 |
| |
|
APIHA Plus – Orphan Branch
August 29th, by Conor
|
 | In the Western cultural mind, Africa is often narrowly and notoriously associated with four letters: AIDS. South of the Sahara, HIV/AIDS has ravaged populations for over 30 years in an epidemic that has killed nearly 14 million people to date. The result in many communities is a disrupted society, disarrayed by the loss of workers, leaders, and parents.(more) |
|
The Shoe Seller
August 27th, by Dan
|
 | David Njenga is sitting at home - a dank, claustrophobic room in Rongai - with his wife and two young children. Perhaps ironically for a man whose legs have been ravaged by polio, he is a shoe seller in the local market.(more) |
|
Healthcare
August 23rd, by Conor
|
 | When Paul Yator’s only daughter caught pneumonia, he was forced into a difficult position: He could bring her to the local health center and hope their meager facilities could heal her, or he could take her to a private one where the price of admission alone is 350 shillings. (more) |
|
Rongai Park Casino
August 20th, by Conor
|
 | The people of Rongai need their diversions. The monotony of the fields, the doldrums of village life every so often require some recreational respite. And that is just what Rongai Park Casino has to offer.
(more) |
|
Eunice
August 14th, by Conor
|
 | When Eunice Sikamoi, 19, prays at AIC Rongai’s Sunday service, she does not pray for schools fees or better grades or even for her health. “I pray, ‘Oh God, please bless everyone of us as we proceed’,” she says with her buoyant smile.
(more) |
|
Muricho Primary School
August 10th, by Dan
|
 | Two presidential portraits hang in the office of Simon Mutai, the deputy-head teacher of Muricho primary school. One shows Daniel Arap Moi, Kenya’s former president; the other his successor Mwai Kibaki, the current head of state. In a way the two images symbolise the problem now facing Kenyan schools...
(more) |
|
A Lost Home
August 9th, by Conor
|
 | The dried mud walls of Talai Kosgei’s home are a common feature around Legetio. Bricks and stones are expensive and in short supply, so many farmers rely on the soil to construct their kitchens, if not their main houses...
(more) |
|
The other Nairobi
August 8th, by Dan
|
 | “We call this area Nairobi,” says Wesley Rotich, gazing across a 50 acre basin of severely eroded land, punctuated by red mud stacks of various sizes. “Nairobi is all tall buildings and short buildings and it looks like this.”...
(more) |
|
Daniel Kihuga and the mountain fish
August 7th, by Conor
|
 | At 72 years old, Daniel Kihuga’s dreams about fish are finally coming true. Years ago, when the septuagenarian smallholder farmer was a regional salesman for the bread company Elios, he traveled to Kisumu, a city on the edge of Lake Victoria dominated by the Luo people...(more) |
|
Footwear too costly for mother Lonah
August 3rd, by Conor
|
 | Two things stand out about Lonah Koech’s seven children: In a village where many struggle with daily needs like water or school fees, all of these children are covered in a thin layer of dust, and almost none of them are wearing shoes... (more) |
|
Water harvesting has health dividend for school
August 2nd, by Conor
|
 | It is mid morning and a group of cheery pupils at Moricho Primary School have lined up to drink water from a tap that is erected a few meters from a block of classrooms.The school which is located in Moricho sub-location, Rongai District was started in 1983 and is one of more than ten... (more) |
|
"There is an alternative to maize"
August 1st, by Conor
|
 | For many farmers in the Rift Valley, tiling the soil is more necessity than calling, more occupation than interest. They di it to eat, to support a family, to survive. But to John Mwangi, this has always been a passion. Since his days at Rongai... (more) |
|
Early rise for dairy workers
July 31st, by Dan
|
 | The moon still casts a silver glow over Legetio when Robert Ndeno gets up to milk the cows. Every morning at 6am the 24-year-old 'shamba boy' makes his way across the dew-spoaked grass to the small wooden hut behind Samuel Yator's house, where he sets a fire to warm a pot of water. (more) |
|
Cleaning up the streets of Rongai
July 30th, by Dan
|
 | It’s difficult to describe Rongai without mentioning the litter. It’s everywhere, strewn across the streets and piled in the drainage ditches; it’s worse in the back alleys, where great mounds of rubbish accumulate beside buildings.
(more) |
|
Fish farming a growth business in rural Kenya
July 28th, by Dan
|
 | About 500 tilapia fish swim about in a brackish pond at the back of Margaret Wanjika’s house at the base of Visoy Hill. She’s a member of the Kandutura fish farmers’ group and she’s almost ready to harvest ...
(more) |
|
Numbers down... but show still a barometer of importance of agriculture
July 27th, by Conor
|
 | Thronged with adults and children and with immaculately tended fields of maize, vegetables and other crops, the annual Nakuru Agricultural Show, a traditional magnet for progressive farmers, has kicked off in the provincial capital.
(more) |
|
Homeless and in rags... the perils of mental illness in rural Kenya
July 26th, by Conor
|
 | There is something universally human about a smile - a friendly reminder between people of different races, cultures, ethnicities that we share something in common, some fundamental humanness...
(more) |
|
Beekeepers looking forward to sweet success
July 25th, by Conor
|
 | Communities in Kenya have been keeping bees for longer than anyone can remember - the honey both a popular food and a respected medicine. Nowadays, the practice is gradually being commercialized as people are realizing that they can make good money out of selling not only ...
(more) |
|
The Burgei Water Project
July 24th, by Dan
|
 | On a sunny Wednesday morning Simion Arap Kigen sits outside his home in the rural village of Burgei. His house is unique for a number of reasons, not least because it has running water. Modest by western standards but grand for east Africa, the bungalow... (more) |
|
Lucy Rator
July 23rd, by Conor
|
 | In a country where the average lifespan is 63 years old, Lucy Rator is an anomaly. The sharp, spritely grandmother to more than 20 is somewhere around 84 or 85—although she is no longer quite sure.
(more) |
|
Grinding out a Living
July 20th, by Dan
|
 | In a dusty room inside a disused Boito warehouse sits a perfectly functioning posho mill, draped in cobwebs and surrounded by corn husks, it hasn’t seen service since 2010. The reason: the women’s group that owns it can no longer afford to pay Kenya Power for the electricity required to run it. (more) |
|
The weekly dip
July 19th, by Dan
|
 | Early mornings in Africa are a noisy affair, the cacophonous dawn chorus starts tuning up before 6am and tends to be going at full blast by the time the sun emerges.
And this morning, Saturday, the birds have some accompaniment... (more) |
|
Fly fishing in the Rift Valley
July 18th, by Dan
|
 | The rural Kenyan village of Rongai is probably the last place one would expect to pick up tips on Irish fly fishing. Situated about 30 kilometres west of Nakuru, the Rift Valley hamlet is a typical, medium-sized African village. On any afternoon its maze of narrow streets hum with activity as people go about their business... (more) |
|
19-year-old leads Sunday service
July 17th, by Dan
|
 | The African Inland Church (AIC) is one of a number of denominations in the rural townland of Moricho; there is also the ACK, the Full Gospel Church, and the Repentent Church, among others. Vincent Cherboror, the 19-year-old vice-secretary of the AIC youth group, is directing this morning’s service. (more) |
|
They go to church... or stay at home
July 17th, by Conor
|
 | Like elsewhere across the world, in villages and in cities, in the Global South and in the West, in English and French and Tagalog and Zulu, Sunday in Legetio means for many only
one thing: church. (more) |
|
The road to A Village in Africa
July 16th, by Conor
|
 | The main highway through the heart of Kenya is crowded with trucks and boda bodas (bicycle taxis), a winding paved road that stretches from Mumbasa on the coast, west through the Rift Valley, and eventually across the border into Uganda. We’ve traveled that road for three days now... (more) |
|
| |
|
| |
|
