Ok where shall I start with the past few days.... well.. on Tuesday I went back to Good Will School and ended up being the nurse for the day! A kiddie about 5yrs old crawled into the school office and lay on the floor shaking.. when I went over to see how he was he was like a human radiator! Soooo hot.. as in I have never felt that much heat come off of a human! Finding out he was suffering from Malaria and that there was noone at his home to look after him, I sat this poor boy on my lap and fed him water and food and fanned him down as best as I could, whilst someone else fetched for medicine. He then fell into a snoring sleep on my lap oh my gosh it was so cute but I felt so sorry for him.. they really need so much more medical attention here.
With this in mind we gave the school a First Aid kit.. Thank Goodness.. as it was needed that afternoon!... a little girl also about 5 somehow got hold of a ring and was running about with it in her mouth (they play with all sorts here! nails, broken lightbulbs you name it!... huuuuge health and safety no no in England!).. The other kids were trying to get her to spit out the ring but she was refusing so they started getting aggressive and ended up pushing her to the floor.... her head hit a brick and the next thing I knew I was carrying a screaming child who's head was bleeding.... I managed to clean it up and put some emergency butterfly strip things over it and get her to drink loads..she calmed down but how scary is that! They are pretty tough cookies here she just pushed the boys back and then carried on playing! Health and Safety and First Aid really needs addressing as they are far from a hospital and also dont have enough money for treatment if needs be.. hence most of the kids bodies are covered in really thick scars and they have grey dry patches on their heads due to untreated worms..
The next day I went into the slums and visited particular families who are to be registered with Hope. We needed to find out their exact living conditions etc so we could record how much extra support they need. Most of the families consisted of a mother who has AIDS, most fathers were dead due to Aids and they had at least 5children.. living in a small brick house, no bigger than our kitchen at home, with a tin roof and maybe one bed to share.. if that. If the mothers aren't sick they try and work by selling paper beads or cooking matooke (banana and potato mix) or some work as cleaners but only earn max 40,000 shillings a month (about 12pound), 30,000 of which goes on their rent.. living only 10,000 shillings (3pound ish) for their whole family to live on.. A MONTH! Its just ridiculous.
As we walked around the slums, following the long old railway which runs around the perimeter, the children kept coming up greeting us with big sugar cane sticks and asking us to help him.. we ended up with a bit of a clan of kids and then we realised we all knew the same christian songs so we were singing as we walked together in the heat haha it was lush to make a connection...and then I bought them all drinks.. I wish I could do more.. I need more time here to get my teeth stuck into a project to really make a difference.The team is really jelling now.. Yasmin is like a sister to me and we are spicing up our evenings by going to watch african dance and contemporary ballet etc so Im having fun too.. its good to get an all-round experience of the culture!
Hope you are all dandy x lots of Tia lovin x meeeeeeeeeeeee
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