Sunday 22 July 2012

Where Your Donations Went...

Jambo!

I wanted to put a post together so that I didn't fill up your inboxes with an email with fifty million pictures attached. You think I'm kidding? I'm kind of kidding, lets try seven hundred photos perhaps.

So, while I was away, I got on the ol' interweb and sent a fairly emotional email back home to you folks and you were kind enough to send a total of £550 across - which is amazing, thank you. I can't tell you how much I cried when I saw the total! It helped hugely that I was there right then and there and could go and spend it and photograph it, but I have huge faith and trust in Ashleigh, who is out there right now, and Georga who lives in Ireland and manages the account you paid money in to.

Ashleigh is in the floral dress, Georga in the blue top

I'll tell you a little bit about Lunahome, the house where the children live. Ashleigh and Georga were ex- i-to-i volunteers who'd never met each other before last July and they kindly invited me (or I gatecrashed, I'm not sure) out to dinner on my second night in Kenya. I loved listening to the two of them, they're like a married couple, despite Georga being married to a lovely guy called Connor...

They told me that the original project they worked at with i-to-i had some horrific abuse (both physical, sexual and mental) and the owner of the home was involved in a huge amount of corruption. I won't name any names here as its an ongoing thing sadly. To cut an extremely long story short, Ashleigh and Georga could have buried their heads in the sand, but they chose to do some digging, chose to completely turn their own lives around in the hopes of helping the children at the home.

They went to the police, they went to the Children's Department, they went everywhere and came up against a whole lot of red tape, but refused to back down and fly home knowing that they had children depending on them.

Sadly, things don't run that fast in Kenya anyway, and when there's corruption involved, it takes even longer. So Ashleigh and Georga have opened a beautiful home of their own, Lunahome, and are happy to say that 15 children have now been taken off the streets and are in their care. Amazing.

No money from the government goes towards the home, it exists purely from donations, so the money you sent is amazing. Thank you again.

It's fair to say this place has stolen quite a large part of my heart and I can't wait to go back and see everyone again. Here are some photos of where your money went. Enjoy:
Ashleigh and I went shopping!
 
We ordered quality wooden furniture
We painted aforementioned wooden furniture!

And made a mess...

More toys!


More furniture!

Your cash in Kenyan Shillings! It made it over safely :)


I could go on for a lot longer but I'll leave it there for now. You've made 15 children very happy and of course it doesn't have to end there! You can make a donation of any amount whenever you can via this link http://www.mycharity.ie/donate_charityIndex.php?charityID=628


Asante sana and kwaheri (thank you and goodbye) Katie x x

Saturday 21 July 2012

Sorry About The Silence, I've Been in Kenya...

Wow. I'm back in England.

I'm not allowed to say Kenya anymore because I've been talking about it so much I've been banned from saying it out loud.
What a difference a week makes. I spent one week in Kenya and I went with absolutely no plans other than to make the most of a week away from my desk.

It was easily one of the best weeks of my whole life! Everything just fell in to place and worked out so well, I met some amazing people, some amazing little people and visited amazing places.

In one week I:

  • Navigated my way around Mombasa alone on public transport
  • Hand fed a giraffe
  • Drank countless Tusker beers and tequila shots
  • Met 15 amazing children at Lunahome Children's Home
  • Raised £600 in donations from friends and family back home for Lunahome
  • Spent a very pleasant afternoon drinking whiskey in a safari park and playing cards
  • Ate roadside chicken and regretted it
  • Blagged my way into a 5 star hotel saying it was my birthday
  • Had an average of 4 hours sleep a night
  • Sang 'Sweet Child of Mine' on a micrphone with the first butch Kenyan lady I've seen
  • Learnt even more Swahili and managed to argue with a tuk tuk driver in Swahili :)
  • Feel even deeper in love with Kenya
I have to go back and quickly. 15 children have stolen my heart and I don't mind one little bit. I'll tell you about them all in another post as I'm too emotional about the whole trip to even try and sum it up.

I just loved being there and feeling so independent. It helped that this was my third visit, but I felt smug for some reason when chatting to people who were flying there and had no plans to leave their resort. As they were being bussed there in their air-conditioned buses, I was in a tuk-tuk on my way to the supermarket to get some fruit and Top Deck chocolate - do you remember Top Deck? White chocolate and then milk chocolate at the bottom? Anyway, I digress.

Here's a few picture highlights of my trip:








That's all for now, but trust me, you haven't heard the last about Kenya on this blog :)