Kisii - and Happy New Year

On Sunday the 21st December i set off to Kisii, an agricultural area in the highlands of Western Kenya - made famous by the huge turn out of soap stone carvings that you see all over Kenya in the tourist shops, and all over the world in fact - actually you can get some really nice plates and bowls, and there are some Henry Moore type carvings at the entrance to hotels etc. Except they were doing them way before Henry Moore.

Anyway my visit was a mixed bag; I spent most of Monday 22nd assessing Kisii Children's Home and the horrors of that place. I am still shocked by these places, which i know is a good thing when i've seen so many dreadful things, but another home where the children are not being properly cared for just made me very cross.The poor social worker who joined me had known that there were problems at the home and failed to make improvements. Very young children getting up at dawn to work in the fields and not being provided with cooked food; left unsupervised at night and so on, and generally at risk!! I made lots of calls to managers and directors as this is a government sponsored home through Child Welfare. I have been told that there are "political issues" that i don't understand, so i am to meet with the director next week so they can explain it all to me!! They are now panicking as they know i am going to be writing a report on their management!!
I ended up staying to make sure the children all got a good lunch, and then played with them for ages - i'd taken a few toys and balloons.
I then went of into Kisii town and booked myself into a dive of a hotel and had to move three times, as there was no water or lights working, and it was far too quiet. I locked myself in and eventually got off to sleep. In the morning i refused to eat breakfast there and managed to make contact with my cousin Julia, who i hadn't seen for more than 5 years. She was great, she cooked breakfast for me and my driver - poor man slept in a much worse hotel than mine!!

23rd December turned out to be a family day for me, as well as Julia and her family it was lovely to see my aunt Martha. She is the image of my grandmother, and like her she is a thin wrinkley leather skinned woman. Martha is a very kind and very affectionate 80+ year old and has always been an important part of my life, and without any real explanation we know we have an affectionate attachment, its just always been that way. It was the same when i first introduced her to Roy 24 years ago, she was all over us. She is a big part of my attachment to Kenya i guess. It was good to see her farm again and really nothing has changed up there. More and more children of cousins turned up that i didn't know but seemed to know all about me - all very strange but reassuring!! No i couldn't live here - too remote and too hard a life, but Nairobi in parts is much better - well it was until i saw a dead body in the road (another car accident). I am so English its shocking!!

I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas.
HAPPY NEW YEAR xxxxxxxx

Message from Roy: Bomu and Arap Moi

Hi everyone Roy here. I'm back home at freezing Hunciecroft now but i had a great three weeks in Kenya with Veronica. Of course i hadn't seen her for about six weeks which was really weird and hard going at times. Now we have a very strange Christmas coming up, with Josh away in Brasil as well. We had a short break on the coast, and for me it was a very relaxing time, and i was able to do a fair bit of drawing when Veronica was at work. But i do want to write a little bit about two places that we visited, and which have had a big effect on me.

During our holiday at Diani we took a day out to visit a clinic that we'd heard about in Mombasa town. It's in Bomu, a very poor part of the town. The clinic was founded many years ago, and is still run by an Indian lady called Mama Hayati. She's a wealthy woman, her husband was a minister in Kenyata's first government, and she lives well, but she has basically devoted her whole life to building up this clinic. It's a charity; remember there is no free health care in kenya; you get the care you can pay for. And of course they get nothing from the government. After the politicians have been paid there's not that much left to go round it seems! They are just finishing a fantastic new extension to the clinic which has taken years of fundraising. The building itself and the workmanship are top class (Mama Hayati's motto is that "just because people are poor they shouldn't have to expect less than the best") but they don't have much equipment. No beds yet, and the operating table came out of the ark (did they have an operating table on the ark?). I don't want to sound like Lenny Henry or Sting (no i don't) but they do need some equipment if you've got the odd hospital bed or operating table your not using.....

My other little excursion to Stark Reality Kenya '08, was the Arap Moi Children's Home at Nakuru. We drove there on the day before i left Kenya, and i was pleasantly surprised that they'd done the road up. I remember it as dusty and very bumpy, no joke in the back of a pick up. But we got there in no time, thanks to the magnificent benevolence of President Kibaki, apparently. We picked up a social worker called Donald and made the visit. I shadowed Veronica and took some photos. Veronica told me, and even i could see, that this was a good place and they were happy for me to take pictures. The head was proud to show what they were doing, but wanted to show also what they lacked in terms of facilities and funding. Again no internal funding; it comes from USA, Sweden, Britain etc. Again a woman at the helm who is totally dedicated and stretched in every direction. Veronica says she comes across this time and again. People who want to do things the right way, and want to learn, but who's hands are tied by lack of cash.
Arap Moi is a long established children's home, but of course they've had to take in all the internally displaced children following the post election violence. When we visited there were only four (but there have been many) which is a testament to the their committment to the stated policy of returning children to their families or extended families, or recognised foster carers. We were told that of the sixty something children's homes in the Nakuru area, only about twenty are registered with the government. It seems anyone can just set up a home over there, Some will be ok, but many will be very bad. Some are run by the churches, notoriously difficult to regulate, others by unscrupulous individuals who gain foreign funding, and use the places as a front for child trafficing and the worst you can think of. This is no exageration.
Veronica is flying of all over the country assessing schools and homes, but what has amazed me is that no one was already doing this. And if she hadn't volunteered to do it, it wouldn't be happening now. To their credit the powers that be seem to realise this and are using her knowledge and experience to the full.
She really is kicking ass at a national level!!
Roy.

Samburu

Over the past few weeks i have visited numerous children's homes, and even whilst Roy was visiting i took him along to see a Children's home in Nakuru. My work seems to be developing a pattern and now feels more focused with a better plan. I am going to continue to assess and monitor Childrens Homes, and where there are children who can be rehabilitated home then this will be the focus. I am showing managers how to rehabilitate children back into their communities, and also how better to care for the children they have in their homes. There aren't really enough hours in a day to do this work, and not enough people either - i have teamed up with the local social workers and wherever possible i take them along on the inpections - they are really appreciative, interested and learning a lot. I am going to be working on setting up a practice manual for staff in homes, followed by workshops and triaining events.
The most amazing and moving visits i've made so far have been to childrens Home for disabled children, in the Kajiado, a Masai area, and in Maralal, a Samburu district. I have just been amazed at the work some people are doing with such little support. Both these homes are really well managed by good honest and reliable people who just have nothing thenmselves and have to go begging to the local NGOs for food - its shocking, especially as the home in Samburu has 109 childen who are either deaf, blind, have celebral palsy or have various limb deformaties. I am trying really hard to get them some funding so if anyone has any ideas - email me for more details.
You've all got to go to Samburu - it has the most breath taking scenery with shocking views of the Rift Valley - the Moran (Samburu Warriors) just add to the amazement and wonder of the place with their bright colours and showing their off to potential brides!! I had half a day in the national park and got up very close to the elephants and surprisingly the eagles too - it made for an intersting journey to work. The manager of the Serena Lodge where i stayed overnight is from my tribe, Kisii, and knows my cousin who is a catering manager, so i managed to persuade him to give me a great reduction on the accommodation, and he also hosted dinner and drinks. He was very interested in the work we're doing and it looks like he may persuade the the other Serena Hotels to support other homes close to where they are. I'm going back and see him in January hopefully. They aready have a toilet installation project thing going on in Samburu, so at the moment that's where most of their local funding is going.
Really wish some of you would come out here and see how beautiful Kenya is once you get away from the cities - it really is extreme. I hope somehow that i will get to go to Lamu or Zanzibar, now that would be a treat!! I'm off to Kisii, the place of my birth next week. I know that will be hard for me in many ways, apart from the fact that western Kenya has the highest aids problems and aids Orphans in Kenya.

Am i still sane i hear you asking - well only just - so looking forward to the Christmas break and a couple of days off - met some nice supportive people and trying really hard to avoid the rest!! I've been distracted by the odd lunch party and a Christmas fair Kenya style, with various tribal gifts on offer and all that you might imagine so i bought a jar of Whiskey marmalade to remind me of home and some fab beads. So much to say that i could write a book! Its hot and dry getting hotter still.

Love to you all

Veronica

A School Visit - Nairobi Part 1 & 2