Ndombo Orphans

July 28th Lucy, a girl I met recently named Elizabeth, her friend Neema and I took a trip up Mt Meru to visit an 'orphanage'. The village is called Ndombo and the village leaders have set up what they call is an orphanage but it is more like a drop in centre. They have a small school room and the children are welcome to pop in any time during the week then on a Saturday they provide them with a little education, tea and a hot meal. The programme has more than 200 orphans and almost 100 widows that they support.

Unless something very important comes along I prefer to reserve my weekends for my children, it is important that we have that time together, so I was really hoping that the trip would take just a few hours, after all whenever I have visited centres in the past it has been a quick tour and a chat with the director before heading home again. We wanted to go on the Saturday so we could meet the children, I am very glad I went as it is a lovely set up BUT we left at around 10am and didn't return until almost 7pm, it was a very long day.

So the journey took us around 15 minutes away from town then about 20 minutes up Mt Meru, the journey on the rough road wasn't too bad because, as far as roads go here this one was good MOST of the way! As we traveled I was blown away by the beauty, right now it is the dry season so most places are quite grey and dusty, but, up the mountain I was blown away by all the greenery, all the beautiful plants, trees and crops that were thriving. As we were driving we collected a very nice man named Daniel, he spoke good English and is some kind of senior figure in the village, he is on the board of the organisation. After winding and twisting around some very bumpy roads for the last 5 minutes of our journey we finally reached our destination Ndombo orphans and widow centre.

So green!

We were greeted by a small group of children, they tend to trickle in during the day, and the director of the centre. We were led into a little wooden office where all of us and the two men sat down, our main aim of coming here was to spread the word of Neema House and see if they had any small babies that needed help. Once in the office we were given the life story of the director, which he said in Swahili and then Daniel translated so it took twice as long, once this very long speech had finished I said a little about who I was, explained Neema House and told them why I was there, I then asked if I could see the area.

The two men took us on a short hike up the mountain, it really was so beautiful, plenty of free flowing water, many trees and flowers, it was so lovely. Upon returning to the home we were shown around, attached to the office there is a large wooden 'classroom' then the director's house which is fairly small but consists of quite a large space in the garden with many animals, goats, cows, chickens, ducks, geese, they use the products from these animals to feed the children, milk, eggs etc. We were then taken into the gentleman's house where they provided us with some very yummy chai (tea).

After a little while of talking and drinking chai we were taken into the front of the house, by this time around 60 children had gathered. The majority of the children seemed very healthy except I noticed a small group of children which included the youngest two, around two years old, they did not look so healthy. I enquired about these children and was told they came from two different families and as they lived very close by I asked to go and visit their homes.

The first family, children & Mama

The first family we visited consisted of a Mum, Mary, her husband Elisamia and their five children 12 year old Barracka (boy), 8 year old Happiness (girl), 5 year old Praygod (boy), 4 year old Godlove (boy) and little Furahini (girl) who was just 18 months old. I was taken aback by the sadness in the children's eyes but especially Barracka, if he is 12 years old like the Mother told us then he is very small and I have never seen saddness in a child's eyes like I did in his, so terrible. We didn't get a chance to meet the Father, we were told that both the Mother and Father try to get by by doing a little farming or a little market work but there really isn't enough work out there to be able to support this large family who live in a 'shed' no bigger than about 10ft x 7ft.

My newest love, Joel

We were then taken to a second family, as we approached the house I noticed a fairly fresh grave, this is the grave of the Father who died in an accident in January leaving behind his pregnant wife Tumaini and his children 13 year old Ombeni (boy), 10 year old Samuel (boy) , 8 year old Daniel (boy), 6 year old Glory (girl) and little Joel who was 2 years old (boy). The Mother says she is around 7 months pregnant but to me she looks much bigger, I joked that maybe she is having twins, she laughed a lot at this. When we first reached the family the Mother, at least 7 months pregnant, was carrying something very heavy on her head and I was taken aback by the exhaustion in her face, the years of hard labour were evident. The biggest problem this family faces is that the Father who was earning money for the eldest son's school tuition is no longer here, the Mother has no family so is well and truly on her own with soon to be 6 (maybe 7) children, the only hope this family has is that Ombeni become educated and then he can help his family financially. Again this family lived in a very small 'shed' slightly larger than the other family but small all the same, the children all shared one room on a single bed with no mattress. The shocking thing is that when this lady goes into labour, she has to make it to the bottom of the mountain and a little way further than that to reach a hospital, at least 15kilometres, if she is lucky she will make it, already exhausted but still having to go through the birth of her next child, the child that will never meet his/her Father, if she is unlucky she will give birth on the roadside and lets just hope it is an uncomplicated delivery. It is such a sad situation, from what I hear the Father was a very hard worker, he had managed to save enough money for more than half of this years school fees for his eldest son but now he is no longer around the family really stands no chance.

Some of the second family, Mama (far left) me holding baby Joel,
girl in green jumper, Glory, Yellow jumper & pale yellow shirt
husband & wife in charge of orphans & an abandoned girl they care for
far right, Daniel

With Joel

After greeting both families and saying I would TRY to help but could NOT make any promises we moved back to the orphanage. Right from the start I sort of 'fell in love with little Joel' his big beautiful, but sad, eyes. I had him strapped to my back for several hours where he was more than comfortable and even fell asleep. When we got back we were invited into an 'assembely' in front of the children where we were asked to introduce ourselves to them, where we were from and why we were in Africa. The children were all very lovely and sang us a few songs.

Some of the children lining up for food

Following the assembly we were invited for dinner which was rice and beans, after dinner we made our exit, my Saturday with my kids ended up NOT being with my kids but I was glad I had got to go and meet these people.

If I am honest I have fallen in love with the area and the people are just as nice, I have asked them to search out some land for us, whether it is a possibility for us to set up Neema House there I do not know but there is such a need and it is so beautiful. The majority of the children we met seemed healthy and do attend school and although help would be great to improve the quality of their lives I feel that they are better than most in the situation they are in. The only people that concern me are the two families who we met and I would like to figure out a plan on how we can help them, I certainly want to check in after the baby is born to be sure that Mother and Baby are healthy.

Tomorrow Aubree, from Walk in Love, Michael and I are headed back up there. I would like Aubree and I to come up with a plan on how best we can help these families and I would love to introduce the area to Michael and see what he thinks about it, ideally I would love him to fall in love with the area just as I have done!

One thing I know that they really need up there is a family planning clinic, this is something right now that we are unable to offer but I will always keep them in mind as you never know what the future may hold.

*~These photographs are with big thanks from Lucy~*