May 7, 2007

Dear Friends,

Last week I returned from a short trip to Kenya, my fifteenth trip as part of my ongoing project to document the lives of children growing up at the Good Samaritan Children’s Home in Nairobi’s Mathare slum.


BOSS

Boss's wife Njoki gave birth last Wednesday to an 8-pound boy, Dominic. Njoki adores her son, and, though previously quiet and shy, she was much more confident when I spoke with her last week. She told me that now that she is a mother, people will respect her more and she respects herself more.

Boss, who is 22, was also very happy and proud of his new son. He continues to be a delivery driver at a printing press in Nairobi, but last Tuesday the police took him to jail for traffic violations (in Kenya, you don't get traffic tickets. Either you pay a "fine" to the police on the spot, or you are brought to the police station and put in jail until you can produce a 5,000 shilling (approximately $70) bond.) This is not the first problem he has had as a driver -- earlier this year he knocked a mirror off a government minister's car and is still paying that debt back to the company. If Boss is not more careful, he was told he might be suspended from driving.


NJAMBI

Boss's younger sister, Njambi, decided she didn't want to be filmed when I saw her last week. She said something about "not looking good." I noticed she had put on a significant amount of weight, and Auntie suggested that she probably was pregnant again. Njambi had her first child, Melissa, two years ago at the age of 16, and because of this she had to drop out of high school. Auntie was very disappointed because, if Njambi is pregnant again, there will be no way she can join the beauty school that trains girls from Good Samaritan.


CHALO

Chalo, who after finishing high school couldn't find a job for over a year, had gotten himself into a significant amount of trouble working for a group of very dangerous people in Mathare, and was $200 in debt to them. In February, after an intervention by some of his friends who were worried about his safety, a donor and I agreed to bail him out financially, and Boss's employer agreed to take Chalo on as a trainee on the condition that he move to a new house away from his old employers.

The old employers, though, had another idea, and when Chalo went to pay them off, they had him arrested. The police beat him up and demanded a $100 bribe to let him out of jail. The old employer wanted to have Chalo pay off the police, and therefore not have enough money to pay back his debt, meaning that he could not quit the job. But Chalo got another $100 from the donor and had someone else deliver the money to the employer, so he was able to quit.

He moved to a nicer section of Mathare and in early March started as a trainee in graphic design at the printing press. But his new apartment costs 2,500 shillings per month, his transportation costs are up to 2,000 shillings per month (depending on if he can borrow a friend's bicycle or not), and he is only paid 5,000 shillings per month, leaving him with only 500 shillings (about $7) for food and other expenses. So he regularly doesn't eat, and he often skips work to save on transportation costs.

5,000 shillings per month is not a lot of money, but by Kenyan standards, it is very good pay for a trainee. Chalo's friends suggest that he get a roommate or move to another apartment that is cheaper, but Chalo refuses. He likes living alone in the nicer part of Mathare.

Furthermore, Chalo is disappointed with the job because he finds it boring. As a trainee, he watches others doing graphic design, and he does administrative work such as sending faxes. His supervisor expects Chalo to show up to the office every day, pay careful attention to the work, and be as helpful as he can be. So he is very surprised that Chalo, having been given an opportunity many Kenyans would love, seems so uninterested.

Chalo tells me he wishes his friends had never intervened, he is probably going to quit the job, and if he can't find anything else to do he will go back to work for his old employers.


OCHIENG

In March, Ochieng's apartment was broken into and 11,000 shillings that he and his friends had raised as part of their self-help group was stolen. Since the money was stolen from his apartment, Ochieng was responsible for paying it back to the group. He had also been unemployed for three months and hadn’t been able to pay his rent, so he was in serious debt.

Fortunately, in mid-March Ochieng got a new job working for a church group. But in April, he got sick and the group made him get an HIV test. Ochieng did not receive the results of the test; they were sent to his employer, who told Ochieng he could no longer work for the organization. Fearing the worst, Ochieng went to get another HIV test, and the result was positive.

Ochieng got sicker and sicker, and finally went to the hospital where he was diagnosed with typhoid and malaria. He stayed there for 12 days and incurred a bill of 10,000 shillings. Ochieng’s friend paid 6,000 shillings so that he could leave the hospital, but the hospital kept his ID as deposit on the remaining 4,000 shillings.

While he was in the hospital, Ochieng's landlord put a lock on his door because of non-payment of rent during the time that he was unemployed. So when I saw Ochieng last week he was living on a couch in a friend's apartment, and because he couldn't afford food he hadn't fully recovered from his illness. When I suggested that he might need to start ARV treatment for his HIV infection, he replied that he'd rather not, because if he died he wouldn't have to worry about paying off his debts.

After a few days with food, Ochieng was less depressed and wanted to find out about ARVs. But first he wanted another HIV test because he didn't trust the first clinic, so he went to the MSF (Doctors Without Borders) clinic in Mathare. His first test was inconclusive, so the clinic gave him a second test, which was conclusive, and negative.

It turns out that at the previous clinics, Ochieng had only been given one HIV test. But, because of the likelihood of false-positive results, one cannot diagnose HIV infection from only one test.

Ochieng was in significantly better spirits after this news and now he is tackling the problem of finding a new job and paying off his debts.


THE GOOD SAMARITAN CHILDREN’S HOME

For nearly six years I have been filming children growing up at the Good Samaritan Children’s Home. Many of the children – now young adults – who I began filming in 2001 have moved out of the orphanage and are struggling to make their way in the world.

But The Good Samaritan Children’s Home continues to care for orphans and vulnerable children from Mathare. 150 children now live at the Home, including sisters Alice and Mtindi, who first moved in to the orphanage in 2001 and are featured in “Orphans of Mathare.” They had been abused at a previous orphanage and the Children’s Welfare Department entrusted Good Samaritan to care for them.

Late last year, Alice and Mtindi’s older sister showed up at Good Samaritan. She had been looking for her sisters for 5 years and had finally found them. The older sister has 3 children of her own, both she and her husband are unemployed, and they live in a different slum, so she could not take care of the two girls, age 12 and 14. But she visits monthly and is trying to form a bond with them.

This year Alice finishes primary school, and since she is near the top of her class she will probably do well enough to go on to high school. But high school in Kenya is not free, and Good Samaritan struggles to pay for these children’s education. You can help send children like Alice to school by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Good Samaritan Education Fund. A $250 donation sends a child to school for one year.

To donate on-line with your credit card, visit http://www.globalallianceafrica.org/donate/index.cfm

Choose the "Special Purpose" option, write "Good Samaritan Education Fund" in the "Comments" box, and fill in an amount.

To pay by check, make it to "Global Alliance for Africa" and in the memo write "Good Samaritan Education Fund." Include a note mentioning that you would like your donation to go to the Good Samaritan Education Fund, and mail the check and note to:

The Executive Director
Global Alliance for Africa
703 W. Monroe
Chicago, IL 60661

If you do make a donation, please let me know so I can ensure it is tracked properly.


Thank you so much for your continued interest and support.

Best,
Randy


www.orphansofmathare.com/mathareproject/
www.floatingfilms.org