Watoto Wote Wazuri

While we visited NyumbaniVillage we had the opportunity to see (and participate in ) a lot of dancing which was traditional for the Kamba tribe. I did not do the best job with my video camera here since I often had left it behind not realizing the frequency that the opportunities would arise for using it and later had some editing snafus and lost some of the footage I would have like to have shared– I often have a strained relationship with technology. We did however have the chance to attend the practice for one of the drama class–really tribal song and dance– at Nyumbani village in which many students were involved. Although it started at the same time as my art project, it was still going strong well beyond the time that finished and I think that the students sang and danced for almost 3 hours in that 85+ degree heat. I am told that they do amazingly well in competitions when they put this altogether with tribal dress and have even made it to the Kenyan national competition in the past. This is just the beginning of their practices which we had great fun watching (www.plopsymd.wordpress.com):

In the next few posts I want to share some snip-its of video recordings, all of various song and dance experiences that we had while in Kenya. The recordings were done on a litle Flip Video recorder and my skill level certainly doesn’t match that of a stll camera in my hand. Nonetheless, the recordings capture the spirit of celebration that we had the opportunity to experience in various settings. The first 2 clips are from church, the upbeat and Kenyan style dancing and singing celebration at the Children’s Home. The last clip is a spontaneous burst of singing a favorite song, “Jambo Bwana” in one of the cottages at the Children’s Home.

Tom and a friend

I took quite a few pictures at Nyumbani Village, but now that I am home, I regret that I didn’t take more of the structure of the village itself so that I would have those to show. I don’t really have pictures of the homes, and the buildings because I was so taken with the people that I didn’t think much about photographing the structures. We were also busy every minute during the day so wandering around to take extra photos wasn’t something that easily fell into place. I so wish I also could have taken a photo of the night sky while I was there; it was the most amazing bright  starry sky that I have ever seen. We dragged our chairs outside at night just to sit and look up at it knowing that we would not see the sky look like that again once we returned home.  

I do however have many photos of the people and I loved taking their pictures, from young to old. The children were all incredibly adorable and the grandmothers had wonderful weathered faces that you knew each had an amazing story to tell.

Although I could not speak Kamba, except for a couple of greeting that they taught me with great enthusiasm, I could tell from their energy, liveliness, exuberance and quick movement into song and dance (and expectation that we join them) that these grandmothers would have a lot to say If I could speak their language. For now I just have to go with body langauge which said quite a bit about their approach to life.

This is a random collection of some of the photos that I took of the children at Nyumbani Chilldren’s Home. Some are  quick shots of faces, some are of the St Paul Miki preschool kids on the day Karen and Lloydie did the visor projects and I had the great fun of painting their faces, some are at the birthday celebration in memory of the founder, Father D’Agostino, some are the kids being cared for in respite, a couple are from the football game, some are of the children working on art, a couple are of the children doing one of their favorite things– borrowing visitor’s digital cameras……..

Karen and the "lion"

Mary and Kevin

Tom and a child from the respite program

Hope you enjoy!

Approaching Kibera........

Yesterday we were in Kibera which, located right outside of Nairobi, you may recall is one of the largest slums of the world. Kibera is hard to capture without including pictures, but I didn’t take pictures inside the slum as it did not feel respectful to the people there to have my camera as we walked through this community of horrendous poverty. In one of my earlier posts from the day before we left, I included a YouTube video that gives you much visual material.

We spent the morning getting oriented to the Lea Toto (in Kiswahili, “To raise a child”) Program run by Nyumbani. The program does outreach and home based care in Kibera and 6 other sites in the perimeter of Nairobi and offers HIV testing, counseling, medical care, nutritional support, and educational support and prevention services. We first met with the Director to discuss the mission of the program and then the members of our group either went to the clinic to see patients or went to meet with the counselor to discuss the counseling services and learn more about his role. I did the latter and learned form Daniel, the one counselor to approximately 450 clients who has a dual role in Kibera; he not only counsels, but also does all of the HIV testing. The clinic provides care to children but often the first entry into care is an adult parent who comes in for HIV testing who is then referred for follow up care to another clinic. Children get comprehensive care including ARVs (AIDS medication), treatment for secondary infections, much needed nutritional support and counseling. Nutritional support is extended to the family as is social support and counseling. Food is provided for a year during which time adult caregivers are supported as they begin to save small amounts of money that they would spend on food to put toward developing some kind of self sufficiency (micro credits). I was fascinated by the focus on prevention, social support groups, and the complexities of offering emotional support and once again by the breadth of the life saving work.  When Lea Toto first began deaths were not uncommon; now they are rare occurrences. 

Kibera is overwhelming. It is a maze of bumpy dirt roads and tiny dirty, muddy alleys strewn with garbage, dirty water and raw sewerage streaming between the alleys where the houses are attached to each other. The stench is strong.  People live in tiny, dark, windowless, dirt houses with tin roofs and no ventilation.  They have at most 2 rooms as large as an average bathroom in the USA. We did one home visit in Kibera with the community outreach worker and met a woman who takes care of  multiple children including her 9 year old daughter with cerebral palsy who needs total care.

We went to 2 other Lea Toto sites today, Kariabongi and Dandora, both on the perimeter of Nairobi. The visit to Kariabongi was quite similar to Kibera in that we walked through a slum very much like Kibera. Here we did four home visits. In each case we were visiting families of HIV+  children who either had HIV+ mothers or were being cared for by a grandmother or adoptive mother. These were some of the most courageous and awe inspiring women given the adversity that they face every day and still manage to keep smiling, and express gratitude, generosity and grace.    Each home had an adult caretaker and multiple children, up to 8 living in an extremely  tiny space. We heard stories of many women fearful of being unable to pay their rent, often the equivalent of around $15 a month. We saw great poverty, but we also saw loving mothers who were keeping clean homes despite the filth around them and who were warmly welcoming and effusively thankful for our visits. All were caring for multiple children at least one of whom is HIV+. The home visit that affected me the most was going to see a home that had 2 caregivers—one was a grandmother and the other a 16 year old girl with a young child of her own. When we walked in, this young girl had an infant on her lap who appeared the size of a newborn. We learned however that this tiny baby was 3 months old and was an orphan who had been taken in by this 16 year old mother. The infant had been found abandoned on top of a garbage heap. This was the first time that I have faced something since I arrived here that truly overpowered me with sadness. I managed to choke out some kind words to the young mother about her generosity, but that image will never leave me. 

We finished our time at Lea Toto on a more upbeat note at Dandora with a group of “Mamas” in the Vision Self Help Group. This is a group that was begun 7 years ago with the inspiration of Sister Little from the Nyumbani Children’s home to help a group of Lea Toto women develop skills and self sufficiency so that they would be able to earn some income to support their families. All of the women have HIV+ children in the Lea Toto program and most are HIV+ themselves. All  were brought together to offer support to each other and were trained initially in bead making. They now sell their work and share the income and have tremendous sense of camaraderie. Many have gone on to train others in their skills, to be advocates for HIV awareness, and to become community leaders though all are still raising children of their own and many are also raising orphans. There is one widowed man who has also recently joined the group. The pride, warmth, and mutual respect are palpable when you are with them. They all shared their stories with us and expressed enormous gratitude for the opportunities which they have been given and as always we were welcomed with overflowing enthusiasm. We supported them by shopping heavily from their very fine jewelry, baskets, and other items.

All in all,  our time in Lea Toto was eye-opening, heart breaking, gut wrenching, but also awe inspiring and hopeful for much more progress to be made and many more lives to be powerfully impacted in the face of HIV/AIDS.

*****PLEASE CHECK BACK TO MY PREVIOUS POST ON NYUMBANI VILLAGE – PHOTOS ARE NOW POSTED***

I might say this again in days to come, but today was an amazing day in so many ways. The day began with Sunday morning mass, but this was church like I have never experienced before and you can’t possibly imagine. I am told that it is always as jubilant, and full of song and dance and spirit as today was, but today was also a special day for reasons I will describe below. The children, complete with drums and traditional African dance and music, filled the room with such beautiful harmonizing voices and rhythmic dance that everyone was clapping and moving in a way that brings me to tears once again as I write this post. From the youngest to the oldest children, all participate–if a child is young, then he or she is held and danced is the arms of an older child. The day was special because it was the birthday celebration in memory of Nyumbani’s founder Father D’Agostino….complete with birthday cake after the mass. There has also been a “summit meeting” here this week of the represnetatives of the Board from different countries who were thanked (as well as acknowledging the visitors form America). Because of this special occasion, the children also prepared entertainment after mass, also truly amazing. I did not take a still picture all day, only video on my flip video as no still pictures could capture the spirit of this.

That was one little video selection of many that I took; it will just give you a sense of one of the performances—I loved these boy dancers, they were such hams! I would love to show more on the blog, especially the beautiful singing and dancing in church, but that one took so long to upload and I can not edit any photos or videos here so I will have to wait until I get home to share more.

In the afternoon, we had the honor of attending another important event at Nyumbani Children’s Home. This was the second time in the history of the home that there was a “handing over ceremony.” This was a ceremony in which a 10 year old child, Diana, who has been at Nyumbani since a very young age and originally arrived seriously ill, was being handed over to her adoptive family, an aunt who had been located and taken her for longer and longer foster visits and was now officially adopting her. It was both a joyous and bittersweet occasion, one of a celebration of success, but also a tearful goodbye as everyone at Nyumbani, especially her cottage “mother” and Cottage C “siblings” were celebrating, but also singing a special goodbye song. It was handled beautifully with words of reassurance of visits and how they are and always will be bonded by great love in their hearts and will therefore always be together as a family “in the heart”

even if not together in person. I felt privileged to be witness to this wonderful expression of the bond between the children and the caregivers at Nyumbani and the mixture celebration and heartache that goes with the ultimate success of nurturing a child to health and then letting her go. The children of Cottage C were spoken to with such kindness and understanding about their feelings and Diana’s good fortune was celebrated amidst tears, song, joy….and more cake!

This was a day full of emotion as I participated, observed, sang, clapped, celebrated, sat with a child on my lap, or with many children clustered near me or holding my hand, many times overwhelmed with tears taking in the many stories and the incredible work of this place called Nyumbani that has truly saved the lives of all of these children that have been singing, dancing and are very much alive all around me.

Tomorrow we head to Nyumbani Village bright and early. That will be a very different experience, as the children there (and in Kibera) live quite differently than those at the Children’s Home. There will be much more to say, but no computer access (or running water or electricity…..) until we return to the Children’s Home on Wednesday. It is late here, almost midnight and time to get packing for our journey tomorrow.

So we are here at last! We have thus far spent an exciting and  busy first day here at Nyumbani Children’s Home.  After trying to catch up a little after missing a whole day’s sleep we awoke to the generous hospitality of the our Spurwing hosts, neighbors to the children’s home, and the largest breakfast I have ever seen. The day then began with spending the morning with the preschool kids at the orphanage, the St. Paul Miki School kids. There were 4 adults and 2o children and we were very busy! Although all of these children are HIV+ they are healthy an energetic. While the other adults did a craft project and played on the played on the playground , I did facepainting with all 20 of them. It was a little like working with jumping beans in a bowling alley. They were all adorable and loved having their faces painted!

The "lion"

We had lunch with the adolescent girls in their hostle and after lunch had a tour began a tour of the orphanage. Just prior to embarking on our tour we had the pleasure of meeting a woman who is actually the grandmother or “shosho” of one of the children who was brought to the Children’s Home originally for respite care and on the brink of death. She is now renourished and receiving treatment for HIV and is one of the few children here who has any known family. Her granmother walks for many miles every couple of weeks to visit her and supports herself and many of the other members of her village by selling her jewelry. It was an honor to meet her and to buy some of her jewelry which allowed her to buy transportation home.

Latia's Shosho and Sister Little at Nyumbani

During the tour we heard the story of the founding of the Children’s Home much of which I told in one of my earliest posts. We did get to tour the respite cottage where there were four young children getting respite care. All had come in from the Lea Toto Program in Kibera and are now doing very well after having been extremely malnourished.

One of the children in respite care

We met many of the children who were happy and lively and delighted to have visitors and loved to wlecome us, have their pictures taken, break inti spontaneous singing and dancing and introduce themselves with handshakes and often hugs.

Mark, hamming it up!

Well, it’s time to go sort food. There is so much more I could say but no more time for blogging!

Kwaheri!