Heading to Achungo Children’s Centre

By Christy Tonge

The 4 hour drive from Empowering Lives in Eldoret Kenya to our next destination was beautiful—a winding road through rolling green hills and lush valleys, and fields of sugar cane waving in the breeze.
As we rode along, though, I felt an ache in my heart the entire way, still reflecting on our emotional goodbyes. I was already missing Kelvin and Mercy and Sarah and Winny and Magdaline, and all our precious “Littles” who came running to take our hands wherever we walked. What do I do with this deep love and longing I feel for several of the children I connected with? Will I get to see them again? How can we take part in their lives? Their smiles, their sparkle, their voices, their stories—they are imprinted deeply on my heart.

Now we would be starting over again—which, we knew from prior experience after pouring ourselves out and becoming really attached—is really hard. We were excited though. We had seen many photos… and heard many stories about the wonderful children at Achungo’s school for orphans, and now we were almost here! It was definitely another “HGAC” (Haven’t Got A Clue) moment for us as we neared the little town of Rodi where Achungo School resides. We didn’t know what our accommodations would be like (this wasn’t it!)…  what food we would eat, whether we would be received warmly or not, and so on. We arrived to our new “home”—a motel a few hundred yards from Achungo school—at about 6pm. It was golden time, so we dropped our bags in our room, eager to explore “town” before the sun was fully set, and before we’d meet Achungo’s founder & Director, Michael Nyangi, for some dinner.

We walked to the corner, which seemed to be the main “intersection” of the town of Rodi. No traffic lights here. We turned right to walk up this bustling “main street.”

There were lots of tin roof shops, and a row of women on each side of the road with their mangos or bananas or pineapples laid out for sale in front of them. Mmmmm…Pineapple! We hadn’t had much fruit beyond bananas during the last 2 months, so we were excited!
We strolled down one side of the road and came back up the other in the glow of dusk. We heard people calling, whispering and uttering “Mzungu” (white one) in our wake, and we felt the parade of “all eyes on us” as we wove our way through the milling crowds. It was impossible to be inconspicuous in Rodi! We were definitely the only “white ones” in town. When we were on our way back to the Tausi motel, a Kenyan man came up to us from behind and asked us, “Are you from California?” Wow…he even spotted that we were from California…are we that obvious!?

It turns out he was a teacher at Achungo School named Salim, walking back home from town (there’s Salim in a photo a few days later with Barry and Trev). He said he had heard we were coming. He told us he was also the Boarding House supervisor for the 7th and 8th grade kids who lived at Achungo. We stood chatting for awhile at the edge of the road as packed moto taxis zoomed by.
We were delighted that we “bumped” into him and grateful for his warm welcome. It made us even more excited to meet the kids of Achungo, and the other teachers.

When we got to the Tausi dining room a little after 7pm, Michael had arrived before us and had already ordered “supper.” (Here’s a photo of Michael with kids of Achungo).

We took a look at the menu and fumbled our way through it, ordering a few items with hopes that it would all work out since we were quite hungry. It wasn’t long before they brought Michael his plate—it was a whole fish, deep fried, with its big “fish eye” staring up at Michael. His meal was accompanied by traditional food we knew quite well already from our last home: ugali (dry, tasteless white pasty stuff), and sukumawiki (kale). As Michael extracted the fish meat from the bones by hand, he shared the story with us of how he had first founded Achungo.

He himself had grown up nearby in a very poor family. He lost his father at the age of 7.  When he was 10, he had had a painful tumor in his leg, which caused him to miss school for 3 years. He described how his friends would come over and he would cry afterwards because they could to go school and he couldn’t. Eventually, someone took him to a prayer meeting on a bicycle, and following the meeting, his tumor was healed! Through the generosity of some caring individuals, he was able to continue schooling, and even go to college. He graduated, with the prospect of a career as an accountant in Nairobi. That wasn’t his destiny, it turns out.

When walking to work along the train tracks in a slum area, his heart was broken at the sight of women, hungry and begging, trying to provide for their family. That prompted him at age 22 to lend $20 from his own pocket to each of two single, destitute women with babies. Each woman turned the money into a business selling roasted corn and other vegetables along a busy railroad track. This was the start of a micro-financing organization he founded, giving up his accounting career and his path of financial security. The organization soon grew to a 15-person office and the success of his endeavors led to Michael’s invitation to speak on poverty before the  UN in 2008. During this time, Michael also started taking orphans into his own home and recruiting some local widows to do likewise. Others noticed Michael's ability to bring together the needed resources to care for the growing number of destitute children, and more children arrived on his doorsteps.

In 2005, Michael officially opened Achungo Children’s Center – a school which has now grown to support over 300 orphaned and/or impoverished kids. He shared how well the first class of 8th grade graduates recently did on their national exam, and how every single one of them qualified to go to secondary school—a huge accomplishment! He went on to share more of his vision now that they had reached some exciting academic milestones. He told us his vision to have a bus to be able to take kids out on field trips and provide them with exposure beyond Rodi. And he wants to open an Achungo secondary school, so kids can continue to thrive in a supportive Achungo environment in high school. And he wants to further develop their farm property to create financial self-sustainability for Achungo. They have 50 chickens now, and he envisions 2,000. He also envisions opening a medical clinic, so the kids can have adequate medical care…And so on! It was moving to hear Michael speak with such passion about orphaned children, and with such hope and conviction about the future. “With God, all things are possible,” he said, with utter certainty. The only thing that seemed impossible was being around Michael and NOT getting energized by the incredible things that were already taking place, and by the possibilities yet to come for these kids, and hundreds more!

We were captivated to hear Michael’s stories—captivated, that is, until our stomachs reminded us how hungry we were. The food was taking a LOOONG time. It had been over an hour, and we didn’t see any sign of it. At one point, they came back to tell Barry that they couldn’t make his vegetable dish, so he chose something else. We immersed further in Michael’s stories, trying to ignore the hunger pangs. I tried to focus wholly on what he was saying, despite my mind wandering to thoughts of “How much longer would it be??” before they brought the food. It was now nearing 9:00pm. What could be taking this long? Were they slaughtering the chicken out back?? I tried casting some compassionate “I-know-this-is-hard” glances across the table to Shay and Trevor.

At one point, I considered acknowledging with Michael that the kids were “hanging in there” since we aren’t used to eating so late and our last meal was over 8 hours ago…and perhaps excusing them to  get a granola bar from our room. But as soon as I had that thought, I could only imagine what would be a natural thought to flash through his mind: “Oh--you know nothing  about hunger, Tonge family.” He has seen orphans go for days without food and weeks or months without meat, I am certain. How many children has he seen with swollen bellies from starvation or malnutrition?
It put things in perspective real fast! Our discomfort was merely a glimpse of the struggle for food that so many children and families face here every day.

Nonetheless, I was filled with gratitude and appreciation for Shayla and Trevor for being such troopers, sitting so patiently listening to 2 hours of “grown-up” conversation after a very looong day of emotional goodbyes, and hours on the road, and facing--at least for us—an “empty stomach.” I wished I could give them a huge hug from across the table for being such good sports through all the unfamiliar and all the unknowns!

FINALLY…the food came!
Yahooooo! Man, did it hit the spot for all of us!
And how fitting perhaps, that we began our time at Achungo with a tiny glimpse of what it feels like to be hungry.

After our meal, we said goodnight to Michael and retired for bed under our mosquito nets, excited for the morning when we would get to meet the kids.