Tag Archives: nairobi

One of the highlights of this trip has been meeting Erin, one of the daughters in the group from Dubai. Erin is thirteen and wants to be a midwife and has been helping out at the Jesse Kay Children’s hospital (part of Happy Life Kasarani) during the trip. We caught up with her on the ward.

Visiting projects like Happy Life is a wonderful life experience for teenagers to give them a sense of perspective and appreciation for how fortunate they are in their lives in the West.

We were at a bit of a loss as to where to take Leah and Teresiah for the last day here and took a chance on visiting Idyllic Mistley Gardens as they claimed to have a swimming pool which is a real treat for the kids.

It turned out to be a wonderful peaceful place with only a few people (the staff tell us its extremely busy normally at the weekends). We had another lemon and ginger tea which has become our go to drink this trip. The only slightly noisy residents were the geese but only for a few minutes.

Once again Leah looked after Teresiah. Great to see in a teenager.

Trip there and back in our $3 Ubers were uneventful (the smaller Ubers are called ‘Chap Chap’) until the last stretch on the way back when what I thought was a goat ran straight out in front of the car – we hit it pretty hard but it jumped up and ran off. “Tough goat” I said. “No. Sheep are stupid, so that was a sheep. Goats are too clever to run out in front of cars” said our driver Kamau. Can’t argue with that.

Sharon and Steve

Co-founders MX Publishing and proud ambassadors for Happy Life

(more info on Happy Life……..Five Ways You Can Help Us Change Lives This Holiday Period)

One of the highlights of visiting Happy Life is definitely the infant feeding but as Steve has a head cold whilst Sharon has the angelic babies, he has the challenging toddlers. Whatever clothes you wear to feed the toddlers (about fifteen) will end up in the washing pile. Try as he might Steve couldn’t get Melissa to smile for the camera (she smiled plenty during feeding of course….).

Over Christmas there are lots of local families that come to donate food in particular and its wonderful to see how three generations of this family came long to visit Happy Life (grandmother took the picture).

The weather has finally turned into the thunderstorms that the weather app was promising. Rain plays havoc with the roads that haven’t been tarmacked making getting around a muddy affair.

So the visit to Karura forest was out but we jumped in an Uber and headed down with Leah for lunch at a place called the Zen Garden. You don’t have to go far in Nairobi to find amazing trees.

New to us but one of the team had recommended it and it didn’t disappoint with very tranquil gardens in amongst the hustle and bustle of the Westlands area – not too far from Karura in fact. They have their own flower shop from the amazing range they have in the gardens – our personal favourite too ‘Birds of Paradise’.

Leah had her second milkshake of the week and was very pleased that both our Uber drivers – James and Perez – had pink/black seat covers in the car matching her tracksuit she’d asked us to bring from the UK. Uber drivers are a huge font of knowledge of what’s going on in the country and the thirty minutes each way to Zen Garden were a great chance to catch up on the latest news. One big subject was the $3bn railway project from Nairobi to Mombasa on the coast. Many government officials have been arrested over allegations they bought land along the route which they knew would receive large compensation – a story big enough for even the NY Times covered it.

More time with the babies and toddlers and then Leah’s choice of evening movie was Jumanji. Slightly surreal sitting in the children’s home with the kids watching ‘The Rock’ running around a mysterious island but the kids enjoyed it.

Sharon and Steve

Co-founders MX Publishing and proud ambassadors for Happy Life

(more info on Happy Life……..Five Ways You Can Help Us Change Lives This Holiday Period)

Another hot and humid day in Kasarani and a morning of meetings with the key people at Happy Life. First up is the wonderful Sarah who is the head administrator. One of the favourite tasks of the year is sitting with Sarah and handing over all the donations. This year this included proceeds from events, donations from several authors and friends and family.

We then had a great hour with Bishop Peter and his wife Faith to get an update on the latest plans for Happy Life in 2020. The main goals are surrounding the new high school. Happy Life has managed to buy a plot of land near Juja Farm (about 5km away) that will be the site of the new school. For the first year, the new school block at Juja Farm will house the high school and the team have already recruited four teachers ready to start in January.

(Right – Peter & Faith from Nairobi, Left Jim and Sharon from Delaware)

The evolution of Happy Life can partly be charted by the age of the children that have not been adopted and stayed with the home. Founded in 2002, the initial priorities were housing, health, food, and clothing. Within ten years a big focus became education and prompted the building of the school. Now the project is 17 years old (and so are the oldest children) a high school is needed.

We discussed a lot of great fundraising ideas for 2020 and we wanted to share one here – a very nice idea from one of our authors Tim Symonds. Tim has written many Sherlock Holmes books and also lived for many years in Kenya. He’s been one of the most active supporters of Happy Life donating items and funds each year. He wondered if Happy Life would like to create a plant-a-tree project that the children can get involved with. The timing is perfect and Peter and Faith loved the idea. So, from January we’ll be launching a new programme where for every book bought on the mxpublishing.com site we’ll plant a tree at the new Happy Life location. More about the other ideas soon.

Lunchtime and a chance to get involved with feeding the younger kids. Sharon headed to the infants for baby feeding – Steve to the toddlers as with a head cold not allowed in with the infants.

(Pepper Pig features heavily amongst the cuddly toys this year for some reason)

The afternoon was spent with our sponsored kid, Leah. We first met Leah at the age of six when she inspired us so much we chose her to be on the front cover of The Happy Life Story Book. At that tender age she was already behaving like a big sister to the younger kids and spending much of her free time helping the mamas and feeding the babies. Now at thirteen one of the pastors describes her perfectly as ‘a future leader’ working hard at school and supporting the other children. She’s transferred over here to spend time with us and will head back home to Juja Farm with us when we visit there on the 30^th.

For the last two years Leah tends to bring one of her friends with her on our days out. Today Nelly came along for milkshakes, the entertainment area of the mall and a trip around the large supermarket (popcorn and crisps a once a year treat). Leah is on the left in the picture.

Tomorrow we hope to get further afield but it will depend on the weather – thunderstorms are possible.

Sharon and Steve

Co-founders MX Publishing and proud ambassadors for Happy Life

(more info on Happy Life……..Five Ways You Can Help Us Change Lives This Holiday Period)