There are thousands of orphan children in Kenya. This is primarily the result of a high incidence of HIV and Aids that is causing thousands of adults to die before they reach their 40s. In fact, life expectancy in Kenya is 45 years due to all the illnesses that are causing people to die at a relatively young age.
When I asked about the reasons behind the high prevalence of HIV in Kenya, my host Crystel told me that many men and women are not loyal to their partners. They have affairs with others, don’t practice safe sex and then pass on the virus to their partner. When you look at the population of the adults who have HIV, the majority of them are married with kids. When both parents contract the virus and eventually pass away, the children are left on their own.
Crystel also explained that another reason for the virus spreading quickly is that many men still have more than one wife. In particular in more rural places, polygamy is still very common. if a man contracts the virus, he will subsequently pass it onto all of his wives.
I was surprised by this piece of information. The majority of Kenyans were hard-core Christians and I would have though that they remain loyal to their partners.
‘Well, there is a contradiction there’, Chrystel said. ‘People have sort of lost touch with their values, or they don’t think that there is anything wrong with this behaviour as long as they go to church every Sunday. Also, many people are not very educated and they have no idea about safe sex and how to look after themselves. Luckily we have some NGOs doing work in this field now, like some branches of the UN, so people are getting more educated. The challenge is that so many people live in very remote area so it is very hard to reach them.’
Because of the number of children in Kenya, orphanages are a common sight in Kenya. Around Nairobi alone, there are at least fifty of them. When children are orphaned, some of them stay with their relatives, but others are given to orphanages due to poverty. Some families simply can’t afford keeping extra children in their houses. Still, relatives regularly visit the children in the orphanages when they are able to do so. Long distances between cities and rural places, plus illnesses that make relatives weak, prevent some children from seeing their family members for years. Nevertheless, when the children reach 18 years of age, many of them travel back to their home lands in the rural areas, if not for any other reason than to reconnect with their part.
There are a significant number of westerners living in Kenya who had started up orphanages there. Back in the 80s when there was much talk about the poverty, lack of food and water in Africa, a number of westerners moved to there in order to help. In particular, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania have high number os westerners living and working there. During my stay, I had a chance to visit a couple of orphanages that were run by the Americans and the British. These orphanages were good places for the children to stay at since they had regular donors in both countries. They also received volunteers and good from both countries on a regular basis. These orphanages were full of joy and laughter. No one would have thought that the children had gone through a lot of pain in their young lives.
‘Adoption is not a huge thing in Kenya’, Chrystel explained to my initial visit to one of the orphanages. ‘People still believe that your biological children are the only way to pass down your genes. Plus many don’t have the resources to have more than their biological children. Also, international adoption is not widely accepted since the children often have land left behind for them and people are very proud of their roots and origin. This is why they rather put their relatives’ kids in an orphanage, let them happily grown up as Kenyans and then give them their land to cultivate and live in when they are 18. But these orphanages need donors and volunteers. People from Europe and the US have done a lot for our country. We are very grateful.’
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More information on the high prevalence of AIDs and orphans in Kenya, place see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/545033.stm
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