#8 – Kirengero and the Library (or rather our inspirational labour camp)
Well, the crowd here at Njaaga’s Children’s Home is slowly thinning. The group of 11 Canadians left on Tuesday. Robin left on Thursday for her Safari leaving me all alone. Well, not quite since I’m surrounded by 75 kids and another 13 volunteers. However, it’s nevertheless a strange feeling being separated. We’re honestly starting to feel like a married couple especially when you consider that we had almost all classes in common, studied for the exams together till the wee hours of the night for the last month of school and then spent every waking and sleeping moment for the last 3 weeks together. So yeah, I have a right to feel betrayed and deserted, don’t I? Seriously though… it’s not bad, just odd.
But I don’t think any of you guys are wanting to hear about how attached Robin and I have gotten ;). What I really meant to write about is the progress on things here in Kirengero and more specifically the library project that we’ve tackled.
As I mentioned in the short blog last time, Jane has left us. She was a lady that worked here at the home. She’s 24 and has a 2 year old daughter named Josephine (an absolutely adorable and brilliant sweetheart). We’ve gotten to become quite good friends with Jane and because she has to walk on crutches we’d walk her home every night (just about 500 meters down the path to where a number of the workers live in one long barrack-like building). We were happy for her because she was going to Mombasa hoping to start a new life there but simultaneously we were also worried and a bit sad. The thing is here at Njaaga’s Children’s Home the kids aren’t really orphans as orphans. They all have family of one sort or another. In most cases its grandparents. According to James Njaaga, most of their parents left them with the grandfolks as they themselves headed into the cities with the hopes of getting a job and making a living. I’m not sure but from what he said it sounded as if many of the parents (primarily just single moms) have passed away and the kids are left with the grandparents permanently. Quite often these grandparents are unable to care for the kids themselves, whether due to financial constraints or simply health and age. As a result the kids are often left fending for themselves and it is these kids that James has taken into this home (he himself was raised by his grandparents after his mom passed away when he was 10 years old).
In getting to know Jane we found out that she was an educated girl. She had finished highschool and was really bright. However, the father of her child was nowhere in sight and we didn’t want to pry inquiring about him. She did however have boyfriend in Mombasa to whom she was now going. First her intention was to leave Josephine with her grandma and head to Mombasa alone. It’s really odd – at least in my mind. You’re working in a place with kids who were left behind by their parents and yet you’re about to do the same thing. By no means am I saying that we thought that Jane wouldn’t come back for Josephine – but the possibility (or rather risk) was nevertheless there making us a bit uneasy about Jane’s departure. Thankfully (from one perspective), Jane decided to take Josephine with her since the little girl would be too big a burden on the grandma. It made me feel much better about the entire situation but then you have to keep in mind that this is a disabled lady (not meaning this in any degrading way, but the reality is that here in Kenya there is no special heed or accommodation given to people with disabilities making things much more difficult) heading to a new city with essentially just enough money to pay for the bus and nothing else. She’s heading to stay primarily with a boyfriend that might be happy to see her, but might not necessarily be as welcoming to immediately being a father to a 2 year old child. Starting a life in those circumstances on one’s own would be hard enough, but starting it with a little kid to care for would seem almost impossible. But as I said, Jane is a bright and strong woman and as we set her off on the bus to her new life, we had all the faith in her that she would manage somehow. Either way, her life there should be better than here, since here aside for family for support and a dark room with a dirt floor and no electricity, she had nothing.
Just wanted to write about that to give you a perspective on what life is like here. We’ve met many nice women, but honestly speaking we haven’t met their husbands or fathers. Same thing applied in Nairobi when we were staying at Mary’s and Kathrin’s house and same thing still holds true in Kirengero. There are all the women, all of them smart, all of them aware of the way life is like in Africa, and all of them either with kids already or else pregnant and yet there is no man in sight. It’s mind boggling because one would think that they’d know better, at least one would hope that they would know better, and yet they somehow, for one reason or another don’t. It truly makes me wonder when this cycle might be broken.
On a different note, the library is truly starting to come along. For the first week and a bit all the work we did seemed to produce no results. We were scrapping, scrubbing, washing, measuring, sawing and even putting up the first coats on the mouldings and yet none of this had any visible proof of our hard labour. But with all this grunt work done we were finally able to get started on work that had immediate effects, such as paiting the walls and finishing the three coats of white paint on the mouldings. Immediately the room took on a different appearance. Everyone started dropping by admiring our work and inquiring about what else we would be doing with it. (This could get a tad bit annoying since they never seemed to be satisfied with what was being done… there was always something more. Such as for example Rafael, a worker her, asking us to buy a grill for the window to make it secure, Beatrice asking us whether we’d be painting the filthy ceilings, or one of the kids inquiring whether we’d also paint the outside of the window.) As much as we would love to make the library this oasis-like retreat that is absolutely perfect in every way, we can only do so much. Not only is time an issue, but so are our financial resources as well as the tools with which we are doing the work. Keep in mind that we’re erecting built-in shelves in concrete walls without an electric drill, sawing through what still is essentially one or two live trees in the hope of creating semi-even/symmetrical shelves, painting with brushes and rollers that we can’t really clean because there is no running water and we only have a tiny jar of paint thinner and sweeping/mopping floors with twigs and rain water.
However, we’ll do our best and the whole room has truly become a labour of the heart for us. We want to make it perfect to the extent that we can and although it’s hard work (like Wednesday when we started at 9am and continued until after 11pm), we’re loving it. Robin has spent the last few days putting up the footprints poem over the fireplace mantel. I’ve nearly finished assembling all the shelves (while ‘silently’ nailing all the boards together as well as into the concrete walls – Robin kept on complaining that my nailing was hurting her ear drums) and began painting flowers on the wall. We bought material for curtains that need to be sown and purchased a reading lamp for the room. Adrienne and Malaika painted the three tables into a gorgeous dark green and we still intend on purchasing a plant, a mirror, an atlas as well as some books/novels for it. Another item on the list is a big cork board or something similar so that they could pin up postcards, pictures, letters that they might get from the volunteers. Since it’s impossible to nail anything into these stone walls, the cork board would be idea, but so far we haven’t been able to find one. And then the final project will be a big group photo that I want to take of all the kids, print it out poster size back at home, have it framed and send it to them to hang in the library. I think that would be a nice finishing touch.
If anyone has any further suggestions or wants to contribute in any way to this project or this home, let me know.
But I don’t think any of you guys are wanting to hear about how attached Robin and I have gotten ;). What I really meant to write about is the progress on things here in Kirengero and more specifically the library project that we’ve tackled.
As I mentioned in the short blog last time, Jane has left us. She was a lady that worked here at the home. She’s 24 and has a 2 year old daughter named Josephine (an absolutely adorable and brilliant sweetheart). We’ve gotten to become quite good friends with Jane and because she has to walk on crutches we’d walk her home every night (just about 500 meters down the path to where a number of the workers live in one long barrack-like building). We were happy for her because she was going to Mombasa hoping to start a new life there but simultaneously we were also worried and a bit sad. The thing is here at Njaaga’s Children’s Home the kids aren’t really orphans as orphans. They all have family of one sort or another. In most cases its grandparents. According to James Njaaga, most of their parents left them with the grandfolks as they themselves headed into the cities with the hopes of getting a job and making a living. I’m not sure but from what he said it sounded as if many of the parents (primarily just single moms) have passed away and the kids are left with the grandparents permanently. Quite often these grandparents are unable to care for the kids themselves, whether due to financial constraints or simply health and age. As a result the kids are often left fending for themselves and it is these kids that James has taken into this home (he himself was raised by his grandparents after his mom passed away when he was 10 years old).
In getting to know Jane we found out that she was an educated girl. She had finished highschool and was really bright. However, the father of her child was nowhere in sight and we didn’t want to pry inquiring about him. She did however have boyfriend in Mombasa to whom she was now going. First her intention was to leave Josephine with her grandma and head to Mombasa alone. It’s really odd – at least in my mind. You’re working in a place with kids who were left behind by their parents and yet you’re about to do the same thing. By no means am I saying that we thought that Jane wouldn’t come back for Josephine – but the possibility (or rather risk) was nevertheless there making us a bit uneasy about Jane’s departure. Thankfully (from one perspective), Jane decided to take Josephine with her since the little girl would be too big a burden on the grandma. It made me feel much better about the entire situation but then you have to keep in mind that this is a disabled lady (not meaning this in any degrading way, but the reality is that here in Kenya there is no special heed or accommodation given to people with disabilities making things much more difficult) heading to a new city with essentially just enough money to pay for the bus and nothing else. She’s heading to stay primarily with a boyfriend that might be happy to see her, but might not necessarily be as welcoming to immediately being a father to a 2 year old child. Starting a life in those circumstances on one’s own would be hard enough, but starting it with a little kid to care for would seem almost impossible. But as I said, Jane is a bright and strong woman and as we set her off on the bus to her new life, we had all the faith in her that she would manage somehow. Either way, her life there should be better than here, since here aside for family for support and a dark room with a dirt floor and no electricity, she had nothing.
Just wanted to write about that to give you a perspective on what life is like here. We’ve met many nice women, but honestly speaking we haven’t met their husbands or fathers. Same thing applied in Nairobi when we were staying at Mary’s and Kathrin’s house and same thing still holds true in Kirengero. There are all the women, all of them smart, all of them aware of the way life is like in Africa, and all of them either with kids already or else pregnant and yet there is no man in sight. It’s mind boggling because one would think that they’d know better, at least one would hope that they would know better, and yet they somehow, for one reason or another don’t. It truly makes me wonder when this cycle might be broken.
On a different note, the library is truly starting to come along. For the first week and a bit all the work we did seemed to produce no results. We were scrapping, scrubbing, washing, measuring, sawing and even putting up the first coats on the mouldings and yet none of this had any visible proof of our hard labour. But with all this grunt work done we were finally able to get started on work that had immediate effects, such as paiting the walls and finishing the three coats of white paint on the mouldings. Immediately the room took on a different appearance. Everyone started dropping by admiring our work and inquiring about what else we would be doing with it. (This could get a tad bit annoying since they never seemed to be satisfied with what was being done… there was always something more. Such as for example Rafael, a worker her, asking us to buy a grill for the window to make it secure, Beatrice asking us whether we’d be painting the filthy ceilings, or one of the kids inquiring whether we’d also paint the outside of the window.) As much as we would love to make the library this oasis-like retreat that is absolutely perfect in every way, we can only do so much. Not only is time an issue, but so are our financial resources as well as the tools with which we are doing the work. Keep in mind that we’re erecting built-in shelves in concrete walls without an electric drill, sawing through what still is essentially one or two live trees in the hope of creating semi-even/symmetrical shelves, painting with brushes and rollers that we can’t really clean because there is no running water and we only have a tiny jar of paint thinner and sweeping/mopping floors with twigs and rain water.
However, we’ll do our best and the whole room has truly become a labour of the heart for us. We want to make it perfect to the extent that we can and although it’s hard work (like Wednesday when we started at 9am and continued until after 11pm), we’re loving it. Robin has spent the last few days putting up the footprints poem over the fireplace mantel. I’ve nearly finished assembling all the shelves (while ‘silently’ nailing all the boards together as well as into the concrete walls – Robin kept on complaining that my nailing was hurting her ear drums) and began painting flowers on the wall. We bought material for curtains that need to be sown and purchased a reading lamp for the room. Adrienne and Malaika painted the three tables into a gorgeous dark green and we still intend on purchasing a plant, a mirror, an atlas as well as some books/novels for it. Another item on the list is a big cork board or something similar so that they could pin up postcards, pictures, letters that they might get from the volunteers. Since it’s impossible to nail anything into these stone walls, the cork board would be idea, but so far we haven’t been able to find one. And then the final project will be a big group photo that I want to take of all the kids, print it out poster size back at home, have it framed and send it to them to hang in the library. I think that would be a nice finishing touch.
If anyone has any further suggestions or wants to contribute in any way to this project or this home, let me know.
posted by Kasia Koltunska at 1:50 AM
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