Nakuru Update #3
Sent Saturday, March 8th, from Ted Grant and Karen & Greg McKenna, who are doing relief work at a refugee camp in the village of Nakuru, Kenya.
Latest news from Nakuru.
It is Saturday today and another beautiful day. The nurses from Mikinduri went up to work in the medical clinic at the camp. Ray and his driver Mike took us for a very interesting, emotional day. We visited 3 different orphanages. The first one housed 20 babies ranging from 2 months to 8 months. You can imagine how beautiful these babies were. There were 7 of us holding 2 babies each. In our minds I think we were all wondering how we could get away with taking them home. Each baby had his or her sad story. I think the saddest was a boy named Mosses who is now 7 months old. He was actually left at the bottom of a latrine when someone found him. This type of story was associated with each and every one of them. Our third place we visited was so heart breaking. It is run by a 65 yr old man by the name of Ian. This place houses approx 100 children. He runs this place solely on donations while being one of the few places which takes in handicapped children. There were 12 who are HIV positive and at least 10 severely mentally or physically challenged. The most amazing story is almost unbelievable. There is a girl there aged 9, who had been raised by baboons from infancy to about 6 years old. She was found by some ladies in a wilderness area and 3 different shelters tried to keep her but her animal behaviours were so strong they wouldn’t keep her. Ian took her in and she is making progress but some of her characteristics will probably not change. When she initially came to Ian she actually walked on all 4’s like a baboon. Her hands are still a bit curled and she still eats like a baboon. It took them 2 years to get her to sleep in a bed. When they initially received her at the orphanage all she wanted to do was jump from bed to bed or run around the halls all night. It was one of the most interesting stories we have ever come across.
It was such an emotional, yet satisfying day from the standpoint that we have come to realize these children are the privileged ones with people to take care and love them. The third orphanage we visited was absolutely beautiful. It is owned and ran by a couple from New Zealand. This is the home of approx 130 children from newborn to approx 16. They were all so respectful and we found it amusing that most of them would call Ralph & Mae (Mom & Dad). We attended a church service with them and had a great tour of the area. It’s situated on 50 acres and is so well kept.
Well today is Sunday and again very warm. We all went to the camp. The nurses were able to go directly to work but our vision clinic had a few interruptions. We were not able to conduct our clinic today so a group of us visited yet another IDP camp approx 20 min from Nakuru. There are camps everywhere with the same horrible stories. The violence broke out in their village and their homes burnt. Most of these people escaped with only their lives and the lives of their children. They allowed us to look in their make shift huts which was gut wrenching. They are all sleeping directly on the bare ground which is anything but level, with everything they own piled up in a corner of the hut.
Seeing these sights makes us wonder what right we have to complain about anything.
We met one grandmother who had 10 children of her own. When the violence broke out four of her teen aged sons were killed, her other 6 kids took off in different directions. She has been in the camp now and has been caring for her daughters 5 kids. She has no idea where her daughter is.
We met another young girl (age 10 who is partially mentally handicapped) and her younger sister about 8, who were used by their mother as prostitutes to get money to buy food and soap.
This afternoon there was a pregnant 14yr old girl, who came to use, looking for a face pan and a bar of soap. She was absolutely filthy. Can you imagine being so poor that you have to beg for a cake of soap?
Tomorrow we are going to the dept store to buy Flip flops, cooking oil, soap, etc and we are taking with us suitcases of clothes that we took from home, to the idp camp we visited today. It might give them some encouragement to try to move forward with their wretched lives. We are also investigating if we can help them get resettled in their ancestral lands, now that the violence is hopefully done
I really hope that our Crisis Kenya Fundraising and our concert in Cornwall will be a great success, because there are so many things to do and they all require money. Your continuing generosity is very important to these people. You will never really appreciate what a $100,00 donation would do for anyone of these people.
It is absolutely the right thing to be here, for although we can’t make a big difference we can make a little diff in quite a few lives.
We feel so privileged to be able to represent you here on the ground.
Hope everyone is well at home. Please keep praying, not for our safety, but for the grace to be patient in the face of the ongoing and never ending list of obstacles that face us with every task endeavour to do.
God Bless to all.
Karen, Greg and Ted