Kenya Re-visited
Trip Start
Jul 15, 2010
1
38
40
Trip End
Ongoing
After a very warm welcome by Ken, Rachael and the Family Tom and I showered and unloaded our gear into the spare room, a haven for the next 2 weeks as we venture into Nakuru life. We started the first day by assisting Ken with an orientation for 2 new volunteers called Laura and Petrina. Nothing had really changed as we walked around town. The shabby market stalls selling clothes still lined the streets, bodaboda still rushed past at high speed and street children still begged for money whilst sniffing glue pots. One thing that I did notice however was the amount of tourists roaming about. The previous 2 years I had seen only but a handful of tourists coming and going but today at least 30 were mingling at the craft markets and bustling sidewalks. It appears that the recent violence (Genocide?) between the Kikuyu and Lou tribes has been erased from their memories. Now when the terrible 1994 Genocide in Rwanda was reported, coverage made headlines across the World but when yet again another political battle arises in Africa, Kenya's 2007/8 violence was left relatively unheard of. As a very brief overview the situation aroused when tensions grew towards the December elections in 2007. The Kikuyu President at the time (Kibaki) was under pressure by an opponent from the Lou tribe. Votes were fixed, TV coverage pointed towards a Lou win before all votes were counted and at the end a turn towards another Kikuyu leadership caused panic and fury amongst the Lou party and voters. President Kibaki then hosted a private inauguration and appointed himself President for a further 5 years. With news of this Violence broke loose and the Kikuyu and Lou tribes went to war against each other killing and burning homes, leaving many suffering and in despair 5 years later. Some of you may have seen the Hague trials about this event on TV trying to bring some justice by punishing the head people involved. The on running trial is yet to settle a verdict leaving the many here very angry especially those who have lost everything, Family, Wife’s, Children and homes. Next year Kenya will be hosting another Election which in the run up appears to be a safe one as painful lessons were learnt in previous years. Most of the work I do here is in part due to the scares left behind. The orientation brought me to a new project called The Cherish Exchange Foundation. It is a place dedicated to the many street children within and surrounding Nakuru’s biggest slum, Rhonda. Laura and Petrina are the first volunteers to be involved in this project as it is relatively new. Cherish is managed and run by a committee of 8 individuals and day to day activities are controlled by 1 volunteer professional Teacher and 1 volunteer professional Counselor. The set up is basic but efficient. Go to the homes, streets and allow children to voluntarily come to Cherish where they will be Counseled, Fed and educated for free. The costs are currently being covered a little by each of the 8 committee members which include Food, Land rental and basic school supplies but with more children coming everyday Food is small and classes overwhelmed. I spent a few days with the project, sat in on 1-to-1 counseling sessions, made home visits and mentored a few children. One shocking counseling session was with a small boy who explained his life at home. His Father was killed in the 2007/8 Political Violence which left his Mother to meet another man. This man didn’t except the small boy as his son and was very aggressive to both Mother and Child. The Man was always drunk and spent the small money his Mother could make on alcohol and other Women. Whenever food was in the hut the Man would feed only his children and the Mother leaving the boy to become malnourished. Whenever the boy was eating food the Man would throw the food outside on the floor which resulted in the boy sneaking in at hours when the Man wasn’t around to eat scraps. One day his Mother couldn’t take it anymore and went to Nairobi, jumped in a river and killed herself. The boy was then permanently forced to leave the house and ran to the street. On the street he hung with a small group of other boys and they tried to get him to sniff glue, when he refused he was beaten and left unconscious to die. Luckily a passerby took him to the hospital to be treated and he was returned to a relative back in the slum. He is now just 1 of 26 street boys with similar stories who come to Cherish for help. When I confronted Brendan the Counselor about this he explained that around 80% of all the children that live in Rhonda come from similar abusive homes. With 3 bags full of groceries I then went on my first home visit. The idea behind this is to give support to the relatives left to care for the children and show them that change is happening and give them hope. The small homes were run by Mothers, Aunties and Grandmothers and usually hosted around 9 people. Now when I say home I am talking of a room no larger than your average B&Q garden shed. The problem now is being able to effectively care for the children as they have no income. When a relatives family is killed or dies they take on the Children left on top of who they already care for. Now what happens when you already care for 6 children and the money you make from selling vegetables in the market doesn’t even cover enough food for them and you are given another 3? With around 2/3 of the Worlds entire population living in this kind of poverty and resulting Abuse, Malnutrition and slum living it really is time to create a better 'Life’ or ‘Maisha’ in Swahili. That’s when it all started… ‘Maisha – The way it should be!’…
