SUMMER 2013
HELPING
OTHERS
Visit Elephant Orphanage
Visit Giraffe Park
Visit Mamlaka Chapel Community Church
Travel to Meru
Dinner with David and Jacinta
Shopping and sort banking
Travel to Tunyai
Meet Julius staff and children
work on two houses
Deaf and Dumb School in Marimante
Little City
Gatagani Farm
Gaceuni School
Gatagani School
Meet Sponsored Children
Visit Women's work
Essa Academy School
Safari Ikweta Camp site!!
Meru, meet WHY United staff
Nairobi
Pamper session
ACK Hotel
Dublin and Home
14 of us set off from Dublin at the end of June, and travelled with Air Turkey to Nairobi, where we met Ian who had travelled a week earlier to finalise arrangements. We dropped our cases off at the ACK Hotel, and went to the elephant orphanage and the giraffe park. On the Sunday we visited the Mamlaka Chapel community church, and then started our journey northwards to Meru.
The trip to Meru is long, but the scenery is constantly changing, and there is so much to see, especially for the first time visitor to Kenya. You have the hustle and bustle of Nairobi, the very flat rice paddies, then we travelled through the mountains and valleys and see the Tea plantations, and the many shanty towns.
We spent an evening in a local hotel, and after a nice relaxing evening, we had a busy morning preparing for the adventure ahead.
We travelled to Tunyai and were introduced to Julius, who took us to our accomodation for the next four days. Some of us slept in tents and some of us shared two bedrooms in a house. We visited his "orphanage"
and enjoyed being entertained by the children.
For the next two days we split into two groups and went our separate ways, meeting up again in the evenings. Both groups got involved in building mud houses for some of the sponsored children, who needed better housing. We had arranged for local builders to dig the foundations and basic framework of the house, then we spent two days in exteme heat, mudding the houses.
The locals came to watch, and we had great fun getting to know the families and the children.
Although it was very tiring work, it was an amazing worthwhile task. Both houses in two days were roofed and the mudding was completed. We left both families with beds, mattresses, sheets, lamps and food.
We were sad to leave Tunyai, but with two brilliant drivers, we travelled firstly to Marimante, where we stopped to visit the deaf and dumb school started by an amazing Portadown woman, Helen Moorehead. Unfortunately all the teachers were on strike, and the children had been sent home, but we had a tour around the school, dorms etc., before travelling to Little city, in Murkothema. Little city was a hostel type place, where we met Jerusha and Florence. Both of these women would stay with us the next week, cooking and looking after all our needs.
We travelled to Gatagani, and worked on the farm for a morning, but the heat was unbearable, We had intended to work with the two schools in the area but again, even in this remote area the children had all been sent home because the teachers were on strike. There was still children in the nearby vicinity who came to see the MUZUNGOs, and we carried out Bible Clubs, and sports days. We all enjoyed working with the children and visiting the schools. Some of the younger group members compared notes and were amazed at the lessons being taught.