He wishes Dad would have gotten married. It would be nice to see him settled down with someone, rather than still living like a teenager, going from woman to woman.

‘So, where are we now?’ Yvonne asks.

‘I’m sixty-three per cent sure it’s this way.’

‘Kiama? You’re joking?’

‘Okay, maybe seventy.’ A dog sniffs around their path and Kiama holds onto Yvonne’s arm. ‘I hate dogs.’

‘Still?’

‘Yeah, they stink.’

‘I’d be more worried about how far we are from a rabies shot.’

The dog darts off after something in the trees and then Kiama spots it, just like the house girl described, two small paths cross each other and on one side there’s the compound. Two children run from the behind the walls and wave them in.

A young man, a little older than Kiama, walks towards them and Yvonne explains that they have come to see some of Kindred Kenya’s work. Again, she puts on that ‘phone voice’, and it definitely makes her lies sound more truthful.

They follow the man, Simeon, into a large yard, passing a cooking hut and an orange swing set, the seats all tangled and wrapped around the poles, black print along the side boasts, ‘Donated by Laura Gordon’.

Kiama stares at the house and imagines Mum walking out of the door, baby on hip, just like in the photo.

‘Kiama?’ Yvonne says and he flicks his attention to her. ‘You need to take your shoes off,’ she says, nodding down to his feet.

‘Oh. Sorry.’ Inside a line of orange rubber matting runs through the middle of the room, and everything is dark and filthy.

‘The children are at church,’ Simeon explains.

‘Please, sit down,’ he gestures towards two foldout chairs by a barred window.

The walls are bare, apart from a hand-drawn alphabet frieze and a picture of Jesus Christ with his arms spread wide.

A girl of about fourteen, wearing a grubby white party dress, brings in a floral-patterned flask and three plastic mugs.

‘You look very pretty,’ Yvonne says to her. ‘Is it your birthday today?’

The girl giggles and hides her mouth.

‘No,’ Simeon says as he takes a jar of Milo from a shelf and spoons it into the cups. ‘This is Zipporah. She is always dressed like this. She likes to feel special.’

Kiama smiles at the girl but she only giggles again and runs off.

‘It is such a nice surprise to have visitors,’ Simeon says. ‘Have you also visited the medical centres?’

‘No,’ Yvonne says, ‘not yet. We were really interested in this place because we think a friend of ours volunteered here once, but it would have been a long time ago.’