Returning to the rescue center

Sunday, August 21st

On our second day here, we found out that a volunteer at the Nairobi Children’s Home had written an article in the Kenyan Saturday Nation, outing corruption and bad treatment that takes place in government-run children’s homes. The article sparked a lot of controversy, and now all of the managers and children’s officials are being investigated. However, as a result of the article, the Kenyan government is now very distrustful of foreign volunteers. Luckily, we have some great friends in Kenya with some very helpful connections. Again, Lucy came to our rescue. Through her non-profit, Goodwill Women’s Organization, we will still be able to create a library at the rescue center. Two Kenyan girls who volunteer for Lucy will now come with us to the rescue center to help out with the project. The best part of this is that even after we have left, they will continue the project, which will primarily consist of reading to the girls once the library is completed.

On Friday, we finally visited the rescue center. With each familiar landmark we saw as we pulled up to the rescue center, we felt butterflies in our stomachs. We didn’t know whether all the girls would remember us after a whole year of being apart, but as we walked through the compound, even the youngest girls who had always just called us “mzungu” were shouting our names. There’s no words to describe how happy we felt when we finally saw Catherine, Nancy, Lucy, and Wendy (just to name a few) after a whole year. Yet it was so disappointing to find that, besides the length of their hair (they all have braids and cornrows now, because the “shaving machine” is broken), and the number of girls (there is a whopping 95 now), nothing has changed in the past year. Although we were so overjoyed to see them all again, we couldn’t help feeling bad that they were all still there. We’d expected many of the girls from last summer to be gone by now, either reunited with their families, or at boarding school through sponsorship. Unfortunately all but the three that we are sponsoring are still there. In the midst of such a joyful reunion, we couldn’t help feeling a little helpless to the fact that there are now 95 girls stuck there, with very little hope of a way out. We only hope that the library will provide a distraction and a way to take their education and future into their own hands.

If you’re interested, here’s a link to the article that was in the Kenyan Saturday Nation:

http://allafrica.com/stories/201107180284.html