Children, children and more Children!

Thursday was spent at a Limuru Children’s Centre K branch which is a day school for pre-school children up to the age of 7. The school has regular students that come from difficult backgrounds living in poor circumstances so the school feeds the children 2 meals during their school day. It feeds at least over 100 other children that come to be feed with not being feed by their families, as well as offering extra schooling after school hours to children in need of help with their studies. The school is funded through African Encounter (the company i work for and supports this project) to help with the up keep and sustainability of this project.

In the morning we helped prepare all the food as well as sorting through thousands of never ending beans and maze to sort the bad from the good a job that takes endless hours! As well as cutting huge buckets full of cabbage! Soon watching lots of happy kids eating and full of energy to learn! Also had my first porridge which was pretty nice.

Play time was the most fun chasing the kids and spinning them around and playing funny games they just loved it see them laugh was so great! The kids were all fighting to hold my hand I ended up having over ten kids on each arm each holding a finger rather than my hand was hilarious. They were beautiful children that just wanted to be loved. The afternoon was teaching them maths and all the children were trying to pull me into their class, after being pulled every way possible finally went to the middle class teaching them to add up with so many kids pulling and shouting for your attention and help at once! Some really got the hang of it where as others are still behind and struggling but they did well, was a lovely day but was really hard to leave the children.

L.C.C

Friday morning we headed to Limuru Children’s centre which is a day school for pre-school children as well as home to orphans that go to different school. This school also provides meals for the same reason as K branch and feeds over 150 children including the children coming in off the street to be feed. The morning we spent helping in the kitchen. My job was sorting through the thousands of beans now being an expert at this job there was easily millions of them taking up the whole morning to get the job done. The women work really hard so was good to be able to give them a break and help out, as they have to do this tiring job most days. It was soon playtime with the kids who were such a joy playing hop scotch, spinning games on the swings was great fun.

We then headed to village market for the afternoon for some lunch and to the Masai market who were charging extortionate prices like ten times over what they should be priced! I was trying to buy a painting and he said the most ridiculous price so i laughed and was like no way! Started telling me that it was from the trees as to why it was so expensive, so i said what natural resources so you paid nothing, he replied, 'oh but its hard to get it with the police' i was like what so its illegal? 'oh no no.. So funny i soon walked away as he was just talking rubbish for so long! All for being a Mzungu! 

Jikaze I.D.P Resettlement Camp

In 2008 during the elections there was a number of bombings and attacks that took place amongst the different tribes which resulted in thousands of people being killed. People moved from their homeland. Most of their homes were burnt down or destroyed. As a result of this thousands of people are still displaced. A lot of children are now without parents or families, many people now have no surviving family members. Today we went to a camp where a number of the survivals are living known as Maai Mahiu.

It was about an hour’s drive to Jikaze and on the way we stopped off and see the most incredible view of the river valley although it was misty and cloudy it was still an incredible view, just beautiful.

When we arrived flocks of children just came to meet us, most of them with clothes falling off of them and poor health. There was this one little boy who has cut his head and was crying he was so sad. We spent the day with the children splitting them up into groups and the main thing we were teaching them today was about love and how we are to love our neighbour, and the meaning of what love is. I was with the older children in the age of 10-14 and after playing games. There was a small talk on love from Luke and then they were asked to draw of write what love is to them in photo frames they made. One of the girls I spent the day with wrote I love Charlotte, she was so lovely.

I spent the majority of the day of with two girls called Ruth and Mary, who were such lovely girls it was so heart-breaking to leave them with them telling me they will miss me and not wanting me to go. Mary lost both her parents in 2008 and looks after her younger brother. Ruth and Mary were best friends and to hear them say they love each other and look out for one and other and just seeing how they stick together through their experiences. Mary asked me if i had a bible as she would like one to read so I hope to return to buy her one. Just to think about what all these people went through in 2008 and for now how their life is many will never be able to return to their home lands but to remain where they are. People’s lives were turned upside down and will never be the same again, but through the help of other people they will be able to improve their situation. From all the people living there you could really feel a strong community bond and sense of connection together.