Today we had a meeting in the office with some CSWs (commerical sex workers). We’re trying to encourage them to join a microfinance scheme called Wema - the idea is that CSWs can join together in a group and keep savings with Wema, giving a little each month. Then once their savings have built up they can take loans with low interest rates to help them do things like buying a plot of land to farm or starting a business. The women seemed a bit suspicious at first but Pastor Mbaluka was able to explain it to them very clearly so by the end of the meeting they were fairly keen. I imagine it will take a while for momentum to build but I think it’s a good thing to be encouraging the women to do. Drawing women out of the sex trade requires a holistic approach - looking for alternative employment, enabling them to save and manage money, helping them break addictions and negative behaviour patterns, caring for the wounds and trauma that have been caused by years of abuse in the sex trade and accepting them into the community…so complex and so much patience required.
In the afternoon we started to brain storm approaches to Fuhomi, the CSW programme and begin to think about a presentation that the team will give in an extremely large church a week on Sunday. They want to challenge Christians to stop judging CSWs and to start loving them - to end the stigma surrounding CSWs and to encourage people to live out their faith through actively loving these women. It’s great stuff - will be a real revolutionary thing to do in church as there is SOOOO much negativity and judgement surrounding prostitutes…it is such a taboo thing to address - but the team are going to take the bull by horns and really show the congregation the realities of life as a sex worker.
Later on we headed to the house of an ex CSW, Damaris, who lives in Kabati slums and has just had a new baby called James. The kid is so cute…a real stunner. I’m pretty sure he’s mixed race…probably has a European father as he’s very fair…although Dama doesn’t know who the dad is for obvious reasons. We sat and chatted to Dama for a few hours…I remember meeting her 6 months ago and being quite intimidated by her as she was quite abrasive and difficult to talk to. But she seems to have mellowed a lot…she’s less sharp, more relaxed, gentler in a way…I think the love that the team have shown her over the past year has begun to rub off the rough edges…Dama was telling us how despite the fact that Kenya has free primary school education, she’s really struggling to send her children to school due to corruption in the local primary school. She’s been asked to pay 1500shillings for a desk for her son and everytime he completes an exercise book she has to pay for him to have another. This along with uniform costs, the cost of other books and stationary…it’s a lot for someone who only earns 7500shillings per month! She was telling us that some teachers are asking for bribes of up to 10,000shillings in order to allow a child to move on to the next academic year. Dama was full of stories…apparantly there is a trade in babies in Naivasha - children are being bought for as little as 50,000 shillings (£500) by people who can’t have children. Adopting orphans can be expensive - with lawyers fees and lots of paperwork so people just offer poor people money for their children. Pretty sobering really…it’s amazing what you find out if you spend some time with people…
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The Sabbath
Today was Sunday and a real people day. I went to a church in Kihoto, a slum next to where I’m staying. It was in a temporary makeshift building…I always find it funny how churches spring up in the most ramshackle of buildings yet they have a fully equipped PA system with speakers and microphones inside blasting the music away! Most of the songs were in English and quite familiar so at least I could join in a bit. The tradition here is to welcome any visitors very publically - I.e make you stand in front of the church and say something about yourself! This isn’t an easy thing to do under normal circumstances but when its in a language which you’re not so fluent in its even more difficult! Anyways I gave it a shot in Kiswahili and tried to tell them a little about my background. The reaction to a few words of Swahili gave me mixed feelings - it’s great to see the appreciation of an attempt to speak to their language but also sad to realise again that apparantly few foreigners have tried to learn the language in the past. The sermon was all about accountability and the need to be accountable before God and the people we have around us. The pastor followed it up by telling men they needed to be accountable to their wives - he told the men to tell their wives how much they are earning and to budget for the household together! This is pretty counter cultural and good to hear from a man in authority. I haven’t often heard such a practical application of faith to everyday life, such a challenge to cultural traditions. So many times you hear of men who are earning a decent amount of money but their wives see very little of it and have to beg for cash to feed the family so it’s pretty cool to see the Bible being applied in such a way.
After church I headed to the house of a guy called Maina - Maina is the cook for the family who are hosting me. He’s a very chilled out guy who I get on well with so I thought it would be good to meet his family. He is married to a girl my age called Veronicah and they have a 3 year old daughter, Grace, who after an initial bout of shyness spent the afternoon dancing around the room! We storied for a couple of hours and put the world to rights…I love just spending time with regular people and getting their views on things. I think this is where familiarity with culture and environment is a bonus as the initial observations that Europeans have at what we would describe as the “poverty” people live in (I.e the lack of material comfort that we have become accustomed to in the West)….well you stop making these observations after a while and, therefore, stop defining people in terms of poverty but learn to define them by their humanity, their personalities, their relationships and their character. I find it weird thinking of friends like Maina and “poverty” in the same thought - he’s a friend…and I know he gets frustrated by the lack of opportunities to develop the obvious gifts he has when it comes to cooking and being a chef…but his income does not define him - he is more than that! I was talking to my friend Selinah on the walk home and saying, maybe I should just take loads of photos of the houses we were passing in Kihoto slums…photos of the dirt tracks that act as roads, the temporary houses, people handwashing clothes, …as I know these types of pictures will have the “shock factor” and get a reaction out of groups I might speak to back home. But I don’t want the Western definition of poverty to be the thing that Westerners use to define the people of Kihoto, to define people like Maina. THEY ARE NOT THEIR POVERTY! Or rather they are not what the West says poverty is! Selinah was saying she’d be uncomfortable at the idea of that kind of “poverty tourism” - at the idea of someone taking photos of how she lived, knowing people would be looking at the photos and making judgements of her life. And I agreed with her. It makes me uncomfortable. I want to make sure I have integrity when I try and relate life and experience here to the wider world. I’m going to have to take lots of photos of the work of an NGO in Nairobi on Wednesday - as well as photos of NYM’s work so I want to remind myself that when I show these photos, I must protect people’s dignity and try to retain their humanity in the stories I tell.
Anyway Selinah had plenty to say - as usual! I love people who can out talk me…they’re rare I find;) We jumped on the back of some moterbike taxis and headed up to Joyce’s house. Joyce is the NYM team leader and has a new baby boy called Isaac. I spent a while cuddling him and trying not to feel broody…easier said than done! We didn’t get to visit Damaris and her new baby today so I think we’re going to go tomorrow…hopefully that will be the last baby for a while!
After church I headed to the house of a guy called Maina - Maina is the cook for the family who are hosting me. He’s a very chilled out guy who I get on well with so I thought it would be good to meet his family. He is married to a girl my age called Veronicah and they have a 3 year old daughter, Grace, who after an initial bout of shyness spent the afternoon dancing around the room! We storied for a couple of hours and put the world to rights…I love just spending time with regular people and getting their views on things. I think this is where familiarity with culture and environment is a bonus as the initial observations that Europeans have at what we would describe as the “poverty” people live in (I.e the lack of material comfort that we have become accustomed to in the West)….well you stop making these observations after a while and, therefore, stop defining people in terms of poverty but learn to define them by their humanity, their personalities, their relationships and their character. I find it weird thinking of friends like Maina and “poverty” in the same thought - he’s a friend…and I know he gets frustrated by the lack of opportunities to develop the obvious gifts he has when it comes to cooking and being a chef…but his income does not define him - he is more than that! I was talking to my friend Selinah on the walk home and saying, maybe I should just take loads of photos of the houses we were passing in Kihoto slums…photos of the dirt tracks that act as roads, the temporary houses, people handwashing clothes, …as I know these types of pictures will have the “shock factor” and get a reaction out of groups I might speak to back home. But I don’t want the Western definition of poverty to be the thing that Westerners use to define the people of Kihoto, to define people like Maina. THEY ARE NOT THEIR POVERTY! Or rather they are not what the West says poverty is! Selinah was saying she’d be uncomfortable at the idea of that kind of “poverty tourism” - at the idea of someone taking photos of how she lived, knowing people would be looking at the photos and making judgements of her life. And I agreed with her. It makes me uncomfortable. I want to make sure I have integrity when I try and relate life and experience here to the wider world. I’m going to have to take lots of photos of the work of an NGO in Nairobi on Wednesday - as well as photos of NYM’s work so I want to remind myself that when I show these photos, I must protect people’s dignity and try to retain their humanity in the stories I tell.
Anyway Selinah had plenty to say - as usual! I love people who can out talk me…they’re rare I find;) We jumped on the back of some moterbike taxis and headed up to Joyce’s house. Joyce is the NYM team leader and has a new baby boy called Isaac. I spent a while cuddling him and trying not to feel broody…easier said than done! We didn’t get to visit Damaris and her new baby today so I think we’re going to go tomorrow…hopefully that will be the last baby for a while!
Daytrip
Had 12 hours of sleep last night - interrupted only by extremely bizarre dreams. In my dream I had a visit from this old lady - she insisted on making me custard (which I hate) and it had loads of milk in it (which I also hate). I told her I was sorry I couldn’t eat it but it was just too disgusting. And then she got really annoyed and told me I was rude. All I remember about her was that she was wearing this green skirt which was way too high, practically reaching her boobs…somewhat reminiscent of my DT teacher in high school.
So anyway - this morning I thought I’d try and do something which I rarely do at home. So I washed my clothes by hand. Scrubbing away at my jeans with a scrubbing brush I was reminded why I avoid buying clothes which require handwashing but being too stubborn to admit that my arms have all the strength of cocktail sticks, I persevered to the end. I hate giving my clothes to a maid to wash…way too proud for my own good.
After massacring my arms with the hand washing we headed out on a daytrip. Myself and two ladies who I used to work with - and their kids…and their kids friends…and their friends kids….and my hosts’ kids…felt like I was back at my aunts’ nursery in London - except less adults per child! Somehow we managed to fit all the kids and us in a taxi (very large boot) and we drove up to Crayfish Camp next to Lake Naivasha. The kids had fun running up and down, playing on the slides before heading for the swimming pool. I didn’t know there was a swimming pool L Baking hot and I have no swimming costume whilst the kids flounder around having the time of their lives! I sat and watched whilst sweating and burning and feeling whiter than ever! After spending a small fortune on the swimming and chips for all the kids, we piled into a matatu and made our way back to Naivasha. I didn’t fancy getting too close to the Lake - there was a big sign saying “beware of the hippos” - I’ve heard so many stories of tourists being eaten by hippos round there I wanted to keep my distance. Didn’t fancy telling my hosts that their kids had been consumed by a hippo during the course of the day. The road to town has been re-tarmacked so we didn’t shake, rattle and roll as much as one usually does though. The area around the Lake is a bit like a desert though - very arid with lots of acacia trees…very “African.”
Right now I’m sat outside in the garden as the sun sets…the insects are starting to sqwark whilst the guard dogs begin to compete, barking like loons. The sports club next door are having a themed party - country and western - and the guy I’m staying with has just wandered in asking his wife for some eyeliner as he gets himself attired as a cowboy…! Mosquitoes are circling my computer - they were out in force last night - peppering my legs with red spots. Tomorrow is church and visiting one of the ex-commercial sex workers, Damaris. Time to sign off.
So anyway - this morning I thought I’d try and do something which I rarely do at home. So I washed my clothes by hand. Scrubbing away at my jeans with a scrubbing brush I was reminded why I avoid buying clothes which require handwashing but being too stubborn to admit that my arms have all the strength of cocktail sticks, I persevered to the end. I hate giving my clothes to a maid to wash…way too proud for my own good.
After massacring my arms with the hand washing we headed out on a daytrip. Myself and two ladies who I used to work with - and their kids…and their kids friends…and their friends kids….and my hosts’ kids…felt like I was back at my aunts’ nursery in London - except less adults per child! Somehow we managed to fit all the kids and us in a taxi (very large boot) and we drove up to Crayfish Camp next to Lake Naivasha. The kids had fun running up and down, playing on the slides before heading for the swimming pool. I didn’t know there was a swimming pool L Baking hot and I have no swimming costume whilst the kids flounder around having the time of their lives! I sat and watched whilst sweating and burning and feeling whiter than ever! After spending a small fortune on the swimming and chips for all the kids, we piled into a matatu and made our way back to Naivasha. I didn’t fancy getting too close to the Lake - there was a big sign saying “beware of the hippos” - I’ve heard so many stories of tourists being eaten by hippos round there I wanted to keep my distance. Didn’t fancy telling my hosts that their kids had been consumed by a hippo during the course of the day. The road to town has been re-tarmacked so we didn’t shake, rattle and roll as much as one usually does though. The area around the Lake is a bit like a desert though - very arid with lots of acacia trees…very “African.”
Right now I’m sat outside in the garden as the sun sets…the insects are starting to sqwark whilst the guard dogs begin to compete, barking like loons. The sports club next door are having a themed party - country and western - and the guy I’m staying with has just wandered in asking his wife for some eyeliner as he gets himself attired as a cowboy…! Mosquitoes are circling my computer - they were out in force last night - peppering my legs with red spots. Tomorrow is church and visiting one of the ex-commercial sex workers, Damaris. Time to sign off.
Thursday and Friday - Arrival
I sat in the departures lounge of Leeds Bradford airport. Shitting bricks. I hate flying. The idea of a big metal thing full of people and luggage being kept in the air simply by the laws of physics has always seemed somewhat suspicious to my technologically challenged mind. I tried to distract myself by looking at the people sat waiting with me. A man who can only be described as Elvis’ illegitimate offspring due to the extraordinary length of his sideburns sat opposite me sweating in the poor airport air conditioning. An intellectual sort opened a book on data analysis with a love heart post it stuck on the inside…data analysis and romantic gestures were never two things I would have automatically put together but I guess we’re all different. Leeds Bradford airport is a bit of a bizarre experience. After you’ve dropped off your baggage you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’d checked into a tacky, tiny indoor shopping centre - I truly don’t see the attraction of duty free or why anybody would want to buy loads of perfume or jewellery just before going on holiday or just after coming back?!
Anyway before long I was walking out to the plane and climbing onto what seemed to be an old double decker bus with wings. I was flying in pensioner plane - with a very artistic pattern of rusty rings along the wing tips. The shitting of bricks continued. I had dosed myself up to the eyeballs with pain medication as my leg was giving me grief and was hoping the side effects of drowsiness would knock me out. However, the pills decided to choose this occasion to give zero side effects of drowsiness but instead to supply me with a nicely timed headache. Joy. I stared out at the rusty wings, regretting asking for a window seat and gripped my seat as we rattled down the runway. The flight to Amsterdam is very short - less than an hour - so I was soon whipping my way through Schipol to board the flight to Nairobi. I watched other people queue for ages whilst I sat twiddling with my Blackberry which was refusing to work outside of the UK. I felt practically naked without my Blackberry - and a bit scared by my dependence on it! The flight to Nairobi was to be 7 hours - great - 7 hours of all the films I watch trailers for but never see at the cinema! Woo hoo! Except my TV screen didn’t work - and watching the Curious Case of Benjamin Button with no sound on your neighbour’s screen doesn’t really work so well. On the plus side I got to read the majority of a book by a guy called Rob Bell called Velvet Elvis. It’s all about how questioning the Christian faith is a good thing and how we are constantly discovering more and more and gaining more insight into who God is, generation by generation - and about how we can see God’s truth and beauty in many things - that we don’t have to restrict ourselves to only finding God within the pages of the Bible…but that the good things he makes in the world and the Bible are actually complementary things. And lots of other things which seemed fairly profound at the time but I’m too tired to remember now! A little girl sat behind me seemed to be using my seat as a kick boxing bag….which was mildly irritating…but on the bright side I was kept awake long enough to make good progress into the book and have a good talk with God in between chapters.
At JKIA I was pleasantly surprised to find that tourist visas have been reduced to $25 - a 50% reduction since the last time I was here. I was less happy to see the lady wearing a face mask who shoved a questionnaire about swine flu symptoms into my face, making hand signals that I should fill it in and tell them if I’ve been feeling ill recently. I started to worry about the headache I was having but then remembered I was severely sleep deprived and told myself to stop being a such a hypochondriac.
7.30am and I’d made it out of baggage reclaim and into a cab. The driver was pleasant enough…chatting along…but by Mombasa Road we were stuck in nose to tail traffic and after having covered the prices of food and oil, recent political events, my career and previous visits to Kenya, his driving career…I was beginning to struggle for conversation. I don’t really do small talk and it’s really boring talking about the same things over and over again - especially if you are the topic of conversation. Very dull indeed. As per tradition with most people I meet in Kenya he commented on my fluency in Swahili. I repressed a giggle - as I am the worst offender when it comes to diluting, polluting and generally destroying the beautiful language that is Kiswahili. Ask my friends who actually speak it properly - they’ll verify my lack of competence. I’m not sure when English, made up words and a few words of Swahili counted as fluent Swahili…but I’m happy to let him live with the illusion if he wants! After the jam followed a breakfast drink with a friend of mine from Nairobi who I was very excited to see. After she’d left to go to a class though I was left to get back to Velvet Elvis whilst waiting for my lift. The man sat next to me started to make small talk though - sheesh enough already! So I again covered the familiar topics of career, past visits to Kenya etc. Thankfully he was keen to talk about his own job - something to do with procurement of tools for generating electricity (I didn’t completely understand what he was saying but figured there was potential for something more interesting than small talk so nodded intently to encourage him to keep going!) I felt very topical talking about the recession and impressed with my level of consciousness given the circumstances!
Then my lift arrived. Kind of. The lady I’m staying with had come with one of the guys who works for her and we weaved our way through the streets to get a matatu (public transport - like a little minibus, usually driven at high speeds and with no regard for other road users) to Naivasha. We crammed ourselves into a packed mat and set off. I looked up at the ceiling and saw it was covered in green and white leather cushions so that as the driver soared over bumps and pot holes our heads wouldn’t be banged too severely. How considerate - albeit slightly bizarre! Halfway there we all piled out - flat tyre. The bus was very rickety - I’m actually surprised we made it that far without some part of it dropping off! Finally at around 3pm we reached Naivasha. The town is as dusty as ever - you can almost taste it it’s that thick. It’s teeming with people - taxis, moterbike taxi drivers, mechanics, fruit and vegetable sellers, cafes, hairdressers and loud Kikuyu music blaring out from music shops in competition to show who has the loudest speakers. After lunch and plenty of hugs for the kids who live at the house I’m staying at I headed up town on the back of a moterbike to say hi to some NYM friends. My moterbike taxi driver suggested dropping off to see his baby daughter and I thought why not so made a quick pit stop to give yet more hugs to a very sweet 9 month old girl. I’m not feeling broody at all (ahem). Still have two more babies to go (one of the CSWs and the NYM team leaders’). Anyhoo after cute baby I moved on to the school where I used to work. A donor friend of mine is funding the construction of a dining hall at the school which is really expanding now. When I originally started teaching there, there was only one proper classroom and a very ramshackle kitchen which miserably failed its health and safety inspection. Now there’s 4 classrooms, a dormitory, a proper kitchen, a dining hall and a farm full of tomatoes and maize - along with 2 cows! Girls education in Naivasha has definitely been given a boost and I’ve been privaledged to watch it happen over the years! So I spent an hour or so fighting a wave of exhaustion and doing the rounds of greetings to old friends. As I was talking to one friend there was a knock on the door from a small girl. She looked about 11 but told us she was 13 - her family was displaced after the ethnic violence and she’d dropped out of school at Standard 5. She was going around houses begging for food for supper. We sent her outside and weighed up what to do, deciding on buying her a bag of maizemeal flour as she seemed like a genuine case. As she left I realised I’d been very detached about the whole thing. I guess it should be more shocking but I just can’t be shocked by this kind of thing anymore. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing?
By 5.30 I was beginning to get a bit wobbly so headed home to bed. I’m frightenly tired. Tomorrow is a daytrip with some of the NYM team’s kids. I need sleep. Lots of sleep.
Anyway before long I was walking out to the plane and climbing onto what seemed to be an old double decker bus with wings. I was flying in pensioner plane - with a very artistic pattern of rusty rings along the wing tips. The shitting of bricks continued. I had dosed myself up to the eyeballs with pain medication as my leg was giving me grief and was hoping the side effects of drowsiness would knock me out. However, the pills decided to choose this occasion to give zero side effects of drowsiness but instead to supply me with a nicely timed headache. Joy. I stared out at the rusty wings, regretting asking for a window seat and gripped my seat as we rattled down the runway. The flight to Amsterdam is very short - less than an hour - so I was soon whipping my way through Schipol to board the flight to Nairobi. I watched other people queue for ages whilst I sat twiddling with my Blackberry which was refusing to work outside of the UK. I felt practically naked without my Blackberry - and a bit scared by my dependence on it! The flight to Nairobi was to be 7 hours - great - 7 hours of all the films I watch trailers for but never see at the cinema! Woo hoo! Except my TV screen didn’t work - and watching the Curious Case of Benjamin Button with no sound on your neighbour’s screen doesn’t really work so well. On the plus side I got to read the majority of a book by a guy called Rob Bell called Velvet Elvis. It’s all about how questioning the Christian faith is a good thing and how we are constantly discovering more and more and gaining more insight into who God is, generation by generation - and about how we can see God’s truth and beauty in many things - that we don’t have to restrict ourselves to only finding God within the pages of the Bible…but that the good things he makes in the world and the Bible are actually complementary things. And lots of other things which seemed fairly profound at the time but I’m too tired to remember now! A little girl sat behind me seemed to be using my seat as a kick boxing bag….which was mildly irritating…but on the bright side I was kept awake long enough to make good progress into the book and have a good talk with God in between chapters.
At JKIA I was pleasantly surprised to find that tourist visas have been reduced to $25 - a 50% reduction since the last time I was here. I was less happy to see the lady wearing a face mask who shoved a questionnaire about swine flu symptoms into my face, making hand signals that I should fill it in and tell them if I’ve been feeling ill recently. I started to worry about the headache I was having but then remembered I was severely sleep deprived and told myself to stop being a such a hypochondriac.
7.30am and I’d made it out of baggage reclaim and into a cab. The driver was pleasant enough…chatting along…but by Mombasa Road we were stuck in nose to tail traffic and after having covered the prices of food and oil, recent political events, my career and previous visits to Kenya, his driving career…I was beginning to struggle for conversation. I don’t really do small talk and it’s really boring talking about the same things over and over again - especially if you are the topic of conversation. Very dull indeed. As per tradition with most people I meet in Kenya he commented on my fluency in Swahili. I repressed a giggle - as I am the worst offender when it comes to diluting, polluting and generally destroying the beautiful language that is Kiswahili. Ask my friends who actually speak it properly - they’ll verify my lack of competence. I’m not sure when English, made up words and a few words of Swahili counted as fluent Swahili…but I’m happy to let him live with the illusion if he wants! After the jam followed a breakfast drink with a friend of mine from Nairobi who I was very excited to see. After she’d left to go to a class though I was left to get back to Velvet Elvis whilst waiting for my lift. The man sat next to me started to make small talk though - sheesh enough already! So I again covered the familiar topics of career, past visits to Kenya etc. Thankfully he was keen to talk about his own job - something to do with procurement of tools for generating electricity (I didn’t completely understand what he was saying but figured there was potential for something more interesting than small talk so nodded intently to encourage him to keep going!) I felt very topical talking about the recession and impressed with my level of consciousness given the circumstances!
Then my lift arrived. Kind of. The lady I’m staying with had come with one of the guys who works for her and we weaved our way through the streets to get a matatu (public transport - like a little minibus, usually driven at high speeds and with no regard for other road users) to Naivasha. We crammed ourselves into a packed mat and set off. I looked up at the ceiling and saw it was covered in green and white leather cushions so that as the driver soared over bumps and pot holes our heads wouldn’t be banged too severely. How considerate - albeit slightly bizarre! Halfway there we all piled out - flat tyre. The bus was very rickety - I’m actually surprised we made it that far without some part of it dropping off! Finally at around 3pm we reached Naivasha. The town is as dusty as ever - you can almost taste it it’s that thick. It’s teeming with people - taxis, moterbike taxi drivers, mechanics, fruit and vegetable sellers, cafes, hairdressers and loud Kikuyu music blaring out from music shops in competition to show who has the loudest speakers. After lunch and plenty of hugs for the kids who live at the house I’m staying at I headed up town on the back of a moterbike to say hi to some NYM friends. My moterbike taxi driver suggested dropping off to see his baby daughter and I thought why not so made a quick pit stop to give yet more hugs to a very sweet 9 month old girl. I’m not feeling broody at all (ahem). Still have two more babies to go (one of the CSWs and the NYM team leaders’). Anyhoo after cute baby I moved on to the school where I used to work. A donor friend of mine is funding the construction of a dining hall at the school which is really expanding now. When I originally started teaching there, there was only one proper classroom and a very ramshackle kitchen which miserably failed its health and safety inspection. Now there’s 4 classrooms, a dormitory, a proper kitchen, a dining hall and a farm full of tomatoes and maize - along with 2 cows! Girls education in Naivasha has definitely been given a boost and I’ve been privaledged to watch it happen over the years! So I spent an hour or so fighting a wave of exhaustion and doing the rounds of greetings to old friends. As I was talking to one friend there was a knock on the door from a small girl. She looked about 11 but told us she was 13 - her family was displaced after the ethnic violence and she’d dropped out of school at Standard 5. She was going around houses begging for food for supper. We sent her outside and weighed up what to do, deciding on buying her a bag of maizemeal flour as she seemed like a genuine case. As she left I realised I’d been very detached about the whole thing. I guess it should be more shocking but I just can’t be shocked by this kind of thing anymore. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing?
By 5.30 I was beginning to get a bit wobbly so headed home to bed. I’m frightenly tired. Tomorrow is a daytrip with some of the NYM team’s kids. I need sleep. Lots of sleep.
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