Kenya Update
I had a lovely two weeks on the coast. Mombasa was a frenzy of activity in the week leading up to Christmas. I have never seen the streets or markets so packed with people. The evenings, were a hot chaos of noise and light, the vendors were still beside the street with their tables and small kerosene candles at 9pm, with people were milling around and spilling out of small dukas and hotelis.
Mombasa was hot. Not as hot as I know it will get next month and the month after but all the same sweaty, humid hot. I took a sun dress which was lined and couldn't bring myself to wear it. the lining just seemed like too much material in the heat. Of course I managed to get horribly sunburned despite my slathering of 55+ lotion.
As for Mombasa Children's Therapy Center.. I arrived to the news that our wonderful space now had a 'no occupancy' court order on it. We began the relationship with our landlord in August but our lease was actually signed in November.. oh. about a month after the landlord fired their agent, but after their agent had already signed the lease to someone else. The other tenant is suing for access. All our lovely refurbishments have been for nothing. Alex our business manager wants to wait until the court heard the situation out, but as far as I was concerned the agent and tenant are suing the landlord (the church) directly and we should count our loses and find somewhere else as this process could take months. The church agreed in a meeting to reimburse us our deposit and costs by January 20th.. fingers crossed. Alex was devastated by the situation. The bigger problem is that Alex and the landlord/the men on the church board are all good people, but not business people. The church surely knew about the other tenant long before we were informed but liked Alex, wanted Alex in the space and just hoped the other tenant would go away. In fact, they said to the other tenant "I don't know why you want this space, why don't you find somewhere else." We didn't go through the agent so the agent now has a bone to pick and the tenant apparently feels obstreperous because the church tried to talk him out of the place.
On a brighter note, Martin from Mumias Education Assessment Resource Centre (EARC) and Wellington from Vihiga EARC came to visit us in Mombasa giving us the chance to have lots of lengthy conversations about community work, models of care, thinking about the way forward as well as catching up socially.
Wellington and I eating sweet potato by the waterfront on Mama Ngina drive, Mombasa
Martin & I, Indian Ocean view
Martin Nafukho (Occupational Therapist, Mumias EARC), Wellington Manyola (Vihiga EARC),
Dorothy Mvoi (Mombasa EARC)
Martin's EARC team under the leadership of Martha Odhiambo are always managing to get what they need from the district education office. Martha needs to run a course on 'how to build relationships and get your way with district officials'. Their district office actually pays their electricity bill amongst other things, a novel idea! Martin is requesting speech therapy (SLP) volunteers for 2012.. I thought it was time to give these staff at Mumias EARC a break from all the visitors they have been hosting but Martin disagrees. As he pointed out, now they have had speech therapy coverage for the last 18 months people in the community actually seek out and expect access to speech and language services. Potentially we (Yellow House) could look to hire one of the new Uganda SLP graduates to cover both Mumias and Vihiga.
Wellington, bless him, spent the whole of last year being threatened by his (now) EARC coordinator because he applied for the post of coordinator and she wanted it. Rather than do anything about the death threats she was sending him, the district decided perhaps they should relocate Wellington to another district which he successfully fought. Vihiga EARC has lived under the tyranny of a a coordinator who the community openly acknowledged embezzled all their funding and publicly drank it away, so this new delight of a woman in the leadership position is pretty much par for the course.
DESPITE THIS, Wellington managed to secure a massive Safaricom grant to rehabilitate the parent teacher resource center and cerebral palsy center which is now complete. We have windows, we have an asbestos free roof and we have a huge space for training and building up a library. Wellington still needs money to paint the outside of the building and we are working on money for furnishings but the building looks amazing! Safaricom have also promised Wellington a training grant for several workshops in 2011 and if he succeeds in implementing the grant has been asked to submit a grant in 2012 for a vehicle to expedite their community work. I am so impressed and awed by his dedication. All the money for these projects skirts district and EARC bank accounts ensuring it is being used as designated. It's amazing. I just don't know that I would have the energy to do all he does, and still have to put up with all the bullshit politics that steal the credit for any success and yet actively hamper progress with petty demands and threats.
We are looking to a great year in Vihiga however. Thanks to the ongoing support of the Rays we have money for Wellington's program which includes distributing epilepsy drugs, doing community outreach, educating parents, assessing children, supporting teachers and in 2012 will also be increasing occupational therapy service provision through Yellow House and start some new projects that include a large community garden (Have you seen the Edible Garden by Alice Waters? This is my fantasy for all our projects).
So there is the quick and dirty update. Collectively, Martin, Wellington, Dorothy and other wonderful special educators and therapists have ensured service provision for so so many children again this year. It is a pleasure to be able to support them in what they do.
Happy New Year.. b x
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