The Nest

(this is a necessarily long one, but persevere for the end will move you) 

Today was a day to make your heart break in two... One side for happy and one side for sad, but broken nonetheless.

Wendy took me to a children's orphanage that is very dear to her. She explained that in a country rife with corruption and expensive red tape, The Nest is a place run by a dedicated woman who sees every donated cent reach it's intended purpose. 

And so again we mounted our trusty steed - a Land Rover Defender whose suspension defies logic - and made our way out of cosmopolitan Nairobi and into the fertile hills of the Kikuyu tribe. I commented on the poverty of the corrugated collages that are their homes, but Wendy explained the Kikuyu are actually the wealthiest of the tribes and live rather comfortably, most with a small plot of soil to farm.

I could recount endless observations that shocked & awed me, but is little wonder everything here widens my sheltered eyes. There are a few mentionables though:

Coca-cola is everywhere! Every block hosts a bright red building, shipping container, demountable, hut, even a giant plastic coke bottle that sells the familiar fizz.

Most people walk everywhere (Maasai tribespeople with a distinctly spritely step) as they cannot afford the bus fare. Every single person, however, has a mobile phone.

The sight of hundreds of feeble little donkeys hauling huge loads while being whipped mercilessly is agonising to watch. In a country where the forgotten poor feel no-one cares about them, it is a sad reality that they too don't care about the plight of these poor beasts of burden.

The signs make me giggle all the time. One shopfront read: "Mushroom house -for all your mushroom needs!". A dilapidated van full of lads read "Young millionaires- roll wid it". I still haven't figured out what the slogan "black is the new pure" is selling. Wendy loved the huge American flag under the "Lebanese Shop" sign.

So, after a bumpy ride we finally snaked our way to the gates of The Nest. As with everywhere you go we were greeted enthusiastically and invited in warmly. We sat for a while with Irene who has run this house of hope for 20 years. She is passionate and pragmatic about the problems she faces and reflects personally that her trips to motherland Germany are hard because she never visits just as family or just as a friend because she's constantly got to be fundraising for The Nest. 

Shes buoyed by generosity though. The little boy who gave his first holy communion money, or the old lady who gave $20 euros but could barely feed herself, and how she's so conscious of responsibly using the donated money.

As we talked I asked about the story of the children. Most are orphaned or have parents in jail. The school was quite empty today as many of the children had been taken to visit their incarcerated mothers- thrown in without trial for everything from serious crime to walking in the wrong place on the street.

The Miracle Babies are an incredibly tragic story belonging to a number of the primary schoolers here. A horrible man in Britain, calling himself the Bishop, convinced childless african women he could deliver them babies by divine conception. He was then stealing or buying Kenyan babies at birth, and selling them on to these naive women who raised them in loving, happy homes. When his evil was discovered, rather than punish him and leave the children in the homes they'd always known, they were returned to Kenya and put in orphanages. No-one has found their birth parents and no-one is allowed to adopt them, so this is the childhood they'll now have instead. Remembering the happy times, and seeing their friends adopted by loving westerners. 

The saddest story was recounted when I commented on one particularly gorgeous little girl. She was brought to the orphanage one day when Wendy was visiting. Her father had raped her at 4 months old, and her mother was too drunk to notice. The tiny baby was so badly injured she needed reconstructive surgery to redefine her waste & reproductive chambers.

I have donated $500AUD to this incredible place to both thank Rob & Wendy for their hospitality, and to help these gorgeous children. They also have a great little volunteer house if anyone is interested.
 
It was a moving day, and one that makes my fortunate life in Sydney bittersweet. We are very lucky.

Give Harvey a belly rub for me...

Xxx