Day 5

Day 5 blog written by Dan
Today is a candidate for the most emotional day of the entire trip, and one that none of us will ever forget. We started in typical fashion, leaving by 9.15 before collecting a few supplies for our trips later in the day. After this we headed to Kasagan School where we ran 4 excellent mini kwik cricket sessions before moving on.

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We headed from there to new life orphanage, a truly incredible place.
New life take in newborn children (generally under 6 months of age) that have been orphaned or abandoned, care for them and try to ensure that they are adopted. 70% of them at present are adopted by Kenyan families, with others going to families in Scandinavia and the USA. Those that can’t be placed are generally those with learning difficulties. For these children the centre is commited to care for them for the duration of their natural life. They have a dedicated sense room, imported walking aids (not made in Kenya) and the children are given access to things such as TV and local swimming pools to aid them and give them as full a life as possible. This place had a profound effect on us all. Myself, Colette and Ali remained with the newborns, whilst the others alternated between the newborns and disabled areas, or stayed exclusively with the disabled children. Colette became acquainted with a lively 5 month old called Patrick, Ali spent time with Ernest and I held 4 month old Elvin, an experience I personally found to be very touching. Downstairs Olly met a young boy called Olly and Clive spent his time with the other children with special needs

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After we eventually were prised away from the newborns we were invited to Derek’s house. This gave us a chance to experience the Kenyan middle class. We were warmly invited in to his home and enjoyed a quick soda before heading to Hovic Orphanage where the team split. Gellers took Nicholas, Ali, Colette and our adopted 11th member of the team, Linah to St Teresa’s school where 2 goats attempted to make some tennis balls dinner. Ali has also stated that the girls at the school clearly play cricket on a regular basis. While Gellers’ team ran their session myself, Carl, Vards, Olly, Clive and Jon stayed at Hovic, entertaining the boys in variety of manners including Frisbee, street football and high catching amongst other games. Clive became particularly attached with a mute boy called Kenneth. Carl continued his horrific haggling record with the purchase of an especially fetching bag from the girls at the orphanage. We left the centre late in the day with the bands we had ordered from the boys and rejoined the team at St Teresas after some dodgy directions courtesy of Julienne, one of the Hovic girls. After a quick change we headed to hippo point to enjoy the fading sun on the shores of Lake Victoria for our last night in Kisumu.

One comment to “Day 5”
  1. Have to say I look forward to these bloggs every morning you have my mad hatter son (Vards) with you make sure he doesn’t bring to many children home with him his a bit of a hard boiled egg with a soft center all enjoy your trip and stay safe love vards Mum

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