Ambrose

I’ve blogged before about the street kids that live in Kitale, who in one way or another are forced out of the homes and onto the streets. Every time you go into town you can’t help but run into them. I know I shouldn’t play favorites, but Ambrose is my all time favorite kid that lives on the streets. When I first came here, Ambrose was always so high on glue that he didn’t even know what was going on. 

Ambrose and I

A couple of weeks ago Leila and I were in town buying things for various places and ran into Ambrose early in the day. This was the first time we had seen him when he was not high and we invited him to come with us. He didn’t ask for a single thing the whole time and helped us carry the things we bought. Ever since then he runs up to us with a huge smile on his face every time we are in town. It had been about two weeks since he has had glue on him, but today he was sniffing it again. We asked him about it and he said that’s what kids that live on the street do. We asked for his glue and he handed it right over and  we could see that he had just bought it. We hung out in town for a while then took him and some of his friends, Cobra and Samuel, to lunch. Halfway through the meal, out of nowhere, Samuel pulled two things of glue out of his pockets and handed them over to Leila. 

Cobra and Samuel 

  We got a chance to talk to Ambrose a little about why he went to the streets. He said that he was from a place that was far from town and he came with a friend about a month ago. He said that both of his parents were still alive, but his father was very harsh , abusive, and unable to provide food for his family. After we ate lunch he stood up and said that he was so full and had never in his life eaten enough food to be full.  He is such a sweet kid, it breaks my heart to know that every day he struggles to find food and sleeps on the cold hard streets of Kitale town. 

He had a huge smile on his face the whole time. 

Still smiling.