Today was our final day of community visitations and we went with Chief Moses to a distant school called Ololchura Primary. A Better World has not had any projects at Ololchura and it was fascinating to hear about the specific challenges this remote community faces on a day-to-day basis from salty water to grazing hippopotamus.
A well dug by another humanitarian group at Ololchura is salty enough to leave you thirstier than before, but not so salty that it cannot be consumed.
I spoke to some of the older students at Ololchura who, while happy to be in school, are more aware than anyone of the struggles they face each day. The boys who dorm at the school must use a classroom as their sleeping place and at night must walk fifty yards or more to use the toilets – avoiding any wandering wildlife that may be grazing in the school yard.
Many of Ololchura’s classrooms are made of cow dung.
The teachers at the school were eager to show us their “kitchen under the tree”.
After some good conversations with teachers, board members, and students, we felt that we had collected all we could for the day and returned to the hotel. As this was the last day of our work in Kenya, Peter took us out on an evening game drive to celebrate. Wandering far off the beaten trail, we were rewarded with the sight of an immense herd of elephants (I stopped counting at 100) and an elusive leopard.
Tomorrow we will be driving to Nairobi to catch our respective flights home to Canada and the United States. A very warm thank you is owed to our drivers, Lawrence and Peter, for keeping us safe as we travelled across the country. Thanks also to Dr Kiš and Samuelle for the excellent photographs and to Eric for coordinating this endeavor.
I hope that we can return again to visit and evaluate other communities in the future. This trip has been profoundly rewarding and I hope that our work will be of great value to the purposes of A Better World as it continues to advance its vision of sustainable change.
Our team at the end of a successful journey.