Or so I thought. Monday my initial plan was to be back at the disability school. The new teacher was ill and told to take an extra week off, and there were no volunteers placed there, so I would be the only one. James from NVS arrived in the morning to take some volunteers to Olympic school, and asked if I could take Quinta to her university in Thika for registration day and sort out her accommodation. We first went via Olympic, where they were having a morning cleaning so there was nothing for the others, Ashleigh and Kyung, to be doing. So we headed to the doctors near Quinta's, where we went over the school fees. Unfortunately, the guys who started the programme and were sorting out the funds hadn't sent the money yet, so all we had was what was in the feeding programme purse, 24,000 shillings, out of a total of at least 50,000 needed.
Quinta had been looking forward to this for so long, and began to get upset as it looked like we couldn't take her. One option was to try to call the university to see if it all had to be paid today, or if it could be paid partially. But that would still likely leave us short with supplies to buy for her too. I decided I could withdraw the extra money needed, and have NVS pay it back when they have it sent, though this would likely leave me with far more cash than I need when I go home in 2 weeks, but it would be worth it to get Quinta out of Kibera, and not fall back into a depressive state due to university falling through. Ashleigh also offered to loan the cash she had from donations back home, so between us we decided we could cover all the fees.
So we headed back to the house to get Ashleigh's money and my bank card. I headed back to the doctors, initially it was supposed to be me, Quinta and one of the doctors going, however James had then decided it would probably be cheaper paying fuel for one of the NVS vans than using public transport, so he arranged for one of the NVS drivers, Chomlee, to pick us up, meaning James could come along too. This no doubt made things far quicker, as I had never been to Thika, and certainly had no idea of my way around the university. Plus Chomlee's best friend's (Cleo at NVS) sister in law was in her third year there so knew the area pretty well.
As we drove down a highway with a speed limit of 100kmph, I had to wonder, who on earth thought it would be a good idea to put speed bumps and zebra crossings on such a road? In most places there weren't even gaps in the barricades along the road for pedestrians to pass through. We didn't see that there had been any accidents though, I guess Kenyans are used to braking hard the way they drive.
We arrived at the university which, despite being one of the cheapest, had a very nice campus. Unfortunately the layout of everything for registration wasn't so good, we did a lot of wandering around looking for the right places to go, until Cleo's sister in law arrived to help guide us. Turns out we only needed to pay 60% of the fees initially, so this helped us out a lot. However unfortunately the school accommodation was fully booked, so we had to find a hostel nearby which was a bit more expensive.
With the tuition fees and accommodation paid for, all that was left to do was take Quinta to get some supplies and necessities. Then put her on a motorbike back to the hostel, whilst the rest of us went to get something to eat. By this point it was starting to get dark, so I'm glad we had Chomlee to drive us as matatus and buses would have taken far longer and it would be very late by the time I got back home.
With Quinta now at university, we'll continue to support her family in Kibera for a while longer, at least until we have set up a business for her mother so she is able to provide for the rest of the family, and hopefully be able to visit her at uni occasionally. Unfortunately the family were not home when we visited this Tuesday, and with next Tuesday being the next orientation, I won't be seeing them again before I leave, but at least I had the opportunity to see how far Quinta has come in less than 3 months and see her off to uni.
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