Another week doing the updates for the students at our secondary schools and Kaloleni primary. So lovely to hear “Mama Kerry” around the community. They haven’t forgotten this mzungu...
We went to St Joseph’s Hospital to visit the mama’s and their babies. Although quite dated, everything naturally was spotless. All visitors were wearing masks as well. I just had to get my boy Dr Said to take some pics in the labor ward…just three small cubicles, and then once the mamas have had their baby they go into a larger ward and their baby is in the bed with them. Dads are not allowed anywhere within the maternity section so don’t get to see their baby for quite some time. Traditionally the mama goes back to her family for 40 days to learn how to be a mother from her own mother and aunties. Ally’s baby was born during COVID so Halima went back to Ally’s home and had to stay in her room basically for 40 days!!! The babies must wear a beanie before leaving the hospital, so the mamas were so happy to receive both a beanie and a teddy bear. Thank you so much to Rhonda for her amazing knitted beanies and to Paul for the bears.
My dear friend mama Ngorie, (Mrs Ramadhani) who has been with us since Team Vista started has been incredibly sick in hospital – she is diabetic, has malaria, UTI, fungus in ‘nasty places’ due to a lack of washing, high blood pressure and malnutrition!!! Her home situation is incredibly poor and her extended family are absolutely useless! I went to see her in hospital and took some food for her (the family had not been around to bring food to her) I also bought some special protein powder that Said suggested. She is now out of hospital and lives very close to our Team Vista home so we can keep an eye on her. Said and I went yesterday to see her and to tell her family they MUST take care of her. I took a few eggs and milk powder and a few oranges. I can’t even take much more as the rest of the family will eat themselves
Had another great session with our Women’s Empowerment group. It was a netball competition with the 4 teams. The girls didn’t really have much idea so there was plenty of laughter and whistle blowing. I really got a workout running up and down the court but we were rolling around laughing most of the time. We managed to have one winning team and they received a lollypop as a prize.
We then put the music on, had our picnic of fairly bread, cupcakes and fruit. They all received their headtorch, thanks to sponsor Lou and then spend another half hour dancing!! Our last lesson next week.
One of our other boys, Ally (Sponsored by Brendan and Scotch College) has been left on his own as his grandfather has cancer and is in hospital. We were not aware of Ally’s situation until this week. Ally is the youngest of seven. Unfortunately Ally was left roaming around the streets so we have yet another boy living in our home. Hard for us to imagine a young 13 year old being left to fend for himself!
We had organized with Msassani and Kaloleni schools to run a holiday program over August however the govt in their wisdom will not let any schools operate during census month. We are writing a letter to regional education officer asking permission, but it doesn’t sound like it will happen Plan B is to run only std 7, form 2 and 4 in smaller groups with our university students tutoring in Team Vista Home.
