Victoria
5th August – 2nd September 2006

I had a split experience in Kenya whereby I spent half of my time in Ruiru and the other in a village called Masongalani in Kibweze district. It was the school holidays and I spent the first weekend going to the Rehab in the afternoons but I really wanted to get some experience of teaching in a school. So Out of Afrika arranged for me to go to Ndauni Secondary School where the children were on Tuition and were coming to lessons everyday despite being on vacation. The school has only been open a couple of years so there were only Form 1 and Form 2 students there; the school will increase in size as the years go on. I got a very good reception at the school especially by the teachers. For the first week there were two teachers to 70 kids so they were very pleased to have the extra help. I taught English and Mathematics for 4 hours a day. I also asked the kids to write letters to the children I teach in England so hopefully I can set up some correspondence between the two schools

I stayed in the priest’s house while he was not there so I had the house to myself which was very nice. It was a very basic accommodation although secure. I had no electric or running water so I had to use a paraffin lamp and collect water in a 10 litre jerry can (very heavy) from a pipe about 20 meters from my house. I had to wash everything by hand and boil any water I wanted to drink. My bathroom was basically a slightly sunken room with a hole in the wall for the water to run out and I washed myself from plastic basins. The toilet was a shed-like building with a hole in the floor and about 30 meters away. So most basic tasks took a lot more effort and time from what I am used to but once I got myself into a routine I found the challenge of living without the luxuries I’m used to both interesting and rewarding. Everything is spaced very far apart also so I often had to walk distances of up to twelve mile to get to my location. I had to allow a whole day to visit the ATM machine, for example. My legs were really aching at first but I quickly got used to it, so that was good for me.

The actual area itself really shocked me at first. I must admit on the first day that the prospect of staying there was daunting. I have never really experienced anything quite like it. Most people were living in mud huts with straw or corrugated iron as a roof, some didn’t even have roofs! When I arrived it was night time and as there is no electricity here it was completely black; I could just about see 2 feet in front of me. It was not possible to see a single light in the distance anywhere. (This meant that the stars were really beautiful. I could see thousands because there was no light pollution and the Milky Way was also visible). Despite my initial reservations the people I met there made me want to stay; they had made such a huge effort to accommodate me and I frequently had people coming by to check I wasn’t lonely and to see if I need help with anything. So by the end of the two weeks I really was quite sad to be leaving, I wish my visit could have been longer.

The poverty in the area is the main thing which really affected me. Some of these people are suffering very badly. Their livelihood is in farming, and since they have not had rain for at least 4 years they are struggling to feed themselves, let alone make any profit. Many can’t afford to send their children to school. Others are in need of medical treatment but go along time without it because they cannot afford it. Whilst I was there one woman died in childbirth, which I am told is also common since women cannot afford to go to the hospital or have doctors. Most of the children I was teaching had huge balances of school fees and no way of knowing where the money would come to pay the fees. We also visited some children who Cosmas (my contact there) wants to get sponsorship for. There were terrible cases of awful poverty. There were two girls whose mother had abandoned them and they had no way of getting food and were drinking dirty water from the river. But more concerning, they did not have a door on their house, and told us that some men had been disturbing them at night trying to get into their house. In another family both of the parents had died and a boy of 19 had dropped out of school to look after his 8 brothers and sisters. The older children work long hours for just enough food to survive and the older sister was working as a house maid only earning 1000ksh a month.

So obviously the area is hugely in need of help. It is no surprise then that I will warn other visitors to the area that people will ask you for money and help. They were under the impression that I was much richer than I really am just because I’m white and English. Even the teachers asked me for help with their university fees and asked if I could buy a science lab and library for the school. So be on your guard for such requests. However, I was made extremely welcome and felt very safe as a visitor there. It was a very rich and full experience in which I felt I glimpsed the real Kenya, with many funny stories to go along with these more serious ones. I visited a witch doctor and a national park, was invited around a lot of people’s houses for dinner and saw traditional dancing. The children sang traditional songs for me when I left I gave me presents and thanks. In all I had a really good time in Kibwezi, the difference to Ruiru is immense. I learnt a lot about the rural culture which in some ways is very different to that you would find in Nairobi or even Ruiru. It was a particularly good for me to experience two weeks of each place in order to realise the contrasts which exist in Kenya. I would definitely come back to either, I had an excellent experience.