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Written By: Wendy Saiki Photos By: Ron Storer  Audrey McAninch is known to go out looking for one lost street boy, only to return home with several boys. One day, she and Joahanes, a young Kenyan man working with Audrey and her husband, Rick, drove down to the lake in Kisumu, a large city in western Kenya, They knew where the street boys gathered, hoping to find leftover scraps of food in the kiosks. The boys they searched for were not there, but so many others begged to come with them. Audrey knew she couldn’t take them all, so decided to choose first those with no mother (mama) or father (baba). “With five in my back seat, I was trying to hurry away to keep from taking more, when a desperate-sounding boy came running alongside my car yelling ‘Auntie, Auntie, take me!’ I thought, ‘Dear God, there are so many. How can I take more?’”
People turn away and pass them by, considering these children outcasts and untouchables. The death of parents to AIDS and the breakdown of the family have turned children to the streets for what little food and shelter they can find. Many become addicted to sniffing glue, a way to numb feelings of fear and hopelessness as well as to curb physical pain and hunger.
When they first encounter street boys, their heavily soiled clothing with living bugs hidden within the seams cover the boys’ crusty, dirty skin. The bugs refuse to die easily so the clothing must be burned. Sores spread over the boys’ legs and fungus grows on their heads, which causes patches of hair to fall out. To survive, the boys find food in rubbish piles, beg on the streets and suffer the blows of beatings from other street boys, guards and the police who use baton-like sticks to chase them away. They sleep at places like petrol stations, in storefronts and on sidewalks, but police often do night sweeps to rid the streets of these kids, forcing them to duck down into storm drains for safety and shelter.
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