September brought not only extreme heat but also many new experiences! The current volunteers Lena, Sophia, Jonas and the Kenyan volunteer Cyprian visited the Skillscentre together with the social worker Mercy and saw for the first time how tofu is produced. We were also in the slums in Nairobi and visited a few families of the children in the MCC. This was a new and different experience for all of us after we had already gotten used to everyday life in the Maisha Mazuri Childrens Home.
During the week we help in the secondary school. Jonas uses his IT skills to teach students how to create a resume and spruce up the IT room. Sophia and Cyprian have done various workshops with the students in the subject “guidance and counselling” on the topics of education, family and puberty. In addition, Sophia introduced the students to the culture in Germany in English lessons. The young people were particularly interested in the topics of food and school education and also learned a few German words, such as school, which is pronounced the same in German and Swahili.
On weekends we and the children help a lot in the kitchen. Saturday is chapati day and all children like to prepare the dough and then fry it, especially when Kenyan music is playing. On Sundays we bake.
In Nairobi we were finally able to find kakou powder and therefore bake a delicious chocolate cake, which the MCC children, the children in the secondary school, the teachers and staff all found very tasty. Especially the students in the secondary school are very happy when they get something different to eat, because the diet there is a bit more one-sided than in the MCC. We prepare the dough in the MCC and then carry it to the secondary school, where there is an oven and the older students help a lot – baking 30 cakes is not a walk in the park. We also made traditional German apple cakes, which the children have never eaten before, but they liked it very much, especially with cinnamon sugar. At the end of our volunteering time, we will make spaghetti with tomato sauce and pancakes with Nutella again for all children!
The swing in the MCC is used diligently, but the plastic seats did not last the 32 children very long, which is why we replaced them with sturdy seats made of old car tires. Thanks to a donation from Germany, we were able to buy new, sturdy shoes for all children in the MCC and the community-based children. It didn’t take long until they held a soccer match between the center-based and community-based children, because they finally no longer play barefoot or with their crocks and can therefore perform their tricks and shots particularly precisely.
Time flies by here and our last two weeks at the MCC are about to start and we feel like a real part of the MCC family! We will miss the MCC, the heat, the new everyday life and above all the warmth of the people. We will often think back to our time here and are very happy that we were able to have such a great experience, which also influenced our view of our life in Germany.
A huge thank you to everyone! Asante sane!
