Yesterday I (Claire) had the chance to go to the neighbouring community, Nlongo, with a lady called Sarah from IcFEM. She is in the Elderly department, and they visit elderly people and take some shopping, clean or provide maintainence help for their houses and give some encouragement from the Bible. The team from IcFEM try to visit their link communities in this way at least once a month. The challenge is that people don't always have enough to provide for their elderly relatives, or sometimes just don't take responsibility for their care. Often the work for Sarah is relief work and the team can find the elderly surviving in very poor conditions. They are working with community leaders to set up committees where the people encourage each other to care for their relatives properly, and to encourage the community to share what they have so that they can provide for their needs.

So the day was a bit of an adventure, mostly because I didn't quite know where we were going or what would happen next! We started our journey from Kimilili by boda boda (on the back of a bike). We next took a Matatu (squashed in the back of a nine seater minibus) followed by a piki piki (motorbike), down a muddy bumpy country path. Finally we arrived in a tiny commmunity centre, where we were greeted by two men, one of whom was the community member with responsibility for the elderly care. After signing the visitor book, and praying, we walked towards the man's house that we would visit together. It was the most rural place I have been to so far in Kenya, through fields, through herds of cows (!), across streams and eventually to the house for our visit. Along the way, children peeped out at us because they were unused to seeing a white face in their community. One little girl even ran away squealing when I offered her my hand in greeting!!

We visited a man who was aged 77 years and he had been a widower for three years. He has a daughter who visits sometimes to help clean the house, and friends living nearby who also visit and help sometimes. His daughter has twelve children; one was there and is a pastor of a Church. We gave him our shopping and he seemed very grateful to be visited. Sara spoke with him in Swahili, and I prayed for him and the family.

It was amazing to be able to go to a rural area, and to visit someone who really appreciated being remembered and valued. Sarah said that many of the people they visit are even more needy and have less people around to look after them. This just highlights the valuable work that IcFEM are doing to help raise awareness of the elderly in communities, however sometimes the work makes very slow progress and is difficult when you see how many needs there are and how great the challenges are.