Kisumu

Its been a busy few days since my last post. We are on half -term at the moment so there aren't as many children around as usual. The keen ones are coming in to do some revision for the exams they will be sitting next week. I've had some fun maths lessons with them (I had fun - I hope the children did too).

We are occasionally asked to provide a bed for children that have been brought to the District Children's Officer for one reason or another. Yesterday we were asked to look after a young lad who had somehow managed to find his way to Oyugis (our nearest town) from Kisumu which is about a two hour drive away. When we asked the lad how he had come to Oyugis he said that he had 'got on a vehicle' with his brother and somehow managed to stay on it until he was thrown off at Oyugis. He was brough to the the Children's Officer by an Assistant Chief yesterday and finally found his way to our place, where he stayed last night.

As we had been planning to go to Kisumu today we called the Children's Officer last night to ask if he wanted us to re-unite the lad with his family. The boy told us that he lived close to the airport in Kisumu and we were able to confirm the location of the school that he said he attended from a contact in Kisumu.

We set off for Kisumu at about 7.30 this morning, little boy in tow. On arriving in Kisumu Mary took responsibility for finding our visitor's school, home and family while the rest of us set off on a variety of shopping tasks - mostly buying school resources for the next half-term. It was a very successful day from that point of view. We now have a good selection of chemicals, scientific apparatus and new text books. I have been promising some of the lads who live at Hope and Kindness that I will teach them how to play the guitar and was very pleased when I managed to buy a decent guitar for them to learn on at a good price.

On our way home Mary filled us in on the story of our surprise visitor. Mary found the boy's school very quickly but he seemed to have been a bit economical with the truth regarding his attendance. The Head Teacher told Mary that the he hadn't seen the lad for a couple of years and that he was (in Mary's words) "a very bad boy". His story sounds, unsurprisingly, like something out of an earlier century. His parents are no longer together and his mother has effectively abandoned him. As he hasn't been to school for some time he is living a fairly chaotic life, in and out of trouble. When Mary went to the boy's home area she said the neighbours hid, as they thought she was an official of some sort and that trouble was in the making. Mary identified the lad's Grandfather who promptly completely ignored him. Mary eventually found a step-grandmother who seemed to care about the boy's welfare. Just before she left to meet us in Kisumu Mary noticed that our new friend was wearing a stop watch which we hadn't seen last night. He'd stolen it from one of our boys before leaving for Kisumu this morning.

It is sad but true that this story of neglect, abandonment and damaged character is played out daily all over Kenya. The West has its share of problems with children who do not enjoy the love and nurturing that they need but it takes on another dimension out here, where life is lived so close to the edge of death and desperation. It is heartbreaking to think of little boys (and girls) being so badly damaged by the circumstances they find themselves growing up in.