Habari (English version)

As we promised when we left South Africa, we are going to write our stories in Dutch and English from now on, so here we are!!
How is everybody doing? Hopefully everything is all right. Here with us in Kenya everything is fine. We have been quite busy the last weeks, because we’re the only volunteers at the moment. Together with the ‘housemother’, we’re running the place and are keeping 30 children busy (This month it’s holiday, so all the children are at home the whole day). Not always easy, because every one of them wants a lot of attention and we only have two hands. Plus the fact that the youngest boy at the moment is two years old and the oldest girl is fifteen makes it difficult to do activities with all the children together. But so far, we’re managing and are really happy to work in this place. The children are very sweet and the housemother is very nice as well. To tell you a little bit about the life here in Kenya, we will write down a couple of activities we did the last couple of weeks:
- We went to Kibera (in Nairobi), the biggest slum in Eastern Africa, to provide packages with food to a couple of the poorest families in this slum. We made a couple of families very happy by providing them rice, pap (they call it Ugali here), sugar, salt, soap, bread, toothbrushes and other basic needs. Most of the people we met are HIV positive (maybe even everybody we visited) didn’t have any money to spend. It was very impressive to see how daily life is going in such a slum and to hear the personal stories from the people who live there. Despite the lack of hygiene and money, we found it very surprising to see how friendly and social the people in this community were. Amazing, that you can still enjoy life, without having anything!
- Last week we went a couple of times to St. Patrick’s Primary school; this is the school where children from CRC attend there classes, to help out with their holiday program. This school provides a holiday program, which includes regular lessons in combination with sport activities, to keep the children from the streets. During the school season they provide a meal at school; but as soon as the holiday is there, a lot of children end up at the streets, begging for- or stealing food. By providing this holiday program, the school is trying to keep the kids away from the problems on the streets (alcohol, drugs, prostitution i.e.). Anne played baseball with a class of 40 kids and Rob did cricket (thanks Sumit for explaining me the rules when we were in Sizanani ;)) with another class. Her also gave a class about Holland; so now you’ll find a group of about 40 kids in Thika who speak fluently Dutch and know everything about the Dutch culture…also they know how to dance on wooden shoes….. ;)
- With all the children from CRC, we went for a day out to Charitas Mariana, another charitable organization here in Thika. They organized “an Open Day” for a couple of Children’s homes in the region with lots of games for the children. Altogether (30 kids and 9 adults) in ONE car for 25 minutes on a “Namibia Quality road”……lots of funJ. They played a lot of fun games including sack walking, egg spoon race, they did a karate demonstration and ended with a soccer tournament. A very exhausting day, but we all had a very good time.
- Yesterday we went with one of the teachers of St. Patrick’s Special Unit (for children with learning disabilities) to visit a couple of children with mental and physical disabilities. These families (most of the times only a mother, because the father has run away) have to take care of their handicapped child by themselves; the government doesn’t compensate anything! Also, there are hardly any facilities, like Sizanani’s children’s Home, where they can go. The few which are there in Kenya are private, and impossible to finance for most of the people here.
Because most of the times the mother is the only caretaker of the child, she has to consider either to spent her day with her child or to go out and try to earn some money….. a combination of both is almost impossible. Most of the children here in Kenya which are born with a handicap don’t survive the first couple of years because of neglect, malnutrition, lack of necessary medical aid or just because they’re abandoned. One mother, whose child had Cerebral Palsy in combination with Epilepsy, told us that she had to spend 6000 Kenian Shilling on medicines, while the average income in Kenia is only 7000 Shilling…..so impossible for her to always have medicines for her child. Anne is going to observe/ diagnose a group of 40- 50 children and together with the parents she’s going to make a program of treatment. In this way, the parents can stimulate their children as much as possible themselves, without paying for the expensive costs of a physio therapist.

Oh, before we forget to tell…..Next week we’re going with the 10 oldest kids to Mombasa. Three times a week, the children get Karate lessons from a professional teacher to make them more self confident, to make them less vulnerable and to let them enjoy sport activities. Now they are invited to participate in a national championship for three days at the end of this week. So we’re going to sponsor them and are going to make a five day trip to Mombasa (2 days of traveling) and trying to win some prices! So we’ll tell you how it went after this trip.

So, now you know what we’re up to in Kenya. Hopefully we gave a little impression about the things we did so far. We’ll keep you guys updated.


Lots of love,
Anne and Rob

Ps: we try to post some pictures on the site as well, but as they didn’t invent “High Speed Internet” here in Kenya so far, we can not promise that it is going to work…..

Ps2: we both have a Kenian Cell phone...
Rob +254 710292795
Anne +254 710292796