jambo, jambo kenya! habari gani! mzuri sana!
I have that song in my head everywhere I go these days! its a song that the kids sing, every kid knows it and will sing it till the cows come home! its awesome. my how things have changed in the course of a week! last monday feels like about a century ago, I'm amazed at how quickly i've started feeling comfortable. what freaked me out last week makes me laugh and love this place this week.
my project has been going well, i've been getting out and about, seeing some schools and orphanages, talking to the kids, playing games with them, getting some ideas off the ground. one of the schools i went to which doesn't have any volunteers at it from the organisation i'm going through, was so shocking and humbling to me. dirt floors, grey cement walls, old school wooden pews, the whole bulding being about the size of my parent's kitchen and lounge room and 120 kids. no books, no pens, pencils or other writing materials. they have a volunteer teacher who wasn't even there that day, plus its currently school holidays, and yet all the kids were at school, so eager for knowledge and education. i paralleled that to my experiences of the mammoth effort of trying to get my siblings to school in the morning where they have every resource known to man, and you have to force them, threaten to smack them or bribe them to go! it made me almost start crying! so i'm going back there this week to talk to the principal to find out what they want and need and just go from there whether it be painting the walls, weekly english classes, books, geez the list is endless.
speaking of painting, i think i've missed my calling. i think i should've done a painting appreticeship or something, cos on sunday i went to a different orphanage with some other volunteers to paint the walls and man was it satisfying! i don't think i've ever worked so hard in my life, we painted the dining room, the girl's bedroom, the kitchen and the bathroom and there were only about 5 of us doing it! then all the kids sang songs and did dances, poems, and skits. its amazing to see children of 8-9 years old, the same age as my sister, writing poetry about aids, and how to respect yourself. its kind of sad really.
otherwise life goes on as per usual, kenyan usual that is. i had my first bout of food poisoning on saturday. the american girl at my homestay made burgers for dinner and the mince was bad so we all were pretty worse for ware on saturday. how ironic is that though, i come to africa, am fine with the african food, and its burgers that make me sick. figure that one out. well i could literally go on for hours about the amazing and unbelieveable expeiences i'm having but my neck hurts and i need to go have a shower and a cold beer. take care i'll post again soon and also add some pics when i get to a computer that actually has a usb drive. gotta love it, TIA, this is africa...ange
