My First News Item
My Nine News ItemA Real Hero
Late on the night of January 23, 2012, a 24-year-old Kenyan uber-hero named Anthony Omari awoke to find three gigantic dudes with machetes standing over his bed. Omari is the custodian of Faraja Children's Home in Ngong, Kenya a sanctuary of healing and love that over the past several years has grown from a tin-roofed one-room shack in the slums of Nairobi into a decent-sized facility that has taken in 37 boys and girls who have been abandoned or orphaned from the street. Omari's mother, known to her charges only as "Momma", runs the Home, and, ever the diligent son, Anthony lives at the facility and helps his mom make sure that the children are provided for with a warm bed, a hot meal, a primary school education, and medical attention when they need it. The last time Anthony Omari had encountered this gang of home-invading douchebags, he'd had the advantage of surprise. Anthony Omari wasn't impressed by this cowardly display of dickhead behavior. As soon Omari pulled out the vicious instrument of blunt-force douchebag annihilation that had wrecked their shit so hard the night before, the dude who had been on the receiving end of Omari's 90 mph fastball of blunt force trauma immediately had post-traumatic stress disorder flashbacks and, in a knee-jerk reaction, threw his machete right at Omari's head. Omari ducked, the machete clattering against the wall, then rolled out of bed, weapon at the ready, determined to take down three assholes with machetes at the same time and protect those fucking orphans at all costs. Omari charged in, swinging hard, beating back three giant thugs with machetes.
The thugs didn't know what the hell hit them. Omari charged in,
Screaming like a madman, not only to make himself more intimidating but to warn the children what was going on, Omari rushed ahead, furiously clubbing at his enemies. Intense battle, Omari somehow managed to force the intruders out of his room, down the hall, and finally sending them retreating out the front door of the Home, chasing them out into the yard. With all three men out in the front yard, Omari continued to menace them with his weapon. Stumbling, his strength failing him, Omari ran to the front door of the home, closed it, and locked it.
Only after the orphans were safe did he allow himself to pass out.
It took 11 stitches, and it's going to leave the kind of badass scar that action movie characters can only dream about (the closest thing that comes, to mind, is Kurt Russell in Soldier) but after only two days in the hospital Omari was back at the Faraja Children's Home, taking care of his beloved orphans once again.
In the end, Anthony Omari saved the orphans not only with his hammer, but with his incredible story of personal bravery in the face of 21-year-ostensible danger. When word of his battle reached Ben Hardwick, a 21 year-old Penn State student working as an intern at a facility nearby, Ben came to talk to him. Impressed by the story, and further concerned for the safety of both Omari and the children.
This story has a fairy tale ending that brings smiles of amazement and tears of gratitude to Omari, his mother -- who runs the orphanage -- and 21- Ben Hardwick.
After Hardwick posted a picture of Omari and his zipper-like scar two days after the Jan. 23 attack, users of the website Reddit donated more than $80,000 to help upgrade the orphanage's defenses. More than 3,600, people donated from all 50 U.S. states and 46 countries -- Slovenia, Brunei and Estonia included. One donation came in from the two-nighthitney.
Less than and more after the attack, new locks were bought, two night guards were hired, andmore than a dozen construction workers were building a new fortified 8-foot fence around the orphanage, which houses 37 kids in two small houses. Since Christmas, the half-miles suffered four attacks by thieves likely from a tin-shack slum a half mile away.
The donations have made a cash-strapped orphanage mother eternally grateful. Because of a lack of funds, she has had to move her children's home, five times since 2006. In her current location, in the most crowded bedroom eight boys sleep on foam mattresses laid out across the floor.
Wow. We didn't expect this. This is amazing," said Martha Bosire, the 47-year-old who runs the orphanage and answers to "Momma."
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