THANK YOU!

Jambo!

We have finally finished out stay in Kenya! We have learnt so much here and value the experience a lot. We just want to say a huge thank you to all of you for supporting us and helping us to improve the lives of these children! We feel we have accomplished a lot in a short amount of time which could not have been done without your help! So Asante Sana, Ceara and Emily :)

The last of the donations!

Hi all! With only a week left we wanted to put the rest of the donations to good use. Due to time restrictions we decided to use the little donations we had left to buy some essential items for the children.  We have noticed that the children don't have anything in terms of bandages, antiseptic or pain killers and the doctors costs quite a lot so we thought buying them a medical kit would be of great use. The medical kit we bought has the following items:
-eye drops
-ear drops
-nose drops
-bandages
-antiseptic cream and liquid
-bandages (including band-aids and sprain bandages)
-worming tablets
-cough mixture
-panadol
-anti-diarrhea tablets
-electrolyte sachets (for rehydration)
-muscle rub cream

We also thought it would be great to buy the orphanage a water filter so that the children can have access to fresh drinking water without having to light a charcoal fire, boil the water and then let it cool. Because this is such a time consuming process the children sometimes don't boil the water before drinking it which puts them at risk of catching water-born diseases. Below is the photo of the filter we bought!

With only 1000 Kenyan Shillings (equivalent to about 14 NZ$) left we decided the last thing we would buy for the orphanage would be a new cooking pot: 

Girls Dorm!

Over the last three weeks we have been putting your donations to good use and we have finally finished the girls dormitory up at the new site!! The older boys at the orphanage, Joseph and the carpenter all put in hours of work to try and complete it before we left the project. The building process here is very different to NZ! There is a lot less planning here so you buy the materials and just get straight to work. There are no sketches of the buildings done before they are built, they don't have drills here, or machine saws. Here are a few photos of how it all came together!! Thanks again everyone! When we started fundraising we didn't ever think we would  have enough for 3 goats, a pen, food and a girls dormitory! AMAZING!

 

More goats!!!

Hi everyone!! Sorry we've been a bit slack on updates lately! We bought two more goats. A adult female and its kid! The children insisted on naming the second goat Mustafa. So now we have Mufasa, Mustafa and a wee baby called Zazu. The two adult females are both producing milk each day and the children are loving it. We are so happy that they are getting more nutrition into their diets!

 Mufasa and Mustafa

 Zazu

 Mustafa

 Mufasa

 Beatrice with a mornings milk from Mufasa!

Teresia milking Mufasa!

The carpenter and Micheal (one of the older boys)

 Prudence, Cecelia and Milka enjoying the goat pen! 

 Mufasa checking out her new home!

Jambo Everyone! Mufasa finally has a home! We hired a carpenter to build the hutch because it will definitely last longer and be stronger than if we built it ourselves. It is also quite portable so we can move it to the new site next year! We made it large enough to hold the two adult goats and a few kids. It turns out Mufasa is pregnant! Which is fab because the orphanage can sell the kids for a lot of money! hurrah!

We bought the first goat!!

Jambo Everyone! Good news! We bought our first high grade goat yesterday! We went to meet a goat breeder from the goats association! He has another adult female but it has recently given birth and needs to provide milk for the kids but may be up for sale in a couple of weeks. With a bit of bargaining we were able to buy the first goat for 16,000 KS (226 NZD) down from 23,000 KS (325 NZD). We were also able to use your money to purchase 70kg's worth of food we are going to see how long it lasts the goat to calculate how much its going to cost to feed the goat per week. Today we are building a wee hutch for her to live in. Here's a wee pic of her- We named her Mufasa :) Asante, Ceara and Emily

Girls dorm!!!

We are so amazed and grateful for the donations we have received so far. We can afford the two high grade goats and we have enough to start building the girls dormitory at the new site. We were so stoked that we went up to the site a few days ago with Joseph (the manager) and some of the boys from the orphanage  to start sorting out the foundations. This included digging about a foot down into the ground in the area where the dorm will be and filling it with boulders. Here's a photo of us lifting the rocks. To be honest we weren't really strong enough to do that much work but we gave the boys words of encouragement while we enjoyed the sun!

Goats update!!!

Last week we went to meet with the manager of the local vet and animal research facility here in Ngong, Kenya, to discuss our goat plan. We were given useful advice about how much space the two goats would need and what food they need to get the right nutrients to produce a decent amount of milk. We then met with a local goat breeder who is in charge of the regions goat association. He couldn't provide us with the goats as he only had one female and a male for sale and we ideally want two females who can both produce milk. However, he gave us the contacts of more breeders in the region. After contacting various breeders we found someone who is selling two milk-producing females. We are going to meet the breeder and the goats this Thursday to see if they are suitable! Fingers crossed!

The kids!!

A day of face-painting: This photo is of us and some of the kids from the Son's of Manasseh Orphanage that the donations are helping!