Week One - New Place, New Culture, New Friends

Well I have already covered twenty pages of my journal with observations, stories, history, and differences in culture, but I will give you guys the cliff notes version. Life in Kenya is hot, busy, but very fulfilling. Kenyans are hard workers and take pride in their work. The children are very sweet and kind. They all work like clock work and really watch out for each other!

My trip started with a much needed nights rest and hot shower in a hotel in Nairobi. On Monday morning I took a tour of the city, bought a cell phone, and got to feed giraffes and see baby elephants. I also saw monkeys and pumba just walking around like it was normal. I also visited the lookout for the Kibera slum, over one million residents live in the slum. It is the second largest in Africa the other being in South Africa. The government has tried to build project like housing beside the slum and move the residents but so far it has been unsuccessful. My guide said that it is easy to move the mind out of the slum but almost impossible to get the slum out of the mind. He said that it is very hard for the government to teach potential.

The orphanage its self is probably exactly what you have in your mind as an African orphanage. No running water, make-shift everything, and over crowded. They do have a project site right now that is about half way through building a new much nicer place. I have my own room with a nice size bed and gives me some much needed privacy. I think the many years of rooming with Lillian in Eleuthera has given me the skills to rig everything up in my room. Except for the fact that I can't believe I left the states without a some duct tape! What was I thinking!?! I bathe out of buckets and use a Turkish toilet, and if you do not know what that is count your blessings and hope you never find out. However, I have arranged to have a shower on Mondays and Thursdays to be able to wash my hair. Praise Jesus. The food is good but pretty much the same everyday, either stewed potatoes and bananas or rice and stewed peas. The Kenyans love their tea! They drink tea with milk and sugar once in the morning and then also at eleven. I like the tea, its not my mama's sweet tea, but it is pretty good.

Now for the kids, I interact mainly with the girls and the high school boys. The high school boys are here during the day because they do not start back school until February so we do chores together. They are funny and love to ask me questions about America. The girls are very typical, they want to touch my hair and love to come in my room and look at my pictures, all of which have asked for one of the pictures of me and Jesse : ) They agree that he is the most handsome boy in the world and love to hear stories about him. Every night I have at least ten sitting on my bed and around the floor talking and laughing. The children are devote Christians and quote scripture all the time. My first night at the orphanage one of the girls was sitting beside me looking at my Bible and asked if she could read me something, she read Psalms 23 to me. I was moved to tears (which happens about ten times a day). The verse that I have heard read so many times sounds so different when read by a beautiful sweet orphaned child... “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me: your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” One thing that I wish all of you could experience happens early in the morning when the kids have their morning devotion. I am the only “adult” that gets up with them in the morning and yet every morning at six they get together and sing, pray, and read scripture. It is said that Mother Teresa and the nuns at Calcutta have much of the same ritual, she has been quoted saying it is the only way to start the day and the kids at Heritage agree. I am going to try to video it one morning and I hope it does it justice. In fact let me tell you what a day in the life of the children and then I will tell you my typical day. The kids wake up at five with the sun, morning devotion at six, morning tea and off to school by six forty-five. They come back from school at eleven for morning tea and then again at one for lunch. They stay in school until five and when they get home the small ones play and the older kids do chores until seven which is dinner time and then homework and lights out by nine-thirty or so. Pretty packed life right. My life is pretty much the same, up at five helping the young ones get ready, morning devotion, when the kids leave I usually work in the kitchen peeling the zillion potatoes we consume, laundry, dishes, and lots of sewing. When the kids get home from school I play with the little ones and tutor a few of the kids after dinner. (see mom all this time when I have been lazy at home and said that my time was coming I was right, it has arrived)

The cards have been really nice, thank you to all who sent them. The kids like to read them too. My health is holding up, although the last couple of days my stomach has been more compromised and my body is tired. My emotional state changes by the hour but I am doing just fine. Pray that I sleep through the night, I am still having trouble with the time change. I have so much more to say but I will save it for other post. Hope everything is great in the US!