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This is a picture of baby Mansoor. Brought to me yesterday by his parents. This is a rare picture as he smiles and waves at the camera and hides a sorry story and a major challenge for us as a charitry. Baby Mansoor has a hole in his heart which is causing blood to enter into the wrong chambers of his heart, A tiny artery is also pushing blood out of his heart at a dangerous rate. The only solution is open heart surgery as the consultant told me today. In Nairobi at a cost of about four thousand pounds or at least double that in India, This in a place where many people are living on less then two pounds a day.

We have never had to find this kind of money before for a single patient, But how can we say no when we all know how we would feel if he were to die. The consultant says it must be done soon too otherwise the danage will be too much. This place is full of pressures and challenges and you have to keep determined and believing that as has happened so many times before we will rise to the challenge no matter how low things can bring you at times.

A Great Effort!

We did remarkably well with our clothes collection at the weekend. We had fairly low expectations having already collected last May when we made £1000.

However, at the final weigh in for this collection was an amazing £850 !!! .

It was a long weekend with the Church open for three hours on Friday night and all day Saturday. Can I say thank you to everyone who came and supported us on the day. It was really good to see five of our trustees there – pretty good going with us being such a small group.

We will do another in May and will start collecting clothes from after Christmas.

Onto other matters- please remember that it’s the fashion show on November 24. Please e mail veronica with how many tickets you want . They are £10 and the price includes a drink of bubbly or similar and nibbles. Details are on our facebook group. It’s at St. George’s Centre in the centre of Leeds.

Then on Saturday December 5 it’s the annual Christmas dinner for Funzi. This will be a traditional Christmas meal with entertainment. Price to be fixed. We may also do it in Victorian costume like last time which really went down well. Maximum capacity is 120 people.

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Yesterday we took the man with advanced cancer to the hospital. First we had to visit a doictor in the centre of Mombasa. We paid the fee and were given a piece of paper to take t the hospital instructing them to make a theatre available. The doctor would follow in one hour. The operation was then immediately done. They then discharged him and he even had to walk to the car ! I couldn’ quite believe it and our own doctor (who works wth us on Funzi) as seemingly shocked after such a big operaton. In the car back to his house he seemed in a lot of pain and called out quite a few times. But at the same time he and his daughters were quietely grateful for the help we had given. Had the operaton not happened he would have died very quickly and in terrible pain. This surgery will not cure him. But it will slow the cancer and reduce the pain. We are paying for medicines to help too. I have found this rather haunting. That a 67 year old man had been lying in agony with no hope of even pain relief because nobody coud find three hundred pounds. I was struck by his dignity but also his daughters and their quiet devotion to him. As he left the car he just looked back and said in Swahili “Thank you sir.” His daughters shake of the hand before disappearing off said so much without anything really being said. Meanwhile babay Idris- beset by so many problems in life- was taken by us to hopital for a chest x ray. If his inability to walk and his dad’s recent death wasn’t enough it appears he has respiritory problems too. The diagnosis may come Monday.

Ashley Peatfield writes from Funzi

The challenge of comple medical cases has been dominating today. The teenage girl who cn’t walk and has painfully thin arms appears to have been largely abandonned by her mother who lives elsewhere and visits ocasionally. She’s been left in the care of another woman. This was the child whose Grandma died during the recent cholera outbreak ands the old lady hd been caring for the girl.

Today I got a doctor to come from the hospital to the village to see her. The child lives in terrible poverty , in a dark room on beds that are just a frame and a broken spiders web of string. We got the doctor to bring a special nurse and to lay the girl on the floor while she was measured for a special metal frame which wll be constructed for her. Her guardian promise that we could take the girl to hospital three times a week to have treatment. The dotor remans optomistic that ift this continues then she will walk.

Meanwhile I visited the tailor in Bodo and got him to ther doctors too. Good news here. They thought a second operation for ligament problems was inevitable. But tests today suggest physio three times a week will also give him the ability to walk again too. We are searching for a small boy with blockages in his nasal passages and once w locate hm will get him to hospital where he needs an operation.

Yesterday I had one of those awful dilemas- although the reponse was never really in doubt. A woman approached me with hopital paperwork. Her 67 year old father has a very large cancerous growth in is stomach and has been unable to get the operation he needs because the family doesn’t have the three hundred pounds needed. It isn’t part of our planning or budget and every medical case means a plan like the secndary school moves a little further away. But it’s impossible to deny it. I couldn’t live with myself thinking that an elderly man- obviously so loved by his daughter- was suffering let alone would die for the sake of three hundred pounds- in reality I know this is just the start of the costs and I am advised this operation my be double in the end let along after care.

Thank goodnes for our fantastic trustees who did the three peaks walk on Sunday despite terrible weather . I am so grateful to you all and felt so proud of the trustees when I heard that everyone had done it . You can still sponsor them if you haven’t already and help us with some of these cases I have described.

The school at Bodo is developing at a pace. It appears we will have to ut in air conditioning into the resource centre otherwise the computers wont survive in this environment. We have also been asked about a kitchen. Children at the school are not getting the food they need at home so supplies of grain and meal hve been provided by big agencies. But they need a place to prepare . We are getting quotes for all these things and a few others including providing a water supply for washing of hands for the new school toilets, There is inevitably huge amounts of village politics to handle and at times over the past few days I have felt a bit stressed with everything but we will get there and when we see the results it will be so worth it all. Sara is spending hours doing library cataloguing – it requires the kind of patience I don’t have ! As we watched the tourists arriving to relax by swimming pools and tak in the sights it did make us think we might be mad but the rewards are diferent.

Hello Everyone and good luck to the walkers doing the three peaks challenge for Funzi tomorrow!

We had a really good meeting at the site of the schoolbuild today You wouldn’t beleive how little is left of the school now. At one point a goup of men just put their weight against a gable end of a building and pushed. The whole thing came down in one mighty crash. Meanwhle ther workers are building walls and making vent bricks. The school committee toured the site with Collins the developer and discussed where things would be located . The chairman of the school in Bodo seems excellent and is a real “can do” type and handles the others so well. We looked at he possible site for two classrooms where we could conduct secondary education as well as discussing current plans.. It was at this point something very interesting happened. We were told by the Chairman that if we could raise the money for four classrooms, a lab and an admin block we could start a secondary school properly ! He says they can get the teachers through the authorities and by parents making small contribuitions and using recently qualified teachers who have to work and will take positions on this basis to get their careers started. We could addto ths with volunteer teachers from he UK. We could do the building in phases if necessary but we were already looking at the potetial for two classrooms so this feels a real posibility. They also agreed it coud be a high school for both villages. So Sara and I really felt that this morning we got a real vision for the future and maybe one achievable in the near distance too.

I know we have a big project here to complete but with the support of our two business partners and the fundraising we can feel optimistic.

We also visited the tailor today to see his leg wounds and what progress there is a year since we paid for his major operation.It was amazing to find him working again at his machine and so happy. He still needs medical attention as his tendons are too tight and he may need anoher operation but the family was full of joy at what had happened. I kinow you are walking for Idris and we saw him today. His Mum is still not allowed into society since Idris’ Dad’s death from the cholera but she was there as Idris had a temperature and needed to go to hospital. We gave her some money to help out. He stil needs proper attention for his legs and I will see what is needed. We also saw the girl who couldn’t walk along with her Mum. We are getting a doctor out tomorow to try and decide what to do next. On Monday the Kwale eye clinic comes to Bodo and we will be paying for reading glasss.

So as you all walk and raise funds I hope you feel really encouraged and that you can see the potential being created by all your hard work and support.

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It has been a quiet day everywhere today as people are voting for a new constitution. The terrible scenes two years ago following Presidential elections have made people cautious and tourists are staying in their hotels. But everyone is saying it shoild be peaceful this time.

We go to Mombasa tomorrow to sign the contract for the school build at Bodo so let’s hope it remains that way, Likoni where the ferry crossing is has been the scene of trouble in the past. Anyway, it will be a big moment when that ink dries on the contract to build the new Bodo school. An investement of around seventy thousand pounds by the Funzi and Bodo Trust with help from a range of trusts like the W F Southall Trust who are paying for toilets to the Government of Guernsey. Plus lots of hard work by all our supporters who have organised fudraising events or donated generously.

There is great excitement about the planned resource centre with its cyber cafe and print shop . That will happen with very generous support from our new sponsors Bag2school .We have been talking to a young man who may prove to be the perfect manager for the centre. He has qualifications in computing, has been helping to maintain a similar centre in Mombasa and best of all he is from Funzi and is in need of a job as the shop he was working for recently closed.

We started to make our next charity film today. Sara on the camera and me presenting and directing. There were the usual artistic disagreements of course – Sara is a camera person who thinks she is also directing and that’s my job ! But just one day after we celebrated our silver wedding anniversary on Funzi and twenty five years of similar disagreements I am sure we will come through it as usual.

We hear it is raining in England and that the sponosred three peaks challenge is going to be just a little boggy. We wish all the climbers well and just remember there is no turning back now that you have accepted the sponsorship . Lets hope there is a last minute rush of sponsors too. Enjoy yourselves as best as you can do. It’s a noble thing you are all doing and a good warm up for the national three peaks next year when I shall also be away. Seriously, when you see that young girl unable to walk and livinjg in terrible conditions and you realise that it’s the efforts of people like youirselves who are walking for her and baby Idris who make so much possible that would be never realised otherwise. If you haven’t sponsored them yet do go and look at the website and see what you can do. We will keep in touch Ashley and Sara (who is now sitting deleting the bits that went wrong with the film -none of them down to me I’m sure !

Ashley Peatfield blogs on his latest trip to Funzi

“Its getting dark here and the hornbills are calling out as they go to roost and the monkeys are high up in the trees round the house chattering. The bush babies are just coming to life and shreaking .

I have been to look at Bodo school before coming to Funzi. Demolition is already underway on a major scale.with hardly anything left untouched . I must get pictures tomorrow or it will be too late and the old school will have completely disappeared. . Tomorrow is a public holiday as they are voting on a new constitution.Bodo school is meant to be a polling booth – but how it can be in that state I do not know. Anyway it’s good to see such a positive start and to see so many villagers employed in the work. It will all boost the local economy and feed some hungry mouths, thank you to everyone who has worked so hard to make this happen. Never doubt that what you do has a real and direct impact on the lives of people here. The impact will be even greater and long lasting when that school is built and children can get a proper education. It s all part of our plan to break the cycle of poverty.”