Welcome Back

Welcome back to Kenya! Claudia and I returned for a very busy couple of weeks in October. This is my first trip since we formed Tuko Pamoja. I’ve really been looking forward to it.

Our primary goals for the trip are to visit schools where Tuko Pamoja has porridge programs and meet with the kids sponsored in the program. We also will be meeting with potential collaborators and, of course, teaching self-defense classes.

Below is Anthony, with Claudia.

Anthony is a newly sponsored young man from Maasailand. He is a secondary school student. We met Anthony when we began sponsoring his sister, who attends a primary school. He had been kicked out of school for non-payment of fees and was very eager to get back in.

The process when a kid is kicked out like this is that the parents are given an indeterminate time to pay. If they can’t, the child is removed from school. At this school, there is a security guard at the gate. All the kids pass through there to get in. Anthony tried going back in after being kicked out, but the security guard, following orders, wouldn’t let him in. He then started climbing over the fence to get in each morning. (OK, show of hands. How many of us would have done that at his age?) When the administration discovered this, they informed his teachers not to let him in.

When we learned of his situation, we quickly paid Anthony’s back fees, allowing him to return for Term 3, which is just ending. We also got him a bicycle to get back and forth to school. Given the distance from his home, we may explore the option of boarding at the school.

We met with Anthony and his teacher at the school. Since we had asked about his school progress they brought his Term 2 report. This showed a steady stream of “E” (failing) grades for all but two classes. He was very reluctant to show us this and hid it behind his back. He had failed because he wasn’t allowed to attend. He is doing much better in classes in Term 3.

We then headed back to Ngong and found another of our sponsored young women at school. She was done for the day and we caught her before she left for home. Abigael is the sister of one of the very first kids we sponsored in Tuko Pamoja, Shaleen. When Virginia and Wangari (Modesty Wangari of the Tuko Pamoja self-defense team) visited Shaleen’s home, they met much of her family.

Her mother, Agnes, was married at 14 years old to a 70-year-old young man. She is now a widow. This is Maasailand, and marriages happen young. The culture is that if a teenage girl is no longer in school, she must marry. A year later, Abigael was born.

Abigael is now 19 and was out of school. She explained that she was literally running away and hiding when men wanting to marry her came to “visit” (purchase her for a bride). Agnes would tell the men she didn’t know where Abigael was and they’d leave.

We arranged for Abigael to go to beauty school. She is now back in school and safe from marriage for now. She is a very sweet girl. I enjoyed spending time with her.

We met her at school and chatted some. During the term she lives with another family that Ginger and I sponsor. So we agreed to drive her back there.

But first was the visit to Anthony. We needed to go in the school to meet with him. Abigael chose to stay in the car. I left her my cell phone, as she was in a text conversation with her sponsor, Nicole.

It appears leaving a teenage girl unsupervised with a phone results in copious quantities of selfies. You’d think I’d learn.

After leaving Anthony, we drove back to the house where Abigael is staying. The house belongs to the mother, Gladys, of five girls Ginger and I sponsor. Gladys is away working, as is the oldest of her six daughters. The next two oldest daughters are in boarding school, leaving the three youngest at home. Abigael and a family friend are staying there to supervise.

Ginger wrote letters to the daughters. Below, Cecelia (in the blue shirt) is reading her letter, with lots of assistance. Abigael is on the left, in back. Patience, the second youngest sister, is next to Abigael. Claudia is behind the readers.

We met Patience and Cecelia in 2022 when we visited their home near Kisumu.

We had originally sponsored Sarah, the second oldest sister. She was in an orphanage in Nairobi. Gladys had placed her there along with the next two sisters, Valary and Marion, as she couldn’t support them anymore.

We moved Sarah to a new school near her mother in Kisumu. We then discovered we had to move Valary and Marion too, or they would be subject to retribution by the boarding school/orphanage, since they weren’t sponsored and Sarah was.

When we visited the three girls in 2022, we found there were actually five! So we wound up sponsoring all five.