Nov 17, 2008. This morning we got a bright and early start to our day with breakfast at 6:15 and then hit the road for Nairobi, about 50 km to the southeast. To say that a person’s greatest danger in Africa is being on the roads is a gross understatement. Dr. Bransford was our driver and has obviously negotiated the traffic before. Far as I can see, it is survival of the luckiest! But, then again, it works. The local roads here in Kijabe are red sand and unpaved and the recent rainy season has left large washouts in many places as the whole community is on the upper side of a hill overlooking the Rift Valley. The unpaved roads have large boulders reaching upward, and washout drains 12-18 inches deep in places. Interestingly enough, the more I try to describe the conditions here, the greater the resemblance to some of my experience growing up on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, though I think it wasn’t as harsh there, even with the bitter winters – perhaps my memory is fading.
En route to Nairobi, we picked up Jane, a former student at our first destination, Joytown, just east of Nairobi. She lived there for eight years, graduated, and is studying to be an administrator. She is a soft spoken, well-informed, and resourceful woman whose criteria for admission to Joytown were her club-feet physical disability. Joytown is a government operated public school for the disabled, though its origin was with the Salvation Army. This year, it had 308 students with a waiting list of another 200. About one-third of its operating costs are provided by the Kenyan government, part of the balance provided by various aid agencies and gifts-in-kind, and about 30% of the cost is directed at the parents who typically are only able to pay one quarter of this amount. During our visit many of students had already finished the national term exams and returned to their community care persons, parents, etc. However, there were a few stragglers still around, looking rather forlorn and hopeless, for the most part. The school principal offered us a guided tour. The facility was a travesty to see, even though they were making a diligent effort to clean it up while we were there. A typical sleeping area for 36 physically and mentally disabled children was a room about 16 feet by 36 feet. Beds were literally touching, there were no privacy screens, the mattresses consisted of 4 inch white foam which was ripped and grossly stained, but being readied for reuse. A small number of mattresses had plastic covers. These mattresses were laid on a frame with a spring support, I am not certain what sort of covers were provided as they were not evident. The toilet facility for the same 36 disabled children consisted of one partially enclosed toilet and one hole-in-the cement floor. The shared shower area was adjacent and consisted of a cement-walled partially enclosed area with 2 rudimentary shower heads. It was the duty of one Mama to prepare all of these children in the morning to be ready for breakfast and to start classes by 9 AM; she started at 6:30, do the math. We then visited the tiny and poorly supplied and maintained classrooms making me wonder how anything meaningful could be taught in such conditions. And, although some disappear after enrolling supposedly because of the cost (though they are never penalized for not being able to pay), many of them apparently go on to graduate and as many as 25% will go on to further training such as Jane, who described her eight years there as enjoyable! The principal answered many questions but left the impression that she often did not really know what she was talking about. After having tea and treats we moved on to visit the Feed the Children facility in Nairobi.
This organization serves 2 main functions. It is an adoption centre for abandoned infants, typically from the slum areas of Nairobi. Children typically arrive by whomever has found them, often only a day or two old, are given a complete medical exam and as much information as possible about how they ended up abandoned is sought. Apparently this site was at one time the same, if not worse, than Joytown. An American couple felt compelled to do something about it in the late 90’s and in the past 8 years it has been transformed into as well-organized, and good a facility as you would find anywhere in Canada. At least 48 of the children there have now grown into young adults but have not been adopted, yet. The other 65 range in age from newborns to toddlers. They were very interested in their visitors, were more than willing to chat and play with our cameras (though we were forbidden to take pictures of the children), and the place seemed very much full of life with plenty of modern play facilities and open spaces, quite a contrast to Joytown. The second function of this facility is, as the name suggests, feed children. They are supplied with basic food supplies, mostly corn, soy, beans, and oil by a variety of world aid programs and the food is stored in a very clean, well-aerated, and organized storage facility. They provide food supplies to schools in the worst slum areas of Nairobi to allow a breakfast and midmorning meal. This represents the only meal these children actually get. They also supply similar rations on a monthly basis to AIDS-affected children. The receiver of the food must then convert the raw materials into edible food and this is done at the schools, typically by the parent-teacher associations who grind the corn, etc., on site. Though it isn’t exactly a typical North American meal, it certainly seems to an impact as measured by the sharp increase in graduating students in the slum schools. It had also been noted that young girls from the slum areas regularly missed 4-5 days of school a month. This was tackled by supplying 4 sanitary napkins per month per mature female for nine months (the duration of the school year) and has resulted in a marked reduction in absences and a similar increase in female graduates! Following our tour we were served a hearty meal of rice, beans, bread and juice before heading back to Kijabe. Though the road was rough in the back of the hospital ambulance in which I managed to catch a little sleep – the African sun is powerful!
Tonight we go to Dr. Dan Poenaru’s for dinner, and maybe a chance to connect to the internet again.
Did I mention that the vehicle we were in was an ambulance donated by the Rotary Club of Kingston!!