Part 1 - National Music Festival

This past week has been fairly eventful. And to save time on a super long email/blog, I’ll put it in to 3 parts.

Part 1 – National Music Festival

My sweet friend Lydia (from Oasis of Hope) invited me to join her, Geoffrey (also Oasis of Hope) and their taxi friend, Dan to Kisumu on Wednesday to watch the National Music Festival. It’s not really a festival; it’s more so a competition of different categories of music and dance among the primary schools and high schools around the country. There were about 12 children from the Oasis of Hope group homes that were competing in the festival with their school and so we wanted to go and cheer them on.


Lydia & Me....

We arrived in Kisumu (2.5 to 3 hour trip) in mid-morning to book in to our hotel, relax and grab some lunch before seeing the first group of children perform. We arrived at the high school where the festival was being held and took our seats. Our group of kids performed second in their category and they did very well. One of the other schools that was performing in the same category was a school for blind children. They came out holding hands together and getting help on lining up…and they could sing. It was beautiful; they were beautiful.


Our boys performing...

About a third of the way through that category, a lady passed a Visitor’s Book for Lydia and I to sign, so we did. After the group of children performed, the MC announced that there were some special guests today and at that she announced Lydia’s name of Oasis of Hope and my name of Transformed International. We had to wave to the crowd, completely embarrassed. Then we were invited to sit in the special guest section…the front of the hall and on couches, not the hard wooden chairs. We got served tea and treats, along with the judges.

At the end of the category, I was fiddling around with my camera when I heard my name being called over the speakers. Lydia nudged me and I looked up at the MC. She wanted me to go to the front of the hall and present the second and third place schools with their certificates and the first place school with their trophy. So I did!

Then we got up to leave as the category was done and our kids were finished. But the MC and a few others insisted that we stay for the next category. So we did and it was the dancing competition, which was so much fun to watch.

Later that night, we drove around I got to see the beautiful sunset over Lake Victoria. It was absolutely beautiful….and romantic. Unfortunately, Lydia wasn’t in a very romantic mood, she wouldn’t even hold my hand. :-)


Lake Victoria Sunset - just beautiful.

Afterwards, the four of us went for dinner in Kisumu town. We suddenly saw a sign for PIZZA. I miss pizza. So we went in and sat down. Lydia and I were excited…almost drooling over the wonderful list of pizzas. And then the waitress came over and said, “We don’t have pizza. We don’t have cheese.”

I looked at her, “Seriously? You don’t have cheese?”

“No, we don’t have cheese.”

Lydia said, “Can you go to the store and buy some?” She was HALF joking…and a part of me was thinking, please go and get the cheese! So no pizza for us!

The next morning we were up early, and off to see our kids perform again. They did well again in the category they competed in. Unfortunately, they again, didn’t come in first, second or third. There was also a beautiful group of children competing in the same category; they were mentally and physically disabled children. I was in love with all of them. In fact, there were about 40+ children that I wanted to take home with me…but they wouldn’t all fit in the little Toyota taxi we were driving in.

We had a few hours break in between performances so the four of us decided to go for drive to the Dunga (Doon-ga) Beach. We drove in and immediately were asked if we wanted to take a boat ride out to the lake to see the islands and the hippos. We declined so then they decided to show us the fish that had just been caught (Kisumu is big for the fish as it’s right on the lake). So Lydia and I ventured over and I saw the biggest catfish EVER…not that I’ve seen many….but it was huge.

Then, this is the fun part, as we were leaving the park, a man stops us at the gate and says that we owe 200 shillings (about $3 CDN – which I know doesn’t sound like very much but 200 shillings is a lot here). It’s then that we see a sign (on the INSIDE of the entrance gate – not the OUTSIDE – BEFORE you enter the beach) that has the fees on visiting the beach. The fee for a bus full of children is 100 shillings, a 14-passenger van is a fee of 50 shillings and then it says, “International Foreigner” is a fee 200 shillings. We all argued with him but after about 10 minutes of annoyance, Geoffrey paid the 200 shillings…all because of the color of our skin. Two hundred shillings to look at a few dead or dying fish. Yeah, not happy about that!

Then we found another place to go to…free….to go and just look out at the water. We ended up being joined by a bus full of children so Lydia and I got photo happy and took pictures of all the kids. There was one little guy who kind of tugged at a heartstring of mine. He asked if he and I could take a picture together; so we did.


School bus of kids....covering my face. :-)


Daniel & Me - he pulled at my heartstrings. Beautiful smile.

Then another school arrived and I immediately got excited. It was the school for the mentally and physically disabled. I greeted all the children, confirmed with them that they were in fact that school and told them how wonderful they did in the competition. They were completely surprised…that I remembered who they were and was congratulating them on their efforts. They were absolutely beautiful.


The school for the mentally & physically disabled.

Then it was lunch time and then we rushed back to the school and watched our girls perform. I spent a lot of time, playing with this little boy in front of me. I gave him a lollipop I had in my purse; he looked at it very strangely and showed it to his mom. She unwrapped the lollipop for him and he sucked it back. When he was finished, he was sticky…so, being always prepared, I pulled out my handy-dandy wet wipes and got his hands washed for him. The wet wipe was another amazing first time thing for him to see. After he was done, he handed the dirty, used wet wipe back to me with a big smile on his face. Thank you!


Our girls performing


My little lollipop friend.

After the performances (all the kids did a FANTASTIC job!), we headed back to Kitale. Oh, home sweet home!

I’ll be posting pictures on my blog soon…today or tomorrow….of our Kisumu trip. Check them out.

http://www.meredithlopez.blogspot.com/

Part 2 of my week…coming soon. :-)

Love you all,
Meredith