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February 2010
We have just returned from our February trip. We left the snow 6 inches deep and returned to yet more. We came back on an overnight flight which saved a stay in Nairobi and proved acceptable. We spent 10 days in Kenya, all of them again full to the brim in temperatures hotter than usual and no rain apart from an astonishing downpour one night when water blew in through the window frames. The main emphasis of our trip was to introduce our friend, Headteacher Nigel Ogden, to a secondary school on the edge of our community which he will be supporting through Moorside High School, Swinton. We were also opening the newly completed primary school, furthering the initial IT and communications at the High School, initiating a library system, visiting sites for two new water filter workshops and opening another some distance away and hosting a farewell ceremony for our two dispensary nurses who have retired.
Nigel spent time at Lwanda Secondary School where we were delighted to find a young teacher with knowledge of the internet thus enabling Nigel to set up email communication immediately. We made an assessment of the needs at the school and plans are in place to meet the most pressing quite soon. These are latrines, (always top of the list!) a science room, desks, sponsorship for students. We are hoping that a partnership between Lwanda and Kolweny Kingsway will emerge whereby they can share good practice and facilities.
Water
We drove the rather gruelling 3 hours to Kitale to meet up with the lady we met in Nairobi last October. En route we stopped off at Kakamega to look at sand etc for a water filter worksho p there initiated by the President of the Kisumu Winam Rotary Club. From Kitale we drove another 30 miles, the last seven off-road to Meuledi’s home where we found some 60 people eagerly waiting to be informed about water filters. Joseph will be setting up the workshop there this month. The Kitale Club where we stayed was an experience – ‘Would you like toast? White or brown? We only have white bread.’!
We collected Nigel from the Kitale airstrip – says it all – the following day, (He had spent the previous day on a mini safari to Lake Nakuru.) and made our way to Ayugi’s.
We again rattled our way several hours to Bala, on Lake Victoria where there is an orphanage with 800 children! We visited there in October and they were so thrilled with the filters that they started their own project, trained by .JPG) Jason from our project at Simbi some 20 miles away. Steve addressed an audience of 70+ and all the children to encourage them to buy and use the filters. Clean water is a dream to these people, turned into reality by the filters so no wonder they were enthusiastic. It was another very hot day and we had to leave before lunch could be served around 3.00 to get back for an appointment with a couple of Australian farmers who have been trying to establish rainwater management in our community. Steve is hoping t he ram pump might yet be useful so he also spent time with Ayugi measuring the river flow. He teased Joseph that he’d throw him in and count how long it took him to float downstream. Joseph didn’t turn up! An empty drum was used instead.
Steve also met with a representative of the Anglican Church in Kenya who is wanting a ‘mobile’ workshop in the far North East of Kenya around Marsabit – quite an inhospitable place, but Joseph is heading up there this month to do the training. He’s thrilled about all the new places he gets to visit.
We have a list of another 11 widows in Nyandiwa to whom water filters will be donated.
Steve was pleased to find the school well had all its bolts in place! However, the road leading to the school is almost impassable at one point so he organised a ‘chain gang’ from our High School, which included the principal, to fill in the holes.
We are still waiting on the Kisumu Winam Rotary to sign yet more papers to enable funding from Rotary District grants here to be released to fund gutters and tanks on all our local primary schools to enable water harvesting, rain water being clean enough to drink.
Education
I have already mentioned the partnership being established between Moorside and Lwanda – it’s very exciting to see the work at Kolweny Kingsway beginning to be replicated elsewhere, benefiting our wider community.
 The Kolwen y Kingsway Primary School buildings are completed bar one room which we are match-funding with the community. However the buildings were finished enough to open officially with much ceremony. The songs and poems prepared by the youngsters were most moving. We have also purchased teachers’ desks and lockers, text book cupboards and 70 new double desks so that pupils can sit two to a desk rather than the three at present. Students who need new uniforms are not difficult to identify, dresses and shirts hang on by a thread, and new ones will be funded through the sewing workshop at Pamela’s home. A highlight of the opening ceremony was presenting a full football strip to the Primary School team, sponsored by Stanley Green Kitchens, Cheadle. Sadly they had to remove their socks as they don’t have any footwear!
In the afternoon we also presented the High School with a full strip .JPG) sponsored by Shaun Wright-Phillips of Manchester City. The boots hadn’t arrived in time so we contacted Sam’s friend, Jamie, a couple of days before we left and he gathered 17 pairs of trainers from his clients which my brother, down in Manchester from Scotland visiting our Mum, kindly collected for us from Birmingham. The students looked so smart in their new kit and footwear but unfortunately still managed to lose the much awaited match against Wang’apala 3 – 0. The boarding school boys are enormous in comparison to ours – comes from being well fed from birth!
Sport is one of the few pastimes for folk in rural Africa and our school playing field is at a rather jaunty angle! so plans are afoot to have it levelled and some seating arranged round it. Students at the Kingsway, Cheadle are funding that. It will, sadly, be a bit late to play World Cup matches on it.
We bought another £460 of text books for the library from Kisumu. We are  employing a school leaver from last year to be librarian. She will stay overnight in the girls’ hostel. We’ve purchased more chairs and a table for a public reading area where there will be daily newspapers for community use. Angela also guided the teacher responsible for the library through the niceties of organising a lending system using an old date stamp and card index boxes. Diana exclaimed that she’s now a proper librarian and should have a certificate!
Angela took individual photographs of all our 26 new Form one sponsored students. We can report that all our sponsored students are doing very well both physically and academically, some being in the top 3 in their classes and some being prefects. One girl in Form 1 last year (16) became pregnant but when she took leave to have her baby, the father was also suspended for the same length of time – a huge step forward in thinking about responsibility for pregnancy. The girl is now back in school and currently performing at number 2 in her repeated Form 1 year. Another girl in Form 3 (18) is currently pregnant but when she has had her baby she will return to school. Both girls are orphans but grandmothers are more than willing to look after the children whilst girls are educated – it means so much to them. Did you know England has the highest rate of teenage unmarried pregnancy in Europe?
We are presently funding 16 students at University or Teacher Training College through the Hope Beyond Form 4 Scholarship Scheme and this year will see another 8. In July 2010 our first girl, Helen Alosi, will graduate from Teacher Training College and we hope to be there for the ceremony. This is one of our main expenditures but we feel it is worthwhile both now and in the long-run.
 We took with us pens and pencils donated by Barclays, more pens and yet more school bags donated by Salford City College and a bag of SCC sweets which proved a wonderfully fun competition to guess how many in the bag! 229 was nearest to the 222.
The school printer had bitten the dust already but has proved so useful and time-saving that we have bought a replacement. Documents such as registers, exam results and timetables no longer have to be laboriously written out every time they’re needed.
The girls’ hostel and latrine with water tank are completed but t here are as yet no girls in there. There is a problem about bringing food for the week when families only have enough for a day at a time but we don’t want to get involved in that side of things. Sometimes the community just has to meet its own challenges. The Form 4 boys are camping out in the old house we built for a member of staff some years ago. This is how keen they are to study in school using the solar lighting in the library.
Mooncups were distributed to all the new Form 1 this time and we will continue each year with new Form ones. Staff and students alike are thrilled.  The Jephcott Trust funded 100 and we have funding for another 60. They make excellent Christmas presents for girls and women if you’re stuck for an idea!! (Gift list on our website.) The women up in Kitale were also very interested but the essential is a good latrine with running water. Our school public speaking team is using Mooncups as its topic in a nationwide competition in which the topic has to be something which has revolutionised school life. They would like to see the government buy them for all students in Kenya but since they can’t even buy exercise books for the schools, Mooncups are a long way off!!
We visited Orera primary and secondary schools. The secondary school has had funding from Formby High School through RPs in the past. The primary school is in desperate need of a classroom for its pre-school and nursery classes so we are working on that one! At present three classes squeeze into here.
Health
The dispensary continues to function well under Edwin’s management and has a wonderful reputation far beyond our community. Edwin described the birthing process to Nigel! It involves the mother-to-be being instructed to ‘walk up and down and sing!’ Apparently the chants are something like ‘Doctor,  doctor! I am in much pain! Take it out! Oh take it out!’ To which he replies, ‘God takes out the babies when they’re ready. Breathe in and out and walk and sing!’ !! It must work as he’s delivered 240+ and not lost a single one. Edwin is feeling much more confident extracting teeth and keeps excellent records. We took out with us the usual thousands of paracetamol capsules, bandages, plasters, needles, gloves, small instruments, spectacles. Doctors, nurses and pharmacists reading this, more of the same please! A special request has been made for quinine sulphate for malaria patients and Senokot –type medication for you-know-what! We have bought a focimetre with which someone here measures each lens of the glasses donated and then the gizmo we’ve taken to the dispensary measures the patients’ eyes. Simple but effective. We took a hearing aid – Edwin had never seen one! They will also be very useful.
We had a heart-w arming ceremony for Sophia, nurse, and J oice, nurse-aid, who have been serving the dispensary faithfully since it opened, indeed they tried to provide some help to the community even before that. The community and RPs expressed sincere thanks to them both and we gave them a farewell gift. We still have Esther, a fully-trained nurse, for a while and Sophia and Joice have been replaced by Betty and Rose.
Small Businesses
These are doing quite well now and some are paying back the loan slowly but surely. The vegetables are still not very successful as weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable.
Karowley was again a home-from-home. We’re no nearer to a sensible plumbing system but we did use our solar shower pack. It stays in the sun all day and heats enough water for two sparse showers but is very welcome. February’s visit was the busiest so far with little time to squeeze in everything that needed to be done let alone the things we wanted to do. We had lots of visitors who just pop in to see us which is wonderfully neighbourly and increases our sense of belonging. Each has to be offered a ‘little bite’ so juice and biscuits – or cake if we’ve managed to pack any – is the order of the day rather than chai and bread. Our 110 cm ‘double’ bed (work that out!) was proving quite a challenge on very hot nights so we have opted for two singles together which will make a bunk to leave floor space when the house is over-populated! The tent on the verandah was a success in October and will be put into use again this summer. We gave our small bed to Bernard, who had  worked as Ayugi’s shamba boy a little while ago. He’s now married to Leah and lives just down from us. He has a traditional hut with only two wooden chairs which he had to ask for from Ayugi so the bed was a godsend especially as Leah was pregnant and they now have a baby, Mary-Ann. Bernard has gone to Nairobi to apprentice as a builder leaving his wife and child at home. I’m at a loss to know how she will cope but life has always been like this for millions of poor around the world. It’s so encouraging to see so many of our young people beginning to escape the poverty trap through good education. It was mentioned again at the school opening ceremony that our community has gone from being known as a ‘place of darkness’ to a ‘place of light’. We thank God for all he is enabling us, through you, to accomplish for these people in particular but also further afield.
Thankyou yet again for making this work possible by your donations, interest, prayer and insights. Thankyou from everyone in Nyandiwa and indeed many miles afield who share in the water projects and now your support at another secondary school and opening links with other primary schools.
Please, if you are receiving this by post and have an email address, just send me a message to let know the address angelarowley@ntlworld.com.
This year’s Christmas cards were a success but please let me know if you would like us to produce a calendar again and any ideas on format.
Add Content...
February 2010
We have just returned from our February trip. We left the snow 6 inches deep and returned to yet more. We came back on an overnight flight which saved a stay in Nairobi and proved acceptable. We spent 10 days in Kenya, all of them again full to the brim in temperatures hotter than usual and no rain apart from an astonishing downpour one night when water blew in through the window frames. The main emphasis of our trip was to introduce our friend, Headteacher Nigel Ogden, to a secondary school on the edge of our community which he will be supporting through Moorside High School, Swinton. We were also opening the newly completed primary school, furthering the initial IT and communications at the High School, initiating a library system, visiting sites for two new water filter workshops and opening another some distance away and hosting a farewell ceremony for our two dispensary nurses who have retired.
Nigel spent time at Lwanda Secondary School where we were delighted to find a young teacher with knowledge of the internet thus enabling Nigel to set up email communication immediately. We made an assessment of the needs at the school and plans are in place to meet the most pressing quite soon. These are latrines, (always top of the list!) a science room, desks, sponsorship for students. We are hoping that a partnership between Lwanda and Kolweny Kingsway will emerge whereby they can share good practice and facilities.
Water
We drove the rather gruelling 3 hours to Kitale to meet up with the lady we met in Nairobi last October. En route we stopped off at Kakamega to look at sand etc for a water filter workshop there initiated by the President of the Kisumu Winam Rotary Club. From Kitale we drove another 30 miles, the last seven off-road to Meuledi’s home where we found some 60 people eagerly waiting to be informed about water filters. Joseph will be setting up the workshop there this month. The Kitale Club where we stayed was an experience – ‘Would you like toast? White or brown? We only have white bread.’!
We collected Nigel from the Kitale airstrip – says it all – the following day, (He had spent the previous day on a mini safari to Lake Nakuru.) and made our way to Ayugi’s.
We again rattled our way several hours to Bala, on Lake Victoria where there is an orphanage with 800 children! We visited there in October and they were so thrilled with the filters that they started their own project, trained by Jason from our project at Simbi some 20 miles away. Steve addressed an audience of 70+ and all the children to encourage them to buy and use the filters. Clean water is a dream to these people, turned into reality by the filters so no wonder they were enthusiastic. It was another very hot day and we had to leave before lunch could be served around 3.00 to get back for an appointment with a couple of Australian farmers who have been trying to establish rainwater management in our community. Steve is hoping the ram pump might yet be useful so he also spent time with Ayugi measuring the river flow. He teased Joseph that he’d throw him in and count how long it took him to float downstream. Joseph didn’t turn up! An empty drum was used instead.
Steve also met with a representative of the Anglican Church in Kenya who is wanting a ‘mobile’ workshop in the far North East of Kenya around Marsabit – quite an inhospitable place, but Joseph is heading up there this month to do the training. He’s thrilled about all the new places he gets to visit.
We have a list of another 11 widows in Nyandiwa to whom water filters will be donated.
Steve was pleased to find the school well had all its bolts in place! However, the road leading to the school is almost impassable at one point so he organised a ‘chain gang’ from our High School, which included the principal, to fill in the holes.
We are still waiting on the Kisumu Winam Rotary to sign yet more papers to enable funding from Rotary District grants here to be released to fund gutters and tanks on all our local primary schools to enable water harvesting, rain water being clean enough to drink.
Education
I have already mentioned the partnership being established between Moorside and Lwanda – it’s very exciting to see the work at Kolweny Kingsway beginning to be replicated elsewhere, benefiting our wider community.
The Kolweny Kingsway Primary School buildings are completed bar one room which we are match-funding with the community. However the buildings were finished enough to open officially with much ceremony. The songs and poems prepared by the youngsters were most moving. We have also purchased teachers’ desks and lockers, text book cupboards and 70 new double desks so that pupils can sit two to a desk rather than the three at present. Students who need new uniforms are not difficult to identify, dresses and shirts hang on by a thread, and new ones will be funded through the sewing workshop at Pamela’s home.
A highlight of the opening ceremony was presenting a full football strip to the Primary School team, sponsored by Stanley Green Kitchens, Cheadle. Sadly they had to remove their socks as they don’t have any footwear!
In the afternoon we also presented the High School with a full strip sponsored by Shaun Wright-Phillips of Manchester City. The boots hadn’t arrived in time so we contacted Sam’s friend, Jamie, a couple of days before we left and he gathered 17 pairs of trainers from his clients which my brother, down in Manchester from Scotland visiting our Mum, kindly collected for us from Birmingham. The students looked so smart in their new kit and footwear but unfortunately still managed to lose the much awaited match against Wang’apala 3 – 0. The boarding school boys are enormous in comparison to ours – comes from being well fed from birth!
Sport is one of the few pastimes for folk in rural Africa and our school playing field is at a rather jaunty angle! so plans are afoot to have it levelled and some seating arranged round it. Students at the Kingsway, Cheadle are funding that. It will, sadly, be a bit late to play World Cup matches on it.
We bought another £460 of text books for the library from Kisumu. We are employing a school leaver from last year to be librarian. She will stay overnight in the girls’ hostel. We’ve purchased more chairs and a table for a public reading area where there will be daily newspapers for community use. Angela also guided the teacher responsible for the library through the niceties of organising a lending system using an old date stamp and card index boxes. Diana exclaimed that she’s now a proper librarian and should have a certificate!
Angela took individual photographs of all our 26 new Form one sponsored students. We can report that all our sponsored students are doing very well both physically and academically, some being in the top 3 in their classes and some being prefects. One girl in Form 1 last year (16) became pregnant but when she took leave to have her baby, the father was also suspended for the same length of time – a huge step forward in thinking about responsibility for pregnancy. The girl is now back in school and currently performing at number 2 in her repeated Form 1 year. Another girl in Form 3 (18) is currently pregnant but when she has had her baby she will return to school. Both girls are orphans but grandmothers are more than willing to look after the children whilst girls are educated – it means so much to them. Did you know England has the highest rate of teenage unmarried pregnancy in Europe?
We are presently funding 16 students at University or Teacher Training College through the Hope Beyond Form 4 Scholarship Scheme and this year will see another 8. In July 2010 our first girl, Helen Alosi, will graduate from Teacher Training College and we hope to be there for the ceremony. This is one of our main expenditures but we feel it is worthwhile both now and in the long-run.
We took with us pens and pencils donated by Barclays, more pens and yet more school bags donated by Salford City College and a bag of SCC sweets which proved a wonderfully fun competition to guess how many in the bag! 229 was nearest to the 222.
The school printer had bitten the dust already but has proved so useful and time-saving that we have bought a replacement. Documents such as registers, exam results and timetables no longer have to be laboriously written out every time they’re needed.
The girls’ hostel and latrine with water tank are completed but there are as yet no girls in there. There is a problem about bringing food for the week when families only have enough for a day at a time but we don’t want to get involved in that side of things. Sometimes the community just has to meet its own challenges. The Form 4 boys are camping out in the old house we built for a member of staff some years ago. This is how keen they are to study in school using the solar lighting in the library.
Mooncups were distributed to all the new Form 1 this time and we will continue each year with new Form ones. Staff and students alike are thrilled. The Jephcott Trust funded 100 and we have funding for another 60. They make excellent Christmas presents for girls and women if you’re stuck for an idea!! (Gift list on our website.) The women up in Kitale were also very interested but the essential is a good latrine with running water. Our school public speaking team is using Mooncups as its topic in a nationwide competition in which the topic has to be something which has revolutionised school life. They would like to see the government buy them for all students in Kenya but since they can’t even buy exercise books for the schools, Mooncups are a long way off!!
We visited Orera primary and secondary schools. The secondary school has had funding from Formby High School through RPs in the past. The primary school is in desperate need of a classroom for its pre-school and nursery classes so we are working on that one! At present three classes squeeze into here.
Health
The dispensary continues to function well under Edwin’s management and has a wonderful reputation far beyond our community. Edwin described the birthing process to Nigel! It involves the mother-to-be being instructed to ‘walk up and down and sing!’ Apparently the chants are something like ‘Doctor, doctor! I am in much pain! Take it out! Oh take it out!’ To which he replies, ‘God takes out the babies when they’re ready. Breathe in and out and walk and sing!’ !! It must work as he’s delivered 240+ and not lost a single one. Edwin is feeling much more confident extracting teeth and keeps excellent records. We took out with us the usual thousands of paracetamol capsules, bandages, plasters, needles, gloves, small instruments, spectacles. Doctors, nurses and pharmacists reading this, more of the same please! A special request has been made for quinine sulphate for malaria patients and Senokot –type medication for you-know-what! We have bought a focimetre with which someone here measures each lens of the glasses donated and then the gizmo we’ve taken to the dispensary measures the patients’ eyes. Simple but effective. We took a hearing aid – Edwin had never seen one! They will also be very useful.
We had a heart-warming ceremony for Sophia, nurse, and Joice, nurse-aid, who have been serving the dispensary faithfully since it opened, indeed they tried to provide some help to the community even before that. The community and RPs expressed sincere thanks to them both and we gave them a farewell gift. We still have Esther, a fully-trained nurse, for a while and Sophia and Joice have been replaced by Betty and Rose.
Small Businesses
These are doing quite well now and some are paying back the loan slowly but surely. The vegetables are still not very successful as weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable.
Karowley was again a home-from-home. We’re no nearer to a sensible plumbing system but we did use our solar shower pack. It stays in the sun all day and heats enough water for two sparse showers but is very welcome. February’s visit was the busiest so far with little time to squeeze in everything that needed to be done let alone the things we wanted to do. We had lots of visitors who just pop in to see us which is wonderfully neighbourly and increases our sense of belonging. Each has to be offered a ‘little bite’ so juice and biscuits – or cake if we’ve managed to pack any – is the order of the day rather than chai and bread. Our 110 cm ‘double’ bed (work that out!) was proving quite a challenge on very hot nights so we have opted for two singles together which will make a bunk to leave floor space when the house is over-populated! The tent on the verandah was a success in October and will be put into use again this summer. We gave our small bed to Bernard, who had worked as Ayugi’s shamba boy a little while ago. He’s now married to Leah and lives just down from us. He has a traditional hut with only two wooden chairs which he had to ask for from Ayugi so the bed was a godsend especially as Leah was pregnant and they now have a baby, Mary-Ann. Bernard has gone to Nairobi to apprentice as a builder leaving his wife and child at home. I’m at a loss to know how she will cope but life has always been like this for millions of poor around the world. It’s so encouraging to see so many of our young people beginning to escape the poverty trap through good education. It was mentioned again at the school opening ceremony that our community has gone from being known as a ‘place of darkness’ to a ‘place of light’. We thank God for all he is enabling us, through you, to accomplish for these people in particular but also further afield.
Thankyou yet again for making this work possible by your donations, interest, prayer and insights. Thankyou from everyone in Nyandiwa and indeed many miles afield who share in the water projects and now your support at another secondary school and opening links with other primary schools.
Please, if you are receiving this by post and have an email address, just send me a message to let know the address angelarowley@ntlworld.com.
This year’s Christmas cards were a success but please let me know if you would like us to produce a calendar again and any ideas on format.
Add Content...
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| October 09 trip - 09 November 2009
October 2009
 We have just returned from our October trip rather more weary than usual as flights from Nairobi were cancelled and connections in Paris missed. We spent 10 days in Kenya, all of them full to the brim. The main emphasis of our trip was establishing communication between our high school there and The Kingsway School in Cheadle. To that end we took two teachers , Anthony DiPaola and Karen Clarke from The Kingsway with us to do some teacher training, introduce ITC on the two laptops and create curricular exchange possibilities. They worked so hard and forged excellent relationships with staff and students alike. It is hoped that a more pupil-centred learning approach will help those students who are not of the highest ability to gain better results as well as maintaining the excellent standards already at the school.
Water
 We met up with a lady in Nairobi who had shown interest in a water filter workshop at her home in Kitale, some 100 miles north of Kisumu. This was very successful and it’s hoped to visit the site during our next visit. We spent a bone-shaking day driving to Kilgoris (Our contact there, Fredrick, already has a workshop in the Transmara among the Masai .) to discuss the possibilities of a workshop in the town. This will begin in the next few weeks when Joseph will  go and start the training. From there we rattled our way another several hours to a dry, forbidding place on Lake Victoria, Bala, where there is an orphanage with 800 children! We had already arranged for four filters to be installed by our workshop in Simbi but the orphanage is going to start its own workshop to serve the surrounding area as well. The roads were some of the worst we’d been on.We have a list of another 6 widows in Nyandiwa to whom water filters will be donated.
Steve could no longer walk past the well at school without sourcing and screwing on three missing nuts! This activity drew quite a crowd and even some assistance!
We met with the Rotary President in Kisumu who at last signed the papers to enable funding from Rotary District grants here to be released to fund gutters and tanks on all our local primary schools to enable water harvesting, rain water being clean enough to drink.
Steve met with the agriculture committee to introduce some ideas for irrigation. Some years ago our friend Margaret Bancewicz told us of a hydraulic ram pump used on Raasay .  It uses only the force of the water to pump miles and to quite a height. Steve has built one! and the big boys at church spent a happy morning with their new toy testing it out in a local stream. It works! Steve spent time with Ayugi looking for a suitable site by the river for the pump to be installed. It’s problematical but he’s sure it can be overcome – it just needs the ‘pump committee’ to come up with a good idea! They’ll be working on it – I know this because at least two of them are planning on a trip to Kenya to install it!
Education
The Primary School buildings are not yet completed but we are sending funds to do this before our next visit in February 2010. We are also purchasing teachers’ desks and lockers, text book cupboards and 70 new double desks so that pupils can sit two to a desk rather than the three at present.
We bought another £400 of text books for the library from Kisumu – a shop which offers us 25% discount!- and took with us some lovely reference books donated here.
Angela took individual photographs of all our 72 sponsored students. We can report that they are all doing very well both physically and academically, some being in the top 3 in their classes and some being prefects.
We are funding another 8 students at University or Teacher Training College through the Hope Beyond Form 4 Scholarship Scheme. This is one of our main expenditures but we feel it is worthwhile both now and in the long-run.
We took with us lab coats and science equipment donated by Loreto, Moss Side, pens and pencils donated by Barclays and yet more school bags donated by The Seashell Trust. We also g ave each Form 2 student a pencil case made by Year 7 students at the Kingsway school, each with name and pencils etc.. The teachers asked for clocks so we bought one for each classroom. They were greeted by much cheering and clapping by the students who found it hard to believe!
I have already mentioned the sterling work carried out by Anthony and Karen. We bought the school a printer so that documents such as registers and exam results will no longer have to be laboriously written out every time they’re needed.
We visited Lwanda Lutheran Secondary School to ascertain whether a partnership with  Moorside High Scool in Swinton might be feasible. The Headteacher at Moorside is an ex-colleague of Angela’s. The school is in its fourth year, has just four classrooms, one cupboard of books and two latrine blocks. We are hoping to establish a link soon so that Moorside can fund more buildings and equipment and begin a curricular exchange similar to the one between the two Kingsway schools.
The touch rugby teams are still competing and enjoying it. A friend of Sam’s donated lots of pairs of trainers which were very well received. We watched a football match between our school and Wang’apala, the local boys’ boarding school. The latter team was kitted out with matching strip and boots whilst our team had some in a striped top, others in plain blue and several with bare feet. Does anyone out there know or have a business which could sponsor a strip and boots? We can’t guarantee the advertising will do much good in Kenya but it would give the team a boost. We lost 3.1 by the way.
The girls’ hostel will be complete in time for next term’s Form 4 girls to start using it. We signed the rental agreement with Mary on whose land it’s built and who will act as matron with a bed across the door! The Form 4 boys are camping out in the old house we built for a member of staff some years ago. This is how keen they are to study in school using the solar lighting in the library.
The Mooncups have been such a success with the Form 3 & 4 girls to whom they were given last May that we are informed not a single day of schooling has been lost by the girls since then!! They were distributed to all Form 1 & 2 girls this time and will continue each year with new Form ones. Staff and students alike are thrilled. The Jephcott Trust funded 100 and we have funding for another 60. They make excellent Christmas presents for girls and women if you’re stuck for an idea!! (Gift list on our website.)
Health
The dispensary continues to function well under Edwin’s management. It has ju st been inspected by the government during a vaccination campaign and was given a Grade 1 which means the government will make available free vaccines for children. Brilliant! Edwin has extracted some 30+ teeth since May and keeps excellent records. We took out with us the usual thousands of paracetamol capsules, bandages, plasters, needles, gloves, small instruments, spectacles. Doctors and nurses reading this, more of the same please!
We visited all the dental students trained by Jon Robinson on our last visit in May. They are doing such a good job under very difficult conditions and in such shabby premises. They have safe ly and ‘painlessly’ extracted hundreds of teeth since their training. The smaller needles Jon used are more expensive and they’ve been using bigger ones but Angela suggested in no uncertain terms that the finer ones might be a better idea even if patients have to pay a few pence more! (She shudders even as she writes!) Ken has a small clinic in Misambi, our roadside market place; Paul and Philemon are itinerant but work mainly in Misambi whilst Doreen works in Sondu some 20 miles away in a grubby back street. Her surgery is as clean as possible and she has lots of patients on market days.
Those of you who have been interested in our sponsored student, Elijah, who suffered a severe breakdown during his first term at college will be pleased to know that he is now almost fully recovered and hoping to return to college. He has been advised to wait until next September rather than go in January. His place is open any time. Thankyou for your concern and prayers.
Small Businesses
These are plodding along up to now although we can report that the chickens began to lay whilst we were there (Not a result of our visit but nice!) and the cow – Angela! – is in calf. The vegetables have been unsuccessful so far because of drought conditions but mild rains have been helpful over the last five weeks. Unfortunately there are predictions of an El Nino in November which will wash away everything including homes if it does indeed occur. An item for prayer. The sewing business is doing very well making uniforms for two primary schools and clothing for the wider community. One lady is at present being trained at a local tailor’s to make shorts and trousers.
Karowley was used the week prior to our visit by a young teacher from the Kingsway School whose world tour took her to Kenya where she met up with her parents from Bramhall. All three helped in the school and Jim visited Maseno University to deliver a Chemistry lecture. He hopes to help out the University with funding from Manchester University. We warned them about the idiosyncratic plumbing and the bats in the roof but we didn’t know about the lovelorn weaver bird who woke them up every morning at 5.00 pecking at its reflection in the bathroom window! No earthquakes this time but a wakeful night listening to Debbie the cow mooing because she couldn’t locate her day-old calf.
Thankyou yet again for making this work possible by your donations, interest, prayer and insights. Thankyou from everyone in Nyandiwa and indeed many miles afield who share in the water projects and now school support.
Please, if you are receiving this by post and have an email address, just send me a message to let know the address angelarowley@ntlworld.com.
Last year’s Christmas cards were a success so we’ve had more made this year. If you would like some, email and we’ll get them to you. (Photos of Nyandiwa with a couple of robins!) £3 for 8 .
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| May 09 trip - 14 July 2009
We spent just 10 days in Kenya this time up to 30th May, the main emphasis of the visit being on dentistry. Jon Robinson, a dentist friend from Birmingham, taught at our dispensary from Sa turday afternoon to Thursday evening by which time he and the six trainees had extracted over 120 teeth and inspected 300+ people including the whole of our High School. Our health practitioner and nurse were two of the trainees and the other four came from clinics further afield. We took out five dental kits – each one filled a rucksack – purchased from Dentaid. Jon even managed to preach in church on Sunday!
Water filter workshops.
The filters made at our original workshop in Nyandiwa are easier.JPG) to transport now since the start-up of the donkey and cart business which has been going since February. We have another nine names of widows or needy families who will be given a filter thanks to specific donations. The latest workshop in the Transmara among the Maasai is running very well, so much so that a group of people from the north east near Marsabit who saw it functioning have been to Nyandiwa to train and have started a workshop there. We met with our Rotary contact, George, to discuss a new workshop in Kakamega – north of Kisumu - which should be up and running before our next visit.
Education
Kolweny Kingsway Primary School’s new classro oms are almost finished and we hope to complete the scheme for them over the next few months. They will then be able to demolish the old ‘stable block’and have a smart new complex and parade ground. The primary school at Oogo which we paired with a school in Buckingham has sent letters for the students here which are very moving to read.
Kolweny Kingsway High School now has just over 200 students in the four forms, really the maximum we can support. We were visited in our home by two former students, Dorothy Awuor and Perez Atieno, who are studying at university under our Hope Beyond Form 4 scholarship scheme. They are doing so well and during the long break both are helping out at local primary schools, already giving back to the community. We await applications for this year’s grants as soon as letters of acceptance are received by the students. We are in a position to sponsor 1 0 more students this year. On our outward journey we bought another £1,000 worth of books for the Forrest Hill library which is functioning so well that the initial idea of borrowing on just one day of the week has had to be increased to two and students are studying in their free time. This ‘openness and trust’ with books on open display is a new concept and one not readily accepted but we are insisting on giving it a go. We were able to take out 25 solar powered science calculators and again, many pens and pencils etc.. Some had been brought by our nephew from the States in a suitcase which could then be filled with English goodies for the return journey!
The laptops have meant that better communication between Kolweny Kingsway High School and The Kingsway School Cheadle is now achievable. This will bring about an exchange of ideas and better understanding of each other’s culture. It is planned to take out two Kingsway teachers next time to increase these possibilities and help in the school.
We visited Orera High School to photograph the co mpleted water supply to the science laboratory which has been funded by Formby High School. It is important to provide evidence of projects for those who are kind enough to become involved.
We took our young friend Mike Burr (17) with us too this visit. His main role was t o introduce the High School boys to touch rugby. It went down a storm and the presentation of the Mike Burr trophy on the final day was greeted with such elation and jumping around, that the trophy was irreparably bent out of shape! They don’t do anything gently! The boys are determined to learn ‘proper’ rugby soon - Kenya is among the world’s top 10 teams playing sevens.
Following the success of the new sanitary protection, the mooncup, in the pilot group of three adults and their teenaged daughters, Angela started the Well Woman Clinic using girls from Forms 3 and 4 and female staff members as the next .jpg) control group.We have received a grant from the Jephcott Trust to pay for 100 mooncups and the new girls’ latrines which are completed ahead of schedule and were opened during our visit. They are the talk of the town with running water from a gutter and tank!! The girls and women are so excited about this new venture.
We mentioned in our last newsletter that we were having difficulty finding a piece of land for a Form 4 girls’ hostel to enable the gi rls to use the solar light at the library to study in the evenings during the week. Praise God Ayugi has had discussions with Mary, whose land borders the school, and although she would be prepared to sell us a small piece of her land, one of her sons is only prepared to rent but that’s OK. We will negotiate a rent for a period of 10 years and build only a semi-permanent structure, perfectly adequate for the purpose. We hope to have up to 12 beds to begin with, with the possibility of building on another room as the number of girls increases. As the hostel will be just a stone’s throw from Mary’s own house, she has agreed to sleep there and look after the students – couldn’t be better!
Health
We have already mentioned the work of the dentist which was so very well received. Now people will be able to have a tooth extracted painlessly and efficiently at our dispensary for only a nominal cost. So many have been walking round with sore mouths because they can’t afford dental treatment.
Mike taught all the forms at the High School and Prim ary School how to clean their teeth properly and we handed out hundreds of toothbrushes and toothpaste. We also gave each High School student a nylon backpack bag to carry their belongings in, surplus to requirements at the Seashell trust (Formerly The Royal School for the Deaf.) and donated to us. We looked over the financial records which are being kept each week.
Water harvesting at local primary schools is not yet underway as funding via the Rotary International matched funding scheme is on hold due to the recession. Their funds are gaining little or no interest but there may be funding available after September.
Alfred, the health technician is visiting the dispensary three times a week and we took him a centrifuge this tim.jpg) e to help in his work. It is hoped that the dispensary will soon be registered as an Aids clinic which will mean that drugs for HIV will be freely available to patients. For this we need to have a nurse trained in counselling. More donations of stethoscopes, diabetes testers, blood pressure gauges, operating gowns, sutures, needles, gloves, tablets, bandages, plasters etc and old spectacles were again well-received. There is a possibility of buying a gismo which will test the donated spectacles and give an accurate reading of the prescription so that a simple eye test at Nyandiwa Dispensary will be matched with a corresponding pair of lenses. More pairs of spectacles are most welcome as are Ibuprofen, or similar, caplets.
Small businesses
These are all functioning well. We visited the cow – flatteringly (?) named An.jpg) gela – the several dozen chickens kept at various people’s homes and the fields where the vegetable crops are thriving on this season’s gentler rains after a drought which meant late sowing and then such heavy rain the first sowing was washed away. As mentioned earlier, the donkey cart is being made good use of, transporting goods to and from the road and also transporting water filters even further afield.
The sewing workshop is widening its scope to make uniforms for other primary schools as well as Kolweny. Tailoresses are trained to make only women’s clothes amongst which trousers don’t feature at all so a young tailoress in the community who is without a job has been approached and we are paying for her to train with the tailor in nearby Kadongo who makes our High School uniforms, after which time she will be proficient in the tailoring of trousers and shorts.
Food is still in short supply and will be until the harvest so in April we funded another lorry load of grains for our community. Up to 250 families were supplied with a week’s grain.
Karowley is a comfortable home from home if you forget the appalling, practically non-functioning, plumbing, the cock-eyedness of every door and window, the geckoes in the roof which are especially playful during the early hours and the weight of the furniture.
An elder at church prayed that we would have new experiences this visit – how about an earthquake in the first night which felt as though the entire roof was caving in and an accident in the vehicle? That was more than enough. Noone was injured but there was a fairly hefty excess to pay for a dented front bull bar and bonnet etc.. With the advent of the motor cycle there is an increasing number of road accidents, many fatal, especially when the roads are wet and muddy. In a torrential downpour a motor cyclist skidded in front of a lorry and came off. The lorry driver stood on his brakes and came to a halt barely inches from the man and we gracefully slid into the back of the lorry. The driver didn’t even notice and drove off but his skill had no doubt saved the man’s life. The hassle was afterwards when we had to make a report at the local police station and then another one in Kisumu for insurance purposes just in case someone said we had injured them. Of course everyone moves at a snail’s pace and nobody has the necessary forms and much precious time is wasted dealing with a totally inefficient system. It gives us yet more insight into the frustrations of everyday life in this beautiful land.
Thankyou again for your donations large and small, one-off and regular in money and in kind and for your prayers for the work and for our safety. The people of our community and indeed further afield again send their heartfelt thanks.
P.S. May I again remind those receiving this through the post who have an email address to please drop me a line at angelarowley@ntlworld.com ? Thanks.
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| October 09 trip - 09 November 2009
October 2009
We have just returned from our October trip rather more weary than usual as flights from Nairobi were cancelled and connections in Paris missed. We spent 10 days in Kenya, all of them full to the brim. The main emphasis of our trip was establishing communication between our high school there and The Kingsway School in Cheadle. To that end we took two teachers , Anthony DiPaola and Karen Clarke from The Kingsway with us to do some teacher training, introduce ITC on the two laptops and create curricular exchange possibilities. They worked so hard and forged excellent relationships with staff and students alike. It is hoped that a more pupil-centred learning approach will help those students who are not of the highest ability to gain better results as well as maintaining the excellent standards already at the school.
Water
We met up with a lady in Nairobi who had shown interest in a water filter workshop at her home in Kitale, some 100 miles north of Kisumu. This was very successful and it’s hoped to visit the site during our next visit. We spent a bone-shaking day driving to Kilgoris (Our contact there, Fredrick, already has a workshop in the Transmara among the Masai .) to discuss the possibilities of a workshop in the town. This will begin in the next few weeks when Joseph will go and start the training. From there we rattled our way another several hours to a dry, forbidding place on Lake Victoria, Bala, where there is an orphanage with 800 children! We had already arranged for four filters to be installed by our workshop in Simbi but the orphanage is going to start its own workshop to serve the surrounding area as well. The roads were some of the worst we’d been on.
We have a list of another 6 widows in Nyandiwa to whom water filters will be donated.
Steve could no longer walk past the well at school without sourcing and screwing on three missing nuts! This activity drew quite a crowd and even some assistance!
We met with the Rotary President in Kisumu who at last signed the papers to enable funding from Rotary District grants here to be released to fund gutters and tanks on all our local primary schools to enable water harvesting, rain water being clean enough to drink.
Steve met with the agriculture committee to introduce some ideas for irrigation. Some years ago our friend Margaret Bancewicz told us of a hydraulic ram pump used on Raasay . It uses only the force of the water to pump miles and to quite a height. Steve has built one! and the big boys at church spent a happy morning with their new toy testing it out in a local stream. It works! Steve spent time with Ayugi looking for a suitable site by the river for the pump to be installed. It’s problematical but he’s sure it can be overcome – it just needs the ‘pump committee’ to come up with a good idea! They’ll be working on it – I know this because at least two of them are planning on a trip to Kenya to install it!
Education
The Primary School buildings are not yet completed but we are sending funds to do this before our next visit in February 2010. We are also purchasing teachers’ desks and lockers, text book cupboards and 70 new double desks so that pupils can sit two to a desk rather than the three at present.
We bought another £400 of text books for the library from Kisumu – a shop which offers us 25% discount!- and took with us some lovely reference books donated here.
Angela took individual photographs of all our 72 sponsored students. We can report that they are all doing very well both physically and academically, some being in the top 3 in their classes and some being prefects.
We are funding another 8 students at University or Teacher Training College through the Hope Beyond Form 4 Scholarship Scheme. This is one of our main expenditures but we feel it is worthwhile both now and in the long-run.
We took with us lab coats and science equipment donated by Loreto, Moss Side, pens and pencils donated by Barclays and yet more school bags donated by The Seashell Trust. We also gave each Form 2 student a pencil case made by Year 7 students at the Kingsway school, each with name and pencils etc.. The teachers asked for clocks so we bought one for each classroom. They were greeted by much cheering and clapping by the students who found it hard to believe!
I have already mentioned the sterling work carried out by Anthony and Karen. We bought the school a printer so that documents such as registers and exam results will no longer have to be laboriously written out every time they’re needed.
We visited Lwanda Lutheran Secondary School to ascertain whether a partnership with Moorside High Scool in Swinton might be feasible. The Headteacher at Moorside is an ex-colleague of Angela’s. The school is in its fourth year, has just four classrooms, one cupboard of books and two latrine blocks. We are hoping to establish a link soon so that Moorside can fund more buildings and equipment and begin a curricular exchange similar to the one between the two Kingsway schools.
The touch rugby teams are still competing and enjoying it. A friend of Sam’s donated lots of pairs of trainers which were very well received. We watched a football match between our school and Wang’apala, the local boys’ boarding school. The latter team was kitted out with matching strip and boots whilst our team had some in a striped top, others in plain blue and several with bare feet. Does anyone out there know or have a business which could sponsor a strip and boots? We can’t guarantee the advertising will do much good in Kenya but it would give the team a boost. We lost 3.1 by the way.
The girls’ hostel will be complete in time for next term’s Form 4 girls to start using it. We signed the rental agreement with Mary on whose land it’s built and who will act as matron with a bed across the door! The Form 4 boys are camping out in the old house we built for a member of staff some years ago. This is how keen they are to study in school using the solar lighting in the library.
The Mooncups have been such a success with the Form 3 & 4 girls to whom they were given last May that we are informed not a single day of schooling has been lost by the girls since then!! They were distributed to all Form 1 & 2 girls this time and will continue each year with new Form ones. Staff and students alike are thrilled. The Jephcott Trust funded 100 and we have funding for another 60. They make excellent Christmas presents for girls and women if you’re stuck for an idea!! (Gift list on our website.)
Health
The dispensary continues to function well under Edwin’s management. It has just been inspected by the government during a vaccination campaign and was given a Grade 1 which means the government will make available free vaccines for children. Brilliant! Edwin has extracted some 30+ teeth since May and keeps excellent records. We took out with us the usual thousands of paracetamol capsules, bandages, plasters, needles, gloves, small instruments, spectacles. Doctors and nurses reading this, more of the same please!
We visited all the dental students trained by Jon Robinson on our last visit in May. They are doing such a good job under very difficult conditions and in such shabby premises. They have safely and ‘painlessly’ extracted hundreds of teeth since their training. The smaller needles Jon used are more expensive and they’ve been using bigger ones but Angela suggested in no uncertain terms that the finer ones might be a better idea even if patients have to pay a few pence more! (She shudders even as she writes!) Ken has a small clinic in Misambi, our roadside market place; Paul and Philemon are itinerant but work mainly in Misambi whilst Doreen works in Sondu some 20 miles away in a grubby back street. Her surgery is as clean as possible and she has lots of patients on market days.
Those of you who have been interested in our sponsored student, Elijah, who suffered a severe breakdown during his first term at college will be pleased to know that he is now almost fully recovered and hoping to return to college. He has been advised to wait until next September rather than go in January. His place is open any time. Thankyou for your concern and prayers.
Small Businesses
These are plodding along up to now although we can report that the chickens began to lay whilst we were there (Not a result of our visit but nice!) and the cow – Angela! – is in calf. The vegetables have been unsuccessful so far because of drought conditions but mild rains have been helpful over the last five weeks. Unfortunately there are predictions of an El Nino in November which will wash away everything including homes if it does indeed occur. An item for prayer. The sewing business is doing very well making uniforms for two primary schools and clothing for the wider community. One lady is at present being trained at a local tailor’s to make shorts and trousers.
Karowley was used the week prior to our visit by a young teacher from the Kingsway School whose world tour took her to Kenya where she met up with her parents from Bramhall. All three helped in the school and Jim visited Maseno University to deliver a Chemistry lecture. He hopes to help out the University with funding from Manchester University. We warned them about the idiosyncratic plumbing and the bats in the roof but we didn’t know about the lovelorn weaver bird who woke them up every morning at 5.00 pecking at its reflection in the bathroom window! No earthquakes this time but a wakeful night listening to Debbie the cow mooing because she couldn’t locate her day-old calf.
Thankyou yet again for making this work possible by your donations, interest, prayer and insights. Thankyou from everyone in Nyandiwa and indeed many miles afield who share in the water projects and now school support.
Please, if you are receiving this by post and have an email address, just send me a message to let know the address angelarowley@ntlworld.com.
Last year’s Christmas cards were a success so we’ve had more made this year. If you would like some, email and we’ll get them to you. (Photos of Nyandiwa with a couple of robins!) £3 for 8 .
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| May 09 trip - 14 July 2009
We spent just 10 days in Kenya this time up to 30th May, the main emphasis of the visit being on dentistry. Jon Robinson, a dentist friend from Birmingham, taught at our dispensary from Saturday afternoon to Thursday evening by which time he and the six trainees had extracted over 120 teeth and inspected 300+ people including the whole of our High School. Our health practitioner and nurse were two of the trainees and the other four came from clinics further afield. We took out five dental kits – each one filled a rucksack – purchased from Dentaid. Jon even managed to preach in church on Sunday!
Water filter workshops.
The filters made at our original workshop in Nyandiwa are easier to transport now since the start-up of the donkey and cart business which has been going since February. We have another nine names of widows or needy families who will be given a filter thanks to specific donations. The latest workshop in the Transmara among the Maasai is running very well, so much so that a group of people from the north east near Marsabit who saw it functioning have been to Nyandiwa to train and have started a workshop there. We met with our Rotary contact, George, to discuss a new workshop in Kakamega – north of Kisumu - which should be up and running before our next visit.
Education
Kolweny Kingsway Primary School’s new classrooms are almost finished and we hope to complete the scheme for them over the next few months. They will then be able to demolish the old ‘stable block’and have a smart new complex and parade ground. The primary school at Oogo which we paired with a school in Buckingham has sent letters for the students here which are very moving to read.
Kolweny Kingsway High School now has just over 200 students in the four forms, really the maximum we can support. We were visited in our home by two former students, Dorothy Awuor and Perez Atieno, who are studying at university under our Hope Beyond Form 4 scholarship scheme. They are doing so well and during the long break both are helping out at local primary schools, already giving back to the community. We await applications for this year’s grants as soon as letters of acceptance are received by the students. We are in a position to sponsor 10 more students this year. On our outward journey we bought another £1,000 worth of books for the Forrest Hill library which is functioning so well that the initial idea of borrowing on just one day of the week has had to be increased to two and students are studying in their free time. This ‘openness and trust’ with books on open display is a new concept and one not readily accepted but we are insisting on giving it a go. We were able to take out 25 solar powered science calculators and again, many pens and pencils etc.. Some had been brought by our nephew from the States in a suitcase which could then be filled with English goodies for the return journey!
The laptops have meant that better communication between Kolweny Kingsway High School and The Kingsway School Cheadle is now achievable. This will bring about an exchange of ideas and better understanding of each other’s culture. It is planned to take out two Kingsway teachers next time to increase these possibilities and help in the school.
We visited Orera High School to photograph the completed water supply to the science laboratory which has been funded by Formby High School. It is important to provide evidence of projects for those who are kind enough to become involved.
We took our young friend Mike Burr (17) with us too this visit. His main role was to introduce the High School boys to touch rugby. It went down a storm and the presentation of the Mike Burr trophy on the final day was greeted with such elation and jumping around, that the trophy was irreparably bent out of shape! They don’t do anything gently! The boys are determined to learn ‘proper’ rugby soon - Kenya is among the world’s top 10 teams playing sevens.
Following the success of the new sanitary protection, the mooncup, in the pilot group of three adults and their teenaged daughters, Angela started the Well Woman Clinic using girls from Forms 3 and 4 and female staff members as the next control group.We have received a grant from the Jephcott Trust to pay for 100 mooncups and the new girls’ latrines which are completed ahead of schedule and were opened during our visit. They are the talk of the town with running water from a gutter and tank!! The girls and women are so excited about this new venture.
We mentioned in our last newsletter that we were having difficulty finding a piece of land for a Form 4 girls’ hostel to enable the girls to use the solar light at the library to study in the evenings during the week. Praise God Ayugi has had discussions with Mary, whose land borders the school, and although she would be prepared to sell us a small piece of her land, one of her sons is only prepared to rent but that’s OK. We will negotiate a rent for a period of 10 years and build only a semi-permanent structure, perfectly adequate for the purpose. We hope to have up to 12 beds to begin with, with the possibility of building on another room as the number of girls increases. As the hostel will be just a stone’s throw from Mary’s own house, she has agreed to sleep there and look after the students – couldn’t be better!
Health
We have already mentioned the work of the dentist which was so very well received. Now people will be able to have a tooth extracted painlessly and efficiently at our dispensary for only a nominal cost. So many have been walking round with sore mouths because they can’t afford dental treatment.
Mike taught all the forms at the High School and Primary School how to clean their teeth properly and we handed out hundreds of toothbrushes and toothpaste. We also gave each High School student a nylon backpack bag to carry their belongings in, surplus to requirements at the Seashell trust (Formerly The Royal School for the Deaf.) and donated to us. We looked over the financial records which are being kept each week.
Water harvesting at local primary schools is not yet underway as funding via the Rotary International matched funding scheme is on hold due to the recession. Their funds are gaining little or no interest but there may be funding available after September.
Alfred, the health technician is visiting the dispensary three times a week and we took him a centrifuge this time to help in his work. It is hoped that the dispensary will soon be registered as an Aids clinic which will mean that drugs for HIV will be freely available to patients. For this we need to have a nurse trained in counselling. More donations of stethoscopes, diabetes testers, blood pressure gauges, operating gowns, sutures, needles, gloves, tablets, bandages, plasters etc and old spectacles were again well-received. There is a possibility of buying a gismo which will test the donated spectacles and give an accurate reading of the prescription so that a simple eye test at Nyandiwa Dispensary will be matched with a corresponding pair of lenses. More pairs of spectacles are most welcome as are Ibuprofen, or similar, caplets.
Small businesses
These are all functioning well. We visited the cow – flatteringly (?) named Angela – the several dozen chickens kept at various people’s homes and the fields where the vegetable crops are thriving on this season’s gentler rains after a drought which meant late sowing and then such heavy rain the first sowing was washed away. As mentioned earlier, the donkey cart is being made good use of, transporting goods to and from the road and also transporting water filters even further afield.
The sewing workshop is widening its scope to make uniforms for other primary schools as well as Kolweny. Tailoresses are trained to make only women’s clothes amongst which trousers don’t feature at all so a young tailoress in the community who is without a job has been approached and we are paying for her to train with the tailor in nearby Kadongo who makes our High School uniforms, after which time she will be proficient in the tailoring of trousers and shorts.
Food is still in short supply and will be until the harvest so in April we funded another lorry load of grains for our community. Up to 250 families were supplied with a week’s grain.
Karowley is a comfortable home from home if you forget the appalling, practically non-functioning, plumbing, the cock-eyedness of every door and window, the geckoes in the roof which are especially playful during the early hours and the weight of the furniture.
An elder at church prayed that we would have new experiences this visit – how about an earthquake in the first night which felt as though the entire roof was caving in and an accident in the vehicle? That was more than enough. Noone was injured but there was a fairly hefty excess to pay for a dented front bull bar and bonnet etc.. With the advent of the motor cycle there is an increasing number of road accidents, many fatal, especially when the roads are wet and muddy. In a torrential downpour a motor cyclist skidded in front of a lorry and came off. The lorry driver stood on his brakes and came to a halt barely inches from the man and we gracefully slid into the back of the lorry. The driver didn’t even notice and drove off but his skill had no doubt saved the man’s life. The hassle was afterwards when we had to make a report at the local police station and then another one in Kisumu for insurance purposes just in case someone said we had injured them. Of course everyone moves at a snail’s pace and nobody has the necessary forms and much precious time is wasted dealing with a totally inefficient system. It gives us yet more insight into the frustrations of everyday life in this beautiful land.
Thankyou again for your donations large and small, one-off and regular in money and in kind and for your prayers for the work and for our safety. The people of our community and indeed further afield again send their heartfelt thanks.
P.S. May I again remind those receiving this through the post who have an email address to please drop me a line at angelarowley@ntlworld.com ? Thanks.
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