Thursday 29 November 2012

Thunderstorms on Tin Rooves


The rain pounded on the tin roof of the small hut in the corner of Kisumu’s main sports stadium. Inside, the noise was deafening. It didn’t matter.

We were worshipping God, singing praises songs, 25 or so of us in that little hut under a blackened sky. The heavens occasionally lit up as we sang and the thunder provided the bass notes for our small ensemble. 

Outside the hut raindrops hit the floor like a frantic percussionist, accompanying every note with two dozen beats of his tightly drawn drums. Inside, Moses was leading, with his guitar, and our regular mixture of old and young voices lifted our worship back heavenward. Maybe we were out of tune and God had a cunning plan to drown us out (or drown us literally!). Or maybe, I prefer to think, heaven wanted to join in. Whatever the answer, we were happy.

It is always a pleasure to visit Kachok, the fellowship we started by the rubbish tip many years ago. Today we had a good reason to celebrate, as two of the older boys here, Collins and Wycliffe have just completed their secondary School (Form 4) exams. Collins is predicted an A or a high B grade, and has already applied to universities in the hope that he might start next year.

Kachok always humbles me. The assembly is a mixture of men who work the rubbish dump daily, in search of things to sell for some small income accompanied by children of varying ages from the surrounding slums of Manyatta and Nyalenda. Attendance was lower than usual tonight, a result, no doubt, of the foreboding skies overhead. But those who came were warm and fulsome in their welcome and genuine in their prayers of blessing for me, Nicky, the Trust and all our supporters, who are enabling them to see changes in the lives of the people of their fellowship.

Earlier this morning I completed my week of visits to boys we are supporting in training. I have avoided schools, as KCPE exams are to be held next week and Form 4's have completed this week, but it has been a pleasure meeting up with some of the children we have supported for many years, who are now taking their first independent steps into the world. 

Derek Kiperenge is an apprentice motorcycle mechanic in Serem, just over the border into Rift Valley province.  His trainer and mentor is full of his praises. Derek has been training for three months and already his trainer says that he will not need a full two years apprenticeship. Even now he can strip down an engine and reassemble it (working).

Derek is proud of what he is doing and very happy in his work. Like so many of the boys I have seen on this trip he struggled with academic work. After coming to us in 2005 he returned to primary school, but dropped out after struggling to fit in and failing badly in his end of year exams. Derek is far from stupid though, and has taken to his apprenticeship with a positive outlook and good intent. I am sure that he will do us proud.
We then continued on the road to Chavakali, through the steep sided valleys and tea plantations that cling to the hillsides, carved in steep step formations, crowned with small traditional houses. Vincent is less than two weeks into an apprenticeship in metalwork and welding after spending some time on our rehabilitation centre in Kibos. It is early days for him and we wished him well.

I have come to know the pot holed roads of Nyanza and Western Provinces very well this week and was grateful when Moses suggested we call at Kibos on the way back to town for a cup of tea.

There is something very refreshing about tea in a hot climate and I never refuse when it is offered. I suppose that makes me very British, but I have to say that the Kenyans always join in with me.

Kenyan tea (picked from the co-operatives and hillsides around Kericho, Nyanza and Western Provinces), is made with milk, not water, and is usually drunk with copious spoonfuls of the locally produced Mumias sugar.

Whilst not my preferred way of taking it, I have got used to wringing out the teabag so that there is at least a hint of colour in my cup before I drink.

The tea was brought to us by Florence, a very quietly spoken girls one of a handful of young women we now care for at Kibos.
I talked with her as we drank our tea. Florence has been dogged by stomach pains. Each time she has been to the doctors, or to the hospitals, they have diagnosed ulcers – a common complaint in this part of Kenya. However each time they give her treatment the pain eases for a very short time before returning. A number of foods upset her and make it worse and she tells me that the school refuse to make special meals for her, despite repeated requests from Moses and the team. Although she enjoys the school she is in, she asks if she could move to one that might be more flexible.

Florence is one of a small number of girls at Kibos, all of them now in secondary schools around the region. Florence is bright, but is concerned because her illness makes her miss class and she then struggles to catch up.

We talked and agreed a plan of action, to try and get to the bottom of what is causing the problems.

From Kibos we headed down the road, to Chiga, a small community on the dirt road beyond the rehabilitation centre, where we turned back towards town. We stopped after a couple of kilometres at the home of Boniface.

Of all of the people I have met and worked with in my time in Kenya, Boniface has changed the most, from a fiery, threatening, short tempered fire ball, to a calm family man, carrying a bible and training to be a pastor. Although he has invited me many times I have never before visited his home and didn’t want to miss the opportunity.

We entered his house, a square, traditional mud house that is clearly well maintained and looked after, with an iron sheet roof sitting on a small plot of land surrounded by vegetables, maize and beans. Boniface welcomes us warmly and we sit on the wooden sofas arranged around the walls of the living room. His wife sits next to him, and he introduces his father, who sits at one end of the room by the door. We talk about his children, his new life, his wife says what a change there has been in him.

Boniface shares a little of his past. Born in Mwanza, Tanazania, he came to Kisumu with his father as a baby, the third born in a large family. His mother and father had 12 children, but there is only him, an older sister and a younger brother now surviving. It has clearly been a hard life, with many setbacks, culminating with him scraping a living from the things other people throw away.

Boniface has turned his life around, leaving the rubbish tip for the vegetable plot, the fiery temper for the cry of the preacher. Derek has moved on too, from street boy to mechanic, I know that he will be successful. Florence has her own dreams before her, all is yet to come, we just need to sort out her illness first.

Starting a work is good, but then you begin to imagine the future, to wonder what will happen to the first boys, the second boys. Where will you be in 5 or 10 years time.

Now, after 11 years of the Trust, we are starting to see the real fruits of the work appearing, men, women and children moving on to new lives, starting to be independent of the Trust and to stand on their own feet it is wonderful.

However hard the storm, though the tin roof may be dented, our hopes for the children we support will not be dashed.

If you have been touched by any of the stories I have shared this week, please remember that it costs less than £10 a month over two years to support an apprenticeship. If you would like to help, visit our just giving page, or talk to Nicky or myself for a regular giving form

Tomorrow I leave for Nairobi and the journey home. I have a couple of meetings before I go and it will be sad to leave. But I will carry "sackfuls of blessings" from the people I have met and look forward to returning in the Spring.

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Beetles and Trouser Legs


“Where are we?” I asked, turning toward Anton who was steering the small white Toyota down an impossibly narrow track.

“We are here” he replied.

“Where is that?” I countered, pressing for a more informative answer

Anton thought for a moment. “I don’t know” he answered.

It sounded like the sort of answer Piglet might give Pooh when they are lost in hundred acre wood.


Paul James was guiding us from the back seat. It had been almost three quarters of an hour since we turned from the tarmac road between the towns of Luanda and Siaya in the heart of Nyanza province. We were paying a visit to Kogello, the ancestral home of Barack Obama Snr and, most importantly, the rural home of Paul James.

Unfortunately Paul James family lived on the opposite ridge to the Obama family, so whilst a beautiful new road has been completed to take you from the pot holed highways of Luanda to the rural homestead of America’s most famous African, there is nothing of the sort where we were heading.

We have worked with Paul James since we first came to Kenya just over 11 years ago. He is a gentle, lovely man, with a real heart for the children. In all of those years I have never visited his home, though he has invited me many times. Today however, our visits to meet up with some of our boys undergoing apprecnticeships meant that we found ourselves in Siaya District, just a few kilometres (and many windy muddy roads and tracks) away.

The day had started unpromisingly. The skies, so bright yesterday, were covered in a thick veil of grey clouds, heavily expectant with rain.

My stomach had reacted a little indignantly, I thought, to meeting yesterdays goat, so I had taken a light breakfast of tea and toast. As I sat on the terrace by the garden waiting for Moses and Anton to arrive a light mist of rain began to fall on the grass.

As I watched a beetle began, with apparent effort, to climb its way over the edge of the short wall and onto the polished concrete floor near my feet.

Light brown in colour, the beetle was larger than many I have seen before and I couldn’t identify the type. It scuttled along the floor, making a beeline for my feet. I gave it a little kick and it edged slowly sideways, before disappearing under my chair.

I have grown used to all manner of insects on my travels, and will put up with most things as long as they don’t bite me. But I am not keen on beetles.

It goes back to an incident in Nairobi a few years ago, when a particularly inquisitive beetle found its way up the inside of my trouser leg, almost to the knee. I was sat in the bar of a smart hotel on the outskirts of Nairobi, enjoying a quiet beer. Slowly I became aware of a tickling on the back of my leg, so reached down to scratch. As I brushed my trousers a large black beetle, the size of one of those little cars that children play with, fell out of my trousers, hit the marble floor with a loud crack and rolled across the bar area, coming to rest under the table of an elderly couple enjoying a nightcap.

So you will understand that, although I will tolerate them on the floor in front of me, I took the reasonable precaution of switching seats this morning.
Moses, Anton and John arrive and we made our way up the Busia road to Luanda, where the rain had become a steady English drizzle. Anton spotted Paul James by the side of the road, as he had gone on ahead of us. We parked up and walked down to a small, unpromising shack by the side of the main road. As we approached Ezekiel came out to meet us, his smile lighting up the morning.

Ezekiel has been training here since January, living with his grandfather a couple of kilometres from town. As with Noah yesterday, Ezekiel’s is a two year course, which costs around £200 in total. It is clear that he loves it, and also clear that his tutor and mentor is really pleased with his progress. Ezekiel was part of the same intake as Noah, coming to us in 2005 after nearly two years on the streets. He did not find academic work easy and dropped out of primary education before reaching KCPE, choosing to move back to live with his grandfather, whom we reunited him with.

He may not be academic, but he has a really aptitude for repairing the ubiquitous motorcycles, now the preferred make of taxi in the area. It is good to see him settled and happy. In a few months time we will need to buy him some tools, so he can start to build up a workshop of his own when he graduates.

Patrick also trains in Luanda and he, too, was classmates with Ezekiel and Noah, but his chosen apprenticeship is in metalwork, fabrication and welding. We called in to see him and once again received a warm welcome. All around the workshop were works in progress, window frames, door frames and security bars. I can’t believe there will ever be a shortage of work for such skills. Patrick has been training since March and his progress is good.
It has been encouraging this trip to be able to concentrate on visiting boys who have managed to begin a life for themselves away from the streets. They have all go a start, an apprenticeship, that will lead to a working, healthy future where they are able to stand on their own two feet.

We left Luanda, calling in on an old friend, Timothy Kariuti, who runs Neno Church (Neno means “the word”). Tim used to work for us in Kisumu, but had been displaced during the troubles after the last election. His heart and calling were always to be a pastor and he has followed his dream, returning to Nyanza Province to start and to build a growing church in Luanda.

Eventually the small muddy roads became too much for the Toyota and we jumped out, to walk the final hundred metres or so to Paul James home. All around us cassava and sweet potato grew from the fertile, volcanic mud. The bushes are fragrant and small pink and yellow flowers give off a strong aroma of mint. We walk through a couple of fields and then turn into the large open grassy enclosure, dotted with small traditional mud and thatch houses. 

“Welcome to my home” announces Paul James, clearly delighted that we have finally come.

At the top of the compound is a more substantial house, his mothers. Although she passed away a year or so ago, his family greet us warmly.

Paul James gives us a tour of the land and we walk through the maize fields, beneath paw paw, mango and guava trees and an avocado tree, straining under the weight of the fruit. Moses tried a leaf Paul James claimed would cure a cough, but spat it out quickly, coughing and spluttering, complaining that it was deeply bitter. We laughed a lot! He had to search for some sweet berries to counter the taste.

Then food is ready.

You can’t visit someones home without them preparing a huge spread of food and this was no exception. A big pot of chicken, fried meat, chappati, rice, cassava ugali (a dark sticky ugali made from the dried cassava root), vegetables and stew.

We ate like kings, enjoyed great friendship and much laughter.

I was quickly full, but as I put my plate down Paul James came over. He fished something from the pot of chicken and came over to me.

“You cannot finish”, he said, “you must eat this first”

The gizzard is a delicacy, reserved for the head of the house or honoured guests.

“But I am full”, I protested in vain, knowing that Paul James was honouring me.

I took it and ate what I could, my goat protesting stomach may have something more to say about that in the morning.

We left with such warmth, thanking everyone for their hospitality.
“You must take sack loads and sack loads of blessings to everyone in UK” they said.

I left, as I always do when I visit rural homes, humbled by their warmth, hospitality and genuine love. In the Luo culture a visitor is to be welcomed and honoured, to be fed and looked after. I felt blessed to be there, that a people who have very little spend the day preparing and cooking for strangers from another country.

They live in the moment, grateful for what they have,

It reminded me of a short passage from Winnie the Pooh

“What day is today?” said Pooh

“It’s today” said Piglet

“Aahh”, said Pooh, “my favourite day”


Tuesday 27 November 2012

The Mechanics of Tomorrow – Nyama Choma and an Apprentice


The day dawned as bright as only the equatorial sky can be. There is no smog to shroud the city, no cloud to spoil the unending view upwards, just a purity of light and a brightness born out of a consistent closeness to the sun.

Two black kites circled and called to each other with a mewing, earnest call and then swooped and dived in unison, their mating ritual gathering pace. The low grunt of the lake hippo’s carried across the air from the bay where they reside (“hippo bay” would you believe?). Scarlet sunbirds, yellow weavers and yellow bellied bulbuls played amongst the jacaranda flowers and a small monkey ran across the lawn far below.

I watched from the balcony for a while. I am waking early at the moment, pulled from my sleep by the gentle warmth of the dawn, then torn from my bed as the sun quickly rises and floods the room in bright light.

I am not complaining, there are many worse places in the world to wake up.

I am constantly reminded of how beautiful this world is and how lucky I am that God called me to work in this lovely corner of it.

I jumped in to the shower and squealed with delight. Warm water. The electricity had been off yesterday morning, which meant that the water heaters somehow loosely attached to the shower were unable to work their magic. But today was wonderful  and I found it a struggle to get out.

I had arranged to meet Moses and Anton at 10:30, for the hour or so’s drive up to Bungoma. We had planned to visit Noah.

Noah’s story is all too common.

He lived with his parents in Malava, a small village on the Uganda border in Western province. The village was quiet and funds were tight. Rural existence even today centres around a small holding, which provides food for the family as well as products to sell at the market. In western province this often means growing vegetables, keeping chickens, having a field of maize, and then, if the family is lucky and has more land, perhaps growing sugar cane for the local industries.

Noah got bored with village life, he heard stories from his friends of life in the cities, of freedom from school, from rules, stories of friendship and camerarderie

Attracted by the prospect, Noah left home when he was 9 years old.

He got lifts on the back of the sugar cane lorries, jumped into the back of trailers and eventually made the long journey to Kisumu.

Sadly, he then discovered the other side of street life, the bullying, the gangs and the glue. He found himself hungry, alone and afraid.

The Trust met up with Noah during our street outreach programs, and he was part of the second intake of boys into our rehab home in Kibos, with Franco, who I wrote about yesterday.

Unlike Franco, Noah’s parents were easier to trace. The Trust got in touch with his family and enabled a very tearful and happy reunion.

Noah remained with us for four years, completing his primary school studies, before moving back to live with his family. We continued to support him in our home resettlement program and he went to a secondary school close to Malava.

But after Form 2, Noah found the going too tough and, aged 18, asked if we would support him with an apprenticeship. Paul James worked with him and his family and Noah got offered two years of car mechanic training in a workshop in Bungoma. He was thrilled.

Today we were going to visit, to check on his progress, to make sure there were no regrets.

Anton arrived at 11:00 but couldn’t locate me (I was sat on the terrace watching the lizards scuttle up and down the trees), so it was almost twenty past when we left.

The drive to Bungoma was good, the slow climb out of the lake basin on the road to Busia, across the equator at Maseno, through Luanda town and then turning right for Mumias on a well made road. The countryside is lovely, dotted around with rural homesteads, most now planted with maize almost ready for harvesting, the tall stems protectively nursing cobs of corn like a mother holding a newborn child. Elsewhere cassava plants grew tall, banana trees lined the paths and tall eucalyptus, the main tree used for building, because of its tall straight growth, dotted green and fertile hillsides.

Eventually we arrived at Mumias, the home of Western Provinces largest sugar factory. Some 50,000 farmers grow cane for the factory, which produces over 60% of Kenyan sugar and exports over 20,000 tons to Europe each year. The company has branched out in recent years, producing energy from the by product of the sugar and exporting over 26 mega watts (which sounds like quite a lot) back to the national grid.

The evidence of the factory is seen all around, from the fields rich with cane to the over loaded tractors and trailers on the narrow main roads.
 
After a couple of hours drive we arrive in Bungoma. It is a small, dusty town with a busy market running the length of the road in. Paul James is unsure of where to turn, but after a couple of near misses we eventually find the yard where Noah is training.


He is delighted to see us. He spent his time with us at Kibos, with Moses and Tatu, and is happy to see Moses again. I shows us around the yard and introduces us to his teacher and mentor, Charles Odour.

Charles receives us warmly and tells us that Noah is a good student. They are a busy yard, starting before 9 each day and finishing at 6, as the light begins to fade.

Noah is renting a small house nearby and, though he relies on the support of the Trust, who pay for his apprenticeship, he is maturing into a lovely young man. He will be allowed a couple of days off at Christmas, and will go back to his family in Malava, some half an hour away when he is done.

After spending a little time with him, we leave for the journey back to Kachok and to the evening fellowship at the rubbish tip.
 
It is mid afternoon and we have plenty of time, so Moses suggests that he buy us all lunch.
This is an opportunity not to be missed. He tells us there is a place, just beyond Mumias, where the specialise in “nyama choma” - roast goat. We pull in outside a small pub and Moses leads us through the bar to a large and spacious eating area at the back, where a charcoal barbecue is puffing out fatty smoke.
Moses orders and shortly a plate of chapattis appears (for me) closely followed by a mound or three of ugali (for Moses, Paul James and Anton) – I haven’t quite acquired the taste of the stodgy maize flour staple yet, perhaps one day!

Then a man appears with a large wooden board, a slab of meat and a large knife. I hope earnestly that either 1. The meat is softer than it looks or that 2. the knife is not as sharp as I think it might be.
The plate of chopped meat is put in the middle of the table, along with a second bowl of goat intestines in a buttery soup.
 
As I chewed on my meat (it takes a while) I thought again, how blessed I am to be working with this team. We share more than just work, we share a passion, we share a friendship and we share a couple of ribs of a scrawny goat.

With full stomachs and sore jaw muscles (I suspect that may have just been me) we head back to Kisumu. The sun is dipping lower over the lake as we descend once again to its shore and we make our way towards the fellowship at the rubbish tip we have been running for many years now.


From such places will come the mechanics of tomorrow.

Given the chance

Monday 26 November 2012

The Street Boy, The House Maid and The Elderly Teacher


I want to tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably?

If you are, then you may be missing the point.

Sometimes digging into the backgrounds of the boys and trying to facilitate reconciliation and reintegration is not easy. Sometimes it forces us to confront awkward or difficult situations

Franco’s is just such a case.

He came into our care aged 10, in our second intake of boys to Kibos in 2005. He struggled academically as he had missed so much school and even now, at the age of 17, he is about to enter class 8, the final year of primary education.

At school it seems, he doesn’t quite fit in. He is the oldest in his class by some distance and at Mamboleo, the small home run by Paul James on the northern outskirts of Kisumu, he has had his moments of conflict with other boys.

Nonetheless, he has stuck at it, he resolved not to go back to the streets, and we are proud of him. He is looking towards training when he finishes primary, he wants to do mechanics or bicycle repair or similar.

But there is something deep inside Franco that he is struggling to understand and wants to come to terms with. 

He wont find peace until it is done. 

Franco has never known his father. 

He wants to know where he comes from, who his family is, where their land is, what they do.

In the early 90’s, a young girl, fresh from primary school, took a job as a housemaid to a teacher and his growing family. She had come from a village in Uganda, but travelled the red dust road into Kenya looking for work.

She settled in Bokoli, a small community close to the Uganda border, in the district of Bungoma, near to Kitale in Western Province. She made friends with the other people who worked in the compound, keeping things clean, doing the washing and cooking, making sure the children were looked after. The teacher and his wife were strict but kind and she felt at home.

Then in 1994 her world fell apart.

She slept with the teacher and became pregnant.

How and why we don’t know, but suffice to say that it happened.

She had no idea what to do. She feared telling the teacher and his wife even more than she feared going home to Uganda and bringing shame on her family.

So, one night she left, quietly slipping away, never to be seen again.

She found her way to Kisumu, but with no income, a poor academic record, no job references and an increasingly expectant figure she had little chance of success. She rented a small room in Nyalenda slum for a few shillings a week, got together what little things she could and started buying and selling vegetables and then clothes and then small household nick nacks in the marketplaces of the slum.

Daily meals were a luxury and she often went without. Her son, now born, was a handful and restricted the things she could do to earn money. Unable to put him into school, and with no free primary education in those days, Franco grew up in the slums, familiar with the ways of the street.

As with so many children who found themselves in his situation, he eventually stopped going home. He found new friends, he discovered glue and other substances, he found, for the first time in his young life, a camerarderie amongst the street boys, somewhere he felt he belonged.

The Trust met Franco as part of our street outreach programs in 2005 and invited him to be part of our family. He was in our second intake of boys who, having progressed through the rehabilitation program, went to live up at Mamboleo with Paul James.

The Trust reintroduced Franco to his mum, who was delighted to see he was alive and well. He went to school for the first time, joining class 1 aged 10 ad now, aged 17, he has reached class 8 and will sit his KCPE exams next Autumn. He visits his mum in the school holidays, and enjoys those times, but always returns to Mamboleo.

Inside however, Franco was troubled.

When he turned 17, Paul James resolved to find out the truth.

He visited the mother a number of times, talking to her, trying to understand what had happened. She was reticent and afraid, but eventually began to trust him, and talked about what happened all those years previously.

Then, just a month ago, Moses and Paul James went to visit the, now elderly teacher in his home to explain what had happened. He was understandably shocked.

Today, a month later, we went up again, this time with Franco, his mum and me.

As we drove Franco’s mum was quiet, tense, unsure of what lay ahead.We drove down dusty, bumpy roads, Anton and I in the front, Moses, Paul James, Franco and his mum in the back. It’s fair to say that there wasn’t much room.

The roads got progressively smaller as we left the tarmac highway far behind. Then, as we turned down a narrow red dirt track towards the compound, Moses noticed a few men sitting by the hut to our left, in the shade of a tall mango tree. They were talking and drinking. We stopped the car and Moses went over to talk to them.

After a moment or two he walked towards us with one of the elderly men at his side. He called us over. This is who we had come to meet. He was warm, polite and welcoming, but clearly very afraid of the consequences of what had been revealed to him on his family. He met us at the junction of the road to the compound, rather than us go all the way down and run into his wife.

We talked very amicably.

We weren’t there for money or support, we weren’t there to judge, to condone or to condemn. We were there for Franco, so he knows his family, so he knows the place of his father.

The teacher has a lot to lose of course, he was happily married with a grown up family when Franco was conceived and he fears the consequences of the revelation. He wants the proof of a DNA test to confirm paternity.

We understand that and will do what we can to make it easier for him.

But we exchanged numbers, we talked about next steps, we initiated things, we started something, and I hope and pray it will take root. For Franco’s sake.

This isn't how things were meant to happen in Kenya. According to custom, when a woman discovers she is pregnant to a married man, she informs him of the fact. Over time the child is introduced to and assimilated into the family. The child enjoys the same rights as the man’s other children, a piece of land, an inheritance, a place to call home.

Franco’s mum had run away in fear, fled the compound and gone to the slums of Kisumu. Two lives had suffered hardship and pain and for what? I am lost for words.

Over the coming months we will work with Franco, his mother and the elderly teacher to uncover the truth of Franco’s heritage.

Reintegration is one of the programmes that we run, helping children, when they come of age, to know their rights, their lands and most importantly, their family and their heritage. It was the first time i had seen it up close.

Sometimes, being more than just another children’s home is painful.

But I wouldn’t want it any other way.