Thursday 27 February 2014

Nkombo island: The leopard girl shares her food


Woke to a rather dank damp morning. Today was our visit Nkombo island we had to wait for the road to dry as the road down to the lake was very tricky with some steep muddy sections as the better road was being repaired.
The sun broke through and we eventually set off arriving at the lakeside and crossed over in a little wooden boat with an outboard motor. Nkombo is a very poor island with a large population and not enough crops in the ground and fish in the lake. The project has 500 kids on it they are able to feed about 350 of these twice a week at present.
They are fed a porridge made of a special flour called sosoma which is very nutritious with the right mixture of carbohydrate and protein. The children were a very well behaved bunch of ragamuffins sitting in rows and singing for us. The children who were in the program were in a much better state than when we came in September last year. There were less signs of malnutrition and less of the horrible ringworm which infects their scalps. There is a tiny class room and a canvas lean- to so there are two classrooms where they can be taught. There were three teachers employed by the diocese so they can start a very basic education. Hopefully through education they will be able to lift themselves out of the cycle of poverty in which they are currently trapped.
We were very touched by one little girl dressed in a very grubby leopard skin print tee-shirt who noticed her neighbour had less porridge in her plastic mug than her and shared hers so they were equal. It was a real lesson to us all.
We then went over to the government school on the other side of the island where Mary O described her project to prevent rural girls dropping out of school, making unwise choices, becoming pregnant and ending up trapped in the slums of Nairobi. She was fact finding to see if her training could be adapted for use in Rwanda.
When we eventually got back to the shore the lake the wind had got up and the lake was quite choppy this worried Mary and Bertha but we got across safely.
In the evening Jonas, one of the Rwanda Aid managers, came over for dinner. He told something of his life story how he had struggled with his education but managed to largely fund himself through designing and making cards .This was very enterprising something a lot of poor African children lack to raise themselves out of poverty. This was one of the themes of Mary’s work to get girls to produce a life plan for themselves with communication skills so they did not just drift downwards into the traps of pregnancy and prostitution.
Rob and Jan had spent the day discussing their water collection projects with one of the possible engineers Basil who eventually joined us for dinner.
We were all exhausted by our busy day and eventually climbed into bed.    



 Boat ride to Nkombo




Feeding the masses


Mary with the little girl who shared her food


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