kenya

Last month we recieved some letters from Kenya. I want to post one of them here because it is very interesting and very moving. We were very surprised to see the way children and people live in Africa.


My Best day at school:
My name is Lilian Isendi. I am a girl aged 10 years old. I live with my mother on a hilly village not far from Kisumu City. This is found in Kenya East Africa. The Kajulu hills where we reside, overlooks Lake Victoria. It is a sight to behold.
I go to Eshibinga primary school. It is a junior school to Kisumu Day High school.
My mother sells pots and baskets at the Kisumu Municipal market. My father died. Teacher says HIV AIDS has killed many people in Africa, which unfortunately includes my father. My mum occasionally gets sick. I wish to tell you about my happiest day in life. The occasion was in our school when we our school water tank was officially opened for use.



It was a Friday in the month of June, the year 2005. I woke at 5.30 a.m. As it is the norm for all small girls of my age in my village in Kenya, I took the pot and rushed to the river to fetch water.
The river is about 2 kilometers away. We live right on the equator and so the sun rises early. The first rays of the sun find when I have already taken a bath, and lit the fire using firewood, which is, stored right behind my mother’s kitchen.Breakfast is the usual mug of porridge and with a cob of boiled maize or cassava. Then I pick my bag and run off to school.
It takes me about 45 minutes of continuous jogging, to reach the school. This may explain why Kenyans are among the best marathon and long distance runners in the world. I have build great stamina running up and down the hills every single school day! One day I may end up being The London Marathon champion. Watch me!



Sometimes as I race to school, I come across wild animals. It is not strange to meet zebras, warthogs, gazelles and antelopes. Occasionally, there is this giraffe that crosses my path.


7.00 am finds me at school chatting with my friends. Everybody is looking clean. We had ironed our pink blouses and shirts. This was something we only did on special occasions.
The bell rings at exactly seven. We all assembled at the parade ground. The teachers are dressed immaculately. Among our teachers was a teacher from our senior school, Kisumu Day High School, who explained to us what to expect when the visitors from the UK arrive.
“2 years ago”, Mr. Amunga explains,
“ I met a friend on the Internet. I explained to them about the plight of Kenyan primary school children. But more so I explained about the lack of clean water and the poor sanitation in many of the schools. The friends, together with others, got together, raised some money and send it to us to build a water tank. The water tank is now complete and they are coming to commission it.”
We clapped and cheered. At last, the water problem in our school was going to be a thing of the past.
You may find it ironical that our school is close to the lake, but with no running clean water. Infact we live in the rainy equatorial region of Africa. It rains cats and dogs here! Yet, we have to go the river or the lake to fetch water for drinking, cleaning washing and sanitation. This has been interfering with our lesson time. I have always hated the fact that we have to interrupt normal class lessons to go and fetch water.
The worst hit has been our school kitchen.



Everyday a certain class has to walk to the lake to fetch water in Jeri cans for use in the kitchen. Then another class has to carry the utensils and other cutlery to the lake for washing. We all had come to hate the whole affair. It even interfered with our playtime!
You could sense the joy in the atmosphere around the school when our two guests from England arrived. They were a couple. A man his wife and his daughter. I had never been so close to a white man before. They spoke in English, (which is our official language of communication) but we could not understand them! They were too fast for us. Especially the lady. They had what seemed to us a strange body color. We gawked at them! Later one of was to say, “they look different, but they surely have a humane heart. Imagine someone to come from another world to help us in our local problem. To say the least, we felt loved.
We sang traditional songs for them. They joined us in the jig. It was fun! Then we headed straight to where the new water tank was constructed. It was made of bricks cement. It was a round, and big. They told us, it could hold 10,000 liters of water collected from the corrugated iron sheets that form the roofs of our classrooms.


After a through inspection, the visitors then officially handed over the water tank to the school authorities. You should have heard the singing and the cheering. We all forgot our many sorrows and danced our hearts out. The lady addressed us. I did not get what she said, but we were all directed to our classrooms. The visitors wanted to see us in our classrooms.





They came and saw our old and dilapidated classrooms. But we did not care, for they had given us water. Somebody said water is life.



From the classroom area we all headed for the field, where the visitors had sponsored us a meal. Our parents were also invited to attend the occasion. My mother was among the guests. She kept smiling at me. The lunch was finally served. Wow! It was rice and beef stew. I only taste rice or beef stew during Christmas. We were overjoyed. We danced and played. That will remain to be my best day for along time to come! It was as if all our problems were solved.
We only came back the following morning to discover the other problems that bedevil us. Leaking roofs, lack of desks, lack of windows and doors on our classrooms, sickness, lack of enough toilets and poverty. Just imagine, a school of over 800 children has only two pit latrines. Many times they are very dirty. Many girls in our school miss school, because of lack of good clean toilets. How I pray, that another angel will come and make us happy again.
Bye.
A story by
Lilian Isendi. (10-year-old girl)
Pictures and computer editing done by Students at Kisumu Day High School.