With 2.4 million orphans under the age of 18 in a country the size of California, Kenya has ample reason to observe World Orphans Day on May 7. One out of ten children in Kenya is an orphan, mainly from AIDS but also from malaria and other diseases, as well as from parental abandonment which is all too common. Compassion Beyond Borders invited fifty of its orphaned scholarship girls and their widowed grandmothers who care for them to a celebration of the day.
For the women, cooking for a celebration is a welcomed opportunity to gather together and socialize. Cooking for a community celebration is as much a part of a woman's life in Kenya as cooking for her family.
Kenyan children play different games than in the United States, but they are equally energetic. One of the girls here wears her primary school uniform--a blouse, tunic and sweater. Secondary school girls wear a blouse and skirt, along with a sweater. Although Kenya lies on the equator, the temperatures are moderate in the highlands surrounding Mt. Kenya where Compassion Beyond Borders has its projects. Each school has different colors for their uniforms.
For an orphan girl, her school uniform supplied by CBB may be the best set of clothing she has--even her only presentable set of clothing. The clothes worn by orphans after school are commonly little short of rags.
Fifteen women working for five hours prepared the food. The cooking was done in five large pots, of about ten gallons each, over separate wood fires. In Kenya, cooking is very much women's work, including making the fire and even collecting and hauling the firewood--an onerous task as the wood may need to be hauled for a mile or more.
The meal, traditional for this region of Kenya, consisted of two mashed potato dishes, one mixed with plantain and morsels of beef--a rare treat for the orphans--and a second dish of potatoes mixed with black beans and finely chopped kale. Additional dishes were rice pilaf, also cooked with and without meat, and a carrot-lentil stew. The meal ended with soda-pop, also a rare treat for the children, and a banana for everyone.
No major event in Kenya is complete without singing and dancing, which is used not only to celebrate, but also to express gratitude, to welcome a visitor, and above all in worship. For the women and children, singing and dancing is an opportunity to express joy and thankfulness in a life that is otherwise a difficult struggle to stay alive and to keep one's family alive.
Virtually all schoolgirls as well as boys, even through high school, have their head closely shaved. Cropped hair is much easier to care for, and in an environment of poverty, is an important sanitation measure.
A heaping plate of food, plus seconds, with enough left over for the grandmothers to take some home with them was the best of all possible gifts for the orphans. Many of the girls brought their orphan brothers, and they too ate their fill.
Any celebration in Kenya begins and ends with prayers, in this case by a local bishop. The village Chief gave his profound thanks to CBB for educating the community's orphan girls and caring for their grandmothers.
CBB's executive director and Kenyan project director both urged the girls to do their best in their studies at school so they could make a useful contribution to their families and their community. The celebration concluded with the District Health Officer giving the women and children a brief instruction on caring for themselves and their families.
