Author: Yellow Duckie
•00:15
My dear friend said that her first few days in Nairobi is like being in a glass, shielded away from the real Kenya life. I have to admit I totally agreed with her. Not until I had the priviledge to visit Mukuyuni Village (near Kangundo) that I realised, I have not seen Kenya.

Breakfast at Thadeus' (our host) brother's chapati shop

Situated about 1 hour drive from Nairobi, a dear friend of ours showed us what life in kenya really is. The adventure began at his farm where you will be greeted by his Grandmother, who finds it hard to part with her life working in the farm that in her old age now, her family members will sometimes need to come and look for her at the field as she may conveniently forgets to come home.

Granny at work :)

The Coffee
Thadeus was giving us a tour of his parent's first house which started with just a single unit and now has expanded to a couple of building around the area.


Thadeus' dad's first unit


Mixed beans in the kitchen
We had the pleasure of having a real kenyan lunch: githiri (mixed beans boiled with green), tomato soup and rice.

We had quite a heart warming experience when we visited the nearby school. It's quite an ironic scenario: School at its obvious state of poverty and a bunch of smiling school children.

The teacher's room is in quite a sorry state that it would have been easily mistaken to be an unused store room in the backyard. The classroom itself is filled with tables that I thought was made out of the mandarin orange boxes.
Despite the lack of facilities for the school, the children, although some were clad in torn uniforms and barefooted, they seems to be oblivion of their lackings. Either that, they were simply too overwhlem by the presence of two Japanese (as I was told Asian are not qualified to be called Mzungu but known as Japanese). I believe it was the latter. There were some kind souls that have donated a couple of computers to the school but the sad fact is that there is no electricity that reaches the school area yet.

At the end of our visit, we were then taken to a cliff in Kanzalu . The hike towards the cliff was too much of an adventure for a weak heart, that's us, the "Japanese". Both of us were cladded in our hiking boots, else our tour guide was only in their slippers but they seems to be strolling easily on the tiny path that requires its tracker to be precise on their steps and we were both holding on to every single branch for our dear life. An inch off track, you'll be rolling down the ravine. Despite the "adventurous" trail, it was all worthwhile.
Thadeus, our host, is placing quite a heavy burden on his shoulder to improve life of his village in Mukuyuni. He has explained about the works he has done, in bringing electricity to the village, building water resevoir for the animals and plants, spreading IT knowledge to the school and etc. It's funny how we, who have enjoyed all these facilities in our life, has indeed taken these for granted and others in the under developing country is striving to get it. If you would like to give any form of assistance, you are more than welcome to.
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2 comments:

On February 28, 2009 at 2:52:00 PM GMT+3 , asw said...

Hi!
We were at Mutisya's place too, back in 2007. Actually I am the one who donated the computers (though I do not consider myself a "kind soul" exactly, thank you) and raised money for a water pump too. My friends raised even more on a wider fundraising campaign, in order to help these people out. We also started a blog, which I help to maintain.
Feel free to read the posts about it all at the embedded links, and maybe join us in Facebook.

P.S.: You took beautiful photographs!

 
On May 24, 2009 at 12:00:00 AM GMT+3 , Yellow Duckie said...

Yes I heard about the computers and actually we saw the computers! So you guys were the kind souls :)
Thanks for the compliment...