A day at Solai

This week we have been in Nakuru visiting the YFC team there.

On Thursday we went to visit the village of Solai, 40 km north of Nakuru.

In May this year, heavy rains caused a dam above the town to burst and flood the village of Solai, causing major damage and loss of life. 20 children and 21 adults lost their lives that night.

The two photos above are from the internet, showing the damage at the time.

We went to Solai with Irene, the YFC coordinator in Nakuru, because she is a trained counsellor and YFC partners with PDO Kenya (Psychiatric Disability Organisation). PDO has been working with survivors of the flood and on Thursday it was specifically there for the children at the school.

Soon after we arrived in Solai a young girl called Lydia came to chat with us and tell us her story. Two of her cousins were drowned in the flood .

The devastation was great

and Lydia walked us over lots of the devastated town

where homes had been swept away suddenly one night in May at about 8pm when people were in their homes preparing food, eating and sleeping.

People were just washed away without warning.

One of the PDO team there on Thursday was a lovely German Psychiatrist who comes regularly to Kenya to lend her expertise to the organisation.

We visited a classroom where the children in the lower primary grades were most severely and personally impacted.

 

 Because Lucy loves to draw, Irene asked if she could be involved in helping the children to draw  their experience of the flood.

Lucy really enjoys children and it seemed to work well. Note the torrent of water and the house in this little guy's drawing.

This little fellow lost his dad that night 

and Irene spent lots of time with him.

The school has 634 students up to 8th grade. There were 16 classrooms, but 6 were washed away in the flood. Now the students are being accommodated in the 10 remaining classrooms until more can be built.

 It was a really interesting and challenging day to see what happens when insufficient thought, care and process is followed in a nation that does things very differently from our own. 

I am continually reminded that 

Life is Hard in Africa .