Madago Diary – February 2025

We continue the series of events at Madago following our recent on-site visit. Our biggest project has taken its final shape. Looking back, I don’t even know exactly how it happened. I think it went something like this:

In June 2024, after two intense weeks of workshops, training, games, happy and some sad experiences, on the last day at Madago, I’m sitting in the courtyard with the headmistress and a few teachers. We’re laughing about the last few days, concluding that all the activities were successful, and I say, “What if our next project was to renovate the administrative building?” The teachers head straight for the building, go inside, and start listing things: “Here we can put electricity, maybe even a sink. We could make this room the staff room, we’d put our tables in a circle. And this place is perfect for a medical clinic…” It’s clear, I know what I have to do. I go home with a new plan. We renovate the building and create a small medical clinic.

Once home, I’m faced, as usual, with the old problem: Why are you doing something there? Don’t we have our own poor people? How do you mean, renovate a building? Where are you going to get the money? And the doubts of those around me don’t stop… But I know I want to do this, and I know that if you want to, you’ll eventually succeed – Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

By December, I managed to raise the necessary funds. I send the first installment to Kenya, and soon the first problems arise – those at Madago can’t decide which contractor to work with, each has their own interests and advantages, I’m far away, and I can’t really see the exact situation. I choose a third contractor in the end. And things start to move.

I receive daily photos of the progress – after a few days, nothing remains of the building I knew. I wonder if it would have been better to build a new one from the start :)). It doesn’t really matter anymore, things have started, and we continue as they are.

So, in a few weeks, the building got a new supporting structure, gained a meter in height, new beams, a new roof, a ceiling, new grilles, new doors, water supply and sinks, sockets and electricity, tiles. And it decided – the building or the team – that I would be the one to do the final painting :)).

So, I arrive, as usual, in the Madago courtyard under the scorching sun and look at the building… What do you do when you have a few days to finish such a job? You roll up your sleeves, grab a brush, gather some hard-working people around you, and get to work.

At first, the teachers look surprised at the mzungu painting walls, doors, grilles, the children come and tell me I’m not allowed to do such work :)). And the next day, something interesting starts to happen. Some of the teachers come prepared to work too, the older students are already troweling one of the exterior walls, some volunteer parents from the village have come to help. Everyone is working chaotically, it seems like no one knows what they’re doing, there’s paint everywhere, and there are clouds of dust inside – the freshly painted interior, still immaculately white (for the next few minutes :))). I don’t know whether to try to organize the work according to my standards or let myself be carried away by the African atmosphere – disorganized, with many people involved, with music, frequent interruptions, repeated activities that aren’t necessarily needed :)). I think it’s good to let everything proceed according to the local reality.

A few days pass and I can’t believe it – we’re at 90%. It’s good, because it’s my last day here. I can leave with a peaceful heart… the ceiling fans, curtains, and the bed in the medical office are still missing, a few touch-ups. Those around me promise they’ll do them by June at the latest :)). Kenyan deadline. But I know it will be respected.

I take a few steps back and hear Moses’s voice, “We did it!” Madam Kheri adds, “Wow, I didn’t think you would make it.” I reply, “But we did, Madam Kheri, we did!” And she says, more to herself, “Thank you for that!”

There are many projects waiting now, because we know we can complete them, with good and bad, divergent opinions, sweat and effort, music and jokes, and especially good thoughts – we have 3 more buildings to renovate, a wall to build, a well to dig. And these are just projects on the construction part. I wonder which one we’ll continue with?