In the same year, two of our children joined secondary school and one attends now college. Academically, it was a busy year unlike the others as we normally have three school years, but in 2021 we had four school years due to the impact of Corona closing the schools for one year (2020).
Last year, 2021, there was a plan to open a youth house for our girls over 18 years old, which was implemented this year, 2022. We are very confident that this house will be completed soon and our older children will have a place to stay then. The number of children in daycare has also increased. Many parents got the opportunity to have a place where their children are cared for. Because of the good environment, the qualified and competent caregivers and the balanced food, many parents could not hesitate to bring their children in large numbers. This has also continued until recently.
Our agricultural production is also going well, as in 2021 we harvested so much from our orange and tangerine trees that we were able to supply the Nice View Family well with it. We have produced more than 500 liters of orange and tangerine juice and more than 300 liters of mango juice. The children were very happy about this, because this is our vision for the Nice View Family that our children grow up healthy and learn that vegetables and fruits can be grown without chemicals to harvest organic quality.
Our vegetable farm is also doing well. We are happy to be able to use our own produce since everything is grown naturally instead of buying it from the village where most farmers use chemicals to grow it.
Some of our farm products from 2021 with their quantities:
Spinach - we managed to get enough on our farm to feed our Nice View family and the children of Nice View Gratitude Academy. We harvested more than 300 kg from our garden in 2021.
Bananas - we harvested in strands and had more than 35 of them, of which one strand contained maybe 20 to 30 kg.
Avocados - we harvested 385 of them and we expect more from our tree.
Turmeric - we harvested about 30 kg in 2021.
Ginger - we had harvested about 30 kg from our farm in 2021.
Tomatoes - we had harvested about 80 kg.
Papaya - we were able to harvest more than 500 in 2021.
Finally, we also harvested various herbs, including basil, lemongrass, rosemary, mint, oregano, etc.
These are just some of the main vegetables that we regularly get from our farm, but there are others such as green peppers, pineapple, pumpkin, sugar cane, eggplant and others.
The production of our poultry farm was also remarkable, our chickens produced about 30 egg cartons with 30 eggs each, which were mainly used by us as breakfast eggs. Our number of guinea fowl increased from 19 to 52, so we now have 33 chickens from our farm.
The number of chickens also increased from 38 to 79, so we had 41 new chicks.
Our small animal farm gives our children the opportunity to learn a lot about high-yield animal husbandry. It gives them a sense of responsibility.
We are very thankful that we are not seeing much of the Corona pandemic here in Kenya. Masks should be worn at school, in stores, and in public places. We have not experienced any real Corona cases here yet, thank goodness. From November to January, almost the entire Nice View family had the same bacterial infection, and we suspect it was of the Omicron variety. If so, we had the mild variant.
A final piece of news. A small, completely neglected dog came to us in June 2021. She apparently had no home and was terribly hungry. The Nice View family children were overjoyed to have a dog of their own and named her Shelly. The children are now so happy with Shelly, and wherever the children are, Shelly is there, even sleeping in the boys' house and participating in activities and romping with the children.
In summary, 2021 has been very thankful for all of us at Nice View.
Summary of Nice View Children's Village Leadership Team
Mama Gudrun
Hannah Wanjohi
Doris Mukami