Mkomasi National Park

After our busy week we decide to take a long weekend at Mkomasi National Park. This is a very new park about 3 hours drive east and bordering Kenya. It has only one permanent camp and the animals are very timid, this used to be a hunting area. The bird life is prolific and it gives Garrie an opportunity to try out his new camera.

 

More Visits to Grandparents

We start work again on Tuesday, straight into 2 days of visiting more of the grandparents caring for orphans. The distance between the visits and the state of the roads means that we can only manage 3 visits a day.

One of the visits takes us to meet Eliamani and her family; she lives in one of the very last homes to be found before the forest starts on Mt Meru. She tells us that she had 6 daughters but only 2 are now surviving. Her husband and one of her daughters died within 1 month of each other in January 2009, when she was left with 3 orphans to care for. It is clear that she is not well and we ask her how she manages. She explains that she is too weak to work on the land so having the goat has made life less strenuous for her. The children help out with feeding and it provides enough nourishing milk for the family with some left over to sell locally.

All the grandparents have a similar story and without doubt, the overwhelming message we hear is one of appreciation, not just for the help a goat can bring, but also for caring about them.

It gives us comfort to know that now these families are included in the Wamata outreach programme and will be regularly visited by a counsellor who will oversee the ongoing welfare of these vulnerable children.

 

Good News for TEKUA

We return to TEKUA to give them the news that the proposal for TEKUA 2 has been agreed in principle by HA100 trustees. We hold a meeting with Chris, Ally and all the staff to break the news and also to outline the challenges the project will bring for sustainability in the future. The first step is to secure the land at a cost of approximately £3,000. We have worked out that it costs only £100 to provide a student with one year’s training. We will keep you informed of the progress.

We have to draw on our long faded training skills when we are asked to spend the morning with the 2 English classes. We split them into teams and with some improvisation play the “tray game”, an old favourite memory game that Garrie gets out at parties. After a shy beginning, the students are soon enjoying themselves and by the time we finish with a game of “hot seat”, the competition is intense. We have taken prizes of exercise books for the winning team and they are delighted. We know how much all the class have enjoyed the lesson when they ask if we will come back the next day!

 

Back to Kiwamifo

Finally this week, we revisit Kiwamifo to discuss Rogathe’s proposal.

We find 15 excited girls who have prepared a welcome song and dance for us. They have borrowed a drum from the local primary school and have improvised their costumes by tying Kanga’s (the traditional women’s dress) around themselves. It is clear that they have enjoyed our visit.

We are very impressed with Rogathe’s proposal which shows the potential for sustainability by making and selling uniforms for the local school children, shoulder bags for the tourists and making and repairing clothes for the local community. We talk through some of the challenges but feel that Rogathe really does have the enthusiasm and ideas to make this happen and we agree to support her for a trial period until the end of the year.

 

More Meetings

Other meetings include one with Sister Genevieve about the container. She tells us that we can only wait, all the paperwork is complete. She still seems to believe the container will arrive here before 27th but we are not so sure.

We also meet up with Maffie our old Swahili teacher and he puts us through our paces practising a few key phrases.

Another busy week behind us with our final busy week to look forward to.