These gentlemen are getting enough corn ready to feed 400 kids a hearty lunch.
Classrooms are set up outside in the church yards of the parishes where the program is held. Some kids in the orphan program don't go to school at all because they can't afford the school uniforms or books, so these few Saturday hours are all they get in the way of an education.
Besides a healthy lunch, the kids also have chai time (chai being the Swahili word for tea) at some point mid-morning. Some of these kids never eat a complete meal at any other point throughout the week.
Gathering for lunch and some songs before they walk home with bellies full.On Saturday I took part in the orphan program they run here in the area. Every Saturday, the program is run at seven different sites for children who have lost one or both of their parents, usually to AIDS. These kids are the poorest of the poor in the area as they are either living with one sick and poor parent or their aging grandmothers or some other distant relation who may not have much of an interest in feeding or clothing them in the first place. They come for classes like a regular school setting, can get checked out by the doctors and get meds for free, and get one huge solid meal of beans and rice or maize to keep their little bellies full for a while.
I spent my day floating around and taking it all in. I loved sitting in with the doctors and listening to the consultations through an interpreter. The children and their guardians can come, and the guardians come more than the children do. They see an awful lot of muscular-skeletal pain in the woman, who have been carrying buckets of water and food and who knows what on top of their heads for 40 years. As soon as they sit down they start describing their pain. “Hoppa, hoppa, hoppa,” they say as they point all over their necks, backs, heads, shoulders, knees, and toes. Hoppa means here in English. They seem to hurt everywhere. Dr. Gerry just rolls his eyes and calls them the Hoppa Hoppas. It’s difficult to tell if they are actually in pain or if they come in to get another handful of free Tylenol. Some of the kids came in alone, sent by their guardians, and had no idea what their problems were. They kind of just sat there and stared at their feet, until when forced to say something they started pointing out body parts accompanied with a “hoppa, hoppa…). One little guy’s chart (which is a college blue book cut in half that the doctors write all their notes and prescriptions in) actually had “Peds [meaning pediatric] Hoppa Hoppa” written across the top in big letters.
But there were some serious cases and the work being done in the mobile clinic is very necessary for this group who could never afford to see a doctor. Outside of the clinic they have benches full of kids soaking their feet in basins of chemicals used to kill jiggers. They are little insects that burrow into their skin and if left untreated will start to cripple the muscle. Some who have them very badly in their hands look like they have cerebral palsy because their fingers are all curled in toward their palms and will remain that way for the rest of their lives. If they had someone watching over them, this would not be a problem. Everyone can get jiggers, especially living in mud huts as all do, but if they are cleaned out often it isn’t a big deal. This is what separates the kids who are being decently cared for from the ones who are quite simply being ignored. There were an awful lot of kids at the jigger station.
One young man at the jigger station was definitely not a child. After some inquiry I found out that he was exactly my own age. I asked what the story was and he is himself an orphan who used to be a part of the program. He never really had anyone looking after him, but did fairly well for himself, worked hard, and was saving money to buy a bicycle so he could be a boda boda driver (they are bikes with an extra seat over the back tire used for taxis here around Kisumu – I’ve unfortunately been on one but that is a story for another time). This is not a career that will make any decent amount of money, but would give him the self respect of working for a living and enough money to keep the maize on the table.
As he was walking one night, he was jumped by a group of men who partially slit his throat, bashed his head in (he now has a huge scar running the length of his head) and left him for dead after stealing all of the money he had worked so hard to save. He still lives on his own, but now with the slowed and slurred movements and the diminished mental capacity of someone with a traumatic brain injury. His neighbors won’t help him because he lives on a nice little plot of land, and they are hoping he will die or at least get weak enough so they can steal it. His jiggers were so bad that his feet were bloody and raw all the way around, like they’d been burned with acid or set in a fire and his fingers were well curled. How he walked was beyond me. Davis drove him home and laid some jigger killing powder on the mud floor of his home (I guess that’s what we use for cows in the US) to see if they can’t get things to subside a little.
I tried to bring out some toys at the end of the day, and ended up playing Frisbee with over 200 kids at the same time. I would throw it high up into the air, and the mob would pounce on it. It worked well for a time, until they started to do bodily harm to each other in a manner somewhere beyond full-contact Frisbee. I had to get one of the teachers to rescue me and restore order. I’m good with big groups of rowdy kids, but if you can’t be stern with them in their own language, you don’t have much hope for control.
Later when I was telling Davis about it, he told me that on his first Saturday when he started making balloon animals for them, the way their little faces rapidly changed from the cute, dirty, love-hungry kids they are to the little monsters who will bite, punch, and kill to get to the front of the line, he though it was the End Times. He was dead serious as he told me this. It is amazing what deprivation will do to a child, no matter how small and seemingly innocent. It robs them of their dignity and humanity when gaining something physical is on the line. A wholly disturbing sight to see, but a very important one to understand.
Next Saturday I plan to come with stickers and a bit more organization after getting a good feel for how the day runs. There are always over 300 kids, and my goal for next week is to spread some smiles while doing the least harm. It’s tricky.
I spent my day floating around and taking it all in. I loved sitting in with the doctors and listening to the consultations through an interpreter. The children and their guardians can come, and the guardians come more than the children do. They see an awful lot of muscular-skeletal pain in the woman, who have been carrying buckets of water and food and who knows what on top of their heads for 40 years. As soon as they sit down they start describing their pain. “Hoppa, hoppa, hoppa,” they say as they point all over their necks, backs, heads, shoulders, knees, and toes. Hoppa means here in English. They seem to hurt everywhere. Dr. Gerry just rolls his eyes and calls them the Hoppa Hoppas. It’s difficult to tell if they are actually in pain or if they come in to get another handful of free Tylenol. Some of the kids came in alone, sent by their guardians, and had no idea what their problems were. They kind of just sat there and stared at their feet, until when forced to say something they started pointing out body parts accompanied with a “hoppa, hoppa…). One little guy’s chart (which is a college blue book cut in half that the doctors write all their notes and prescriptions in) actually had “Peds [meaning pediatric] Hoppa Hoppa” written across the top in big letters.
But there were some serious cases and the work being done in the mobile clinic is very necessary for this group who could never afford to see a doctor. Outside of the clinic they have benches full of kids soaking their feet in basins of chemicals used to kill jiggers. They are little insects that burrow into their skin and if left untreated will start to cripple the muscle. Some who have them very badly in their hands look like they have cerebral palsy because their fingers are all curled in toward their palms and will remain that way for the rest of their lives. If they had someone watching over them, this would not be a problem. Everyone can get jiggers, especially living in mud huts as all do, but if they are cleaned out often it isn’t a big deal. This is what separates the kids who are being decently cared for from the ones who are quite simply being ignored. There were an awful lot of kids at the jigger station.
One young man at the jigger station was definitely not a child. After some inquiry I found out that he was exactly my own age. I asked what the story was and he is himself an orphan who used to be a part of the program. He never really had anyone looking after him, but did fairly well for himself, worked hard, and was saving money to buy a bicycle so he could be a boda boda driver (they are bikes with an extra seat over the back tire used for taxis here around Kisumu – I’ve unfortunately been on one but that is a story for another time). This is not a career that will make any decent amount of money, but would give him the self respect of working for a living and enough money to keep the maize on the table.
As he was walking one night, he was jumped by a group of men who partially slit his throat, bashed his head in (he now has a huge scar running the length of his head) and left him for dead after stealing all of the money he had worked so hard to save. He still lives on his own, but now with the slowed and slurred movements and the diminished mental capacity of someone with a traumatic brain injury. His neighbors won’t help him because he lives on a nice little plot of land, and they are hoping he will die or at least get weak enough so they can steal it. His jiggers were so bad that his feet were bloody and raw all the way around, like they’d been burned with acid or set in a fire and his fingers were well curled. How he walked was beyond me. Davis drove him home and laid some jigger killing powder on the mud floor of his home (I guess that’s what we use for cows in the US) to see if they can’t get things to subside a little.
I tried to bring out some toys at the end of the day, and ended up playing Frisbee with over 200 kids at the same time. I would throw it high up into the air, and the mob would pounce on it. It worked well for a time, until they started to do bodily harm to each other in a manner somewhere beyond full-contact Frisbee. I had to get one of the teachers to rescue me and restore order. I’m good with big groups of rowdy kids, but if you can’t be stern with them in their own language, you don’t have much hope for control.
Later when I was telling Davis about it, he told me that on his first Saturday when he started making balloon animals for them, the way their little faces rapidly changed from the cute, dirty, love-hungry kids they are to the little monsters who will bite, punch, and kill to get to the front of the line, he though it was the End Times. He was dead serious as he told me this. It is amazing what deprivation will do to a child, no matter how small and seemingly innocent. It robs them of their dignity and humanity when gaining something physical is on the line. A wholly disturbing sight to see, but a very important one to understand.
Next Saturday I plan to come with stickers and a bit more organization after getting a good feel for how the day runs. There are always over 300 kids, and my goal for next week is to spread some smiles while doing the least harm. It’s tricky.
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