Images of Kipsongo

I posted about Kipsongo slum in Kitale a week or so back.

Whilst I was there I didn't take any pictures, it didn't seem appropriate as the people there were clearly suspicious of the motives of those who go.

Moses has just emailed me with the following, so I will post them here to give an idea of the slum

Beautiful Country

And so it's home time.

The streets of Nairobi are relatively quiet as we drive through to the Mvuli House B&B I have booked for the overnight stop. It's an unusual situation. When I arrived, two weeks ago, it took over 2 hours to drive the 15 kilometres to the city centre.

But today is different. The roads are quiet going our way. There are queues the other side of the road, but on our side things manage to keep moving. So quiet are the streets in fact that Wilberforce, my driver from Kenatco, the government run taxi company who operate from Jomo Kenyatta International airport, thinks I am a lucky man. “Mr Tim, God is on your side” he says. And means it.

All things considered, it was fortunate indeed that the normal Nairobi traffic had chosen to clog up roads elsewhere, as Wilberforce ran me speedily to Mvuli road, Mvuli Park and a number of other Mvuli's, before stopping to ask someone if they knew where Mvuli House was.

They didn't

Eventually Wilberforce asked me if I had a number for the place. “I do” I replied, and passed it on to him.

A phone call later and the problem had been established. We were in Westlands, on the other side of Nairobi to the airport. The guest house though wasn't on Mvuli Park, Mvuli Road, any other Mvuli or indeed anywhere near Westlands. It was in Nairobi West, just 10 minutes drive from the airport.

And so we made our way back across town, through the traffic queues, around the roundabouts, just about avoiding contact with the matatus and their drivers, who I swear have to pass a test in a dodgem car before they are allowed on the roads.

Mvuli House, it turned out, was pleasant enough. The room was clean, the staff extremely friendly, the wifi free and surprisingly quick and the location, close to the main road, made the transfer from the airport simple (unless you go via Westlands).

Best of all, it is at least half the price of the many international hotels in the city centre.

We eventually arrived at 8:30pm, I checked in and arranged to meet Wilberforce again the following morning at the ridiculously early time of 5:00am, to ensure we were at the airport in good time for the flight home.

I asked the receptionist if there would be a discount, as I would be leaving before breakfast the following morning. “It's no problem” she said, “I will put you down for early breakfast. Is 4:30 ok for you?”

The TV in the lounge area was showing Man utd vs Benfica. The first football I had seen in 2 weeks and even better when I found out the score.

I enjoyed a cold Tusker and started to relax.

After the game I went back to my room wondering whether to bother with the mosquito net. I have never been bothered by mozzies in Nairobi, though I generally get bitten to death in Kisumu, especially in the rainy season when it seems soft white flesh is the requisite hors d'ouevre for insectkind. On this trip I suffered a number of bites around my ankles, elbows, wrists and knees. I can understand my elbows and wrists, as they are generally exposed, but it must take some kind of special commando mozzie to suck blood from my knees through trousers.

“Platoon, Ten Shun! To the Knees, Quuuiiiiccckkkk Flyyyyyyy!”

As I considered the need for the net I heard the unmistakeable sound of mosquito song. It's not the most tuneful sound, a single note, held for as long as flight is maintained. The silence is worse. It's then you start to wonder where it is. Your skin becomes extra sensitive and you feel it biting all over, when in truth it's probably just landed on the wall for a bit of a rest!

I decided the net was required, and began untieing it and tucking it around the mattress.

It's quite cosy, snugged under a mozzie net. It's like the feeling you get wrapping a duvet around you when the rain is beating on the window pain on a wild, stormy night. You know things are out there, but you feel safe and sound.

And I slept. To the sounds of Mombasa Road and the song of a lone mosquito.

About 10 minutes later the alarm went off. It may have been a little longer, perhaps even four or five hours, but it seemed like 10 minutes.

I dragged myself out of the mosquito sheltered coccoon, washed and dressed and made my way to “early breakfast”

The kitchen was alive with activity. Bacon, sausage, beans, some funny root looking thing, toast, eggs, juice.

As I walked in the waiter turned the dining room lights on and gave a cheery “Habaria za asabuhi?” “Nzuri” I replied sleepily.

I don't know if they are up at this time every day, but it was really nice to be looked after.

I decided it was too early for baked beans, and anyway the people on the plane may not welcome an unfavourable tail wind, so rustled up a bacon and sausage buttie from the assorted trays.

At 5:00, on the dot, Wilberforce arrived for another tour of Nairobi suburbs.

I checked out with a warm, friendly and smiling receptionist and got into the car.

I chatted with Wilberforce on the short journey back to JKIA. It turned out that he had been working all night, since he dropped me there the previous night. In fact, he had been working since the previous morning. The taxi company run a system requiring 24 hour shifts to be worked. He would finish work at 9:00am and then report back tomorrow morning for another 24 hour shift.

In spite of this he was happy to be working and chatted all the way to the airport.

My experience of Mvuli House and Wilberforce is common to all my experiences in Kenya. People are really friendly, nothing is too much trouble and if you need breakfast at 4:30, well then so be it.

It's a beautiful country, made all the more special by the ordinary people who struggle to make a living in it.

Flesh and Blood

It's my last full day here in Kisumu.

Two weeks have passed so quickly and now it's time for home.

Tomorrow I return to Nairobi, then Amsterdam and a short flight to Manchester.

It's so hard to be a long way from home, but the people here, the things they have said and shared and the look on their faces have been worth every moment.

When I felt God called me to this work, He spoke to me about Isaiah 58. In particular he said I was to “share my food with the hungry, clothe the naked, provide the poor wanderer with shelter and not to turn away from my own flesh and blood”

It was the perfect description of those who find their sustenance on the streets.

What I suppose I hadn't understood fully at that time was how that last bit of that was going to be fulfilled.

“My own flesh and blood” had always meant my family.

But this is my family. In a very real way.

Moses is my brother, Tatu my sister-in-law and all of the boys and girls my kids.

I know Nicky feels the same.

God has blessed us with as many children as Abraham! No wonder Isaac ran when he saw me coming.

On Monday we arranged a football tournament for all of the boys in Kisumu. We had about fifty players in four different teams, representing Kibos (the rehab centre), Mamboleo (our second house), Kachok (the rubbish tip outreach and education program) and then a fourth team of players from a mixture of those, plus Phil and Tom from the UK.

Each team played all other teams, on a typical Kenyan pitch – rough ground with a couple of goals located some distance apart, the lines marked out by running a stone through the dried red earth.

About 50% of the boys played in shoes, the rest barefoot.

And it was stony ground.

I don't mean that in the biblical sense of the sower and the seed, but the actual, small, sharp, stony sense where if you or I were to walk on it we would be letting out little gasps every step.

It's like walking down a pebbly beach into the sea, but playing football on it.

Not to mention kicking the ball with some force on an exposed instep.

But they loved it.

Each pretended to be the player of their choice, enhanced by the provision of football shirts brought over by Becky, Phil, Tom, Hil and Kate

The best one was given to Steven, a boy from Mamboleo, who found himself with a red Liverpool shirt with “Gerrard” on the back. Cries of “Steven Gerrard” went up from the crowd every time he touched the ball!

We had a great day.

The mixed team, featuring the international talents of Phil and Tom, floundered in the afternoon heat, losing all of their games. The highlight though was their only goal, scored by Phil running onto a long ball from the back, which he lashed past Isaiah in the Kibos goal. He ran back to the halfway line, shirt pulled over his head with the team wildly celebrating.

Mamboleo and Kibos were tied going into the last games, but Mamboleo won the tournament, defeating Kachok 2-0.

I ended up refereeing each game, as the boys didn't trust any of the other leaders not to be biased, as they are all associated with one program or another!

It was a really great day, if a little on the warm side!

And then yesterday we took all of the girls in the program out to the Impala Park.

Just over 25 girls, all different ages, but all enjoying a new experience. We walked around the enclosures looking at the cheetah, lion and leopard and then around the grounds with the herds of impala and zebra. Then we played ball games by the lake shore in the cool breeze of the morning, before going to eat fish in the shacks in town by the lake.

The girls looked so relaxed and really enjoyed each others company.

The Isaiah Trust has never felt more like a family.

Like “our own flesh and blood”

Kipsongo Slum - Kitale

It's been a long day today.

An early morning start for the drive up to Kitale.

Kitale is known, with good reason, as the bread basket of Kenya. The fertile lands and temperate climate combine to give excellent harvests and Kitale tea and coffee is rightly considered amongst the best available. Alongside the commercial crops many, many people run small farms producing maize, the food staple of Kenya.

We have farmed in Kitale for a number of years now. Last year we planted 10 acres with Maize. The harvest has usually been sufficient to feed the whole project for the year, giving us food security and protection against rising prices or the regular food shortages that accompany the years of poor rains.

Last year though, the rains failed and harvests were less than half what they were in previous years. Fortunately we still have enough for our own needs, but we have previously been able to sell the surplus to fund the following years planting, something which we wont manage this time.

Vincent his wife Rose look after the farm, as well as four ex street boys from the local area and I was looking forward to catching up with them. They are a delightful couple, the only downside of which is that Vincent is a very keen Arsenal fan. Fortunately their relative league position allows me a little gloating.

This trip was a little different to others however, as we had a particular objective in mind. Four of the boys we look after in Kibos originally come from Kitale. They are from the Turkana tribe, who inhabit the very north of Kenya, near the Sudanese border.

Many Turkana's have been displaced as a result of the regular border scuffles, often caused by cattle rustling (cattle having a cultural value beyond the meat or milk).

The four boys came from a Turkana community which has established itself in Kitale, however with no land rights they have been forced to build temporary homes in a slum on the outskirts of the town called Kipsongo.

During the post-election skirmishes the boys were grabbed by relatives from our home in Kitale and forced back onto the streets to find food. When things had settled down we relocated the boys and talked with their relatives, who agreed that they would return to our care, to school and to their studies, but this time back at our base in Kibos.

The boys are now flourishing in school and have fitted into the community at Kibos with ease. Our purpose in going back there was to meet with the community, update them on the progress of the boys and visit the home (a simple mud and thatch house) of one of the boys mothers, which we helped her to build.

As we drew up to Kipsongo the extent of the poverty here was obvious. I have walked through many slums, in Kisumu and Nairobi, but none quite as basic as this.

Most of the houses were traditional Turkana structures, igloo style construction of mud and sticks, with a rounded roof covered in anything and everything to hand, from sticks to paper, plastic bags, tyres and flattened bottles

We met with Pastor Edward at the entrance to the slum. Edward is an assistant pastor at a local church and a Turkana himself. Moses had contacted him during the troubles, and between them they have established a Christian fellowship in the slum. They meet every Tuesday afternoon and, this being Tuesday, we intended to make this our first stopping off point.

Edward greeted us warmly and led the way.

As we walked downhill through the slum we drew all eyes upon us. They were suspicious of the strangers in their midst, but accepting of us, as they saw we were with Edward.

We walked through a jumble of traditional homes, children in scrappy clothes played barefoot, but stopped to stare at us as we passed.

After about 10 minutes we arrived at the door of a hut, which Edward turned and entered, beckoning us after him. As I ducked my head to enter the low slung doorway it was apparent through the impenetrable darkness, that that the single room was packed with people. As my eyes adjusted from the bright sunshine to the relative night of the dwelling I realised it was standing room only.

This fellowship, begun less than a year ago amongst a people where there had been no church, had grown to some 40 or 50 people. Far more than a little hut can hold!

As we squeezed into a chair where people had moved to give us their place, the numbers of curious locals outside grew and grew.

Pastor Edward introduced us and Moses stood and greeted everyone. He spoke for about 10 minutes, in Swahili, whilst Edward translated into Turkana. At one point he introduced me, and I greeted the group warmly.

I shared about the charity, about our purpose and objectives. I shared from Isaiah 58 about what I believed we have been called to do. I shared about little Moses, Amos and James, the Turkana children we look after.

They were delighted to hear news of them, and even more delighted to know that they are in school and getting good marks.

Then Edward, and later others from the group shared. They thanked us for beginning the fellowship, for the very small funds we provide to help the community on a regular basis (about 5,000 shillings a month) and people shared how it had helped them, one with some hospital fees, another with some medicine and so on.

When the meeting finished we asked to visit the homes of the boys relatives, to greet them and to see and understand where they came from.

We left the hut and walked back out into the heat of the day. This time, rather than just Edward, we had a full entourage of people walking and chatting with us. Everyone wanted us to see their homes!

No longer full of suspicion we were walked around the village. They explained that many people come and take photographs and promise to help, but not many return. They believe that people use the pictures to raise funds and then keep the money. Maybe they are right, maybe not, but it is a fact that nobody seems to be helping them.

I was reminded of something I read once “A lot of people talk about the poor, but not so many talk to the poor”

We walked through the slum, past a kiosk set up by a single mother selling charcoal to help look after her 2 children and elderly mother, past a butchery, selling the meat (the squeamish should skip this bit) of a calf foetus, pulled from it's slaughtered mother and past countless hands, trying to pull me in a particular direction, to see a particular thing, to hear a particular need.

It would be good to help them all, but I know that is impossible.

We saw little Moses mothers house, a simple, single room mud and thatch structure which now sleeps her and 5 children. We say James relatives house and Amos's home.

There is absolutely no doubt, whatsoever in my mind, that they are better where they are. And so say their relatives. I thought I had seen communities with nothing. But I hadn't seen Kipsongo.

As we waked through the slum back to the car, still pulled this way and that, in spite of my protestations that I don't speak fluent Turkana I reflected on what a little money and care might do in this community to improve the lives of the children who live there.

Helping families can make a huge difference in stopping children ending up on the streets.

We left for the three and a half hour drive back to Kisumu in a reflective and thoughtful mood. It had been good to join the fellowship and although it is a small beginning, it is still a beginning. In such a way much can be accomplished.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta: -

“Today, it is very fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately it is not very fashionable to talk with them.

When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you not I wanted to give that person what he or she needed. We have refused to be instruments of love in the hands of God to give to the poor a piece of bread, to offer them a dress to ward off the cold. It has happened because we did not recognise Christ when, once more, he appeared under the guise of pain, identified with a man dying of hunger, when he came in a lonely human being, in a lost child in search of a home.”

See, I am doing a new thing.

Yesterday it rained.

And what rain.

Rain like someone had taken the whole of Lake Victoria and turned it upside down on the town.

It was the day we had planned to visit some of the children in their homes.

Mistake.

The skies were black as we negotiated the land rover through Nyalenda slum. It isn't a great place at the best of times, the largest slum in Kisumu, home to over a quarter of a million people. The mud and thatch houses cost 400ksh per room per month (about £3.50), but they offer minimal protection from the worst of the rainy season.

As we drove down muddy alleyways, barely wide enough for a car to pass, children called out “Mzungu!” (white person) at us. It is a term of endearment, surprise, delight and abuse, all rolled in to one! A chorus of “how are you?” rang out from the littlest of children barely old enough to walk. It is one of the first things they learn in school. When their teacher enters the classroom the whole class cries out in unison “Good Morning Teacher, how are you?”.

I wish I could write it with the same lyrical voice that they sing it.

We reply with a wave and a “Fine thank you, and how are you?” before we are past them and onto the next.

Children it seems are everywhere. Little boys with dirty clothes and muddy faces eagerly chase a makeshift football, scoring a goal against the baked mud walls of a house, whose owners seem remarkably tolerant of their play.

People come out of their houses when they hear the land rover pass, wondering what is coming their way. The odd motorcycle taxi is the normal traffic in this, the poorest of areas.

Eventually we pull up and John (one of our social workers, responsible for the children in Nyalenda and Kachok) invites us to leave the car. It's soon apparent why, as the road has narrowed such that we can only pass on foot. We grab our things, and walk for a few hundred metres, being careful where we put our feet.

And then the heavens open.

The last place you want to be caught in a storm is a slum. Firstly, because there is nowhere to hide and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, because the water table is high and as the water overflows it brings with it that which was originally in the toilets.

You get the picture.

So we jump, from one small mound to the next, careful where we walk, slipping and sliding in the mud.

The rain is pleasant on the body, the heat leading up to the storm becomes greater, and the relief of the cool rain is lovely. The people here consider rain to be a blessing, watering and refreshing the land, but here in the slums it must be less so. The footpaths turn to rivers, the iron sheet roofs leak and drip onto the floor of what goes for a living room and all thought of talking to each other is put aside by the crashing sound of every raindrop above.

We visited Alex, who I talked of in my last post. We also visited Violet and Collins.

Violet lives with her father and 5 younger sisters. Her mother passed away two years ago, her father is suffering. He has “the big disease”.

People don't talk of HIV, the talk of the big disease. They talk of “living positively”, and hope to meet a partner in the same situation “with a view to marriage and a long term relationship”. But HIV is taking away a generation. It is more common here for children to be with a single parent, with relatives or with grandparents than it is for them to have what we would consider a “normal” family.

Violet is in our program. She is 17 years old. She was in the education program until recently, but the pressure of studying, whilst also looking after the growing family and her sick father was too much. She has missed a lot of school, and is only now in form 6 of primary.

So she asked if she could do a college training course instead. We found her a place on a dressmaking and tailoring course at the local Rotary Youth Training Centre.

She is loving it. Learning a practical skill on a two year course will help her earn a living when she completes it. It was the best she could hope for and she is a strong young woman, with hope in her eyes and determination in her soul.

We left Violet's house with a real sense of hope. In the midst of this worst of places was a girl who was dreaming of her future. In eighteen months time, if she completes her course, we promised to get her a sewing machine of her own.

A treadle one

The sort you work by moving your feet to the rhythm of your heart, the kind we used to use in England before electric ones took over. But here the electricity is expensive and not reliable and pedal power is free and only takes a little getting used to.

Whether it is me or Nicky that presents it to her, I know that will be a proud day for us.

We then we fought our way back through the mud and the rain to meet with Zablon.

He is 15.

He shares two rooms with his father and his 12 year old sister. Zablon's father has TB, his mother left some 8 years ago and they haven't heard from her since.

Zablon is in secondary school.

His father can no longer work, so the Trust pays the small rent for the house.

When Zablon arrives home from school he boils eggs, which he then takes to the market to sell as snacks. Depending on how early he sells out, he may come home and do a second batch. Then he comes back and makes some food for his father and sister.

Zablon is a picture of hope and optimism.

You would expect him to be unhappy and forlorn, but not a chance. Zablon shines. He s delighted to be in school and dreams of college or university. He is a bright boy, and has every chance of fulfilling his ambition.

As we walk back to the land rover we find that the front tyre has a puncture. We have to mend it before we can go, and the rain continues to fall, but we are in good spirits. In the midst of darkness there is light. In the midst of despair there is hope.

Well, it is Easter after all.

Isaiah 43: 19

Forget the former things, do not dwell in the past, for behold, I am doing a new thing. See, I have already begun! Do you perceive it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

Good Friday

It's the morning of Good Friday.

It's been a hectic week, trying to see as many of our children in their schools as possible, meeting the teachers, looking at their marks and encouraging them to study hard. Schools here have so little and yet everywhere we have been, without exception, the teachers have known our children well, the children have respected and liked them and the teachers have talked to us about the children's home situations. They care about them and it's so good to see.

We have heard from some of the children too. They have talked about school, about home life, about they things that they find good and enjoy and about the things that they find difficult.

We met Alex, a bright boy of about 16 years, in form 1 of secondary school. Bright in school things, but anything but bright in personality. Many of the children we have visited are smiling and happy to see us, absolutely delighted to be in school, but Alex looks different, the way he doesn't smile at you, the way he carries his shoulders as if there is a weight upon him. This isn't a boy bursting with hope. He is doing well in school and has made the transition from primary to secondary in a positive way.

But when he goes home, everything changes.

His mother died some years ago now. His father drinks too much, probably in order to get away from his work. He digs and empties long drop toilets. Possibly a contender for worst job in the world, ever. So he drinks.

Often to excess.

And when he drinks, things can turn nasty.

Alex has been beaten and chased from the house. He has been forced to help his father in his work, surely not the best or the healthiest thing for a teenage boy to be doing.

So when we meet Alex, he looks defeated. He loves his school, but the first thing he says to me when I ask him of we can do any more for him is “My shelter, it is so poor”. He continues to stare down at his feet, eye contact is as elusive as his forgotten childhood. He is only in school because of the Trust, he was forced to drop out and work for his father before we met with him at Kachok outreach and were able to help him with school fees.

Alex so desperately needs to move on

And then there is Ruth.

Ruth was one of 9 children we met at St. Pauls, Kanyakwar, near Mamboleo where we have a small house for 12 boys.

Ruth is 14 years old. She began to share with us something of her life story. She shared how, when she was 12 her mother became ill. Ruth can remember every detail of the week leading up to the night her mother died. She remembers where she went, the kind of juice she drank, every word her mother said to her as she lay in hospital, and then lay at home.

Her mother was taken ill one day, and went to hospital where she was admitted. Ruth doesn't know what the problem was. After two or three days Ruth's father began to plead with the hospital to release her. The bill was already 10,000 KSH (about £90) and the father knew that he couldn't afford even that, let alone any more. Ruth went to church and prayed and prayed for her to be released.

Eventually, later that day, she was and she came home. She lay on the sofa, weak and exhausted. A day or two passed, Ruth trying to help her mum as much as she could, her mum in return appearing bright and encouraging.

Until Monday night. Ruth's mum never woke up.

As she tells us her story she presses her hands to her eyes, crying, her tears so deep and heavy it is as if it was only yesterday.

She misses her mum a lot.

From that night onwards Ruth has cared for her six younger sisters. She has been their mum.

After school she arrives home at 6pm and her father leaves for work as a night watchman. He drinks too much, there is no food made, no washing or cleaning done. Ruth has to do that.

She makes food, if there is any available, for her sisters. Then she washes them, washes their clothes, cleans up and falls exhausted into bed at 11pm. She rises at 4am to prepare for the day, to get everyone ready for school and to finish off from the night before.

Ruth's has 6 sisters, one aged 12, twins of 8, then a 6, a 5 and a 3 year old. It is no life for a 14 year old girl. She had given up hope for herself and was trying to do the best for her sisters.

Since we met her Ruth has been going to school. She is doing her final year at primary school this year, sitting for her KCPE. For the last month or so we have moved her into a boarding school, so she has the very best chance possible of getting good results. Her only way out of this poverty is to complete her education. And she is a bright girl, capable of secondary school, university and a good job one day.

We have also put her sisters into school. Kazir, her eldest sister is in class 4 and the twins in class 2.

We are going to help them board at school as well. The boarding is run by a delightful lady who knows and loves the children. They eat 3 meals a day and have space to play and have fun.

Ruth's father's sister will look after the smaller ones, so they are not left alone at night.

Ruth's tears for her mum still walk with me as I visit other children and other schools. We are taking them out for the day on Wednesday, to visit the Kisumu impala park and then to eat fish by the lake. In fact, we are taking all of the girls in the different programs on this trip.

For Ruth and for Alex, and for hundreds of thousands of children like them, may their tears be heard and their hopes and their childhood be rekindled. May the old life die this Good Friday and may their new, risen, hopeful life begin in it's place. Surely that's what Easter is all about.

For God's sake, let's give Alex and Ruth a chance.