For TJ Sponsors & Friends mainly

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It has been a quick 2 weeks or whatever since Debby and Danny left. I'm sure from the e-mails that I'm seeing that they are meeting their challenges at home, with help from our people at church. I wish them the very best.
Here the school has been on a semi-holiday and both caretakers have been off at various times, plus a few teachers. Mrs Agesa is looking for a new headmaster since Wycliffe Dada has got another job. I've been teaching in the school on a sub basis, as have the two British girls here with me. In the afternoons we do an art class or reading enrichment and the children make good use of all the fine art supplies that TJ members and sponsors have sent. I've received messages from Jean Koehler and Pat Sturtzel regarding their sponsored children and will follow up this week and report back on what I find. Many of the older children seem to have returned to their high schools during the August holiday, only elementary kids at Vihiga CHil Home. The building of the gate and concrete supports for it has finished and it looks very secure. Mr. Agesa also completed the boys' urinals and is starting on a nurses' station in one of the outbuildings. I met Esther, the retired nurse, who will probably be coming here 2 days a week to attend to the children. LEt me tell you, they need it.
This week I have treated fevers, cuts and have found out the true meaning of ringworm and scabies, which seem to afflict the younger children who aren't good about bathing themselves. On Sunday we washed 4 little boys with scabies. The children are getting better about cleaning up their things and they abslutely love the new cleanly painted dorms and classrooms, but the playground equipment is their favorite. The swings and climbing frame are never free. Mrs. Agesa says this interest keeps the kids from going out of the compound and wandering around on the roads, following people or hanging around with the "boda boda" boys, the men who take passengers on bicycles up and down the road.
Here are a few items of interest: Suggestins for Xmas gifts from Mrs. A and from me: each child could desperately use 2 bars of bath soap and a soap box that snaps shut. They also need a bath towel each and she says they could use the nylon net thing with the cord handle that people wash with (I can't think of it's name). Hygiene has got to improve and we should suport that. Each child can also use pencils, individual pencil sharpeners and ball point pens. They don't need notebooks that are spiral bound, like we have in the US. Debby Sublett knows what size exercise books they use in the school, they are small and thin. We do have them in the US. Mrs. A says she thinks the kids do better if they have 2 sets of clothes only, and of course also the uniform. They don't have enough room in their locker boxes (and the boxes aren't large) for more clothes. Each child should have a locker box, so if yours doesn't, the box costs aout $10 with another $2.50 for a lock. We can purchase them here for you.
As for shoes, you now have the child's size. The children wear black only oxfords or strap Mary Janes to school. We prefer grey or dark blue socks, because the mud here is very bad and white socks look bad quickly. The children could also use a pair of sport shoes. Flip flops aren't so good, she wants to discourage contact with dirt and parasites on the ground.
Mrs. Agesa says that her big need between November and March will be money for extra food, because it will be scarce then. She told me that would be the priority at that time instead of clothing, etc. Other needs will be textbooks but she has talked with Debby about that.
Today we went to the electricity board in Kisumu and applied for having electricity connected to the new building. There is a special program that she may qualify for, and the connection cost could be $450 instead of the several $thousands that she expected to pay. More about that as the application is processed. Also today, men came in truck from Kisumu to dump sand in preparation for laying the 3rd story concrete floor which will be reinforced with the rebar. So work is progressing apace! Mrs and Mr Agesa work extremely hard at both the school and home; this past week they had to plant their own maize fields and get people including the kids to help plant the school's maize field. The kids eat a lot of beans, corn and rice and the first two are home grown when possible. On Sunday the kids had several good meals, one of which included fish.
Concerning the family with Benson, Kevin and Paul, which is the same family with Rodah, Brenda and Dismas, I visited their home again with one of the British girls. The grandmother was home and she does live there with the kids, but she is very old. Their plot of land is small. During August Dismas is hiring himself out for less than $1 per day as a farm hand to bring in money for food for the family. They raise a little bit themselves, but they have no animals such as goats or cows that some other people have. Mrs. Agesa is still tryng to trace their errant parents somewhere in the Rift Valley and make them support the children. They are nice children and we are watching over them. There are many others in the same boat or worse, if you can imagine that. Three children who are total orphans were admitted to the school (but not the home) today.
Sponsors: your children really need to get letters from you. I gave Ian the letters that Tish and Charlie wrote to him and Collins, and I read it to him. He is most grateful for the footlockers, but the most touching to him was the letter. Both he and I cried when we read it, and he immediately got up and took it to his dorm to lock in his box, although we were right in the middle of a high-interest art activity at the time.
If more sponsors want an on-theground report from me, please write me care of this blog.
More next week, Kathi

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