, their attitude was all wrong. We can understand if someone needs to leave and find a new job that will pay every month, we would wish them well, but to punish the kids like that and treat them that way was wrong. Thankfully money had come in on the Friday, which we would have used to buy food, and pay schools fees for the high school kids from last term and a little bit this term, some also would have gone to the staff, but now all that money has had to go to the 7 teachers. We now face a difficult couple of months ahead, and the risk that some of these kids will be sent home from High School because the fees have not been paid. The teachers left us not even apologising for the strike. One teacher came back immediately to apoligise, infact during the strike he continued to mark books, but realised he should have stood up to the others, he had been a recent appointment so we understood he was afraid to resist. He acknowledged how wrong the others had been and wanted to give back some of the money we had given him. We decided to welcome him back to us and he is back teaching. Over the weekend Rose, our head teacher began recruiting, and by Tuesday we had a full compliment of staff again. We discussed with all new staff the situation, that money is tight at the moment, but the kids must come first, that our future building project is to make sure our future is secure and money for that can’t be used for the day to day stuff (something we had explained time and again to the old teachers, but they didn’t care about the future, just about today), that the only real way to secure paying staff is to increase child sponsorship, which guarantees food for the kids and salaries for the staff. They all agree and see what we are trying to do here. We are so pleased with the character of the new teachers and already the school is vibrant and we are moving forward. The old teachers have tried to spread horrible rumours to parents, trying to persuade the community kids who come here to leave us. But thankfully the parents trust us and see what we are trying to do. The old teachers went to the labour office to try and sue us for more money, but the labour office has investigated and seen what the teachers have done, and shown them where they have gone wrong. Its been a horrible time, and horrible that we had to do this. It has been really stressful and hard to have broken a relationship now we these adults. I’m sad they have left so bitter and still trying to cause problems. We won’t get dragged into anything with them now, we will just focus on carrying on with our work, we believe we will stand strong and all the other staff see the work we are doing and stand with us. Its been the hardest time. BUT this week has been positive, the new teachers are great and although we still face tough times ahead this whole experience has brought the rest of the staff together and a greater sense of unity. I desperately want us to reach a much higher number of sponsors, so that as each month comes we can pay the staff what they are due for working so hard, we can pay for food, we can pay our electricity bill, pay for water, pay for our kids in high school, we can truely provide for all these kids. We have 144 kids not sponsored, thats our target, thats what we need to aim for and fast! This has been an epic week, and maybe hard to understand from an outside perspective, but I believe Samuel and I have been professional, we have discussed everything with the head teacher and acted as a team, the labour office have confirmed we have done nothing wrong. It’s time to put the past behind us and move forward with a new team, confident in the future before us.
If you know of anyone who would like to sponsor a child you can download a form from: www.box.net/shared/o96v6386is
YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE – A very sad thing happened the other day, just on Friday. Both Samuel and I left work a little early, at about 4pm. I was heading across town to David and Juliets, he was heading to pick up his girls from school. After he got them, (up in a small place called Kiberia, not to be confused with Kibera) he was leaving the school and another car bumped into him, deliberately. Everyone from the village and the school kids flocked around to see what had happened. Any car accident always draws a crowd, I mean come on... free entertainment! The guys got out of the other car shouting to everyone to go away, and of course they ignored that request. Samuel was waiting to talk with them about what had happened, when the main guy took a gun out of his pocket and fired some shots in the air, before pointing the gun at Samuel. At this point everyone scattered. They took his wallet (which he had just been to the bank with to get some money for his family and also money for building materials for the new classrooms being built), they took his wedding ring, phone, pushed him to the ground demanding his laptop. As they went into the boot for the laptop (which also had all the cheque books) he managed to escape running away knowing that he could be killed, although the girls were trapped in the car (and unlikely to get hurt but you never know). He waited a few minutes in a villagers house, before going around at the side and seeing their car had been gone. Terrified about what had happened to the girls he raced back to see they were ok. When he was telling me what happened on Saturday, he said he was watched movies like this, but on Friday it was like living in a movie. It must have only been 4:30pm in the afternoon, broad daylight!!! He was lucky to be alive, many people are killed over such petty things. He was very shaken up and you can’t imagine how the girls felt. Its horrific. Again these are stories we hear happening to others, then suddenly the reality hits when it happens to someone you know so well. Everyone was shaken at Cheryls. It seems so unfair, someone who sacrifices so much for others, and yet suffers such injustice. But at the end of the day we are all grateful he is still alive and unhurt. He was very shaken over the weekend, but I am so impressed by his strength, he is pressing on, coming to work today with a smile on his face.
DEAL OR NO DEAL – So the latest on the old land issue. We have gone into a deal with the land owner, an old mzee, a tycoon, who certainly has plenty of cash! He has agreed a price with us that we are happy with. He gave us 60 days to do our surveys and then if all is fine we can begin the real deal! I can’t believe we have finally got to this point, it is so exciting! For me there will be 3 important days this year. The first is when we find a piece of land and begin the process of purchasing. The second will be when we sign the formal agreement and pay the intial deposit, and the third and probably most important day will be when we have payed the balance and the land belongs to Cheryls Childrens Home! Our future will secured! So day one has arrived, we have reached that mile stone, I wanted to crack open champagne, even though I don’t drink, but we were being cautiously optimistic, we still have a long way to go to get to day 3. So we have engaged lawyers who are doing the surveys, checking everything out. So far we have raised about £70,000 and to reach the full amount we need to raise a further £50,000. According to the deadline now in place it looks like we will need the full amount by September. Not long now to go, but we are pressing forward. This will be the biggest milestone of the whole project. Many people want to help raise money to build a school and the other projects, but buying the land is the hardest stage, lets be honest it’s not exciting buying a piece of land for most people, also maybe some have doubts it can be done, but without the land there is no future for us beyond what we are currently doing. Even then at any point the Kenya Railway Authority could demand their land back and we would be homeless. This land we want to buy is our future, another £50,000 and we are there, the clock is ticking. You can download the updated building project proposal, which has all the latest details and new details from: www.box.net/shared/01ldis939k
RUNAWAY TO THE HILLS – Sometimes life here can be from the sublime to the ridiculous. It’s been a while since I have been to the Muthaiga club (a very old colonial private members club, I think the one in Out of Africa). I can only go if invited by David and Juliet, occasionally we go swimming there, or have afternoon tea. It’s a small treat from David and Juliet I really love. It’s where Kenya SOCIETY like to hang out. We often laugh at how on earth David and Juliet were invited to be members, but even so they are there! Sometimes the club runs a special event, and one thing that I think happens every year or certainly regularly is “Beating the Retreat”. I was a little confused about what this was all about, but said yes to the invite. I pitched up from work, trying to look reasonably smart in my £3 white Tesco shirt and Marks and Spencers trousers... am sure no-one would really know! Juliet and I sat and had some tea and cakes as the others arrived. Slowly by slowly Society turned up along with the KTB’s (the Khaki Trouser Brigade, of which I am a fully fledged member, my regular uniform for work) and we headed out to the lawn. Although the club is international and is increasing the number of Kenyan members, this event was predominantly white, and mostly British. We had our drinks, caught up with some friends, and it was nice to see I was getting to know more people... not Society people, but the middle class whites, teachers etc. Eventually the beating of the retreat began. In processed a small group of pipers and drummers in their green camouflage. We sat for about 25mins in the failing light, as the small band piped through various tunes including highland cathedral etc. At one point 2 off the group did some highland dancing to the tunes, which did look a bit odd in their camo army uniforms and not in highland dress, I did wonder who plucked the short straw in having to dance. Eventually it came to an end, the head piper marched forward to some old chap in a panama hat, said a few words and they then processed out. In Kenya there is a large British army contingent, partly as an aftermath to colonialism and the good ties between Kenya and the UK and also because the northern parts of Kenya make great training ground in preparation for Afganistan. Now I presume, the beating of retreat is done when an army group is heading home, or heading off to wherever their next destination is, possibly Afganistan. So its a traditional thing. It was the oddest experience in many ways, 300 expats and old colonials sat drinking pims and various drinks as these army boys carried out the old ritual. Although I don’t truely belong in such places as the Muthaiga club, and if I was around it long enough I would begin to despise it possibly (or maybe not its kind of nice...) but I do love these brief encounters and experiences, and a taste of the old colonial history. How many times has the beating of the retreat happened at Muthaiga, how many dignitaries and members of high society have sat and witnessed the same thing. It’s kind of fun, kind of surreal, and a bit of a laugh, and for a brief moment transports my mind from the daily struggles and pressures from Cheryls, to focus on something different and see a whole different side to life in Africa. If only Society knew who I really was... I chuckle inside myself as I hob nob with the rich and... well rich.
3 FUNERALS AND NO WEDDING – Imagine I have been here in Kenya for about 8 months, I know a few people, not many but a few. The strangest thing happened the other week. In the space of about 10 days 3 people I know died. I didn’t know some of them that well, but in the space of 10 days, out of the limited number of people I have come across, 3 die in 10 days. The first to go was Mo’s mother, a lady called Tinka. I haven’t seen her since our youth trip in 2004, but I remember long ago, back in 1995 I was spending a Christmas in Nairobi while on my gap year in Zimbabwe. I was staying in the guest cottage next to the house I am living in, with Mike and Gerry. Tinka lived opposite, and on Christmas day invited all the waifs and strays in Nairobi, people who had no-where else to go on Christmas day. She was a lovely, fun, slightly crazy lady, but I will never forget how she opened up her house for so many people. She has been in a nursing home recently and her daughter Mo was living opposite me. Sadly she passed away. Following this a guy I met before Christmas last year committed suicide, an old school friend of David. I only met him once but you could clearly tell he had serious problems. He hadn’t worked since school, was on various medications, but nothing helping. He had tried to commit suicide once before but failed. David is one of the few people left who spent time with him. We would often talk about it and he would beat himself up that he doesn’t do more for the guy and his brother (also with mental health problems), but in reality David was the only person left in Nairobi who would even bother to give them the time of day. Eventually it obviously got too much for the guy and he killed himself. He lived just down the road from me. Finally the third and the saddest one for me is that Geoff has passed away. I met Geoff and Dorothy back in 1995 when Mike and Gerry took me to Geoff and Dorothys house in Naivasha for new years day (I think a tradition for Mike and Gerry). We were the only guests, I had never met them before but they knew Mike and Gerry were bringing this young lad with them from Zimbabwe. They welcomed me into their home and as Christmas presents were passed between the 2 couples I was shocked and humbled to be given some Christmas presents from Geoff and Doroty. Having never met them, they still wanted to welcome me and give me some Christmas greetings. I have never forgotten that, and probably never will all my life. I have never met anyone like them. They were missionaries here for most of their life, doctors serving the poor. Even into their 90’s they were still providing medical to the local community from their house. When I brought youth groups from the UK in 2004 and 2007 I took them to meet Geoff and Dorothy, a little worried a bunch of teenagers would overwhelm them but they welcomed us all in and I think Geoff particularly liked chatting about the education system with the youngsters, I was just praying in the corner everyone would behave and remember their manners (I needn’t have worried, they were always great teenagers). We only spent a couple of hours there in 2007, but when I visited Kenya for 10 days in 2008 I had coffee again with Geoff and Dorothy and David. As we went back to Davids house Geoff phoned him, he was desperate to send a message to me. Both him and Dorothy wanted to say thank you, because 7 months earlier when we had visited with the teenagers, 2 of the leaders had done the washing up for them, they had wanted to say thank you! I couldn’t believe that they had remembered something like that, they didn’t even have to say thank you, but again I was humbled. The last time I saw Geoff was October last year, we were up in Naivasha with David and Juliet and Claire. David and I popped down to see them, but Dorothy was asleep, we saw Geoff walking around the garden, still in his shirt, sweater, formal shorts and long socks, enjoying the birds and flowers. We chatted for a while and caught up. They have a guest cottage there I have been meaning to use for a while, but never got organised enough. I was even going to use it the other week, but it didn’t happen. Dorothy is very old and frail, deaf and blind and relied heavily on Geoff, we all thought she would go first, but sadly Geoff fell in the shower the other week, he went into Nairobi Hospital, he took quite a bump to his head. David managed to see him, both him and Dorothy were there, a week or so later he passed away (in fact it happened during the night of the Beating of the Retreat, we had just been talking about them over dinner). He was muched loved by so many people in Kenya, it was a privilege to know him and have a few moments of my life with him, I regret I didn’t organise myself to spend more time with them. His memorial is on Friday, I won’t be able to make it, but I will be thinking of him on that day, and if any of the young people are reading this who met him, i hope you can spend just a brief moment thinking of him on Friday.
THE NEW TIGER – Having watched the Constant Gardner and seeing there was a golf course right by the Kibera slum, I thought I would never play golf here, its like in England where Golf is usually for the well off (unlike Scotland where everyone plays). However I discovered there are other courses and David wanted to play and was probably as bad as me. So when I came back from the UK in March I brought my clubs over. After many cancellations we finally had a round on a course called Vet Labs, which is part of a university. It’s not the poshest course but its still nice. The kind of informal golf course I like. Of course here you don’t carry your bag, a caddy does it for you (a source of employment and only costs £2). I loved playing golf with my best friend Mark back in Edinburgh, just the 2 of us out at melvilles, slicing, hooking and occasionally striking the ball well, in and amongst the trees, not taking it too seriously but competiting a little with each other, thats the golf I play. This time there were 4 of us in the group (including a 12 year old who I knew was going to be better than me!), plus the 4 caddys. Hmm too much of a crowd for my liking, and having not played in nearly a year the pressure got to me. Thats my biggest weakness, I phsyc myself out, rush, try and hit the ball as hard as I can, and any golfer knows that’s all completely wrong. It was strange because it had been really wet weather all week, and despite the warmth, it was wet and drizzly and like playing back home. I totally managed to embarrass myself by rubbish play, but we made it round, and thankfully the 12 year old didn’t laugh at me too much. My first strike I topped it, and it kind of dribbled off the tee not going anywhere (hmmmm good start infront of the club house). Alice, the 12 year olds mum, just said casually “thats what you call an air shot” trying to lighten the mood and help me relax, and the 12 year old quickly piped up “no mum, thats what you call a DUFF”, Alice all embarrassed now by her cheeky son. But it was all cool, i didn’t even hear them, and actually I wouldn’t mind, he was right it was a duff. We laughed the whole way round, sweated in the heat and altitude and despite some stress on my part it was a bit of fun. David and I both agreed, it was embarrassing, but we need to play more often, get some practice in and its good fitness! So hopefully tomorrow we will hit the course again, hoping to do a little better next time. OK not Tiger woods yet, but getting there (golf wise).
SACK – I had the toughest day a week or so ago. I had a friend visiting from Uganda on her way back to the UK. I was waiting at home to go the airport to pick her up in the morning when I got a call from Samuel. “The teachers are on strike”. I rushed in, emptied my bank account almost, I knew it was about money. I came in to find some of the teachers in Samuels office, I had 30 mins before I needed to leave for the airport. Its a very long story, but in brief this is what happened... until we can get most of the kids sponsored we will struggle to pay for all our running costs. Our priority is the kids, they must get fed and also get their education, which usually means it’s the staff that go without being paid. This is the hardest bit of my job, as Samuel and I discuss how to spend the little resources we have its when we see its the teachers and staff who must suffer. We talk about it a lot with them, we understand their difficulties, and its often people like Samuel and the other core staff who go the longest without being paid, the teachers tend to be the first to be paid because we don’t want to lose them. We know that if we can dramatically increase the child sponsorship we can pay everyone every month, its hard asking someone to work when we can’t pay, knowing they have their own families to provide for, food to buy, rent to pay. If someone is in real trouble we always give them something, and when they are not paid there is always a record kept. We know one day we will generate enough monthly income and will also pay everyone what they are owed. We talk about it at almost every meeting. But the sad thing is a few teachers wanted to cause problems. Samuel offered to meet with them, sat and discussed it and gave chance for them to talk more, ask questions, but everyone left agreed with the situation. It then transpired that they decided to sit in their classrooms not teaching, and then on the Friday had a strike by sitting in the staff room refusing to teach. Samuel invited them in again to discuss, they refused, he went down to see them, they refused to talk. I came into work that Friday, they didn’t talk. We discussed it and had to find what money we could to pay them all they were due. The Head teacher was furious with them, 2 other teachers refused to strike and carried on teaching. As in the UK there are strict laws about industrial action, you are obviously meant to negotiate as long as possible, and then striking is last choice, and if you do strike you are required to give formal notice. The first we heard of it was when the kids came to the head teacher asking why is no-one teaching us. This was the worst thing. Although we have no problem staff coming to ask for money, we totally understand, but these teachers had made a big mistake, by not talking it through with us, and then punishing the kids with an illegal strike. We discovered that some had not been teaching properly since the Easter holidays. For us the kids come first, and to punish them because the teachers were unhappy was wrong. We had no choice but to let all these teachers go, their attitude was all wrong. We can understand if someone needs to leave and find a new job that will pay every month, we would wish them well, but to punish the kids like that and treat them that way was wrong. Thankfully money had come in on the Friday, which we would have used to buy food, and pay schools fees for the high school kids from last term and a little bit this term, some also would have gone to the staff, but now all that money has had to go to the 7 teachers. We now face a difficult couple of months ahead, and the risk that some of these kids will be sent home from High School because the fees have not been paid. The teachers left us not even apologising for the strike. One teacher came back immediately to apoligise, infact during the strike he continued to mark books, but realised he should have stood up to the others, he had been a recent appointment so we understood he was afraid to resist. He acknowledged how wrong the others had been and wanted to give back some of the money we had given him. We decided to welcome him back to us and he is back teaching. Over the weekend Rose, our head teacher began recruiting, and by Tuesday we had a full compliment of staff again. We discussed with all new staff the situation, that money is tight at the moment, but the kids must come first, that our future building project is to make sure our future is secure and money for that can’t be used for the day to day stuff (something we had explained time and again to the old teachers, but they didn’t care about the future, just about today), that the only real way to secure paying staff is to increase child sponsorship, which guarantees food for the kids and salaries for the staff. They all agree and see what we are trying to do here. We are so pleased with the character of the new teachers and already the school is vibrant and we are moving forward. The old teachers have tried to spread horrible rumours to parents, trying to persuade the community kids who come here to leave us. But thankfully the parents trust us and see what we are trying to do. The old teachers went to the labour office to try and sue us for more money, but the labour office has investigated and seen what the teachers have done, and shown them where they have gone wrong. Its been a horrible time, and horrible that we had to do this. It has been really stressful and hard to have broken a relationship now we these adults. I’m sad they have left so bitter and still trying to cause problems. We won’t get dragged into anything with them now, we will just focus on carrying on with our work, we believe we will stand strong and all the other staff see the work we are doing and stand with us. Its been the hardest time. BUT this week has been positive, the new teachers are great and although we still face tough times ahead this whole experience has brought the rest of the staff together and a greater sense of unity. I desperately want us to reach a much higher number of sponsors, so that as each month comes we can pay the staff what they are due for working so hard, we can pay for food, we can pay our electricity bill, pay for water, pay for our kids in high school, we can truely provide for all these kids. We have 144 kids not sponsored, thats our target, thats what we need to aim for and fast! This has been an epic week, and maybe hard to understand from an outside perspective, but I believe Samuel and I have been professional, we have discussed everything with the head teacher and acted as a team, the labour office have confirmed we have done nothing wrong. It’s time to put the past behind us and move forward with a new team, confident in the future before us.
If you know of anyone who would like to sponsor a child you can download a form from: www.box.net/shared/o96v6386is
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
SAFARI - A JOURNEY
HIT THE ROAD – So a couple of weeks ago I finally got chance to take my first official holiday since being in Kenya. There are sooooo many places to explore and discover in Kenya and in a way I want to see them all as fast as I can, i have no patience, but living here is not about going on constant holidays, so I need to wait until opportunities arise and funds allow. Unfortunately as I am still waiting for a residency permit I have to pay tourist rates, which totally sucks as they are sooooo high compared to resident rates, but in time it will come. So myself, David and Juliet hit the Mombasa road south down to Tsavo West and then moving on to Tsavo East. Tsavo is the biggest national park in Africa (possibly the world, I’m not sure). Tsavo has always been a favourite of mine, it is vast and spellbounding, everytime I go my breath is taken away, and then you study the map and realise that we only ever really drive round a tiny part of it. Because of its size you don’t always see many animals, and for those just visiting on holiday and wanting to see the big 5, its probably not worth coming to Tsavo because you are most likely to be disappointed, but if you appreciate a stunning landscape, rapidly changing scenery and the feeling of truely being in the wild, this is the place to be. We stayed at a tented camp (quite luxurious – I managed to sneak residency rates here which was great, just had to pay tourist rate to enter the park). Our tents overlooked some hippos pools, where the hippos resided all day, splashing around, and cooling off in the water. Crocodiles also inhabited the pool, and on the last day I had a baby one just under the wooden structure on which my tent was placed. At night time we had to be escorted to the main bit with the restaurant as the hippos move from the pool and head out for their night time feasting. On the way back on the last night as my Askari walked me to my tent we spotted a Python slowly moving across the path just to go under my tent structure. In all the time I have ever spent in Africa I think this is the only situation I have come across a random snake in the wild, I have seen others, but not like this. Thankfully it was just a young one at 1.2metres long. It was white with dark brown markings. He was on the hunt and moving slowly. I knew that he wouldn’t be too interested in my tent as he looked hungry and was looking for food. Later on we spotted him again going past my tent and heading off to the bush. It was so cool really feeling like you are in the wild, with so much wildlife around you. We spent 3 days there, doing game drives, enjoying the scenery and relaxing in the swimming pool (which cooled us down from the 40 degree heat). I love Tsavo, and will always be a special place to me.
ORPHANS OF A DIFFERENT KIND – One of the most popular tourist things to do in Nairobi is visit Daphney Sheldricks Elephant orphanage where they rescue baby elephants and bring them up to go back into the wild. Now if you sponsor or foster one of these elephants you can book to stay at Ithumba in Tsavo East. Tsavo East is not as popular as Tsavo West, especially in the nothern part. Partly because the area is so dense with bush you can hardly see anything so its not a place for game drives etc. Well David and Juliet and 2 other friends Tim and Shellen, sponsor elephants, so we all booked at Ithumba for the second part of our short holiday. If Tsavo West was in the wild, this place is even more so. There are no other lodges, camps and tourists in the area, it was just us, the elephant part and the Kenya Wildlife Services headquarters. It was awesome. A very bumpy 2 hour drive off the main road, passing through tiny villages, listening to some great tunes on Ron’s stereo and waving to the kids who love spotting Mzungu’s (white people) and constantly wondering, have we made a wrong turn, the deeper we go the further it will be if we are lost. But we made it to the camp, it has only 3 tents and a large open structure which has comfy chairs, dining tables and lamu style beds for relaxing during the day. Its self catering but also not that basic so you do feel a little bit of pampering. When you book you book the whole camp, so we had it all to our selves. So 4kms down the road is where the young elephants are. Once they are old enough Sheldricks moves the elephants down from Nairobi to this camp and start the re-introduction to the wild process. There were 8 elephants when we were there, 6 older ones and 2 younger ones (one of which was quite sick and had a heart problem, also my favourite). We would wake at 5:30am drive to the ele’s and feed them with milk at 6am, which was cool. Come back and eat breakfast and sleep, then at 11am we would meet the ele’s out at a small pool. After their breakfast they head out into the wild for feeding on branches etc and go with a couple of carers, so they always arrive at the pool at 11am, where we feed them with more milk. Sometimes the ex orphans turn up as well just to say hi which is very cool. On both days they came, but that was a little scary because these ones were like 10 – 12 years old, so very big and slightly wild now, but the carers make sure us tourists are fine. The ele’s eat, swim and then move on. Then we go back and crash, laze around, have lunch, sleep, melt in the 40+degree heat and then at 5pm go back for the last feed, as the elephants come back to their camp. It was an awesome experience, sometimes tiring, but feeding the elephants out in the wild by the pool was the best bit. On the last day loads of the ex orphans came along with a totally wild elephant, I wasn;t too worried, until the head carer quietly said...”hmm maybe you should get behind that tree”... so the 5 of us cowered behind this pathetically tiny tree from this giant elephant who wasn’t too pleased to see us. But he calmed down and we all carried on. It is so different being out in the wild, on foot, not inside your vehicle, the feeling is soooo much different and special, you are not protected by some large metal machine, but standing there, exposed to whatever wildlife is around. The adrenaline, the connection with nature is fantastic and I love it. The great thing also was to see that 2 of the older elephants had decided to spend the night out with the ex orphans, the young ele’s can move into the wild whenever they want, they tend to go away for 1 night, then come back and then go for longer etc until they finally leave, it was great to see the re-introduction actually happening before our eyes. (See photos below this post)
THATS HOW IT FEELS - After the 3 days Ithumba we did our last feeding of the elephants and I felt a real sadness as we drove away. I tended to feed the sick elephant and in such a short space and time I felt quite attached. But I also reflected driving away how similar this situation is to Cheryls and our volunteers. I felt really attached to these young elephants after only 3 days, thinking that feeding them each day I had built some connection, but in truth it was more in my head than in the elephants. The carers don’t really want the elephants to get too used to people so they cope better in the wild, but you feel you do, but in reality you don’t. The elephant comes to you because you have a milk bottle in your hand, and the carer is near by so he trusts its ok. He soon leaves when the bottle is empty. I left on the last night wanting to matter to these elephants and feel significant to them, but actually thats because I wanted to feel significant and important, the truth is it’s the carers that really matter and who are important, they work incredibly hard, in harsh conditions and for long hours and weeks. They dedicate their lives to these elephants. They are the important ones and they are the ones who really gain the respect and love from the elephants. As I left I suddenly felt a comparison to volunteers I manage at Cheryls. We have a mixture of volunteers who come to us, some are fantastic, some are maybe a little hard work. But most people come with a desire to help and support us, but I know that feeling, that desire to feel significant and to matter to someone (or something) that needs help. I think this is totally natural and normal, but i guess the truth is the same here, its the staff that really matter, they are the ones who work so incredibly hard, sometimes not getting paid, sometimes being taken for granted, but they are making the long term and significant impact on these kids, just like the carers of the elephants. The sad thing is sometimes they get unnoticed by volunteers and visitors, and volunteers can occasionally come with an attitude of its them (the volunteer) thats making the impact and can change the kids lives. Don’t get me wrong, having volunteers is fantastic and a really important resource we need at Cheryls, so if you are thinking of volunteering please do come and visit, you are totally welcome and I want you to come. But what i hope visitors know and understand is that we have an awesome bunch of dedicated and hard working staff who love these kids and sacrifice a lot for them, they are here through the drought and through the rain, they are the ones making the difference. The great thing about being a volunteer at Cheryls and with the Elephants is that you get a chance to catch a glimpse of this, and in a small way support those staff who are working so hard. That can be a real priveledge and awesome opportunity. I guess at the end of the day volunteering is about sacrificing time and resources to help others in whatever way is necessary, but probably more dominantly a time to learn and experience how others are living and working, being educated, and thats awesome. For me at Ithumba, it was useful to experience that side of volunteering again (which I haven;t done for a long time) a reminder of the feelings of a volunteer, the importance of a volunteer but also knowing where the true significance and importance is, the staff. Oh and I definitely want to go back and volunteer there again!
SSSSHHHH IT’S QUIET – The school holidays are a great time, over Easter they last about 4 weeks, and we are now in the final week of hols. The majority of the residents go and stay with some relatives for a few weeks, which is great because it connects them with where they have come from and extended family. Usually these relatives can’t cope with the kids long term but can take them for a few weeks in the holidays. Most relatives are good at looking after them, but sometimes kids are here because they were abused by relatives after the parents dies. Thats why we still have about 20 kids left here, those who have been abandoned and those where relatives homes are unsafe. The place is quiet, it means the staff are given a bit of a break, the financial pressures for the this month are just a little less, because we need less food and less water etc. We run movie nights every weekend during the hols for those who remain and we have had some good times. I enjoy catching up with the high school kids and finding out how their terms have been, hearing all their stories and trying to get them all equipped for the term ahead. I think the holiday times are my favourite times, its quieter, you can spend more quality time with a smaller number of kids and I love seeing the high school ones and seeing them grow and mature, discussing jobs, careers and about their views on politics and life in Kenya. It is often sat watching a movie on movie night, with a small child sitting on your lap and seeing how happy everyone is just with a soda and a movie, that I realise I love my job, i love what I do and can’t imagine being anywhere else. Of course its stressful, frustrating and sometimes I can just despair, but the truth is what I’m doing is great and right now I don’t want to do anything else!
MZUNGU MADNESS – So over the last few weeks or months should I say, we have been checking out land for our building project. We having been popping up to Naivasha a few times to check out various places and we think we have found the perfect spot. It fits all our criteria, and myself, Samuel and Mike one of our board of directors all fell in love with it the first time we visited. Its also cheaper than the land we were looking at before Christmas. We still need to do surveys and more research but its looking good. We were quoted a price by the agents and then last week we finally met the owner. An older guy, a bit of a local tycoon. We entered his office, did the obligatory greetings, but to my surprise and joy he said, lets just get right to it, we all know why were are here. This is unusual., normally the conversation has to go around the houses before you finally get down to what you are supposed to be talking about. The sad thing though was he started on the price and he jumped from the price originally quoted, to almost double. I was so frustrated and disappointed, I could tell he had seen us, knew that a Mzungu was involved and probably thought he could try and get more money from us. I was annoyed and felt we have just wasted the last few months looking at this land. He kept waffling and I just thought whats the point of hanging round here, there is no way we were going to pay that much. But deep down I knew it was all a game. He was testing us, to see if we would pay more. I dug my heels in, knowing that at the end of the day the control is in our hands, we didn;t have to buy his land, there is always more land out there. Agents and owners always try and scare you into buying, this land is amazing (which it actually is) this land can go for a higher price, this land can be easily sold to someone else... etc. But the truth is, its just like negotiating in the markets, if you seem keen and start increasing the price you offer, the owner knows he has got you. I looked disinterested in the question, stated the original price is what we can pay thats it, if he doesn;t want it we will look elsewhere. He pressed the conversation on further, just saying we needed to add a little more. Eventually we left, myself feeling frustrated the deal had taken this course. We said we would go away and think about it and talk, he would do the same. As we left he whispered to the agent the price he would sell for which was a little extra on top of the original price, nowhere near what he was fishing for 30 mins earlier. He was obviously testing us and realised there was no dice, this Mzungu wasn’t going to roll over and just pay up. We came back to Nairobi and discussed it, my advice was to hold firm at the original price, believing that in the end he will sell. If he doesn’t we will discuss paying slightly more, because the land is good and probably worth it, but for now we are standing firm, and latest I have heard is that he will sell at the original price but wants a little extra for some fixtures and fittings on the land such as a water tank and small house, but I can appreciate that and believe that’s fair enough, so we will have to negotiate a price on those things or an addition per acre. This happens though, people see a Mzungu involved in the deal and try and squeeze more money, but I’m not interested in that, this is money donated by people from around the world, we need the best price we can get and this Mzungu ain’t just going to roll over and pay double!
IT’S STARTED – One of the things I have been working on this last few months is the sponsorship programme, it is now up and running in the UK through our charity there, CWK but also worldwide as it has been for a number of years. Our aim is to get at least 100 new sponsors by September. So we have got 4 new ones this month, its a start, but we have a long way to go. I can’t express how much of a difference the sponsorship programme will make to Cheryls and also just my working life on a personal note. If we can get 100 new sponsors we will have a regular income and that will take a massive pressure off us. At the moment we have nothing in the bank, but next week will have to equip the high school kids to go back to school, get all their shopping, pay their school fees, and on top of that get ready for our own primary school to be up and running. We need to pay salaries for this month, buy water, pay the electricity bill and cover all the general running costs. Money that is donated comes in at different times, and not always when its needed. Having children sponsored means money comes in regularly, each month and we know when its coming and how much, which means we can plan ahead and have that confidence it will be there. This is why we need 100 new sponsors. If you are reading this and you know of someone who might like to sponsor a child can you point them to this web page: http://www.box.net/shared/o96v6386is it has a child sponsorship form which you can download, print off and send to the CWK guys, it has all the information. If you are from somewhere else in the world other than the UK just email me directly and I can get an international form to you: kjbkenya@hotmail.co.uk I really want us to reach 100 by September. Each new sponsor brings smiles to the staff here, even by the 4 new ones we are encouraged, because we feel we are being supported and know there are people out their standing with us working with these children. Oh and a small request if you have or know someone who has already filled in a form but not quite got round to posting it off yet, please do so as soon as possible, the sooner it is up and running the better. Thank you soooooo much for helping with this, blog readers, lets spread the word and find 100!
DOWNWARD PRESSURE – So last blog entry I had loads of medical issues. Well the good news is that my face is back to normal (well as normal as it can be), both sides are working fine which is great, so I don’t have this stupid half face grin when I smile. Also the blood pressure is dropping back to normal and staying that way without the medication which is fantastic. I still need to keep an eye on it, but its good news. The numb foot is still there and occasional back pain but its gradually getting better, but will need more work from the physio etc. So all in all, blood pressure is dropping and I’m relieved!! I can enjoy the rest of the Easter holidays, before the craziness sets in again next week. In June, July and August I am going to have a huge number of volunteers coming and staying at the house, which is awesome but it will be a busy time too, the future looks busy, but good.
ORPHANS OF A DIFFERENT KIND – One of the most popular tourist things to do in Nairobi is visit Daphney Sheldricks Elephant orphanage where they rescue baby elephants and bring them up to go back into the wild. Now if you sponsor or foster one of these elephants you can book to stay at Ithumba in Tsavo East. Tsavo East is not as popular as Tsavo West, especially in the nothern part. Partly because the area is so dense with bush you can hardly see anything so its not a place for game drives etc. Well David and Juliet and 2 other friends Tim and Shellen, sponsor elephants, so we all booked at Ithumba for the second part of our short holiday. If Tsavo West was in the wild, this place is even more so. There are no other lodges, camps and tourists in the area, it was just us, the elephant part and the Kenya Wildlife Services headquarters. It was awesome. A very bumpy 2 hour drive off the main road, passing through tiny villages, listening to some great tunes on Ron’s stereo and waving to the kids who love spotting Mzungu’s (white people) and constantly wondering, have we made a wrong turn, the deeper we go the further it will be if we are lost. But we made it to the camp, it has only 3 tents and a large open structure which has comfy chairs, dining tables and lamu style beds for relaxing during the day. Its self catering but also not that basic so you do feel a little bit of pampering. When you book you book the whole camp, so we had it all to our selves. So 4kms down the road is where the young elephants are. Once they are old enough Sheldricks moves the elephants down from Nairobi to this camp and start the re-introduction to the wild process. There were 8 elephants when we were there, 6 older ones and 2 younger ones (one of which was quite sick and had a heart problem, also my favourite). We would wake at 5:30am drive to the ele’s and feed them with milk at 6am, which was cool. Come back and eat breakfast and sleep, then at 11am we would meet the ele’s out at a small pool. After their breakfast they head out into the wild for feeding on branches etc and go with a couple of carers, so they always arrive at the pool at 11am, where we feed them with more milk. Sometimes the ex orphans turn up as well just to say hi which is very cool. On both days they came, but that was a little scary because these ones were like 10 – 12 years old, so very big and slightly wild now, but the carers make sure us tourists are fine. The ele’s eat, swim and then move on. Then we go back and crash, laze around, have lunch, sleep, melt in the 40+degree heat and then at 5pm go back for the last feed, as the elephants come back to their camp. It was an awesome experience, sometimes tiring, but feeding the elephants out in the wild by the pool was the best bit. On the last day loads of the ex orphans came along with a totally wild elephant, I wasn;t too worried, until the head carer quietly said...”hmm maybe you should get behind that tree”... so the 5 of us cowered behind this pathetically tiny tree from this giant elephant who wasn’t too pleased to see us. But he calmed down and we all carried on. It is so different being out in the wild, on foot, not inside your vehicle, the feeling is soooo much different and special, you are not protected by some large metal machine, but standing there, exposed to whatever wildlife is around. The adrenaline, the connection with nature is fantastic and I love it. The great thing also was to see that 2 of the older elephants had decided to spend the night out with the ex orphans, the young ele’s can move into the wild whenever they want, they tend to go away for 1 night, then come back and then go for longer etc until they finally leave, it was great to see the re-introduction actually happening before our eyes. (See photos below this post)
THATS HOW IT FEELS - After the 3 days Ithumba we did our last feeding of the elephants and I felt a real sadness as we drove away. I tended to feed the sick elephant and in such a short space and time I felt quite attached. But I also reflected driving away how similar this situation is to Cheryls and our volunteers. I felt really attached to these young elephants after only 3 days, thinking that feeding them each day I had built some connection, but in truth it was more in my head than in the elephants. The carers don’t really want the elephants to get too used to people so they cope better in the wild, but you feel you do, but in reality you don’t. The elephant comes to you because you have a milk bottle in your hand, and the carer is near by so he trusts its ok. He soon leaves when the bottle is empty. I left on the last night wanting to matter to these elephants and feel significant to them, but actually thats because I wanted to feel significant and important, the truth is it’s the carers that really matter and who are important, they work incredibly hard, in harsh conditions and for long hours and weeks. They dedicate their lives to these elephants. They are the important ones and they are the ones who really gain the respect and love from the elephants. As I left I suddenly felt a comparison to volunteers I manage at Cheryls. We have a mixture of volunteers who come to us, some are fantastic, some are maybe a little hard work. But most people come with a desire to help and support us, but I know that feeling, that desire to feel significant and to matter to someone (or something) that needs help. I think this is totally natural and normal, but i guess the truth is the same here, its the staff that really matter, they are the ones who work so incredibly hard, sometimes not getting paid, sometimes being taken for granted, but they are making the long term and significant impact on these kids, just like the carers of the elephants. The sad thing is sometimes they get unnoticed by volunteers and visitors, and volunteers can occasionally come with an attitude of its them (the volunteer) thats making the impact and can change the kids lives. Don’t get me wrong, having volunteers is fantastic and a really important resource we need at Cheryls, so if you are thinking of volunteering please do come and visit, you are totally welcome and I want you to come. But what i hope visitors know and understand is that we have an awesome bunch of dedicated and hard working staff who love these kids and sacrifice a lot for them, they are here through the drought and through the rain, they are the ones making the difference. The great thing about being a volunteer at Cheryls and with the Elephants is that you get a chance to catch a glimpse of this, and in a small way support those staff who are working so hard. That can be a real priveledge and awesome opportunity. I guess at the end of the day volunteering is about sacrificing time and resources to help others in whatever way is necessary, but probably more dominantly a time to learn and experience how others are living and working, being educated, and thats awesome. For me at Ithumba, it was useful to experience that side of volunteering again (which I haven;t done for a long time) a reminder of the feelings of a volunteer, the importance of a volunteer but also knowing where the true significance and importance is, the staff. Oh and I definitely want to go back and volunteer there again!
SSSSHHHH IT’S QUIET – The school holidays are a great time, over Easter they last about 4 weeks, and we are now in the final week of hols. The majority of the residents go and stay with some relatives for a few weeks, which is great because it connects them with where they have come from and extended family. Usually these relatives can’t cope with the kids long term but can take them for a few weeks in the holidays. Most relatives are good at looking after them, but sometimes kids are here because they were abused by relatives after the parents dies. Thats why we still have about 20 kids left here, those who have been abandoned and those where relatives homes are unsafe. The place is quiet, it means the staff are given a bit of a break, the financial pressures for the this month are just a little less, because we need less food and less water etc. We run movie nights every weekend during the hols for those who remain and we have had some good times. I enjoy catching up with the high school kids and finding out how their terms have been, hearing all their stories and trying to get them all equipped for the term ahead. I think the holiday times are my favourite times, its quieter, you can spend more quality time with a smaller number of kids and I love seeing the high school ones and seeing them grow and mature, discussing jobs, careers and about their views on politics and life in Kenya. It is often sat watching a movie on movie night, with a small child sitting on your lap and seeing how happy everyone is just with a soda and a movie, that I realise I love my job, i love what I do and can’t imagine being anywhere else. Of course its stressful, frustrating and sometimes I can just despair, but the truth is what I’m doing is great and right now I don’t want to do anything else!
MZUNGU MADNESS – So over the last few weeks or months should I say, we have been checking out land for our building project. We having been popping up to Naivasha a few times to check out various places and we think we have found the perfect spot. It fits all our criteria, and myself, Samuel and Mike one of our board of directors all fell in love with it the first time we visited. Its also cheaper than the land we were looking at before Christmas. We still need to do surveys and more research but its looking good. We were quoted a price by the agents and then last week we finally met the owner. An older guy, a bit of a local tycoon. We entered his office, did the obligatory greetings, but to my surprise and joy he said, lets just get right to it, we all know why were are here. This is unusual., normally the conversation has to go around the houses before you finally get down to what you are supposed to be talking about. The sad thing though was he started on the price and he jumped from the price originally quoted, to almost double. I was so frustrated and disappointed, I could tell he had seen us, knew that a Mzungu was involved and probably thought he could try and get more money from us. I was annoyed and felt we have just wasted the last few months looking at this land. He kept waffling and I just thought whats the point of hanging round here, there is no way we were going to pay that much. But deep down I knew it was all a game. He was testing us, to see if we would pay more. I dug my heels in, knowing that at the end of the day the control is in our hands, we didn;t have to buy his land, there is always more land out there. Agents and owners always try and scare you into buying, this land is amazing (which it actually is) this land can go for a higher price, this land can be easily sold to someone else... etc. But the truth is, its just like negotiating in the markets, if you seem keen and start increasing the price you offer, the owner knows he has got you. I looked disinterested in the question, stated the original price is what we can pay thats it, if he doesn;t want it we will look elsewhere. He pressed the conversation on further, just saying we needed to add a little more. Eventually we left, myself feeling frustrated the deal had taken this course. We said we would go away and think about it and talk, he would do the same. As we left he whispered to the agent the price he would sell for which was a little extra on top of the original price, nowhere near what he was fishing for 30 mins earlier. He was obviously testing us and realised there was no dice, this Mzungu wasn’t going to roll over and just pay up. We came back to Nairobi and discussed it, my advice was to hold firm at the original price, believing that in the end he will sell. If he doesn’t we will discuss paying slightly more, because the land is good and probably worth it, but for now we are standing firm, and latest I have heard is that he will sell at the original price but wants a little extra for some fixtures and fittings on the land such as a water tank and small house, but I can appreciate that and believe that’s fair enough, so we will have to negotiate a price on those things or an addition per acre. This happens though, people see a Mzungu involved in the deal and try and squeeze more money, but I’m not interested in that, this is money donated by people from around the world, we need the best price we can get and this Mzungu ain’t just going to roll over and pay double!
IT’S STARTED – One of the things I have been working on this last few months is the sponsorship programme, it is now up and running in the UK through our charity there, CWK but also worldwide as it has been for a number of years. Our aim is to get at least 100 new sponsors by September. So we have got 4 new ones this month, its a start, but we have a long way to go. I can’t express how much of a difference the sponsorship programme will make to Cheryls and also just my working life on a personal note. If we can get 100 new sponsors we will have a regular income and that will take a massive pressure off us. At the moment we have nothing in the bank, but next week will have to equip the high school kids to go back to school, get all their shopping, pay their school fees, and on top of that get ready for our own primary school to be up and running. We need to pay salaries for this month, buy water, pay the electricity bill and cover all the general running costs. Money that is donated comes in at different times, and not always when its needed. Having children sponsored means money comes in regularly, each month and we know when its coming and how much, which means we can plan ahead and have that confidence it will be there. This is why we need 100 new sponsors. If you are reading this and you know of someone who might like to sponsor a child can you point them to this web page: http://www.box.net/shared/o96v6386is it has a child sponsorship form which you can download, print off and send to the CWK guys, it has all the information. If you are from somewhere else in the world other than the UK just email me directly and I can get an international form to you: kjbkenya@hotmail.co.uk I really want us to reach 100 by September. Each new sponsor brings smiles to the staff here, even by the 4 new ones we are encouraged, because we feel we are being supported and know there are people out their standing with us working with these children. Oh and a small request if you have or know someone who has already filled in a form but not quite got round to posting it off yet, please do so as soon as possible, the sooner it is up and running the better. Thank you soooooo much for helping with this, blog readers, lets spread the word and find 100!
DOWNWARD PRESSURE – So last blog entry I had loads of medical issues. Well the good news is that my face is back to normal (well as normal as it can be), both sides are working fine which is great, so I don’t have this stupid half face grin when I smile. Also the blood pressure is dropping back to normal and staying that way without the medication which is fantastic. I still need to keep an eye on it, but its good news. The numb foot is still there and occasional back pain but its gradually getting better, but will need more work from the physio etc. So all in all, blood pressure is dropping and I’m relieved!! I can enjoy the rest of the Easter holidays, before the craziness sets in again next week. In June, July and August I am going to have a huge number of volunteers coming and staying at the house, which is awesome but it will be a busy time too, the future looks busy, but good.
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