In this picture are Akumu, Adam and Amar. They have two other brothers, one is Opento who is in a bad way
with drugs the oldest of them all. Edward the youngest, is the other one, who I couldn't find that day he was playing somewhere.
Akumu is in year 4 in Kairos primary school and Amar and Edward are in my school. Amar is in year 2 and Edward in year one but as we have just a few children they are with the same teacher. They are doing very well. Both children didn't know how to read or write but now they can read and are doing well to catch up.
They come from a very poor family, the parents are separated, the children live with their mother. The pictures you can see are pictures of their house. I didn't know how poor they lived until one day I had to go and visit them and I found them cooking in the space outside their house in the picture where you see the water flowing through which is actually waste from the neighbours homes. Two of the wal
ls had fallen down and temporary walls had been put up using tarpauling. I was a bit shocked by the poor condition. I have been working with this family on and off for years but haven't been down to their house for a long time. I knew they were poor, living in the slum area where the rest of the families had been living but this was a bit shocking. I then went back a few weeks later to take photo's for the blog and I found a women sitting in the chair smoking something, they had actually built the walls up again with mud but the conditions are still very bad.
ls had fallen down and temporary walls had been put up using tarpauling. I was a bit shocked by the poor condition. I have been working with this family on and off for years but haven't been down to their house for a long time. I knew they were poor, living in the slum area where the rest of the families had been living but this was a bit shocking. I then went back a few weeks later to take photo's for the blog and I found a women sitting in the chair smoking something, they had actually built the walls up again with mud but the conditions are still very bad.Due to this Akumu misses a lot of school as her uniform gets dirty or stolen. She takes most of the responsibilties to care for the other children and this is very hard for her considering shes only 11 or 12 years old.
Their mother spends long hours away from home, shes seem to have some psychological problems, she gets very angry and mistreats the chidren. She drinks and I think takes drugs.
Their father who is in the picture below, is a lovely man, but unfortunatly is an alcoholic, he works for us as our home security guard. When he is sober he is very good at his job, keeps the compound clean and does the flower beds, but he is always itching for excuses to go and have a binge. He went through a stage recently when he was always telling us that one of his relatives had phoned to say that someone was very ill and he needed ten thousand to visit them and then 2 days later, they had died, and he had to go to the burial! But when mamma Namuya came back and reported he was stone drunk in the slum area, we became wise to it and refused him to go. Isaac one of our boys commented how could he have had a phone call when he hasn't got a phone!! His other ploy was to take the rubbish which is usually done by one of the boys, one day he escaped with the rubbish on one of the boys bikes and just dumped the rubbish in the middle of the road when he was caught and had to pick it all up with his bare hands and put it back in the sack, which was not a nice job!!! When he's drunk he can be very violent with his family and goes to their home most evenings to fight with his family. But having said that his wife can be equally difficult.
