Mobile library is a kind of public reading for children during the time of the school break (December and begin of January). It has been founded and established by Irene, a local business woman, taking care of those children living in that (Nyalenda) slum. Later she invited us to her place for lunch. A big road separates a slum (“Nyalenda”) from a wealthier district of Kisumu (“Milimani”).

This is one of the many projects that Better Me is going to support. Better Me continuously grows and starts new cooperations with local organisations, projects and schools.

We used easy-to-read books for children of their choice. We walked through the slum for a while and at some point, many children approached us, knowing we came for them. We usually we wear our yellow shirts, easy for them or anyone to recognise us by that. Already at this point the children are super amazed and can’t wait to start. The usual meeting point is a green ground, we sat down next to a building which provided some shadow to us. Out of a huge basket full of child’s books the children picked some books to browse through and want us to read from it. I have realised that some (if not many) of them understand English but not all of them are already able to read and to understand English at the same time. Remember, they usually speak Swahili although English is the second official language. Swahili counts as the native language everyone speaks while not everyone speaks also English.

Later, after around one hour, they demanded to dance or to be entertained in a different way. Apparently they cannot or don’t want to focus for a longer time. Someone provided a mobile phone connected to a smaller music box and for sure they love to dance to “Macarena”. The even did all the moves they might do from this song’s official music video (if I remember correctly).

Honestly, I had not much intension to dance and started to do something different, like to carry up to 20 kids one after another on my shoulder. They were excited about it and loved it a lot. I got in a little trouble to have each one at least once on my shoulder. 😁 Eventually, on another ay, each of us two volunteers carried up to 2 kids at one time. This is a huge fun for all of us and for sure a great memory for the children. That has also provided some variety and may help them to forget about their hard daily life for a couple of hours. One of the purposes of this activity. It is amazing how easy that can be done using a little set of tools and creativity. Their contagious excitement is incredibly high.