Volunteering in Kenya

March 2007 Kisumu, Kenya

We've just come back from spending 2 weeks in quite a rural area of Kenya, 45 minutes drive from Kisumu. We stayed in the orphanage compound the whole time we were there it was a very safe environment, it's also good to be close to the children all the time.
(....cut down due to limits please see full blog on website www.AVIF.Org.UK)
Although the orphanage has running water, whilst we were there the water did run out for a few days. We were still able to get water to put down the toilet and to wash, but it's handy to take lots of baby wipes and antibacterial gel to make sure you can clean yourself whenever you need to. We suggest flying to Kisumu and then organizing to be picked up at the airport. We privately hired a matatu (public minibus/bus) which cost 3000ksh (about £21) to take us from the airport to Yala, via the supermarket. We advise flying, even though you will have a weight limit, because the road from Nairobi to Kisumu is very bad and will take about 7 hours, also it's not much more money to fly.
The types of things we taught the children we're mainly arts and crafts and sports/games, as its things they never have the opportunity to do. All the children are at school or nursery in the mornings so you have this time to yourself, we often found this time useful to organise what we were doing that day. Then in the afternoon most of the children are about except a few of the older ones who go back to school until around 5pm. There is a language barrier and sometimes it is hard to explain how you're supposed to be doing something, but arts and crafts were fairly easy to explain as you can show them visually. By the end of our stay there you could really tell that the children were a lot more confident with their English and were talking a lot more to you.
All I have left to say is you will really enjoy it. It was very hard work and the heat really adds to this, also they can't understand how the sun affects us so much and limits what you do, as they are just so used to it. But it was also a lot of fun; I have so many memories that I will cherish forever from this experience. It really is such an eye opener, even though these children do have quite a lot for Kenyans, they still lack a lot of things that we all take for granted. Just make the most of it; what you get from the experience is what you make of it.

Thanks
Helen