At the Twiga Children's Centre

Work Hard, Play Hard

My last video on YouTube showed the Twiga kids working hard to prepare their vegetable plot, sow seed and build a fence to protect their vegetables.

Well, this new slide show shows that they don't just work. We organise games for them so that, especially those with particularly hard lives can act like the kids they really are, even if it is only for a couple of hours!

Please take a look at a bunch of kids enjoying themselves.

Kenya Trip June 2009 - etc ...

Sunday 14th

It is a typical Sunday. It started with a call to prayer at 5.50am, then the preachers with loud, rasping voices testing their sound equipment, to make sure that even people on the North Pole can hear them, followed by interminable services of joyful but repetitive music, played badly on electric pianos and sung by choirs who, frankly, can't sing.

This morning, I set up a swing for the kids, strung up in the mango tree outside the front door, and that has kept them amused ever since, thank Goodness.

Liz's Aunt, who has at least one grown-up daughter and at least one grandchild, is 8 1/2 months pregnant and an epileptic. She is in hospital and this morning it was decided to carry out an emergency Caesarian Section. Liz has shot up to Malindi to be with her and I am left with the two kids, Ian (7), Natasha (almost 5) and niece Beonce (2 weeks older than Natasha). To add to the meleé, the boy from next door has come round to play with Ian.

And it is lunchtime.

Beonce doesn't speak any English, the boy next door doesn't either, and Natasha pretends not to understand when it suits her.

Ian, on the other hand is a little star. His English, although not perfect is very understandable and he also speaks a little French.

He is happy to act as interpretor and also tries to keep his little sister in check, although it will take a lot more than a seven year old for that task. Even her mother has difficulties with her; she is very defiant - er, Natasha, not Liz.

I can usually scare the boy next door into obedience - he is not used to a mzungu in close proximity, and if I stare at Beonce for too long, she may even burst into tears.

I think I have established that all the kids like eggs, so it will be eggy bread for lunch, coz I like it.

And the added annoyance factor is that the Safaricom connection keeps dropping. The service really isn't very good in these parts.

-oOo-

I have heard from Liz. A healthy baby boy was born by CS, but Aunt is still aout of it.

-oOo-

I am beginning to think about dinner and had a look in the freezer. We don't have a fridge so everything goes in the freezer and we switch it on and of so as not to freeze everything rock-hard. We forget sometimes. Just now is such a time and I have frozen milk in my cup of coffee.

But back to dinner. Bearing in mind I am feeding 4, including myself, and it would be nice if there wassomething left for Liz when she gets back, I can do frankfurters and pasta, sausages and pasta, chicken and pasta, pasta and pasta, etc. ... with a pasta sauce of fresh tomatoes and garlic. There are little packets of herbs and spices, but they are all labelled in Swahili, so I won't be using those.

Cooking a proper meal for 5 on a single-ring gas burner is a bit daunting, but I am sure I will manage ... somehow ... if I have to, although I am hoping that Liz will arrive before I have to contemplate it.

Update:

Liz's aunt died this afternoon after a successful Caesarian Section to deliver a baby boy. The baby is in the nursery and we do not know if it will survive.

I managed to feed the kids, stop them eating what I had prepared for Liz, get them washed and virtually ready for bed when Liz came home.

She and the kids are now asleep and I am winding down after a long, cold shower. There are Tuskers in the fridge and I am tempted to drink one, but somehow, it doesn't seem right.

Kids and Curiosity

Sitting at a table outside a café in Kisii, I naturally become the centre of attention, especially for the kids walking home from school.

The bigger kids smile shyly and wave, the little ones stare, wide-eyed.

Some of the bigger kids encourage the smaller ones to come over and touch me. I hold my hand out so that they don't have to get too close to this weird, pale person sitting in the main street of their town.

Kisii, is not a major tourist area and as such is visited by very few Europeans or Americans, other than volunteer students, usually young and female, taking a gap year.

So, to see a mature white man in town is quite a sight.

It was the same in Komarock, a suburb to the east of Nairobi. As my hosts do not smoke, I took to sitting on the step outside their walled plot to have a cigarette.

At first, the local kids passed on the other side of the road. Then, some became braver and walked closer so that they could get a better look.

The ice was broken when I sat there with my digital camera. "Please, take my picture." "No, me, me, mimi!"

These kids live near the capital city, but many, especially the younger ones have never seen a white man, certainly not in their neighbourhood.

Watamu was different. Although it is still a small fishing village, because of the white sands protected by the reef, it has become a tourist attraction. There are many high-end hotels, run by Europeans. There are a lot of white people around. In the local supermarket, next to the Commissioner's office, European customers outnumber local residents.

People do not look twice when I am walking down the road, unless I am accompanied by my two step-children, Natasha and Ian, who are Kenyan.

It can be a bit disconcerting, being stared at, but I quickly realised that it is sheer curiosity - nothing sinister, just inquisitiveness - I can happily live with that.

It can only get better ...

The day has started badly.

A couple of days ago, I installed a new hard drive in my laptop and installed Windows XP. Today, I tried to activate Windows and the registration process refused the key. So I had to phone Microsoft and go through their activation process, typing in a string of digits on the phone, then another string onto the PC.

I knocked my tobacco tin off the desk onto the floor wasting a lot of cigarette-making paraphernalia.

I spilled a cup of very hot tea onto my lap.

This, on top of the news of our pending eviction in Kisii (see previous post), and my week so far is not going well.

My man in Kisii, Vincent, thinks he has found new premises, but it is more outlay of scarce funds that I could do without. So, either I go to Kenya next month, or I send the money over to bail out the business.

My heart says go to Kenya, my head says bail out the business - why don't they ever agree?

I will have to make a decision very soon. My bag is more or less packed and ready to go.

OK, so it's now Thursday. Can the week get any worse? Probably, if I let it. So I am searching around the recesses of my head, looking for positive thought - something to cheer me up.

And what pops up?

A herd of giraffe serenely munching away at trees with thorns the length of my finger.

A little girl kissing a rhino.

A bunch of South African township kids mesmerised by the antics of meerkats frolicking not three metres away from them.

Stroking a cheetah.

A Maasai kid trying to separate his herd of goats from the zebra that have wandered into "his" patch.

Baboons sitting on rocks watching the traffic go by.

Flamingoes on Lake Nakuru.

Watching and listening to the kids at the Twiga Children's Home playing - for a couple of hours, without a care in the world.

There, I feel a lot better, now.

Different Strokes

Benta, one of the orphans at Twiga, insists on going to school every day. She has even tried to convince us that she was well enough when suffering from malaria.

She wears her little blue gingham dress, white knee socks and black shoes with pride. She spends ages polishing her shoes every morning and has to look spotless. Unfortunately, when she comes back home, her socks are never white, but stained red by the dust of the school yard.

One day, she was getting ready for school, but could not find clean socks. This was a total disaster for her. She could not got school in grubby socks, nor could she go without socks. She may be an OVC* living in an orphanage, but going to school without socks just was not an option!

Eventually, we had to let he wear clean but still damp socks to go to school. Luckily, it was a warm day, and they would soon be dry.

Benta is not alone.

Contrary to popular belief by those who don't have a clue, African children do not go around in grubby, smelly, ragged clothes (or Heaven forbid, naked) through choice**. Most have a "Sunday Best" set and are proud of them. They like to look smart, well dressed. But family circumstances are often such that kids cannot have smart new clothes.

-oOo-

My significant-other-half's little boy, Ian, will not go out in public without a top on. He lives in an area where the temperature never drops below 22°C and daytime temperatures are usually well above 30°C.

He will happily run around the house naked after his shower, but he will not go outside in just shorts. He insists on wearing a top, even if it is 60 sizes too big for him!

Mind you, he did choose my "army colour" T-shirt over all the other, more colourful ones. He wants to be a soldier when he grows up!

-oOo-

So, what am I trying to say?

Just because a kid is scruffy, it doesn't make him a little savage.

It just makes him poor by the standards of the civilised world.

But it also makes him rich, far richer than most kids in the developed world. An African kid does not need a computer, Wii, X-Box, iPod, etc., etc., to amuse himself. He has friends and they react with each other, they amuse each other.

Give the average UK/European/USA kid a new toothbrush. They won't even say thank you.

Give the same toothbrush to an average Kenyan kid, and watch the delight on his face. He has something new, something that belongs only to him.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

* OVC = orphaned or vulnerable child
**There are, of course, exceptions. In certain rural areas, kids never wear clothes

How to demolish a bunch of bananas

My Natasha hands out bananas to her cousins from a bunch that she retains control of (just look at that serious expression).

The three little girls feast on the bunch.

You are supposed to take the skin off first!

Natasha's brother, Ian, manages to get one.

The whole bunch disappeared within a few minutes!

I have touched on the use of Vaseline in Africa before, in the blog "The Colour of my Skin". Kids seem to love being greased.

But if you are a bit slow, they will set about it themselves. My friend's daughter, Faith, who is about 2 years old, decided that Mama and Baba were too slow and decided to Vaseline herself.

Now, Abigael, having four kids to look after, doesn't mess about with the little jars we get in England. Oh no, she has a 500ml pot. Faith found it. And she plastered herself.

We had to scrape it off her - the picture is after we had got the worst off her!

She was not happy.

-oOo-

When I was in South Africa in the late 80s, I fostered a few street kids. The first two, a pair of 12 year-olds loved the swimming pool, despite the fact that it was mid-winter.

When they dried off, they asked for Vaseline for their skin. I didn't have any, but I did have some Johnson's Baby Oil.

The first kid coated himself with the oil and was quite pleased with the result and was admiring himself in the mirror when the second child came into the room.

"What is this stuff?" he asked, turning his nose up. "You smell like a white kid!"

I wasn't sure how to take that.