Street Kids in Kenya (Part 1)

This week, my heart was broken for something it has never been broken for before: Street Kids.

I had read World Race blogs about street kids in Uganda & other African countries who sniffed glue to get high before coming here. Sure I didn’t like the sound of it, but honestly, I was never really moved by any of the stories that I read…probably because I would never let myself read them all the way through. 

This week, that completely changed. I saw it happening with my own two eyes & it SHOOK me. Now I have a responsibility to write about it…to DO SOMETHING about it. If you haven’t read a blog of this kind before, or even if you have, let me encourage you: finish reading. Follow what’s going on. Don’t let the seaming sadness of this story allow you to quit reading halfway through because although what you’re about to read is truly sad, it’s only the beginning of the story and there’s still so much left to go.

Tuesday morning was to be a time of rest for those who needed it after our beach day at Lake Victoria. Reverend Gideon mentioned he’d like to start trying to find some street kids because he was feeling led to lead the church in working on this issue here in Busia.

Reverend Gideon wanted to try to find out where the kids stayed, where they slept, how many of them there were & what they needed. He had planned for it to take all week to find out that information. Half of us stayed back to rest and catch up on things we usually do on our rest day and the other half were dropped off in town to start investigating.

Shortly after he made it back to the house, we received a call from the girls: they had found street kids & we needed to come quick! We stopped everything we were doing, got dressed & met the rest of our team on the street.

We drove up to the rest of our team and the youth from the church with 40+ kids on the stairs of an abandoned supermarket. They were completely overwhelmed by the situation. I got out of the car and was hit with grief. CHILDREN were sitting on these stairs. Their eyes still small & innocent, their bodies dressed in tattered clothing barely hanging from their small frames and several of them holding small plastic bottles.

These small bottles are filled with rags that are soaked in shoe polish & glue. Their leader said they use it to get high to keep their bodies warm at night and to cope with their lives.

I felt my eyes watering up. One of them looked at me and smiled tenderly. I fought back the tears.

Reverend Gideon walked to the front to speak to the children. He started rattling off in Swahili. We heard a big cheer from the children. He turned and said, “they want to go to school.” I felt a pang in my chest.

Simultaneously, another crowd had formed – adults gathered to watch the “mzungus” with the street children. While I was trying to comprehend the scene in front of me, I had people behind me trying to get my attention to sell me items.

We found out that the children sleep on those stairs in front of the abandoned supermarket. Some of them are orphans & some have run away for various reasons…regardless, they need a HOME. They also need food, clothing & some say that they WANT to go to school.

Also, they want to get one of their own to the hospital. We found a young girl, Adhiambo, who is 14 and has a serious leg injury. Her leg was run over by a tractor trailer 10 months ago. The police were paid off so the man that ran her over was let go. She had been taken to the hospital, but they would not keep her because she lives on the street. It looks like her leg/ankle was broken since it is turned out. She also has a huge wound on the back of her ankle. Reverend Gideon told them we would take her to the hospital. He then told the kids that we would be back the next morning with chopati and chai for breakfast…they cheered.

On the way to the hospital, Adhaimbo told us that her father had died before she was born and her mother died while she was in nursery school. Her siblings are all still at home but her brother works in northern Uganda and his wife will not let her stay with the family because she doesn’t like Adhaimbo and is cruel to her. She even said she was glad that Adhaimbo had been run over by a truck. She has been living on the street since she was 9.

We were able to get Adhaimbo into a hospital about 25 minutes away from were we stay in a small area called Alupe. Reverend Gideon’s wife, “Mama,” was a nurse at this hospital for 10 years so we were able to get her in quickly.

The hospitals here are nothing compared to the US. I was really surprised. I knew hospitals like these existed some places in the world, but we are in Busia…the biggest town in this district. Sure, it isn’t a modern town by any means, but I would at least have thought they would have decent medical care…surely some organization or something would have done something here at some point. But no, run down hospitals with poor sanitation and who knows what kind of doctors is what these people go to in their time of need. Sure it’s better than nothing, and I know they’re probably doing the best they can with what they have, but still…these patients should be getting better treatment…their lives are dependent on it. I’m not sure that’s something that can really sink in until you see it first hand.

After walking a good distance on her leg to the ward (there were no wheelchairs for her), Adhaimbo got to her small cot and fell asleep instantly. We didn’t get to say goodbye to her before we left. We didn’t want to wake her…this was probably the first time she had slept on a bed in 5 years.

We left her in the best hands available, went home to process everything that had happened that morning and to start making breakfast for the boys for the next morning.
 
To be continued…

 
The Boys

Adhaimbo

 
*I’m only $2,322 away from being fully funded!*