WE VISIT MAMA'S ORPHANAGE IN KENYA

In March of this year Don and I had the enormous privilege of visiting Mama's Orphanage in Busia, Kenya, the orphanage which we have taken an interest in for six years since our son, David,an epidemiologist, and daughter-in-law Colleen lived there in 2001 when there were only a few children. The orphanage has been helped by generous donations from many at St.Andrew's United Church in Calgary.

Busia is in western Kenya on the border with Uganda not far from Lake Victoria. Our whole entourage - Don and I, David and Colleen and our three little grandchildren - arrived by Landrover at the orphanage in late morning. The orphanage is a compound with several buildings - living quarters for the children, for Mama and her family, a pre-school, a chapel, and a kitchen. A new dormitory was under construction which is awaiting the finishing touches now.

Mama is Monica Oduor. She greeted us warmly; we met her husband and her son, Mark, who is the home's administrator, and, of course, we met the children - the pre-schoolers and the elementary school age children. There are 90 children there now, which is a lot of mouths to feed. It is not a finite number as Mama's heart is huge and her faith is strong and she takes in children who need her. The children who came from school were dressed in their uniforms, which looked very nice but constitute one of the many costs of going to school in Kenya.

We toured the facility and were shown improvements - a concrete floor in the compound instead of mud one, the wall that now gives a perimeter to the orphanage, brightly painted by volunteers from Canada. The children were fed their lunch which of cooked cornmeal, called ugali, a staple carbohydrate in Kenya fed to them in bowls and eaten by hand. Each day, they have a meal with protein, either meat or beans. For lunch once a week they eat chapattis which we watched being laboriously cooked over two charcoal fires. We were then invited into Mama's family's quarters for a meal and met another son, his wife and adorable grandson who had come to meet us.

We were treated to a song and dance routine that the children had prepared for us; the older children had their own and then the little ones performed. Mama presented us with a decorated cake which was smashed up and divided in small pieces which we passed out to the children.

There is an ongoing need for money to pay for running expenses - food for the children, school costs, salaries to hire more people to care for the children and so on. Thanks to all those who have responded to the need.

I found our visit interesting and overwhelming. All those little heads danced in front of my eyes for days afterwards and still do as I live in Canada's bounty.

Joyce Moore
kenyan orphans