With great support from Wheels 4 Life I was able to buy 3 more bikes before I left Kenya.  I want to share letters and stories from the three recipients.  Geoffrey Atulo has been a friend of mine since 2004 when I first visited his ponds in Khwisero, Kenya.  He was working hard to get his ponds in top shape and welcomed me to see all the work he was doing.  When he is not working on his farm he is collecting rocks and pounding them into gravel.  Geoffrey has never owned a bike in his life and whenever we would meet he had walked for many kilometres to see me.  He was so excited when he received the new bike and so happy.  He was extremely proud and was looking forward to getting it home and using it.  Daniel Abdallah is 18 years old and was born into a family of four children.  His parents both have died from AIDS and as the last born he is the only one that has gotten the opportunity to go to school.  He sat for his primary examination and managed to pass and join secondary school.  He had no one to pay his school fees but different people have been assisting him and paying his school fees.  He lives approximately 15 kilometres from school and he walks to and fro daily or else borrows a bike from friends.  He was so excited to get the bike and promised he would not miss any school for the rest of the year.  Kennedy Esala is a fish farmer in Bukura and we have known each other for over 3 years.  As a fish farmer he needs a bicycle to help him transport fish feed and fertilizer to his ponds and harvested fish to the market.  As he said to me “A bicycle is of more importance to me, to my projects and to my entire life in general”. 

Tags: bikes, fish farming, kakamega, kenya

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 8:34 pm and is filed under education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.