August 2020

14 Buckden Roundabout August 2020 African orphanage An Orphanage School in Africa by Keith Lawrence, Buckden resident Introduction by David Bale Introduction This is the background to Keith Lawrence ’ s account of his three visits to an island in Lake Victoria Kenya in connection with the building of a school for orphaned children. Keith was kind enough to offer to design and oversee this building operation, shortly after my wife died in January 2018. My wife and I had started talking online to two young Kenyan teachers, Lavender and Samwel, who were also working at HIV/AIDS education in the fishing communities around Lake Victoria, who were among the first in the world to be affected by the global AIDS pandemic. Among those who died were many parents, whose children frequently turned to them for help. When we first knew them, in 2015, they were running a small school for 32 of these orphaned children. They never asked us for anything, but their dedication to the children in their care made a deep impression upon us. After a year, we began supporting them with money we saved by reducing our household spending. They extended their school to house 68 children by con- structing a second building using wooden posts and corrugated iron sheets. Both buildings were almost entirely blown away in a hurricane in April 2017. They were threatened with eviction and a 50% increase in their rent. They asked us for help, but we thought this would be a mistake. Instead, we provided them with money to buy around a third of a hectare of land, on which to put their new school. Shortly after my wife died, I met Keith and he offered to carry out the necessary design work. This led to Keith ’ s first visit to site to meet Sam and his wife, to evaluate the suitability of the land, and to start to de- velop a design brief. My wife had been ill for many years and we had put money aside for health costs that would now no longer be needed. I knew she would like me to use the money to build a new orphan ’ s school using Keith ’ s innovative designs. Part 1: Location Mfangano Island lies in the eastern zone of Lake Victoria about 10km from the shore of western Kenya. It is not a large island, being about one third the land area of the Isle of Wight. It is however quite mountainous, its highest point being around 1700m above sea level, which is higher than Ben Nevis. Lake Victoria is one of the world ’ s largest fresh water lakes, with a surface area of some 69,000 sq.km. That is just a little more than half the land area of England. The lake lies at an altitude of around 1300m and supplies a rich variety of fish for the surrounding populations. The island is situated at around 1 degree south of the equator, and therefore could be described as a tropical island. But imag- es of swaying palm trees on white sandy beaches don ’ t apply here. Most of the shore line is rocky, the roads are unsurfaced, and the local transport is almost exclusively on two wheeled vehicles. Getting there is a challenge. Arrival airport is of course Nairobi. But that leaves you with nearly 400km to travel to the shore of the lake. This you can do by bus, to the city of Kisumu in western Kenya – about 8 hours, or by domestic airline to Kisumu airport, about 40 minutes from Nairobi. But you then have a further 70km bus or taxi ride from Kisumu to the lake. That ’ s a good couple of hours by bus, or about 90 minutes by motor car. Ferocious speed bumps together with fierce pot holes serve to keep the traffic speeds under control. So counting the time from leaving home, check- ing in and boarding procedures at Heathrow, time in the air, several hours wait for your connecting flight, and the motor car drive to the lake shoreline you may expect to be at the tiny ferry terminal of Luanda, on the shore of the lake, about 20 hours after leaving home. But you ’ re not there yet. You now have two more ferry trips before you finally step on to Mfangano soil. Two independent ferries take you across two separate sectors of the lake before at last you arrive at your destination. And for these two ferries you have choices. You can either take the big stable passenger ferry capable of carrying about 100 passengers (no vehicles) or one of the more exciting small open boats that carry about 12 people who are fully exposed to the wet spray as the little boat speeds along, propelled by its outboard motor. Either way, each leg takes about 1 hour, so with the inevitable wait be- tween ferries you could reasonably expect to arrive on Mfangano about 24 hours from leaving home. But you ’ re still not quite there. You now have to get to your accommodation. And it ’ s a good idea to complete this final leg of your journey in daylight, as there are no street lights and there is a considerable risk of meeting animals on the road. These are not so much dangerous wild animals as domestic cattle roaming freely. And your transport is the back of a small motor bike. You would know all about it if you hit one of those in the dark. (Continued on page 15) Water taxis at Cena, Mfangano Approaching the island of Mfangano