Thursday May 28th 2009
The first visit of the day has to be the most depressing of our trip. It
was to the community at Saceini who we have been trying to help for the last 5
or so years, but these people simply will not help themselves or make any use
of the opportunities we have given or arranged for them. It was here we built
the wooden house / garden shed that was funded by the Lions Club several years
ago for the Parkinsons sufferer Gizella. Gizella was on our Adopt a Granny
scheme we were shocked when we found she was
sleeping outside in the courtyard. She was THRILLED with the wooden
house in the middle of the yard surrounded by the ghastly dilapidated house
that housed 4 families – they all envied her having such a good house, when
compared to their own dwellings. She lived there safely and happily with her
sister until she died. After that we continued the sponsorship of her mother
who then moved into the house with the same sister – she seems to be the only
one in that small community with any sense of cleanliness and initiative.
When we first met them we tried to assist the whole community, with
food, clothes, school materials, tools, seeds, bicycles – all we could to help
them get work and better themselves, but all that could be sold was sold for
alcohol. We offered one family (the best family) the chance to move to another
village in a house Mustard Seed had bought, but they decided against it, not
liking the conditions that although it would be rent free for the first year
after that we would expect a small rent and they must find work to support
themselves and send the children to school as well as keep the property clean
and tidy. After that we focussed on helping Gizella and her mother only, plus
Christmas shoeboxes for the children and also clothing.
The whole community is in trouble as the property has been sold and they
will be turned out on June 20th by the new owner. Alex Stroie had
repeatedly told them that if they heard the property was for sale to let him
know and Mustard Seed would consider buying it, but they did not phone him
until the sale had taken place and they knew they must leave next month.
It was obvious they expected us to do something for them but they have
made such a mess of the resources they have had that there is no way we would
consider re-housing them anywhere (in our opinion they are disastrous
tenants!). We offered Gizella’s mother and the daughter a room at the new
pensioners’ home in Cefa but the daughter refused either because of the rule of
no smoking and no alcohol or because she has a man in the village and plans to
move herself and her mother into his home.
We arranged the date on which Dan and a helper would come to dismantle
the wooden house so that they could be sure to have moved their belongings out
before that date – it will be taken to the next village to be used as a
bathroom for a needy family we housed who have taken full advantage of what we
offered them.
Sadly we left the community at Saceini knowing that in 3 weeks time this
community (except for Gizella and her daughter) face being on the street but
feeling there is nothing more we can do for this community unless they begin to
make some effort for themselves. At least it is not winter but summer. But the
ones we feel so sorry for are the children and there are a huge number of them,
must be at least 10 or 12 and most quite small. We can only pray the adults
will make that effort, if not themselves then for the children in their care.
In all we clocked up around 200 kilometers with visiting the families in
those villages that we assist and with all we were pleased, even delighted
except for the Saceini community.
The evening ended late after buying a commercial washing machine for the
pensioners’ home we had dinner with Alex and Rody before getting back home to
Cefa at around