Joyful Singing

3rd January, 2009

Last night I was sound asleep, visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, when there was a bash on the window. It was the watchman. "Jordan open door". We had discussed that this might happen. As I lock the door from the inside of the clinic effectively sealing myself in, it means that if someone comes to the clinic in the middle of the night, I have to open it up for them.

It's ironic that the last night that I'm sleeping there is the first time it happens. I open the door still quite asleep. There is a mother with a sick baby that has walked to the clinic from who knows where. She doesn't seem to have a torch and the baby is completely covered with a blanket. I let them all in and go to my room. Leaving the light on I pick up the magazine to read it again. There's no point going to sleep as I will just have to wake up again to let them out and lock the doors again. After about 15 minutes and several outbursts from the baby, they leave. I quickly fall back to sleep.

I get up again at 6:30am scarcely a few hours after I was last up and unlock the clinic. I then get up a second time at 7:30am and begin packing my bags. Within about 15 mins of activity in the room Mercy is at my window. She chats to me as I pack, then comes around into my room. I had planned to leave quite a few things behind but she was particularly interested in the contents of my bath bag. Over the years with all the travelling I do I have collected small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser, sewing kits, toothpaste and bath gel from the various hotels I stay in or airlines I travel with. I use them on my trips to avoid having to take larger bottles. Having been deprived of showers for the last two weeks they are all unused. Mercy really wants them so I give them all to her knowing that the sort of person she is she will share them with others. She is also particularly interested in my socks. I tell her that they will be too big for her but she only has one pair of socks. I give her all the clean socks I have left. She puts it all in a small plastic bag and is off with it.

After packing I head out to play with the kids. It's almost like normal. The exception is Manyara. He is a bit distant while we are playing. Every now and then I catch him looking a little sad and when I speak to him he looks up at me with sad eyes but then smiles. I take a few more photos of the kids. It's funny that very often kids simulate adult life when they are playing. Whether it be soldier, doctors, rock bands or even construction workers. In this case, the kids were playing farmers. They had outlined a farm house with rocks on the grass including the internal walls and animal stalls. One of the boys was a cow and one of the smaller boys was milking him. This involved a small bucket under his stomach while he pulled on his t-shirt simulating the udders. It was weird to watch but then completely understandable.

One of the house mothers called the kids and they all got up and started running back in the home. Lunch time. I wondered what my last meal at the home was going to be like. I needn't wonder too long as one of the house mothers Phyllis came out with my meal in plate with another plate on top acting as a warmer. They knew it was my last meal so I was presented with something special. A big plate of beans and an extra large serving of ugali. Excellent. Just what I was looking forward to!

After lunch Moses came over with two crates of soft drinks and a some bags of cakes. The church had planned on giving this to the kids on New Years Day but as I had taken them away for a treat they deferred it until today. All the kids were made to line up in order of height, the youngest Ciro being at the front followed by Manyara. I notice that although Mercy is not the tallest or the oldest, she joins the end of the queue. They each take their soft drink and cake and sit on the ground near the doors to the homes to busily eat them. Everyone is happy.

I then go back with Moses to his office for a final debrief and discussion. In the past when I had pressed him about the stories for the kids he had been quite reluctant to share them saying they were all the same. However, now he shared a few more details on a couple of the kids. Manyara's parents died of AIDS and he was sent to live with his aunt. His aunt was a drunkard who wrote herself off on a local moonshine. Manyara was seized by the other relatives when it was discovered that he was being left in bars by the aunt. He would eat the scraps of food and generally be abused by the drunks. John's parents also died of AIDS and he was moved from one relative to another until being left with the disabled sister of his grandmother. When John came to the home he was so badly malnourished that he had to be taken to hospital for a while to recover before joining the home. I asked about Mercy and in particular her mother, who was the mental case. I asked if she knew she was here. Early on, she had come several times to try and take Mercy away. Moses told her that he didn't know who she was and only the aunt who admitted her could take her out. Mercy's mother acted deranged and in the end Moses had to threaten her with violence if she ever showed up again. Of course, he confided in me, that he never would resort to that but it seemed to be the only way to make this woman go away. She never came back again.

The final story he shared with me was from April last year. I had heard that the school had got broken into and the watchman had been tied up. Apparently the two watchmen from the church and the home went to the assistance of the school watchman. They were set on by about six youths and soundly beaten. Then they marched the home watchman back to the home and tried to force him to get the house mothers to open up the home. He refused and told the house mothers to raise the alarm. He was beaten to within an inch of his life. The house mothers called Moses and he and a neighbour (who fortunately owned a car) came speeding to the home. He told me he wasn't quite sure what they would do as they had no weapons and knew they were outnumbered. However, when the thieves saw the car they fled. When Moses turned up he found the church and home watchman lying on the ground, skulls cracked and bleeding to death. They quickly bundled them in the car and took them to the hospital which saved their lives. I asked him what sort of police presence was here but he just laughed. If the police had have been called, they would have taken hours to turn up if they turned up at all. It was quite a horrifying incident. Fortunately since then nothing has happened. I'm glad I found this out as I was leaving rather than arriving at the home but either way it still would not have deterred me from my visit although I would have been more vigilant about security at night. In saying that, I was sealed into my little prison anyway so I would have been quite safe. However, I didn't have any emergency numbers to call.

After those stories, Moses called in the house mothers. As well as saying goodbye to them I had given Moses 1,000 shillings each for them to say thank you for the care they had given me and the children. Moses called the six house mothers in plus the cleaner. Even though it was only 2:30pm the three house mothers on the night shift had come to the home to say goodbye. In a combination Kikuyu/Swahili/English he thanked them for me and thanked me for my time there. He then said I had given each of them a gift and handed out the 1,000 shilling notes. They were overjoyed and well whooping and yelling thanking me. It was hard to believe that such a small gesture would warrant such praise. One of them suggested they say a prayer for me which I accepted even though it is only for their benefit. As with all prayers that I've heard over the last two weeks they have been in Kikuyu and incredibly long. At the end of the prayer the house mothers burst into song and were dancing and singing around the room. Moses joined in with them and I, not being familiar with the Top 40 Kikuyu hits, clapped along. During the song some of the house mothers started crying as they thanked me which made me well up. Fortunately before I completely came apart the song ended. They thanked and hugged me again and they left.

My car still had not turned up so I wandered around the home speaking to various kids an trying to keep clean as they tried to swing off my arms. I went into the kitchen where three of the house mothers were making chapati. I was amazed at how quickly they were making them. The dough had been made from scratch and on the floor were two little kilns with red hot coals in them. On top of each kiln was a round heavy metal plate. They expertly cut off a piece of dough, stretched it out to a long thing cord, then quickly laid it on the table in a closely formed spiral. This spiral was then pushed flat and thrown onto the plate with a bit of oil. Everything was done by hand including the turning of the chapati. They had to make more than 100 of them as each child got two chapati.

I left the kitchen to see the old beat up car bouncing across the oval towards the home. My transport had arrived. The car pulled up to a dusty stop with children streaming around the vehicle. I fetched my bags from the room and Peter, my driver, loaded them into the car.

The house mothers came back at and led by Yoda/Grace, the children started singing and dancing. It was so wonderful to see them all so happy. I looked around at all the smiling faces. As usual Mercy was towards the back: singing and dancing but not smiling. I wanted to give her the biggest hug but I couldn't as it would have meant hugging all 50 of them and I didn't have the emotional strength for that. I looked around for Manyara and little Peter and I couldn't see either of them. I asked the house mothers where they were and we all went back in the home to look for them. Peter, Manyara and one other little boy, another John, were sitting by themselves watching TV. It was as if they were in denial. The house mothers called them and they came out. The sheepishly stood around me as I said goodbye then as quickly as they arrived, they left. I guess they are not good with goodbyes.

I went back out to the car and Moses and Steven (the treasurer of the church) were climbing into the back of the car. We were going to drop them off at Wangige on the way. Before I got in myself I took off the watch that I had bought for this trip and gave it to Moses asking him to give it to the home watchman who himself had watched over me for the past two weeks. Then with the children still singing and dancing we drove off across the oval and down the dusty weather beaten road. Moses and Steven tried to engage me in conversation which was difficult to do with the tears in my eyes as I could still hear the singing out the car window.

We slowly bounced down the dirt road and when we got to the tarmac turned left towards Wangige. A few minutes later we were at Wangige depositing Moses and Steven. We said another round of goodbyes and the car turned around to head off to Nairobi. Shortly after we passed the road back to Cura, the driver offered to take me a different way to see another part of the country. We turned left and head through Kabete to Nairobi. There is a large university on the way with beautiful Bougainvillaea trees. There were also some very rich houses and Peter informed me that this was one of the more affluent parts of Kenya.

Around 40 minutes later we turned up at the hotel. The Serena is the only five start hotel in Nairobi and Peter's beaten up, rusty car covered in dirt didn't quite fit in with the opulent surrounds of the establishment. As the car pulled up a doorman raced over to open the door for me. Peter opened the boot and removed my bags. Obviously the boot is not airtight as the bags were covered in red dust. The doorman said that they would clean the bags before bringing them into the hotel. I guess with all the tourists that come over for safaris they are used to this.

I bid goodbye to Peter and went to check in at the hotel. I had previously made the booking directly with the hotel manager and I was pleased to see that all the arrangements had been made. When I went up to my room, I was even more pleased to see that I had been upgraded to a suite. The room was enormous with a separate shower and bath, plus a living room and small study area off to one end. This was more like it!

The first thing I did was have a long hot shower. The water pressure was very strong. After that I put on some fresh clothes and went downstairs to the salon for a manicure. Two weeks of living in the bush had taken it's toll on my nails and despite me trying to clean them with a sharpened stick they were still caked with red dirt. It took the girl more than 40 minutes to make them look somewhat more civilised again.

I went back up to my room, rang the concierge and asked them to recommend a nice restaurant for me for the evening. They recommended a restaurant called Carnivore. Sounded like just what I needed after my virtually meat free diet over the last two weeks (with the exception of the slaughtering of the two sheep).

I went downstairs and took a cab to the restaurant. The cab driver gave me his number and said to call him when I was ready to leave. I was shown to a table for one in a very large and very busy restaurant. Throughout the restaurant were waiters moving around swiftly with huge skewers of meat. Once I had sat down they brought over a metal plate that was burning hot and put that on my table. Also came along a small two storey carousel with sauces on top and some very rudimentary salads underneath. One thing missing was kachambari, the salad that I had tried when we slaughtered the sheep. I asked the waiter if it was possible to get some and although he seemed surprised that I knew what it was, said he would try. Around 10 minutes later he returned with a salad that didn't quite resemble kachambari as it was missing coriander. I asked where the coriander was and he replied that they didn't really have any kachambari so the cooks just made this up fresh.

Over the next 90 minutes waiters came past my table with skewers of beef, sausages, lamb chops, pork ribs, crocodile and chicken legs. They also had some other skewers with whole joints of beef, pork, lamb and surprisingly a whole turkey on a skewer. Finally there were some small meatballs of ostrich meat. There is no wonder the restaurant is called Carnivore. After eating about a two months supply of meat I called the driver and he whisked me back to the hotel.

I climbed into my massive bed and rubbed my tummy as I went to sleep.

This was a good day.