Our visit with Kristoffer's Mom and Hans continues to be eventful. On Saturday, the three of them spent the day climbing up and around Mt.
Longonot, a volcanic crater just north of Nairobi. Kristoffer and I had climbed it in March (going up takes about 90 minutes) but had not climbed the rim of the crater (takes about 3 hours). The three of them, however, had a beautiful day for a climb and managed to do the whole thing (although their legs were sore the next day. It is a steep climb!). When Kristoffer and I climbed it we had only seen one lone giraffe, but this time they saw more wildlife.
The next day, the four of us visited an orphanage on the outskirts of Nairobi called "By Grace". At the
WFP, Kristoffer is the "focal point" for developing relationships with orphanages and trying to find ways that the
WFP can partner with them to assist more Kenyan children. Some of the women involved with By Grace, Jane (a Kenyan woman) and Pixie (an American volunteer), invited Kristoffer to come see the orphanage and so he decided to do it on the weekend and bring us with him.
Let me say, first of all, that I am sure there are hundreds of orphanages like this one in and around Nairobi but because this is the only one we've been to we happen to think that it is a special place. The actual orphanage is in a poor neighborhood, although not quite a slum, and its physical building is 3 floors and very run-down (actually disgusting, in my opinion). The 250 children who live at By Grace sleep in the rooms at night that are their classrooms during the school day and live with poor water and sanitation conditions. There are an additional 150+ children who do not live there but do come to By Grace for school, which follows the Kenya national curriculum taught by volunteer teachers. It is very hard to imagine that the conditions we saw, which were dirty and smelled like sewage, were better than other conditions the children might find themselves in if they were not living there.
After getting the tour of the orphanage and learning a bit about how the orphanage started (the "Mama" of the orphanage originally started taking street children into her own home, but then ran out of space and secured donations to rent the building across the street where the orphanage has been since 2002), we were greeted in their "play yard" (a small alley made of gravel) by all 250 resident orphans. They made several presentations to us of dancing and singing (it is a Christian orphanage so all performances were of a religious nature) before we each had to say something to the group. Kristoffer was a bit hit with the kids offering them advice on staying in school! I can honestly say that Kirsten and I were in tears when the children were singing to us about how hard their lives have been and how they have been saved by Jesus. It was extremely emotional to see these children, of all ages, living in squalor, who appeared to be so happy and grateful for their lives.
When all of this was over, each child came and shook each of our hands and thanked us for visiting them. Before leaving for the day, the leaders took us to see a plot of land nearby that they are hoping to buy; if they get this land they will build proper classrooms, dormitories, a play yard, etc. The work that these women do to provide a basic life and some security for these children is incredible, especially knowing that most of them would out of school, living on the street, or even not alive if not for By Grace. Hans and Kirsten were able to make a small donation to the orphanage that day, money that would be used to buy some fruit for the children to eat (they mostly eat 2 meals a day of rice or corn meal with fruit, meat, and milk as very rare treats). Kristoffer and I are hoping to establish a more consistent donation to the orphanage in the future.
I should mention something very interesting: based on a conversation we had with a Kenyan man back in January, Kristoffer and I knew that Kenyans are very opposed to international adoption. Kenyans believe that staying in your culture/tribe/family is the most important thing and if westerners adopt babies and bring them to other continents they consider that child to basically be stolen (Kenyans are not big Madonna fans, even though she adopted from Malawi). If a child has any family or tribe, those people will care for the child and a child should only end up in an orphanage under dire circumstances.
OK fine - this we knew. But I asked the head teacher at By Grace if children were ever adopted
domestically from this orphanage, and he was equally opposed to such a scenario. It appears that regular Kenyans wouldn't think to adopt from an orphanage (which seems very sad to me) and the orphanage strives to provide education and computer skill training in the absences of college so that children can get jobs when they are older and take care of themselves. Some of the children in the orphanage have relatives that visit or bring them home around the holidays, but usually the families are so poor or sick that they really cannot care for the children at all or the children have no living relatives.
It was both a heartbreaking and heartwarming experience for us to visit By Grace and I am sure we will back again! As soon as I am able, I will post
pictures of our visit. I know I have a lot of pictures to post (house, Masai Mara, orphanage - yikes!)! Kirsten and Hans have been visiting the island of
Lamu for the past few days and they will rejoin us in Nairobi tonight until they head back to Denmark on Monday. We miss them a lot when they leave and are wondering who our next visitor(s) will be!
LMW
