Food and water and luxuries like that

Yassi and I lingered over our dinner last night, talking about Cura, our respective relationships to the children, the leadership and the projects, and what we each anticipate in the coming years. Connecting with Yassi is always crucial for my work; it is even more crucial for the children in the Home, as she is as dedicated a mother-figure as anyone, crafting games and activities that inspire the children to be the best versions of themselves. This is easy for me to say, however, over my dim sum and papaya salad, my hair still wet from my hot shower!

Today’s meetings, like those over the past few days, covered a wide range of topics, but one, in particular, emerged as paramount: WATER. How to pay for it, how to get it, how to distribute it, how to live without it… The Cura community (separate from but overlapping with our work with the Home) has an outstanding utility bill that must be satisfied before any meaningful solution can be reached, and that obstacle is weighing heavily on everyone’s minds. Because there’s no readily available water (rain is collected, but what if it doesn’t rain??), Moses sometimes has to have water delivered – for washing, for drinking, for irrigation – and both the expense and the rationing have negative impacts on the Home.

Despite the water problems, the housemothers and Moses continue to do their best for and with the children. They build the healthiest menus they can within the allotted budget:

And they even generously share their meals with us when we visit. Today, we were greeted with chai and fresh eggs from the chicken coop only yards from where we sat. For lunch, we had githeri… a treat for us, but a starchy twice-a-week lunch staple for the children.

Headmistress Mrs Mwathi and the Cura Primary School teachers, too, continue to make do with what resources they have. Our meeting today mentioned but didn’t focus on water; we discussed the need for textbooks to meet the new requirements from the Kenyan Ministry of Education, in social studies, in particular… as well as the ongoing difficulties many of the community’s children face in even being able to afford to bring lunch to school.

With water and food and educational basics weighing heavily on us, it was an indescribable pleasure to get to see the children recite poetry and perform the music they’ve been working on. We know how valuable this kind of supplemental education is for children’s development, and, as in the US, most of the work staff and faculty do is unpaid and for the love of the children involved. For her efforts, we are deeply grateful to Mrs. Hinga, with whom we hope to develop more programs for music and dance education in Cura.

Clearly, the infrastructural challenges in Cura are many and mounting, though progress and hope are still in ample evidence. The eight housemothers, with whom we met today, gathered in their kitchen and surrounded by cook stoves and metal pots, can make a long list of needs – but they also smile when they speak of the children’s progress in school, their good health, and their good behavior. They are proud of the work they do – as they should be.

--H