Sorry we haven't updated this for a while. We've been busy!
Last weekend we went to Ngong racecourse. There was a craft fair there. It was quite surreal because it was like being in England. A lot of the stalls were even run by posh English people! We only bought stuff from African stalls though out of principle! The racing was good fun, we were betting tiny amounts and won on 1 race. The language barrier meant we messed up some of the betting.
On Tuesday we went on a trip with the kids organised by the giraffe centre. As usual in Kenya the bus was about an hour and a half late but we still managed to fit in visiting lots of places. We went to the David Sheldrick Trust centre (An Elephant and Rhino orphanage) and saw the baby elephants being fed milk from bottles and then taking a bath, it was cool to see them so close playing in the water. At one point there was a 3 elephant bundle! We went to a crocodile park (Mamba village) for lunch and to look at the crocodiles. Our guide gave a detailed description of how to kill a crocodile so that you can eat them! He was even promoting the idea of eating them. Which seemed a bit strange when there are only 2000 in the wild in Africa! We also visited the animal orphanage at Nairobi National Park. It wasn't as impressive seeing the animals in cages after getting so close at the Maasai Mara. The cool thing was we got to stroke a cheetah. We then went to the Giraffe centre where we got to feed giraffes which Tish particularly enjoyed as they are her favourite animal! We felt a bit rushed around trying to fit it all in in one day but it was still a good day and I think the kids enjoyed it, although a lot of them had done the same day before!
On Thursday we went to visit two of the other childrens homes in Ngong: Brydges Childrens Centre and Sidai Childrens Home. We were very impressed with Brydges, the staff were very friendly to us, gave us tea, lunch and even a personalised christmas card! The home is split across three locations: a girls home, boys home and a skills centre for young adults from slums. The girls sung, performed a modern and traditonal dance, told a story, and read a poem for us! The homes felt much more homely than at Huruma and cleaner. Brydges seem to have a clear plan for what they want to achieve and what they are doing seems very constructive, especially their work with the slum women at the skills centre. We even got invited back on Friday to the skills centre for a lunch that the women were cooking as part of their catering course. It was yummy, we even got cake (1st time in Kenya!).
Sidai was very different, it is located on the edge of a slum in Ngong and is very basic. It is sad to see the children with so little, but they do seem happy. The home is just a tin shack and has very little space for the children. They are all still very positive though and even make their own jewellery to sell, we bought some.
It was really good to see both the other homes and experience what other homes here are trying to achieve. Kenya has over 600,000 orphans and so many childrens homes its scary! So you can imagine how many places need more funding over here.