Unruly Precious Vision students shown another side of Mombasa

After an escalation of disturbance and pre-teen chaos in my class at Precious Vision, the schools Headmistress, Madame Jane decided to take the 14 boys that had caused chaotic behaviour on a field trip to show them “Kenyan Reality”.

So we were ready to set off. Except…….all the boys were wearing white shirts, not all of them were wearing the instructed shoes. So there was a slight delay as shoes and flip flops in different sizes were located amongst the children.

Stuffing 14 children and 2 adults into 6 seats in the Matatu (basically a rebuilt Nissan mini van) is easier than mathematical logic would have it. And so our little group began the trip to the neglected corners of Mombasa.

We stopped somewhere near the main post office in Mombasa and, pairing up, two and two, we walked towards the ferry area. After passing a woman begging for money to treat the hand sized open wound on her leg, a couple of the children empathically drooling on themselves, and a blind man, we met with some young men who, obviously knew Madame Jane from before.

The oldest of the men appeared to be in his early twenties and agreed to take us to the place where he resided. The walk there proved educational as we met several of his acquaintances on route who were sitting beneath the cool shades of the over hanging trees, which, on closer inspection also held their beds in the branches.

Walking on we passed several shacks that were leaning on the insides of 2 walls, making the street in the middle narrow enough for us to give up the plan of walking in pairs. As the street began to widen, the young people and children that we passed seemed to be increasingly drowsy and red eyed. The answer (coping mechanism) any child might have considering the physical and mental inadequacy of the local residents.

As we walked onto a football field where there were several people gathered, momentarily oblivious of our presence, all with a bottle in their hands or tied to their shirts. The yellow sticky substance in each of the bottle was the cheapest glue to be found. As our presence dawned on the congregation they began to approach us, a mix of curious smiles and intrigue.

They approached Madame Jane and I, then with our approval they introduced themselves to our 14 boys from Precious Vision, who up until then, had remained a “safe” distance behind Madame Jane and I.

As the two alien groups mingled it occurred to me that the individuals who were facing the biggest physical and mental deficiencies were the youngest children. I also noticed that the more “active”, when it came to glue sniffing, could hardly be any older than the youngest kids I teach at Precious Vision - around 7 years old.

One of the boys in my class asked one of the boys from the “alien group” where he slept and he replied by just pointing towards a line of plastic bags and installation material held up by wooden sticks and a 30cm high wall that covered half the length of the football field, this being the foundation of their settlement.

The mutual exchange of information was slightly skewed by the obvious fear that the Precious Vision children felt of some of the younger and overly in-toxicated locals who seemed so distant that the only way to get them to listen to the pleads for some space was by physically moving them away.

As we left the smell of burning garbage and the piercing smell of glue behind, I asked my class if they like the place where we had just visited. The just stood there in silence, looking down at their shoes. I felt no need to repeat the question.

We eventually found a Matatu to take us back “home”, to the village slum. We drove along listening to the words of Tupac “shortly wanna be a thug”. (Quite Ironic, I thought).

Unruly Precious Vision students shown another side of Mombasa