Once again greeted by our welcome song and excitable pupils, we set off on the second wave of home visits around the slums. We visited another 8 homes, and were exposed to another 8 heart wrenching stories. Like before many of the ‘houses’ were only one room, with up to 9 people living and sleeping there.
Our walk through the slums to visit the homes of students
Sophie handing over a hand knitted teddy bear on a home visit
One family even had a 6 day old baby, born in the one room the 9 of them share, something we all found quite hard to process. The slums surrounding the houses were equally as shocking; we walked through a food market which ran right along an open sewer. The house visits really confirmed how different our lives are to the children we have met at Jubilee, yet by just meeting them and experiencing their infectious happiness, you’d have no idea just how hard their lives really are.
Fish stall in the market (the fish was hanging over an open sewer) and covered in flies)
cinema - Kenyan style
The market in the Jubilee area next to the open sewer
When we finished the visits, and returned back to Jubilee,
we started to sort through the donations we had brought out to Kenya, with the
help of Susan and Edith. This was satisfying work watching the teachers decide
what donations would be most appropriate for the different pupils and their
families. This was fully confirmed when we saw Tom’s football shirts (many
being Leicester city shirts, of course) being handed out to the older boys,
creating an uproar of excitement and happiness, leading to a celebratory
football game, allowing them to show off their new tops, clearly proud to being
sporting Leicester city merchandise!
Jeff in his Leicester City football shirt
Tom with all the children in his football shirts he donated
Cruz in his donated hoody with Miss Sibley
Joe also gave the handy man Nelson a new
pair of working gloves, to replace the tattered marigolds he was currently
using. The delight on his face showed how much he appreciated them.
Meanwhile Mr Hill and Miss Sibley took a
handful of donated reading books into top class and were greeted with an
impressive jubilation from excited children.
It’s amazing how a small offering can really make a difference! The children really got into reading the new
books and were even late for lunch as they were so engrossed!
Top class with their new reading books
Luchema Children’s Home
Today was the day of home visits, we were split into two
groups; half visiting five houses the other half visiting ten. In their two
hours the first group visited five houses, some belonging to the school’s
volunteer teachers. The second group visited ten of the student’s homes, it’s
safe to say it was worth the four hour trek. 
Walking through the Luchema area on home visits
We saw heart breaking conditions in which families of up to ten were living in. This was often one dark and dusty room shared for eating, sleeping and living. Many of the children were living with grandparents or only had one parent. It was difficult to comprehend that the 300 - 1200 Kenyan Shillings they needed per month as rent for their small homes (approx. £2.40 - £9.00) was difficult for them to raise due to a lack of employment opportunities and this was before they thought about money for food for one meal a day for their families. In spite of this the families of our students were very inviting and hospitable, welcoming us into their homes; their pride in their homes and belongings putting everything into perspective. To say thank you to each family for allowing us to visit we gave them a small give bag of essential food items - all had a look of gratitude and relief on their faces that they did not have to worry about where their next one meal a day was going to come from.
Kitchen area in one of the homes we visited - cooking over a wood fire
One of the homes we visited
One of the parents stood in their home (a single mud walled room)
We were also invited to see the room in which the ten Luchema boarders stayed. This was a small mud hut with a bare floor on which the girls slept. After seeing the conditions in which the girls were living, we decided to put our leftover money together to try and buy mattresses for them to sleep on. We managed to raise 10,600 Kenyan shillings between us, approx. £75, so we could buy 5 mattresses, 5 blankets and 5 sheets to make nights much more comfortable for the girls in Luchema. Transporting the mattresses home on the church bus with us was interesting and resulted in a fab mattress fight on the way home for us.
We have also bought washing up bowls, a large cooking pot and more cups and plates for the kitchen, and textbooks for the teachers to use to give to the children and teachers tomorrow thanks to the donations of the rotary club.
Tomorrow is our last day at Luchema and it is our day to
organise with all lessons being cancelled.
We are cooking the 100 children chapatti’s and beans as a treat tomorrow
and some of us went to the local supermarket (the Kenyan equivalent of Tesco’s
Express) this afternoon with the project co-ordinator Lamumba to purchase the
ingredients needed for the chapattis.
This supermarket located 10 minutes walk from Luchema was an aladdin’s
cave of food and household items despite being no bigger than 2m x 2m. Beans were purchased by the large aluminium
can full and loaded into a hessian sack – so different to what we are used to
and take for granted. After our trip to
the local “super market” (super being an over statement) we’re all ready for
our chapatti making day to say goodbye tomorrow! We will also be taking all of our donations
to the project to be given out to the children.
Tescos Express near Luchema - Beth shopping for food for chapatti's
Progress on the fence is continuing and we have almost
completed the final side working on it once we returned from the home visits. Frustratingly we ran out of wood so were
unable to complete it today but we are expecting a further cart load of
off-cuts tomorrow and these should enable us to complete the fence before we
leave so the children’s home site is secure.
Progress on the fence - almost there
Yet again, as we returned back to the accommodation we were
greeted by a huge thunder storm. However this didn’t stop us, and for the
second night on the bounce we enjoyed a brave, some would call stupid, game of
water polo in the rain, thunder and lightning! We braved the cold for just over
an hour, and the game got very competitive with a lot of dunking and splashing
occurring! Once we had finished, we were all looking forward to a warm shower,
however unsurprisingly there was another power cut so a cold one it was! We all
agree, hot showers are overrated.
Waterpolo in the thunderstorm
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