Last days in Kenya, here I tend to forget the world I leave behind when I return to Gabriels. Never forgetting family and friends they remain with me wherever I go, but the leaving the world of fresh running water, garbage free streets, fresh food and vegetables whenever needed…here, in Nakuru, we also have all the necessary life sustainable stores, but its not available to all, to so many, to those we visit in the slums, to the parents of our children or to our children. A main part of what we do is to gift a new life, a new start to those who have given up hope. Hope of actually being able to go on. Hope a food that sustains many and then, to many, hope in no longer an option. In our school and orphanage we have little Vivian now 5, a deaf girl and a little boy Zachariah, 6, we met these children during a house cleaning during a previous trip. The mother had turned to alcohol, a home brew, which slowly kills the brain; her addiction was due to being herself abandoned, illiterate not able to find sustainable work, her mind and body no longer able to fetch water, to be able to feed her children. Vivian and Zachariah only two of her children, the other at home baby Brian, and the remainder three in the streets, begging for food, scrounging on the rubbish dump, turning themselves into lost souls forever amongst so many homeless street children. The welfare of little Vivian, and Zachariah was very doubtful, to the extent that they to would turning to the street to survive. Vivian profoundly deaf would never have survived. Making the decision or choosing to whom we invite into our orphanage does not come easy, we have sadly only so many beds, and only so much money, the desperation of this family was in urgent need. Without making the decision for both these children to come to us would be giving life up. On the day we found them, we took them to live with us, to begin a new life, to give them a future. The mother her mind all but obliterated from alcoholism willed them away. Vivien is now is a special deaf school where she boards during the week and comes home to us and her brother Zachariah. Their family is now extended to many brothers and sisters, where now she has found a voice in learning sign language, her home is safe, secure where there is food on the table. Since first finding the children’s mother we have called upon her to help where we could, with food, water and to watch over her smallest child, Brian who at the time we were unable to take as the mother would not let him go and there was a possibility with only one child she would be able to care for him. Now, on our visit to her home, a 3 x 6 metre, mud lean too. Walls crumbling down infested with lice, bed bugs, cockroaches and other insects we again saw that Brian’s needs were being forgotten; he quickly grabbed the food that was held out to him, his little body covered in filth. It was time to act again. Christopher suggested that again we clean out her house, to replace the rotten one mattress, to rid of as much vermin as we could and to endeavor to give her hope yet again. My first reaction was to not agree, as we had done it before and now again to repeat when there are so very many that we also needed to help. The mother had now had given up hope, her days no longer important to her, her child, Brian forgotten.
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