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

February 13, 2007

Dear Friends,

I recently returned from a month-long trip to Kenya, my fourteenth 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.

In Mathare, HIV infection rates are hard to estimate, but at the nearby MSF (Doctors Without Borders) clinic, 40% of those who are tested for HIV test positive. MSF therefore estimates that at least 25% of the 300,000 residents of Mathare are HIV-positive. Fortunately, antiretroviral drugs are now available in Mathare through the MSF clinic, and more HIV-positive parents are staying alive and caring for their children. Good Samaritan sponsors a support group for HIV-positive women, and helps many of these mothers by providing nursery school at a very low cost.

This being said, there is still not enough access to antiretroviral drugs in Kenya, parents continue to die from AIDS, and new children continue to arrive at the doors of the Good Samaritan Children's Home. On December 23rd a mother of three children, including six-week old Jacky, died from AIDS. Jacky was incredibly thin when she arrived at Good Samaritan as the mother had been unable to feed her during the last weeks of her life. Now, thanks to Good Samaritan, Jacky is healthy.

Even if an orphan is rescued by Good Samaritan, though, life in the slum is not easy, and the children that I've been filming for the past 5 1/2 years continue to struggle.

BOSS

Boss, who is 22 and who moved out of Good Samaritan several years ago to live in a slum house nearby, still works at the printing press where he has worked for the past three years. Recently, the company sponsored driving lessons for him and he has become one of their delivery drivers.

There was significant gang violence in Mathare last November, and Boss and his wife Njoki moved out of the slum and into a slightly safer and more developed neighborhood nearby. Finances are now tight for them as their new room is significantly more expensive than their previous room in Mathare. In addition, Njoki is now pregnant. So Boss, who 5 1/2 years ago was one of the first kids I met from Good Samaritan, will be a father in May.

Unfortunately, because of these new financial restraints, Boss has stopped supporting his younger sister, Njambi, and her 2-year old daughter Melissa.

NJAMBI

Njambi, age 18, had been receiving financial assistance from Boss since she got pregnant and dropped out of high school over two years ago. For a while, she lived in the same house as Boss and their older brother Malonza, but Boss moved out soon after Njambi gave birth, putting more of the financial burden on Malonza. Malonza hasn't worked since July, so when I saw Njambi in January she was clearly worried about how she would be able to feed Melissa. Already, they have had to cut the electricity in their house because they can't afford to pay the bill.

Njambi had planned to start beauty school in January (sponsored by a donor for children from Good Samaritan), but for some reason she did not. And now she won't start school until next January, meaning another year of financial insecurity for her and Melissa.

OCHIENG

Ochieng, who like Boss also moved out of Mathare during the violence in November (the house that he and his friend shared was later burned down), is in a significantly more precarious situation since the fighting. He had been working as a primary school teacher in a school in the slum, but that school was burned down and the church that ran it has not built a new one, leaving Ochieng without a job.

Fortunately, he now lives with his girlfriend, Susan, whose family is helping support them while they both look for work. When I left Kenya last week, Auntie was on the way to visit a company which supports Good Samaritan and which often gives jobs to children who have left the Home. They had requested a list of people who they could hire, and Ochieng was on the top of that list.

CHALO

Chalo is unfortunately not on Auntie's job list, as the two have not resolved their falling-out over accusations that Chalo stole Auntie's mobile phone. Additionally, Chalo is now fighting with his extended family on his mother's side (he is not in touch with his family on his father's side), as they are accusing him of trying to take their land. Because land is inherited from father to son, Chalo does not have a claim to any of his mother's family's land. He understands this and has no interest in their land, but because Chalo has finished secondary school and therefore has the most education in the family, his uncles are suspicious of him.

And so, without a job for over a year and without any support in the slum or from his extended family, Chalo, who was often considered one of the children Good Samaritan "had hopes in," has gotten himself into trouble and is now in debt $200 (an incredible amount of money where most people make less than $1/day) to some dangerous people.

After a series of discussions with people worried about Chalo's safety, a group of his friends intervened and tried to come up with a solution. A donor and I have agreed to bail him out financially, and his friends are going to help him find a new place to live where he cannot be tracked by the criminals. And Boss's employer has agreed to hire Chalo once he moves and is debt free.

LUCY

In January, Lucy began her final year of secondary school. The school hired a new counselor, and when Lucy spoke to him it was the first time she had spoken to a professional since her mother's death from AIDS in July 2005. It seems that she is coping reasonably well with this. But the counselor learned that she has a younger brother who disappeared a few years ago -- he simply didn't return home from school one day, and no one has been able to find him. This is weighing heavily on her, and clearly is getting in the way of her studies. 2007 is her final year in high school and in October she takes the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education Exam which will determine if she can go on to college. If Lucy does not do well enough to continue her studies, her options will be very limited back in Mathare.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN EDUCATION FUND

Lucy is one of 60 children who Good Samaritan helps attend high school. You can help send additional children 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.

"ORPHANS OF MATHARE" SCREENING IN NEW YORK

The Harvard Film Group presents a screening of Orphans of Mathare on Friday, February 16 at 8PM at The Tank @ Collective:Unconscious, 279 Church Street in Manhattan. Tickets are $7. There is a free Honest Tea reception starting at 7PM. Information can be found at www.thetanknyc.org

In addition to screening Orphans of Mathare, I will screen new footage from my ongoing project at Good Samaritan.

Thank you so much for your continued interest and support.

Best,
Randy

November 27, 2006

Dear Friends,

Last week I returned from a week-long trip to Kenya, and over the summer I spent three weeks in Kenya. These were my twelfth and thirteenth trips 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.

GANG VIOLENCE

I made my most recent trip in order to see the fallout from the November 5th-7th gang violence in Mathare. I heard several different explanations of what happened, but essentially the Mungiki, a banned, quasi-religious sect that functions as a mafia in Mathare, decided to burn down the chang'aa brewing operations in the slum. (Chang'aa is an illegal drink that blinds and kills many Kenyans every year.)

The Taliban, a rival gang connected to the chang'aa brewers (with no relation to the Taliban in Afganistan – they just wanted a tough-sounding name) fought back. And over the three nights of fighting at least ten people in the slum were killed, over 200 houses were burned, and over 1,000 people were displaced.

Most people in Mathare, though, understand this violence not in terms of rival gangs, but as part of a resurgence of tribal violence that is building across the country leading up to the December 2007 presidential elections. The Mungiki generally are Kikuyus, Kenya's largest tribe, while the Taliban are Luos, the second largest tribe and the Kikuyu's main rival. Many people suspect politicians are inciting this tribal violence in order to solidify and rally their voting base.

After three nights of burning and killing, the government stepped in, arresting a number of people, imposing a curfew, and bringing in the army and a special police force to patrol the usually un-policed slum. When I arrived, nearly a week after the police came to Mathare, tension was still high, and there were reports of continuing small-scale sporadic violence.

Good Samaritan is relatively deep in the Kikuyu/Mungiki controlled area of Mathare, so none of the children or caretakers at the Home were hurt during the violence, but it was still considered too dangerous to go to the area of the slum where the violence had occurred. So several people from Good Samaritan arranged a police escort so we could see what had happened. As we got close to the chang'aa brewing area, where most of the violence occurred, we started seeing machete cuts in the iron sheet walls of the slum buildings. A store owner told us that all her goods had been looted. People complained of their eyes still burning from the tear gas the police had used. And finally, we came upon a large, charred, empty expanse of land – an anomaly in the incredibly overcrowded slum. Piles of burnt iron sheets were stacked high. People picked through charred remains of household goods. And a few ambitious residents were starting to rebuild.

A man picking out burned clothes from the rubble told us people had stolen most of his possessions that hadn't burned, and he was just trying to protect what he had left. He told us the Mungiki had ripped open one of his iron sheet walls and lit fire to the inside of the house. When he said this, a man across the way yelled, "It was not the Mungiki." The clothes-digger picked up a rock and was preparing to throw it at the man until we mentioned the police were with us and that it was probably not a good idea to start a fight. The tension is bubbling just below the surface, and many are afraid of what will happen once the police leave next month.

Auntie, who runs Good Samaritan, took me to visit a shelter for the displaced people who had not yet found another place to live. The shelter, on the outer edge of Mathare, was comprised of two tents and an upper floor of a community center. Approximately 75 families were sleeping in these cramped quarters. The lucky ones had all their belongings – beds, chairs, trunks, cooking utensils, clothes – in a pile behind where they sat. There was little or no food for many of them, and Auntie invited a dozen women back to Good Samaritan to give them small bags of maize and beans. Eventually, 70 women filled Auntie's small living room, and the portions of food she was able to give grew smaller and smaller, as she feared being unable to feed the children at Good Samaritan.

BOSS

Earlier this year Boss, who is 22 and who moved out of Good Samaritan several years ago to live in a little slum house nearby, started dating Njoki, a girl who also came from Good Samaritan. Soon after, she moved into his house. In the slum, where getting married is often out of the question because of the cost, a couple that lives together is often considered married, and Boss and Njoki call themselves married.

During the violence, they decided to move out of Mathare permanently. Boss has had previous run-ins with the Mungiki when he refused to pay his security payments. When one of their Mungiki neighbors killed a nearby Luo and threatened to burn the whole area down, Boss and Njoki took their hard-earned furniture and possessions – Boss has been working at a printing press for over two years now – and moved out of Mathare to a nearby, slightly more developed neighborhood. Their new room is more expensive than the one in Mathare, and Boss probably won't be able to continue to help his younger sister, Njambi, and her 20-month old daughter, Melissa, anymore. Boss's older brother, Malonza, who shares a room with Njambi and Melissa, recently lost his job, leaving the whole family in a very precarious position.

OCHIENG

Ochieng also moved out of Mathare during the violence, and the house that he and his friend shared was later burned down. They did bring most of their possessions with them in the move, but some of them were stolen as they were packing (I heard from a number of people stories of well-wishers "helping" them to pack their belongings, but really pilfering from them.)

The violence and his subsequent move didn't phase Ochieng very much. In fact, he was happy he moved because his new room was in a multi-story apartment building in Mathare North, an area of the slum with tenement buildings instead of shacks. The new building has a security guard, toilets down the hall instead of pay-toilets outside in the slum, and free running water.

This room is more than twice as expensive as his old room, but Ochieng feels like he can afford that now. He has actually made a remarkable turn-around in the past year since he finished high school. (He had many difficulties in school and he refused to attend for most of his senior year.) Since the beginning of the year, Ochieng has been volunteering at a local primary school, where he was recently hired to teach religious education. With his salary he has been able to pay his living expenses, save money, and take a few computer courses. He has even begun to repair his relationship with Auntie, which was very contentious during his high school years.

And Ochieng now has a serious girlfriend who he is talking about marrying. (He is 19 years old, but marriage often happens relatively early in Kenya.)

CHALO

Unfortunately, Chalo is not doing nearly as well as Ochieng. Both boys finished high school with the same grades – a "C-" – but Chalo has not been nearly as aggressive in looking for work as Ochieng. (After high school, Chalo moved back to Mathare into the house of a friend's family. They live in an area largely unaffected by the violence.)

And he had a large falling-out with Auntie, which has severed his ties with the orphanage. Before May, he often spent much of his time hanging out at Good Samaritan, but then he was accused of stealing Auntie's mobile phone because he was the last person seen near the cupboard where Auntie stored the phone. This was reported by a four-year-old after Auntie found the phone missing and started asking who had been in the room. Auntie bases her accusation on the child's report, on the fact that Chalo was accused of stealing a phone while in secondary school (under similarly ambiguous circumstances), and that she "knows his character" – that he doesn't want to work and he hangs out with bad people in the slum.

Chalo readily admits that he wants to go to college and get a "white collar job" like many of his friends from boarding school. Those friends have parents who can pay for them to go to college even if they don't have good grades. But children from Good Samaritan who get mediocre grades do not go to college – only those with the very best grades are able to continue their education, either by going to a national university or by finding a partial sponsorship from a donor. Chalo has had a very hard time accepting this, and absolutely refuses to do the manual labor Auntie asks of the older kids. So, except for a few short-term casual jobs, he hasn't worked since he finished high school a year ago. (He has, though, been volunteering at KENWA – Kenya Network of Women With AIDS – performing educational skits in different slums in Nairobi.)

Now that he is no longer allowed at Good Samaritan, he spends all his time out in the slum, and he tells me many of his friends are involved in illicit activities.

LUCY

I'm returning to Kenya in January, when Lucy will begin her final year of high school. Lucy moved to Good Samaritan three years ago because her HIV-positive mother was too sick to care for her. She had the best grades in her class, but after her mother's death in July 2005, her grades dropped dramatically. They have improved somewhat since then, but her teachers do not expect her to do well enough on her national exam to get into university. This coming year is her final opportunity to learn the material for the exam, which she will take in October. Over this year I will continue to follow her story, and all of the others, as these teenagers struggle to reach adulthood, and as the Good Samaritan Children's Home continues to take in more orphans.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN EDUCATION FUND

Lucy is one of 60 children who Good Samaritan helps attend high school. In January, a new group of children is supposed to begin high school, but they will be unable to attend without additional financial support. You can help send some of these children to school by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Good Samaritan Education Fund. For information please visit www.orphansofmathare.com/howtohelp.html If you do make a donation, please let me know so I can ensure it is tracked properly.

"ORPHANS OF MATHARE" SCREENING IN VANCOUVER

As part of World AIDS Awareness Week at the University of British Columbia, "Orphans of Mathare" will screen at the Life Science Centre at UBC, Vancouver in room LSC3 on Tuesday, November 28 at 5 PM. All are welcome to attend.

Thank you so much for your continued interest and support.

Best,
Randy

March 14, 2006

Dear Friends,

I've recently returned from a three-week trip to Kenya, my eleventh 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.

I spent the bulk of this trip waiting for Chalo and Ochieng's results from their secondary school exams, which they took in November. The exams were to be released any time at the end of February, and the results determine the future of the boys' education. A "B+" guarantees a spot at a national university (with most expenses covered). A "C+" qualifies them for a spot at university, though many students need to attend a one or two year college before attending university and expenses are not covered. A "D+" is considered passing, and students can still go on to college, and if their grades are good enough continue to university, but this is relatively rare.

When I met Ochieng in 2001, he was sick in bed at the Good Samaritan Home. He had typhoid and nearly died. He wasn't missing school, though, because he had been forced to wait a year between primary and secondary school because Good Samaritan didn't have enough money to pay his school fess.

When he did go to secondary school the next year, he started doing very well and was near the top of his class. But because he because he was angry that he had to wait a year for school, and because he blamed his sickness on the conditions at Good Samaritan (though typhoid is relatively common throughout the slum), in his first year of high school Ochieng moved out of the orphanage and into a one-room house of a friend in Mathare. He only talked with Auntie, the woman who runs Good Samaritan, or dealt with Good Samaritan when absolutely necessary.

Living in Mathare is difficult. Houses are torn down by the government or angry landlords regularly, water shortages are common, and poor hygiene spreads diseases like typhoid. Ochieng's house was torn down twice while he was in high school. Water shortages kept him from bathing. Since he was not at Good Samaritan and had no money, he rarely ate enough each day. And he got sick every couple of months, so sick that he missed most of the second term and all of the third term of his last year in high school. (At least he claimed he was this sick, though many have doubts.)

Though Ochieng is very intelligent, as his difficulties accumulated and he had no adult supervision, his attendance at school dropped as did his grades. Good Samaritan tried to convince him to move back into the orphanage, but he refused.

Though he claimed he was studying at home most of the time he was sick, no one was expecting his exam results to be very good.

People at Good Samaritan expected more of Chalo, though. When I met him in 2001, he was finishing 8th grade and the teacher said he was one of the children they "had hopes in." He started at Eastliegh High School, near Mathare (the same school Ochieng was attending) the next year, and was doing very well.

But in December 2003, Auntie was trying to shift older children at Good Samaritan back to any extended family who might be able to help care for them. Chalo's uncle, though he couldn't take care of him, suggested Chalo go to a boarding school near him and Chalo's grandmother. At least that way, Chalo would have a connection with his extended family even if they couldn't help him.

Unfortunately, over the two years Chalo was at the boarding school, we learned that the school was not particularly academically rigorous (this is not uncommon for rural Kenyan boarding schools) and the teachers did not even finish the 4th-year syllabus. Chalo, without being pushed academically, spent much more time with his friends and in the drama club than studying.

And he received a C- on his exam.

The highest score in Chalo's school was a B, followed by two B-'s. These scores were received by students who had repeated one or two years of school. There were a few C+'s and C's, a fair number of C-'s, many D's and an E.

At Chalo's old high school, students who had been ranked below Chalo before he left did much better on the exams, including one boy who received a B+ and will be able to attend university.

In an environment of low teacher interest and low academic performance, Chalo became less motivated, and was simply given a worse education. But he was happy that he did as well as he did on the exam, as most of his classmates did worse. He was also glad that he was able to spend a few years out of Mathare and see that there is life outside of the slum.

Ochieng also received a C- on his exam.

Both Chalo and Ochieng are now faced with the very difficult challenge of being thrust into adulthood in Mathare. (Chalo moved into a friend's one-room house shortly after the exam.) Only occasionally they find work, working at a kiosk or painting a house or helping in construction, for one or two days earning perhaps a dollar or two.

Both want to attend college, but very few children from Good Samaritan ever do, as the orphanage can't even afford to pay for all their children to go to secondary school. Those who do attend college generally pay for at least half the cost (and generally have higher marks on their exams).

It's unclear what will happen to them now that they are on their own in Mathare. Ochieng has adapted better to the situation, and goes to look for work every day. But Chalo had given up looking for work, and watches TV at Good Samaritan most days. Perhaps now that he has his exam results he will try to look for work again – having passed secondary school does make him more employable than many Kenyans – but he will need to overcome his depression from being on his own in Mathare..

--

Boss was recently made a permanent staff member at the printing press where he works. Until recently he was considered a trainee, and with this change comes a little more money and more job security.

He gives 1,000 shillings (about $14) to his 17-year old sister, Njambi, every month to help her with food for her baby Melissa.

Melissa will be a year old this month, and she is doing very well. But Njambi has now given up on her dream of going to high school. She has decided to take a one-year course in hair dressing (that's been made available through a donation to Good Samaritan) as soon as she can find someone to look after Melissa during the day. Good Samaritan has offered to care for the baby starting in January, but Njambi, much like Ochieng, rejects Auntie and doesn't want her help.

Right now, Njambi doesn't have any other ideas about who can watch the child, so her education is now on hold indefinitely.

--

It was mid-term break from the first term of Lucy's third year in high school, and Auntie took her to visit her grandmother, several hours north of Nairobi. The land was barren as it had just received the first rain in over a year, and the grandmother and grandfather, as well as two younger cousins from an aunt who is a prostitute, were living on relief food.

Lucy's mother, who died of HIV/AIDS in July, was buried in one of the empty fields behind the one-room wooden house. While rearranging the rocks around the grave, Lucy told me that her grades had started getting better (at one point, she had been first in her class, but when her mother died her grades fell dramatically) and that she was committed to succeeding. She was doing it for her mother, she said, who had only finished one year of secondary school before her family ran out of money for school fees.

The determination in Lucy's voice when she told me that she will be successful in high school gives me hope that some children from Good Samaritan may be able to get out of Mathare.

--

Currently, Good Samaritan has over 40 children in secondary school. But the 7 who finished 8th grade last year were unable to start secondary school this year because Good Samaritan could not raise enough money through donations or by selling pigs and milk to send additional children to school this year. You can help send some of these children to school by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Good Samaritan Education Fund. For information please visit www.orphansofmathare.com/howtohelp.html

--

I'll be back in Kenya in May to continue to follow all of these stories.

I've now been working on this project for nearly three years, and I plan to continue to film the lives of these children – many now young adults – in Mathare for up to two more years. If you enjoy reading these emails and learning about life in the Mathare slum, please help support the Mathare Project by making a tax-deductible contribution. Documentary Educational Resources is the tax-exempt fiscal sponsor of the Mathare Project. Grants and tax-deductible donations can be made by writing a check to "Documentary Educational Resources" and putting "The Mathare Project" in the memo. Please mail checks to:

Cynthia Close
Documentary Educational Resources
101 Morse Street
Watertown, MA 02472-2554

Again, thank you so much for your continued interest and support.

All the Best,
Randy

December 29, 2005

Dear Friends,

I haven’t written about Mathare since April, but since then I’ve been back to Kenya three times, in June, October, and November. I’m only now getting around to writing an update, and I apologize for the delay.

When I last wrote in April, 17-year-old Njambi, Boss’s younger sister, had just given birth to Melissa Wambui. Melissa’s father was absent, and Njambi had to drop out of school when she gave birth, meaning that she had only finished one year of high school.

Previously, Njambi had moved out of Good Samaritan and into Boss’s little house a few hundred yards away from the orphanage. Good Samaritan, though, was still supporting her schooling. (Boss and Njambi’s older brother Malonza had also moved out of Good Samaritan and into Boss’s house.) When Njambi had the baby, Auntie (who runs Good Samaritan) was furious and refused to help: “My child disobeyed me and I will not raise my children’s children.” Though Boss was making enough money at his job at the printing press to support Njambi and Melissa, without anyone to help take care of the child, it would be impossible for Njambi to go back to school.

In June, Melissa and Njambi were doing very well. But Boss had recently moved into a new house, leaving Njambi, Malonza and Melissa in a pinch. Malonza only had a part-time job, and since Boss was now paying for his own house, he stopped paying rent for Njambi and Malonza’s house. Boss did, though, continue to help pay for some expenses for Njambi and Melissa, and it seems that between Malonza’s job and Boss’s reduced assistance, Njambi and Melissa are able to get by, but they are clearly in a much more precarious position than before Boss moved. In November, Njambi told me that she worries that Melissa doesn’t eat enough.

In June, Auntie first began to show signs of softening her anger and frustration towards Njambi as she became more concerned with both Njambi and Melissa’s well being. She suggested to Njambi that perhaps there was a way for her to go back to school if she could find someone to look after Melissa during the day. Perhaps, Auntie said, they could send Melissa to another orphanage during Njambi’s three remaining years of high school. Njambi refused this offer, not wanting to be away from her child for so long.

Njambi then went to visit her grandmother to see if she could take care of the child, but she also refused to take care of Melissa because she has to mind her cattle and fields all day. The grandmother suggested Njambi could wait a few years until Melissa is old to be with a group of children during the day, then Njambi could go back to school.

The most obvious solution -- that Good Samaritan watch over Melissa during the day while Njambi goes to school -- was refused by both Auntie and Njambi. Auntie wants to help Njambi, but continues to say that she “won’t take care of her children’s children” and Njambi resents Auntie because of her strict rules and so she doesn’t want to seem dependent on the orphanage.

When I left Kenya at the end of November, the two were still at an impasse and it didn’t seem likely that Njambi would go back to school when the new school year begins in January.

Boss’s decision to move into his own house is understandable – when he was kicked out of Good Samaritan in March 2004 (for starting a fight) he used the money he was earning at his new job at a printing press to move into his own one-room house in the slum. The independence this granted him tremendously helped him grow up, and soon he re-established a relationship with Good Samaritan and became more helpful than he ever was while living there.

But Malonza and Njambi took this as an opportunity for their own independence and quickly moved out of Good Samaritan and into Boss’s house. Soon, Boss was sharing his bed with Malonza while Njambi was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, all in a 10’ X 10’, if not smaller, room. (There was one tap of running water in this group of 40 connected one-room houses, and three pit toilets.) Boss was now supporting his sister and, until Malonza got a part-time job a year later, his brother.

When Melissa was born in March, the situation for Boss got even more complicated. There was less room in the house, one more mouth to feed, and he couldn’t listen to the radio because Melissa needed to sleep. It was too much for a 20-year-old kid who was really just interested in having fun.

So Boss moved out and got his own place around the corner. The room is the same size and its conditions are similar to his previous house, but he made it clear to Njambi and Malonza that they couldn’t move in with him. Boss told me that he just wanted to live alone, but Auntie tells me that Boss was angry at his freeloading siblings and was sick of supporting them. It’s both understandable and very sad.

Boss has had some difficulty of his own; at work he has been accused of bringing in stolen mobile phones and trying to sell them to other workers. And he’s been accused of stealing calendars from the printing press and selling them on the street. In both instances there was not enough evidence, but he was warned by his employer and hasn’t had problems since. It makes me wonder whether the pressures of a 17-year-old sister with a new baby, and his own desire to move up in the world are causing Boss to do things he otherwise would not do.

--

In June I visited Lucy’s HIV-infected mother, who I’ve been filming for about a year and a half. Every time I saw her she looked weaker, and when I last wrote in April I wondered how much longer she would live. In June, she didn’t have any money for food because she hadn’t been working. But she still was able to walk a mile with Auntie and me, and was more concerned with her daughter Lucy’s grades at her new boarding school then with her own hunger.

But a few weeks later, after I was back in the United States, she died. She was buried on her family’s sustenance farm near Mt. Kenya.

I saw both Lucy and her younger sister, Mary, in October. Lucy was still at her boarding school, but her grades had fallen dramatically since her mother’s death. (While she was living at Good Samaritan and going to day school, Lucy was at the top of her class. The switch to boarding school in January was tough for her because she missed seeing her mother, and that was the beginning of the drop in her grades.)

When I spoke with Lucy in November, she told me her mother’s death had been particularly traumatic for her because she had taken care of her mother for so many years, but couldn’t do anything to save her.

Lucy suspects her mother was HIV-positive, but her mother could never bring herself to tell her daughter about her disease. (She did tell Auntie that she had the disease.) Even though HIV/AIDS education is working in Kenya – Kenya is one of the few sub-Saharan African countries to have reduced its infection rate in the past two years (down to 6.1% from 10% in 2003) -- stigma still exists and more work needs to be done.

--

2005 was Chalo and Ochieng’s fourth and final year of secondary school, and much of their time was spent preparing for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education Exam. A B+ on this exam guarantees a position at university with all fees paid by the state. A grade of C+ or higher still allows one to go to university, or a 2-year college, but tuition is not covered.

Chalo and Ochieng had both originally set their sites on getting a high mark on the exam and going on to study law or medicine at university. It has been sad to see their ambitions become more realistic over the course of the time I’ve been filming. By the time the exams started at the end of October, both simply were hoping to get a C+ and qualify for a two-year college, though neither had any sense how they would pay for the additional education.

In January 2004, Chalo transferred from a day school near Good Samaritan to a boarding school near his uncle and grandmother. His first year at the school went very well, and at the end of the year he was chosen to be a prefect for 2005. But, when Auntie and I visited him in June, Chalo was having trouble: he had been suspended for having stolen a cell phone from a teacher, and he wasn’t allowed back to school until the phone was returned or money was given to cover its cost.

The phone was stolen from the teacher’s lounge. Chalo was the only student trusted enough to be allowed in the lounge, and he had been in there during the time period in which the phone was stolen. The vice principal of the school told me he actually doubts that Chalo stole the phone, but he was under pressure from the principal to punish someone, and since Chalo was the only suspect, he was suspended.

Chalo still denies that he stole the phone, and Auntie believes him, thinking that perhaps one of the other teachers stole it. So we paid for the cost of the phone and got Chalo back into school – he had missed two weeks.

Several years ago Ochieng moved out of Good Samaritan and into a slum house that a friend of his was renting. He said he could study better there than at Good Samaritan, but because he had no money and didn’t regularly go to Good Samaritan, he often went hungry and he often got sick.

When I saw Ochieng in June he was sick with typhoid and taking a medicine that caused him to itch and caused painful urination, so he wasn’t going to school. In October, I learned from his school principal that he had missed half of the 70 school days in the second term, from May through early August.

At the beginning of the third term, he was told he would need to bring his guardian to school to discuss his absences from the second term. Instead of bringing Auntie to the school, he just stayed at home, so he missed all of the third term as well. He was lucky that the school even allowed him to take his exams in October and November.

Ochieng says that he was studying the entire time he was away from school and that in February, when the results of the exams are released, he will prove wrong his teachers and Auntie, who was furious when she found out he wasn’t going to school.

These results will be critical for the futures of both Chalo and Ochieng, but until February, neither have anything to do with their time. Many of their schoolmates use the time between the end of the exams in November and the release of the results in late February to take driving or computer courses, but Auntie cannot afford to pay for these courses. Nor can she pay if Chalo or Ochieng qualify for additional education by getting a C+ on the exam but do not score high enough for governmental assistance.

When they finished their exams, both Chalo and Ochieng were far more anxious and much less jubilant than their friends. All of a sudden, their days were no longer structured by school, their futures looked difficult, and their dreams had become more about survival than success or achievement.

--

Chalo and Ochieng still can be considered lucky compared to a number of the other children at Good Samaritan. Good Samaritan currently has over 40 children in high school and Auntie pays the fees by selling her pigs and receiving donations. In October, over 20 of the children were sent home from school due to lack of fees. An emergency donation brought the children back to school after three weeks away, but in January, Auntie will need to tell between 10 and 15 of these children that they will not be able to go to school this year. You can help reduce this number by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Good Samaritan Education Fund. For information please visit www.orphansofmathare.com/howtohelp.html

--

Finally, new children continue to come to Good Samaritan, whether from the loss of a parent to HIV/AIDS or abandonment due to poverty. In October, a street boy rummaging through a large heap of garbage found a day-old baby girl stuffed into a plastic bag, with the umbilical cord and placenta still attached. The street boy brought the child to Auntie, who took her in and cared for. Almost immediately the girl developed pneumonia, and at the same time as Auntie was dealing with the older children being sent home from school, she was caring for a new, sick baby. After a week in the hospital, she recovered. In November, when I left Kenya, she seemed healthy and was growing.

When I’m back in Kenya in February I’ll check in on this new girl, see the results of Chalo and Ochieng’s exam and see how the two begin to live the rest of their lives, and continue to follow the stories of many of the other children growing up in Mathare at the Good Samaritan Children’s Home.

--

I’ve now been working on this project for two and a half years, and I plan to continue to film the lives of these children – many now young adults – in Mathare for up to two and a half more years. If you enjoy reading these emails and learning about life in the Mathare slum, please help support the Mathare Project by making a tax-deductible contribution. Documentary Educational Resources is the tax-exempt fiscal sponsor of the Mathare Project. Grants and tax-deductible donations can be made by writing a check to “Documentary Educational Resources” and putting “The Mathare Project” in the memo. Please mail checks to:

Cynthia Close
Documentary Educational Resources
101 Morse Street
Watertown, MA 02472-2554

Again, thank you so much for your continued interest and support.

All the best in the New Year,
Randy

---

April 6, 2005

Dear Friends,

I’m writing from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Between shoots in Bulgaria and Ethiopia for the World Wide Orphans Foundation (for more information on the great work WWO is doing, please visit www.orphandoctor.com/wwo/), I spent four days in Nairobi as part of my ongoing project documenting the lives of children growing up at the Good Samaritan Children’s Home in Nairobi’s Mathare slum.

I spent a good amount of my time in Mathare with Boss’s 17-year old sister, Njambi, and her new baby Melissa Wambui, who was less than two weeks old when I met her. Both Njambi and the new baby seem healthy and happy.

Boss, Njambi, their older brother Malonza, and now Melissa, live in an extremely small, one-room house in Mathare several hundred yards away from the Good Samaritan Home. Boss, who is twenty years old and pays for the house and supports his brother, sister, and now niece through his job at a Nairobi printing press, seems to have mixed feelings about the new addition to the household. While he says that the baby is a blessing, because the house is so crowded and because Njambi yells at him when he turns the music up too loud, he now spends much more time at Good Samaritan. The baby clearly cuts into his freedom, and Auntie tells me that Boss sometimes considers moving out and letting his brother and sister fend for themselves.

I mentioned in my last letter that Auntie was having difficulty dealing with Njambi’s pregnancy because Njambi had to drop out of school, wasting a year of school fees, and because Auntie took it as a personal affront. Now that the baby is born, Auntie won’t talk to Njambi. Though she often helps single mothers in trouble, in the case of Njambi Auntie told me she “didn’t want to reward my girls for getting pregnant.”

Because Njambi’s pregnancy was the second at Good Samaritan last year, Auntie decided to try to send many of the girls to boarding schools, away from the difficulties of Mathare and Nairobi. Lucy, who had been living at Good Samaritan, but a few months ago moved back in with her HIV-infected mother when she started getting too sick to work, was one of the girls who was sent away. Leaving her mother was very tough for Lucy, but Auntie refused to let her most talented girl stay in the slums, and in January she went to a new school several hours from Nairobi.

The schools are currently on break between terms, and Lucy had returned home to visit her mother, and I briefly visited the two of them. Every time I see Lucy’s mother she looks a bit sicker, and I wonder how much longer she will live.

Lucy was happy to be at home with her mother. She told me she liked the school, but she had missed her mother a lot. And because of this she had had some difficulty adjusting to the new school, and her grades weren’t as good as Caroline's, the other girl who had gone to the new school from Good Samaritan, who Lucy had easily outperformed at the old school.

I’ll make a longer trip to Kenya in June, and I will have time to visit Lucy’s school and see if she is doing any better. I’ll also have a chance to check in with Chalo and Ochieng as they continue to prepare for their final high school exams which they take in October and November.

And I’ll continue to follow Boss, Njambi, and Melissa. On my last night in Nairobi, I received word from Boss’s employer that Boss was trying to sell mobile phones at work. Some of the foremen confronted him about it, and he claimed that all the phones had their instruction manual and so they couldn’t be stolen, and that he was just given the phones by a friend to sell. Though he may not actually be stealing the phones, we’re afraid Boss might have gotten in with a stolen phone ring, and his job might now be in jeopardy. If he continues to try to sell the phones at work, he’ll get fired.

If Boss loses his job, it makes Melissa’s future prospects, which are already bleak by circumstance of being born in the slums of Nairobi to an unemployed, young, single-mother with an 8th grade education, much more dire. I hope that Boss puts his act together, or if he doesn’t, Auntie steps in for the sake of the baby.

Until next time, thank you for your continued interest and support.

Best,
Randy

January 21, 2005

Dear Friends,

It's been a while since I last wrote. I returned from Kenya Wednesday, after filming there for nearly a month. I have a lot to write about, and I apologize in advance for the length of this email.

The New Year was celebrated in Mathare with great joy. I was staying at the Good Samaritan Home New Year's Eve. Unfortunately, the power was out in Mathare, and because of fear of celebrations getting out of hand, we were all locked into the orphanage. At midnight, though, I heard the shouts of "Happy New Year!" from across the slum.

2005 brings the final year of school for Chalo. In October and November, he will take his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exam. If he receives a B+ or higher on the exam, he'll be able to go to a public university. Below that, it's unclear what will happen to him.

I went with Chalo to his first day of the new school year. I learned from him, and the deputy principal, that his grades had slipped in the final term of last year. He went from 12th in his class of 96 to 44th. Chalo works very hard, but he struggles with chemistry. It turns out he also did not have the proper chemistry text books -- the school doesn't provide them and they use a different book than the one from his previous school from which he transferred last January. He was borrowing books from friends, and he just didn't enough time to study them.

But also, Chalo is very social. He has quickly become one of the most popular kids in the school, both with his peers and his teachers. He was chosen to be a prefect, and leads the drama club, where he wrote the play that will be performed in the national high school drama competition this spring. He also still has a girlfriend, Nancy, though when I was visiting they were arguing a great deal. All of this contributes to his grades slipping.

Though it's very good, I think, for him to be so "well-rounded," university admissions are based exclusively on the results of his KCSE exam. If he doesn't score high enough, there are several private universities and many shorter post-secondary school courses in Kenya, but because Chalo is an orphan whose extended family is very poor, I don't know what his real options will be.

This is unlike many of his peers at his school, who know that even if they do not go to public university (and very few will) they will have some options because they have immediate family who will support them. In fact, most of Chalo's friends, except for Nancy, do not know that he is an orphan, that he lived on the street for one year, and that he grew up in Mathare at Good Samaritan. When I visited the school, though, I sometimes heard him talk as if he had the same future options as his friends do, and I just don't know what to tell him.

Chalo's background has provided the source material for his play. It is about the pressures of growing up poor in what is referred to as the "Dot-Com Generation." The play fictionalizes many of the problems that Chalo has seen and experienced with young people in Mathare. The most timely story-line in the play is that about the pregnant teenage girl, which seems to very closely follow the story of Njambi, Boss's younger sister.

Last time I wrote, I had recently learned that Njambi was pregnant, but because she wasn't talking with the adults at Good Samaritan, I knew very little more (she lives with Boss and their older brother Malonza in a little room in Mathare, a few minutes away from Good Samaritan). Since then, I've spent a good amount of time talking with Njambi, and she opened up to me, and Auntie, a fair amount.

We learned that she is due sometime in March, that she is seeing a doctor (Boss is helping her pay for it), and that the father isn't involved. Surprisingly, she doesn't seem too worried; some of her friends have already had children, and until recently it was fairly common in Kenya for 17-year-olds to give birth. The rise in education, and particularly the recent rise in education for girls has changed this. It's part of a larger cultural shift, particularly in the cities, away from traditional, polygamous culture where men would older men would marry younger women. Having more wives was a sign of status.

Polygamy and early marriage for girls has become less common in part due to Christian missionary work (though it does still exist within the context of Christianity -- the President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki is a great example; he has two wives.) and through the increase in education of girls.

Teenage girls in Kenya are thus in a very complicated position. On the one hand, there is a tradition of marriage and sexual activity at a relatively young age, and many of their grandmothers are good examples of this. Parents, though, who are supporting their daughters' educations, clearly don't want them to become pregnant, and because of the strong Christian presence in the country they encourage abstinence over safe-sex practices (it also needs to be noted that since the beginning of the Bush administration, access to birth control and sex education has markedly diminished in Kenya). While the influx of popular Western culture (hence the "Dot-Com" moniker for this generation) has a more sexually lenient influence.

It's no wonder that Njambi had no answer for me when I asked her why her partner did not wear a condom. Fortunately, she is not HIV-positive.

These pressures are some of the themes of Chalo's play, and the behavior that often results from them is the frustration of Auntie's generation, who is struggling to understand this younger generation.

Auntie is having trouble dealing with Njambi's pregnancy. On the one hand, she wants to help, and often does help, single mothers. On the other hand, she feels Njambi squandered the opportunity presented by her education -- she can no longer be in school because she is expected to raise the baby. In Auntie's mind, Njambi wasted a year of education, and a year of money, that someone else would have gladly used.

So Auntie is making a marked effort to get as many of her other girls away from Nairobi, into all-girls boarding schools, as possible. A scholarship recently became available for one or two girls at Good Samaritan, and Lucy, who was at the top of her class after her first year at the local high school near Good Samaritan, was an obvious recipient.

Lucy currently lives with her HIV-positive mother in Soweto, another Nairobi slum (named for the township in South Africa), and when Auntie said she was going to go to a boarding school, she refused. She wanted to stay in Nairobi, and transfer from the school near Good Samaritan to a school near her mother. Auntie, though, insisted she go to a boarding school. Auntie refused to allow her most talented girl to stay in the slum, where the pressures are so complicated and large and the risks are so great. (Soweto probably has a higher HIV-infection rate than Mathare.)

After a protracted argument, where for a week it appeared as if Lucy might not go to school at all, Auntie won and Lucy will start boarding school in the next few days.

I am torn about this decision. I hate to see Lucy be pulled away from her sick mother. But even her mother agrees that getting her out of the slum is very important.

I'll be back in Kenya at the end of March, and I will be able to see how Lucy is doing in the new school. By that point Njambi will have given birth. And Chalo's play will be performed in his school.

A great deal will change in the lives of those at Good Samaritan in 2005, and I will continue to follow these stories.

Until March, thank you for your enduring interest and support.

Best,
Randy

December 28, 2004

Christmas in Mathare

Dear Friends,

Hello again from Nairobi. I've been in Kenya for about a week now, on my sixth trip as part of my ongoing film project to document the lives of children growing up at the Good Samaritan Children's Home in Nairobi's Mathare slum.

I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning in Machakos with Chalo and his grandmother. Since 1995, when his mother died, Chalo has spent Christmas with his grandmother every year but two. In 1998, his family didn't have the money to pay for the bus fare to and from Machakos, so he stayed at Good Samaritan. And last year he spent Christmas with his uncle Robert.

Chalo decided not to spend Christmas with his uncle again this year because Robert, who has a job, bought presents for his immediate family, but bought nothing for Chalo. He wouldn't even give him money for a soda.

Robert is Chalo's uncle by marriage, and by Akamba tradition, Chalo is not officially part of that family. The manifestation of this at Christmas was too much for Chalo, and he decided this year he would rather be with his grandmother and uncles, where no one gets presents. They eat chicken on Christmas Eve and go to church on Christmas Day.

Chalo told me about how he used to spend Christmas when his mother was alive. She would buy him and his brother new clothes and shoes. They would go to the park. They would eat wonderful food. Christmas is an important day in Kenya, and Chalo hasn't really celebrated it since 1994.

Christmas Day I went back to Good Samaritan. Auntie insisted that the children eat a good meal on Christmas, and she slaughtered a pig, gave the children chapati, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and beans. It was a feast compared to the usual meals. They watched a movie (the sound worked most of the time), and then that night they were back to work milking the cows. Auntie managed to make it a special day as best as she could.

It's been three months since I've been here, and during that time Auntie stepped on a nail and got tetanus. She was sick for over a month, and life at the Home became very difficult without her driving presence. Her energy continues to amaze me. Without her, I'm afraid many of the children at Good Samaritan would be on the street.

Also, while I've been away, Boss's younger sister Njambi stopped going to school. She is 17-years-old, in her first year of high school, and she is pregnant.

She no longer lives at Good Samaritan -- when Boss moved out of the Home in March she moved with him to a little room nearby. She won't talk to the people at Good Samaritan about being pregnant, and I don't think she has seen a doctor or talked with anyone about it. I haven't seen Boss yet, but when I do this week, I hope to find out more information. She says she intends to go back to school for the second semester, in May, once she has given birth.

The new school year starts at the beginning of January. Chalo and Ochieng will be entering their final year of high school. And many others will be starting their first year. Please help Good Samaritan continue to teach these children by making a donation to the Good Samaritan Education Fund. Visit www.orphansofmathare.com/howtohelp.html to find out how.

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

Thank you for your continued interest and support.

And Happy Holidays.

--Randy

September 20, 2004

Dear Friends,

I arrived back in the United States Friday night after a very busy second half of my shoot in Kenya.

Last time, I wrote that it hardly ever is easy in Kenya. This was again proved true in trying to deal with Ochieng's brother Kevin. The police wouldn’t let Kevin leave the west without an official letter from Good Samaritan, and between the time Ochieng returned to Nairobi to get the letter, and letter being delivered to the police in the west, Kevin had run away again. The school holiday is now over, so Ochieng can’t leave Nairobi to look for him. He’ll do this during the next holiday in December. Until then we hope Kevin is able to fend for himself.

Ochieng has agreed to move back into Good Samaritan, though he was supposed to do so last week, but had not done so when I left. He is very headstrong, and I don’t know if he actually will move back to the Home. I also do not know where he will find the 100 shillings (approx $1.25) per day to pay for his commute to school. Good Samaritan is trying to transfer him to a boarding school for his final year of secondary school beginning in January, though that will be difficult if he does not regularly attend school this term, which is what I fear will happen due to the cost of the commute.

After I wrote last time, we went looking for Tony, who had run to the street, and we found him visiting an uncle’s house. He had been collecting scrap metal and selling it for pocket money, and his uncles let him come over and watch TV whenever he had a little money that he could give them. Tony had run away because Good Samaritan didn’t have enough money to buy him a school uniform, and so they were waiting to take him to school until the beginning of the next school year in January. He didn’t understand this; he thought he was never going to go to school and so he saw no reason to stay at the Home. When they explained this to him, he agreed to move back in and study on his own, with the help of the teachers who teach at Good Samaritan’s school for grades 1-4, and start grade 5 in January. Auntie was afraid he would run back to the street, but he had not as of when I left.

A week and a half ago I went to visit Chalo at his boarding school. He is doing very well there; he has many friends and is a natural leader. Usually optimistic, on this trip, though, Chalo showed to me a flash of bitterness, which I had yet to see. He started talking to me about his father and I asked if he ever wanted to try to find him. With startling abruptness Chalo responded that before she died, he had promised his mother he would never speak to his father again. He wouldn’t explain why, but the anguish in his voice revealed a deep and painful history.

Chalo’s uncle Robert, his mother’s sister’s husband and his only relative who has a job, can’t afford to give him any money, so Chalo often doesn’t have the little things, such as extra sugar for his tea, that his friends have. He is one of the few orphans at his school -- it is rare for an orphan to have as much education as he does, as primary education was not free until last year -- and so he doesn’t like to talk about these problems with his friends. He only talks about his difficulties with his girlfriend Nancy, who shares what extra she has with him. Even as Chalo grows up, he continues to be affected in a very immediate way by the fact that he is an orphan.

Last Friday Auntie and I visited one of the secondary schools near Good Samaritan, where we found Lucy, who I’ve written about on previous trips. Lucy’s mother is HIV positive, and Lucy moved into Good Samaritan because her mother couldn’t afford to send her to secondary school, and was too sick to care for both her and her younger sister. Recently, though, Lucy has moved back home to help care for her mother, who only sometimes has enough energy to work. Saturday we visited the one-room home in another slum where they live. Lucy does much of the cooking and cleaning, but still somehow manages to be number one in her class. She also received the largest government bursary fee for secondary school of all the children at Good Samaritan. In January, Lucy is going to transfer to a school closer to her mother’s home so she can be there even more often.

Sunday I went to visit Boss’s extended family with Boss, his older brother Malonza, his younger sister Njambi, and Freddy, the teacher and social worker. Of all the rural homes I’ve visited, this was by far the nicest, and the children were warmly welcomed in it. Freddy asked Njambi why, seeing they were so well off, the family did not help more with the children. Njambi replied that though they appeared to be welcomed in the Home, it was only because they were visiting with Freddy and me. When they visit alone they are not welcome because their mother has been disowned by the family. She is a drunk, and probably used to be a prostitute. She abused the children, and that is why they ran to the street many years ago.

Boss, Njambi, and Malonza are doing relatively well these days. They live together in a one-room house in Mathare near Good Samaritan. Boss continues to do well at his job delivering for the printing press, and is on his best terms with Good Samaritan since he was kicked out for getting into a fight in March. He now visits almost every day and often helps Auntie with the livestock. Njambi is finishing her first year of secondary school and she is passing, though just barely. Boss says that she is stubborn, and he thinks that she might eventually drop out of school.

On Monday and Tuesday, Auntie, Freddy and I went to Ukambani, a semi-arid area of Kenya about 150 kilometers east of Nairobi that is particularly hard hit by the current drought. We were looking for Whitney, a particularly bright girl who had recently dropped out of high school and moved home to care for her increasingly sick HIV positive mother and her baby sister (it’s a story that is all too common for girls in Kenya). Because of the drought, Auntie was afraid that the mother and two daughters would not be doing well.

Many of the fields were barren, and the river was mostly dry. Those who lived near it could irrigate a bit, but those who lived farther away could really only carry enough water to drink. It was not a critical situation, but clearly a dangerous one, and if rain does not come soon (it could be well over another month before the rainy season starts) it could become critical.

We tried to find Whitney and her family, but when we arrived at the house an uncle told us that they had moved back to Nairobi to try to get medical treatment for the mother. Whitney had not bothered to report this to Good Samaritan. We can only speculate that she was too overwhelmed with her family situation, and perhaps ashamed that she had dropped out of school, to talk to Auntie when she came back to Nairobi. Auntie is going to make inquiries for them in Nairobi, and she hopes to have found them by the time I next visit Kenya in either December or January.

Wednesday I visited with some of the streetboys who I met last summer while filming. Though they had tried to move off the street and into Good Samaritan, eventually all of them failed and moved back to the street. This trip, they showed me one of the bars where they drink chang’aa, the illegal drink that blinds and kills many each year. The smell of the clear drink was more like lighter fluid than vodka. As they drank, they quickly became intoxicated and crazy.

Later, while walking through the slum, we bumped into Simon, probably the smartest of all the boys. He took off his shirt to reveal enormous scars from being burned. He and a friend had been drinking and while sleeping on the street the friend knocked over a lantern, lighting the bag Simon was sleeping in on fire. Over 50% of his body was burned. When he showed me the scars, he seemed too out of it, too damaged from the glue and chang’aa, to care. I find it even sadder than seeing these burns that the residual effects from the glue and the chang’aa make it difficult for me to tell when these boys are actually high, and when it just the damage to their brains that causes them to behave as they do.

On a final note, on Thursday as I was saying my goodbyes to the people at Good Samaritan, Tony walked into the compound crying. He had fallen and broken his arm. It was contorted and looked very painful. But instead of taking him to get the arm set right away, the teachers decided to wait until the next morning. If they were to do it right away, they would need to use a private, nearby hospital, which is very expensive. The national hospital, which is much cheaper, was too far away, and so they would need to wait for morning. When I called Auntie from the airport on Friday morning to say one final goodbye, she told me that they were right then taking Tony to the hospital. Even after all the time I spend in Mathare, I still find it remarkable the decisions that those who live there are forced to make. I still find it shocking that Good Samaritan is forced to wait a day to treat a child’s broken arm even though there is medical treatment readily available, because waiting that day saves a tremendous amount of money. In fact, perhaps waiting that day is the difference between Tony having a uniform for school in January, or him being forced to wait another year for fifth grade.

Until next time, thank you for your continued interest and support.

Best,
Randy

September 7, 2004

Dear Friends,

Last Saturday was Chalo's 17th birthday, and since it was during a school holiday, Chalo was at his uncle Robert's house. There is currently a drought in much of Kenya, and Robert's region is one of the hardest hit. Fortunately, the family lives in the hills, which are not nearly as badly affected as the plateau. Still, there is not enough grass for the milk cow, and it has stopped producing, forcing the family to buy milk for their children. Because of this additional financial burden, the family couldn't really afford to celebrate Chalo's birthday (I did bring a few things for him from myself and other well-wishers.)

Sunday, Chalo and I visited his grandmother, who also lives in the hills and has fortunately hardly been affected by the drought. She told us a story, though, of a bandit who had been killing her chickens, poisoning her dogs, and strangling her calves. It hardly ever is easy here.

The following day we went back to Nairobi, where Chalo showed Auntie his grades. He has a B- average, and was ranked 12th out of 89 students last term. Auntie remined him, though, that he needs to get at least a B+ on his secondary school exams, which he takes in October and November, 2005, to go on to university. If he scores a B+, he will be able to go to a public university and the government will help with the fees, but if he does not, he won't be able to continue his studies -- the private universities are simply too expensive.

I think Chalo took this to heart, and he promised to work even harder this term. The new school term starts today, and tomorrow I am going to visit him.

I've now known Chalo for over three years (for that matter, I've known many at Good Samaritan for this long). He was 14 years old when Pacho and I met him in the summer of 2001, and the eight-year age difference between him and me seemed quite large. As he grows up, the gap seems smaller, and we continue to become better friends. Though I have confidence that he will be succesful later in his life, I do hope that he is able to pull his grades up and continue his studies.

Ochieng stopped by Good Samaritan last Monday. When I left last time, he was living alone in a little shack in Mathare and was unable to pay his rent. Furthermore, that whole area of the slum was being threatened with being demolished. Auntie told Ochieng she would pay half his rent, and that he would need to find a roommate to cover the other half, which is what every young person in Mathare does. Ochieng did not find a roommate, and he couldn't pay his July rent, so he moved in with an uncle who lives far outside Nairobi, and commuted to school. The cost of the commute for one week iss more than his monthly rent, and no one knows how he is going to pay that. Ochieng seemed dejected. He hardly was eating, and he wasn't going to school as much as he should because of the cost of the commute. Auntie is trying to get him to move back to Good Samaritan for this term, and then she'll try to get him to a boarding school for his final year of secondary school, which begins in January. I think Ochieng will swallow his pride and do this, though he is erratic, so I cannot know for sure what will happen.

On Thursday Ochieng and I went back out to his family's region in the west of Kenya to try to find out more information about his brother, whose story I began to follow over a year ago. The 15-year old boy had been accused of rape, not given a fair trial, and put into a juvenile prison. (The full details of this story can be read in my dispatches from 7/11/03 and 12/24/03, found at www.orphansofmathare.com/mathareproject/).

In a remarkable coincidence, Kevin, the brother, had been paroled and arrived back in the region the same day we arrived. He described very difficult conditions, and though he had run away from Good Samaritan a few years ago, he was now ready to go back and study. (His extended family doesn't really want him, so if he were to stay out in the west he would be forced to go back to tending cattle, which he had been doing previously.)

Yesterday Ochieng and Kevin were making arrangements with the police so Kevin could report to a parole officer in Nairobi, and today they return to Good Samaritan.

While Ochieng and Kevin remained on in their region, I met up with Freddy, who is a teacher and social worker at Good Samaritan, in his home area also in the west. Freddy's girlfriend/fiance -- they would be married if they had more money, Freddy is currenly saving for the necessary things for a wedding -- got pregnant and in July had a miscarriage. To honor the dead child, they needed to go to their ancestral land and have some of their hair shaved off.

In the old days, Freddy told me, they would shave the entire head, but these days they only shave a bit. Freddy told me of numerous traditions that had shrunk like this one, or fallen by the wayside entirely, in recent years. Colonialsim and Christianity were of course some of the obvious causes of this, but Freddy mentioned another cause that surprised me -- poverty. As more and more people are forced to go to the city and live in slums like Mathare, they have less and less time for the traditions. Just earning enough money to eat takes up much of their time.

For instance, in the past after boys were circumcised around age 10, they went and lived in the woods for six months and learned to "be men." Now, though, they only spend six weeks in the woods. The families need the boys' help on the farm, or need to take them back to the city. They also need the labor of the older boys who supervise the ritual.

The shaving of the hair was rather anti-climactic. A man simply sat Freddy down on a chair in the lawn, pulled out a safety razor, and shaved a little bit around the entirety of his hairline. They did the same to Helen, Freddy's girlfriend. And that was that. On the hike Freddy and I took afterwards, Freddy told me that now the lost child can be forgotten, and they can try for another one.

On a positive note, Freddy told me that he and Helen both had HIV tests before they became sexually active. (They were both negative.) Perhaps some of the HIV/AIDS education is working.

On an unfortunate note, though, Tony, whose mother died of HIV/AIDS while I was last in Kenya, has run to the street. He sells sweets and begs for money and food. He was always difficult, even when his mother was alive. He wouldn't live with his relatives upcountry, and threatened to walk back to Nairobi if he were left there. At Good Samaritan he got tired of the donated vegetables that make up the diet, and he went to the street so he could earn money and eat a little meat. Kennedy, the younger and tamer of the two brothers, stayed at Good Samaritan and is still in school. Today, we are going to try to find Tony and try to get him to move off the street. I will let you know if we are succesful.

Until next time, thank you for your continued support.

best,
Randy

---

June 5, 2004

Dear Friends,

I am writing from the Amsterdam airport, as I wait for my connecting flight back to New York. As is usually the case, it has been a long difficult week for the people at the Good Samaritan Home.

When I wrote last, we had some very good news that Mary, the 11-year old who had been raped on the street, had been found. Last Thursday, Good Samaritan took her to the doctor to be re-tested for HIV infection -- fortunately she was negative. Auntie bought her a uniform for school,and was ready to take Mary to school on Monday. But Monday morning, when we went to pick her up from the family with whom she was living, Mary had disappeared. Again, she had run back to the street. At this point Auntie doesn't know what to do. She only hopes that Mary returns and she can try again to bring her to school.

I spent much of Thursday evening and Friday with Boss, who seems to be doing very well. He told me that he was glad to be living outside of Good Samaritan and that he felt he was beginning to make a life for himself. He is doing well at work and is able to support his younger sister Njambi, who decided to move out of Good Samaritan and live with him. Boss even told me that Auntie was right to try to get him to leave in December, and he wished he had listened to her earlier. He still spends a good amount of time at the Home -- he lives very close to it --and he often helps with the younger children.

Monday morning, after failing to take Mary to school, Auntie, Freddy (the social worker and teacher) and I traveled to Laikipia, several hundred kilometers north of Nairobi. A year ago, a pastor from the region came to Nairobi looking for help. There were many orphans near his home, and there were no resources in the region to help them. He found Good Samaritan, and Auntie agreed to help however she could. She took in a few children from the area, and provides extra clothes and food, when she has it.

Laikipia is a part of Kenya that has been, in many ways, abandoned. In 1997, tribal conflicts broke out in the region, supported in part by key figures in the national government. Many people were forced to move, and even though the violence ended in 1998, people did not start to return to the area until very recently, when the new government came to power at the end of 2002. Because of the isolation of the area, HIV infection rates were relatively low -- 6 or 7%. But as people who have been living in towns move back to the area, the infection rate is rising and the one local medical official predicts it will be at 10% very soon. Because of the poor medical and educational resources, he feels it could get higher very quickly.

Compounding the problem, the area is very dry. Some years there is enough rain for food. Some years there is not. Last year there was food, but already this year the land is beginning to dry out (the recent rainy season was shorter than usual), and people are afraid this will be another bad year. I asked the pastor why people continue to move back to an area where the land is bad, where there is a good chance of going hungry. The pastor responded that the people who move back to Laikipia are landless, and that any land, even bad land, is better than no land.

We visited a number of children, most living with over-burdened grandparents or relatives. The pastor helps them with food, tries to get the children bursary fees for secondary school, and assists with AIDS awareness in the region. We also visited Elizabeth's grandmother, who is going to come to Nairobi in the coming months to try to find the girl and bring her home. We all worry, though, that it may already be too late.

On Wednesday, we traveled from Laikipia to Karatina to visit Njeri, the HIV-positive mother of Kennedy and Tony. The previous Friday, Auntie had sent the boys to Karatina ahead of us. When we arrived, we learned, though, that Njeri had died on Thursday.

When, at the funeral yesterday, relatives opened the coffin so the boys could see their mother one last time, I could see how thin Njeri had become in her last days. She was buried in her parents' fields, amidst banana trees and coffee plants.

Kennedy and Tony were in tears much of the day, and Auntie's concern yesterday was with them. Their grandmother is sick -- she had the bed next to Njeri in the hospital -- and the grandfather is very old. The uncles are hawkers in the small town of Karatina, and cannot afford school uniforms. Auntie has agreed to pay for the uniforms, and care for Tony and Kennedy at Good Samaritan until the uncles are prepared to take them in. They think that will happen within the next few months.

Without Auntie's efforts in getting Njeri's family to accept her, she probably would have died alone in Nairobi. Without the Good Samaritan Home, the children probably would have ended up on the street, sniffing glue and eating food out of trash bins. They now are getting an education, and will eventually inherit the land that is rightfully theirs. I asked Auntie how she keeps going when there is so much against her and these children, and she responded that it is the ability to help, even a little bit, families like these that get her through the day.

I'm nearing the end of the first year of this project, and I've spent nearly three of the past eleven months with people from the Good Samaritan Home. I've seen changes in both the institution and the lives of the children who live there (some of whom have now moved away). And the level of trust the Mathare community has in me continues to grow. Last Saturday, two older, respected men in the community asked the Home if I would like to see, and videotape, how chang'aa, the illegal drink that blinds and kills many each year, is made. They brought me to parts of the slum that I had never seen before, that I could not see without their assistance. The chang'aa is made at a bend in the Mathare River which is blocked from view from above by the houses in the slum. Fires and old steel drums line the banks, and men and children work on and in the river, using the heavily polluted water (the open sewars flow directly into the river) to make the drink.

On my previous trip to Mathare earlier this spring, I was allowed to see where the chang'aa is sold, in little shacks where the bar maids are also often prostitutes.

Over the coming years I hope to continue to see, and document, new aspects of life in Mathare. I'll be back in Kenya at the end of August. Until then, thank you for your continued interest and support.

best,
Randy

May 26, 2004

Dear Friends,

It has been about two months since I was last here, and for once things have been relatively stable at the Good Samaritan Home. One of the most notable changes is that 11 year-old Mary, who I mentioned on my last trip had been raped on the street and brought to the Good Samaritan Home, and then ran back to the street, has been found. A few weeks ago she simply returned to the family that had initially assisted her after the rape.

She does not want to return to Good Samaritan because she is afraid of Auntie, who made her take the terrible-tasting anti-retroviral drugs given to her to prevent HIV infection after the rape. The family has agreed to care for her, with the assistance of Good Samaritan providing necessary items such as a uniform and bag for school. Tomorrow, Auntie and Freddy (the teacher and social worker) are taking Mary back to the doctor who gave her the anti-retroviral drugs for a check-up.

On the other hand, 17 year-old Elizabeth, who was one of the children who started her first year of high school in February, has disappeared. She was one of the top students in her class, but she has quit school and reportedly moved in with a gang member in Mathare. Good Samaritan cannot talk with her because they cannot approach the man's house.

Elizabeth's story is another tragedy. After her parents died, she moved in with an uncle, who raped her. She then got a job as a maid, and was raped again by her employer.

Next week we are going to visit Laikipia, the semi-arid area where Elizabeth grew up, to talk with her grandmother to see if she might be able to come to Nairobi to find the girl and help her.

Njeri, the HIV positive mother of Kennedy and his brother Tony, who I mentioned in my updates from February and March, has become very ill and has returned home to her family to die. The uncle of the boys has requested we bring Kennedy and Tony back to the family so they can see their mother one last time. We'll be visiting with them next week.

Auntie also hopes that the family will take the boys in, as even in two months time one can see how Mathare is affecting their behavior. As I've mentioned before, Auntie wants to bring as many children as possible to live with extended family, so she can focus on children who truly have no one to help them.

Because of the fight Boss got into last time, he no longer lives at Good Samaritan. Instead, he lives with his older brother Malonza and younger sister Njambi (who was another of the children who started high school in February) in a little house in Mathare. They all continue to be in close contact with the Home, and I am spending the evening with them tomorrow, and the day with Boss on Friday.

Ochieng is still at Eastleigh High School (Chalo's former school), and lives in a little house in Mathare. The rent is 600 shillings/month (about $8), and since he has no income he struggles to find the money from friends, relatives, and well-wishers to pay each month. The landlord is understanding about late payments, but that entire area of Mathare might be torn down soon as the owner of the land wants to build a new building. Ochieng doesn't know what to do if that happens. He refuses to come back to Good Samaritan even for a meal now and then (he only eats when he is at school) or for pens and paper so he can study. Freddy is trying to get him to get him to re-establish a few ties with Good Samaritan, so at least they can help him at this level.

Yesterday I visited Chalo at his boarding school. He was feeling sick -- he had a headache, his eyes were hurting, and he had been vomiting for two days. The headmaster was afraid it might be malaria or typhoid, and sent Chalo to the hospital. Fortunately, the tests for malaria and typhoid were negative, and it appears it was just a stomach bug!

Chalo is doing relatively well at the new school. Last term he was 26 out of 83 in his class -- he claims it is math that is holding him backfrom being at the top of the class. He is excelling in drama, and is a school leader after only a few months.

While I was visiting, Chalo showed me a photograph of his mother, which he had recently found. It was taken a few years before she died. She was a beautiful, healthy-looking young woman. It is terrible to imagine her as I saw Njeri in February: gaunt, frail, and desperate. Unsure of what to do with her children.

A good deal has changed in the ten years between the time Chalo came to Good Samaritan and when Tony and Kennedy came. HIV/AIDS is something Kenyans will now talk about, though Njeri was still very brave to openly admit she was HIV positive. Stigma continues to exist, though Auntie was able to convince Njeri's family to take her back -- something that I'm told might not have happened ten years ago. But as I am continually asked if condoms really work, and abstainance-based sex education is often the only sex education children get, HIV continues to spread and people continue to die.

It is remarkable, though, that Good Samaritan has been able to help children like Chalo, and Kennedy and Tony for the past 13 years.

Until next time,
Randy

March 11, 2004

Dear Friends,

I arrived back in the United States yesterday, after a long final week shooting in Kenya.

Last weekend, I spent three days visiting Chalo at his new boarding school near his uncle's rural home. The school is markedly different than his previous school near Mathare. There is lots of grass and plenty of trees, and outside the school gates are small farms instead of the cacophony of Mathare. And Chalo is doing much better. He now has time to finish all his studies, and participate in the drama club, which had a competition while I was visiting. Chalo had the 2nd leading part in two different skits, and since he had arrived at the school in January, he had become one of the most liked students with his teachers and his peers. He seemed very happy.

He even had found a girlfriend, Nancy, who very shyly told me how much she like Chalo. It was adorable.

After the drama competition, Chalo was on mid-term break and so came back to Nairobi with me to visit Good Samaritan for the first time since he had gone to the school. He was excited to see his old friends, particularly Boss. But when we arrived, Auntie told us that Boss had disappeared. He had gotten upset at a girl at the Home who was teasing him, and hit her in the chest and head. She fell into one of the open sewers, and was knocked out cold. She was rushed to the hospital, and took a few days to recover. Auntie says Boss nearly killed the girl.

Boss panicked, grabbed his things, and fled Good Samaritan. When Chalo and I arrived Auntie hadn't seen him in a few days. Later that week, Auntie went to his work to confront him. She demanded that he pay the medical bill and apologize. He seemed to realize he had made a mistake, and agreed to save money and eventually pay Auntie back. Later, Boss came by the Home and sort of apologized to the girl, but it was clear he was no longer welcome at Good Samaritan. He has been living with his brother in a very rough part of the slum, and also been staying with friends in an area of Mathare known as "Kosovo" because of the amount of violence. The social worker and I went to visit him there, where he told us he was also saving money to rent a little room of his own. He is preparing to move out into Mathare on his own.

Thanks to your support of the Good Samaritan Education Fund, last Tuesday, 26 students from Good Samaritan started their first year of secondary school. Auntie was able to convince the principal of one of the local schools to take all of the qualified students, even though there only was money to pay for one third of them. (A group from the Netherlands had raised enough money to pay for the school uniforms and some books.) The school will need more money at the beginning of next term, in May, so all the students can remain in class. A $50 contribution (combined with the bursary fee Auntie secures from the government) will keep a student in school for the rest of the year. If you can, please help keep these children in school by making a donation to the Good Samaritan Education Fund. For information how, please visit www.orphansofmathare.com/howtohelp.html

Much of the rest of the time on the trip I spent with Auntie and the social worker doing field work. We visited Lucy's HIV positive mother, who works planting vegetables on the outskirts of Nairobi. She works for one week, then rests for the next, and can barely pay for her food. In front of her daughter she would not say she was HIV positive, but she described the overwhelming pains she is in much of the time. Mary, who was one of the students who started school on Tuesday, was very happy to see her mother for the first time since she came to Good Samaritan in January.

We went far out into the countryside with Njeri, the HIV-positive mother who had shown up at Good Samaritan the previous week saying that her family had disowned her and she couldn't take care of her children. Auntie convinced the family, who are very poor sustenance farmers to accept their daughter, and recognize their responsibility for her two children Kennedy and Anthony. When she gets too sick to care for herself, Auntie will bring Njeri out to her family home to die. The children will live at Good Samaritan but visit the family and eventually go to secondary school in that area.

And we went to visit Chalo at school. Auntie wanted to see the school, and make sure Chalo was doing well. She was very impressed, and happy that he was so successful. The Home hopes to move as many children to boarding schools outside of Nairobi, near extended families if they exist, as they can. The environment at these schools is tremendously better than that of Mathare.

Finally, we spent many hours wandering the streets looking Mary, the 11-year old girl who had been raped. We learned from the woman who we thought had taken Mary to another slum that in fact Mary had run away and gone back to the street. Some of the street boys who Auntie knows claim to have seen Mary, but we were not able to find her. She only had taken a few days of her anti-retroviral drugs, and on Tuesday missed her 21-day checkup with the doctor. Living on the street and sniffing glue, chances are Mary will probably be attacked again. I hope the Home will be able to find her, but on the street when a child doesn't want to be found, it is very easy to hide.

Thank you for your continued interest and support.

Best,
Randy <