Riziki Childrens' Home Visit!

Hello everyone! We are now updating the website on the super fast computors and using wonderful internet connections of England, which means you will doubtless be inundated with news of the trip!! So, on the final Saturday of the trip, we took the four sponsored boys to meet their younger sisters Dama, Karembo, Amina and Agnes at another children's home called Riziki. Riziki is situated further up the coastline in a rural area near Kilifi town. The journey there only took around half an hour since we were lucky and managed to find a large bus which didn't stop too often! The boys were pretending it was all perfectly normal and that they were just too cool for words...but were clearly secretly thrilled by the big bus and the speed they were moving at; craning their necks to look out of the window and pointing and chattering excitedly as we passed recognisable places near their homeland.

We arrived at the stop and walked down the track to Riziki, the boys exclaiming at the size of the place! Its a very large children's home with more than 80 children staying there and a large farm and a nursery school on site. The boys met with their sisters and I got my first chance to see the girls again since i took them to Riziki a year ago! I must say all of us developed very watery eyes to see the family meeting up again and the excitement of the children to swap stories about their new home.

The boys had been given some sweets before we left for Riziki, and without our knowledge had quietly slipped them into their pockets, so when we arrived they pulled them out and immediately began to share them out among the girls, bringing yet another tear to my eye!

Charo, being the eldest and quite a thoughtful sort of child was a bit apprehensive at first, but once Rich had given him a digital camera and the title of official photographer he was in his element, showing his sisters photos of themselves and feeling extremely important in his role in 'teacher' of how to use a camera!! This means that many of our photos of Riziki are complete with added extras such as small fingers over the lens and lots of shots of the floor, but we did manage to take a few sneaky ones of our own for you to look at.

The girls are all doing really well, being in the kindergarten classes at home at the minute and clearly get on brilliantly with their teacher, whom they called over excitedly to meet their brothers. The manager of the home knew the boys immediately as she recognised the resemblance between the family straight away, and seemed to know the girls very well indeed.

We left many of the clothes which had been donated and were left over from Mtopanga School there with the manager to distribute to the children who needed them most at the time in the home, all of the items will be shared fairly amongst the girls and boys there, adding another 80 children to our running total of children touched by your gifts while we were out there!

It was a wonderful day. An absolute joy to bring them together again after so long, and to encourage a regular link between the homes which should allow them to be in contact with each other all the time.

Thanks once again for your support and enjoy the photos!