Visiting the Good Shepard Orphanage
3rd October 2006
Before coming to Uganda to volunteer, Mimi
spent some time helping out at a Kenyan orphanage. She wanted to
say goodbye to her students. Sporty
Spice, Hippy Chick and
I were more than happy to come along for a visit.
The Good Shepard Orphanage in located
in a small slum not far out of Nairobi. It it surrounded by buzzing
power pylons. The orphans are numerous and cute.
The classrooms had dirt floors and
struggled to put all students inside during class time. They were
very exited to have just been given some desks so they would no longer
have to sit on the floor during lesson time.
About fifty kids slept at the orphanage, which means about four
per bed.
It was hard to know what to make of the orphans. Sometimes they
seem like any other poor African kid. Some previous volunteers had
donated some soccer balls which the boys took great delight in kicking
the crap out of. Other times you'd glance up and see a kid
sitting by themselves obviously feeling a little sad. An embarrassed
smile would form on the face when they saw you looking at them.
They knew they had it rough, even for poor people.
 The
reasons why they were orphans were hard to ascertain. Mimi said
that she had asked some of them. Most replied with something like,
"Mummy and Daddy both got sick and died". Almost certainly
from AIDS or malaria. This kid got
HIV/AIDS from his mother during childbirth. There are probably
other HIV positive kids, but they can't afford the test and what would
it help anyway? There is no way they can afford the $US2 a day ARV
treatments, let alone the costs of associated doctor visits. It's
hard to imagine much of a future for an HIV positive orphan.
Some of the the kids were orphans in the purest sense and some were
found abandoned in sacks. Some had to be given a name because they
were too young to know what a name was. One of the young girls I
was introduced had lost her mother only days before. Her and her
two brothers looked quite lost. Not only had they lost their
parents, they were now in a very strange place with strange people.
I asked the headmaster of the school about where they got their
funding from. He said, "From God's grace". The
school is very much run on a day-to-day basis. When someone in the
community is nice enough to bring food, they
eat. When someone doesn't, they don't. None of the
teachers are paid. They are all volunteers and are the true heroes
of Africa.
I was disappointed to learn from Mimi that some of the money that
volunteers brought was being misappropriated by some of the senior
staff. Seems corruption is everywhere and not even orphans are
immune. Some of the current volunteers were trying to find ways of
preventing it happening again.
The kids get quite confused when given things. Patrick, one of
the current volunteers on site, was telling me the story of when he gave
out a sheet of A4 paper to each of the kids. One of the kids
looked him in the eye and said, "You mean we get to use the whole
sheet of paper for ourselves?"
 Mimi,
Hippy Chick and I went to a nearby supermarket and got each of the kids
an apple. They were very excited, which
was great. The way the begged and pleaded for the spare apples was
heart wrenching. Poor people beg for money. Extremely poor
people beg for food and water.
Despite the poverty and neglect, they still knew how to have
fun. They took great delight in my armpit farts,
wheeling each other around in a wheelbarrow
and Hippy Chick's tongue piercing. They
are, after all, kids. And kids like to have fun.
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2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
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