The last week

Due to some computer complications, we're finally typing this up at home. Our last week in Kenya was one of the most memorable and also the most difficult. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we spent everyday entirely with the girls. We had bought some beads in Nairobi with Lucy and on Monday she came to the Rescue Center and taught the girls how to make bracelets and necklaces. Two of the girls,Jane and Maria, who are Masai, already knew how to make amazing jewelery. Even though the other girls weren't expert beaders like Jane and Maria, they still really enjoyed beading and were excited to have their own jewelery for the first time since they'd been at the center.
Thursday was our last day in Machakos and also school closing day for the term. That morning, we both woke up at 5:00 AM to go to the bathroom. Earlier that week, we had learned the reason for the daily morning stampede past our room. Every morning the cook heats water for the girls to use to bathe, but only enough for about 8 girls. So every morning, once the house mother opens the gate, all the girls race eachother to the kitchen for the hot water. As we walked downstairs,we heard the sound of dozens of girls running towards us and suddenly we saw one girl zoom past us,closely followed by ten more girls. We excitedly cheered them all on, trying to identify who was in the top eight. It was a great start to our last day with the girls.
On closing day, a special meal is prepared, complete with chapati,ndazi,stew and rice. The older girls spent all morning in the kitchen cutting vegetables, rolling chapati dough and deep frying ndazi. With the only other girls in the kitchen who werent cooking, Felista(4 years old) and nDunge(5), we watched Betty and Vivian fry chapati and Lucy and Wendy cut up huge slabs of beef. The school closing ceremony was held at 1:00. The teachers, counselors and visitors sat at a long table atoo the stage looking down at the girls seated facing the stage. It felt strange sitting above them, as if we were their authorities, when we felt more like their friends. During the ceremony, the teachers called up each class and ranked every girl, giving each a prize( a wash-cloth and a pen). They even ranked the nursery and the special-ed class. We were so proud to see that all of our closest friends were called as the 1st and 2nd in their class. Looking down and seeing all of their faces and knowing it was the last day we would see them made us very emotional. None of the girls had ever seen us cry and it made them very upset and emotional themselves. After the ceremony, there were two hours when all of the girls were really depressed. We felt bad because our unhappiness had caused theirs and we didnt want to spend our last day with them moping. After a couple sad hours our attempts to cheer them up finally worked. We spent the rest of the day singing, laughing and taking lots of silly pictures.
To lighten our suitcases we had decided to give some of our clothes away to the girls. We brought some of our closest friends, Nancy, Betty, Lillian and Vivian, into our room so that they could take some of the clothes we were getting rid of. They all excitedly sifted through the pile, trying on several different outfits. We'd never seen them wearing anything other than their uniforms and it made us so happy to see how ecstatic they were to try on all the new clothes. At one point, Lillian put on a pair of khaki pants, a flowered shirt, oversized hiking boots, and a safari hat. The sight of her in the outfit was so hilarious and even better was the excitement in her eyes to be wearing that outfit. While they were trying on our old clothes, we put on their uniforms and held a little fashion show.

In all of the excitement we mistakenly locked the keys inside our room as we left. We had been so careful about preventing this from happening since the first day because to our knowledge, there are no spare keys to our room. We desperately brainstormed ways to get back into our room . When we asked Catherine if she knew a way to break in to the dorm, which is a cement building with metal doors and barred windows, she immediately climbed up to the window and tried to squeeze through the four-by-four inch space between the bars. We had a large audience at this point, and realizing our dilemna, they all started to lift up the smallest girls and shove them through the bars. Finally Faith Shiru, an eight-year old who is incredibly skinny, walked by and everyone cheered as Ann Mbuela grabbed her arm, lifted her up to the window and successfully pushed her through the four-by-four inch space.
Joseph arrived at seven pm to pick us up and we spent an hour saying goodbye to the girls. Its impossible to put into words how sad and difficult that hour was, and it still hasnt hit us that every morning we wont be woken up to the sound of the girls racing for hot water.

Today, being our last Sunday in Machakos, we threw a party for the girls. Every day, the girls eat one of two meals; muthakoi (beans and corn), or rice and beans. The government only has enough money to provide for necessities, so the girls haven't enjoyed sweets or alternative meals since they lived at home. So yesterday, we went into Machakos town with our friend Lucy, and bought ingredients for stew, rice, chapatti, and mandazi.
We bought most of the ingredients for the stew in the open market, where Lucy has many vendor friends. We spent a while just hanging out in the market with all the women selling fruits and vegetables. When a man carrying a stereo walked by us and we started dancing, we heard an enormous burst of laughter and cheering. When we looked around, we realized that literally, every person in the market was looking over at us and cheering. Mzungus aren't common in the open market.
Before doing our shopping, we spent the afternoon at Lucy's office with her support group for orphaned children who have AIDS. Twenty children and their care givers (usually grandmothers) gather at Lucy's office once a month to enjoy a delicious meal that she cooks for them, toys, television, and music. We spent a long time talking with many of the caregivers and were really impressed by the sacrifices that they make for the children. It's not easy for them to provide for themselves, let alone their grandchildren who have many additional needs because of their sickness. One of the caregivers even contracted AIDS herself from caring for her sick daughter who had the virus, and now, despite her own malady, is caring for her HIV positive grandaughter. After leaving the office, Lucy took us to the area where most of the children and their caregivers live; the Machakos slum. One of the caregivers showed us her home, where she and her three children live. It was one room with a dirt floor and mud walls, that was only large enough to fit two twin sized beds and a desk. She told us that she struggles to pay the rent every month (700 shillings, approximately 8 dollars). Despite her obvious struggles and poor living conditions, this woman, along with the rest of the caregivers and their children, seemed to carry a surprisingly positive attitude.
We spent this morning in the kitchen with the oldest girls and the cook preparing mandazi, chapatti, stew, and rice. It was interesting how all of the girls knew by heart how to cook each dish. We realized that even now, neither of us know how to cook any specialized dishes, while these ten and eleven-year-old girls have at least six under their belts.
Earlier this week, the manager of the center, Olive, expressed her concern that if we threw this party for the girls, they might "starve". After discussing with other staff members about the quite stressful and frustrating conversation that we'd had with Olive regarding the party, we realized that her expressions of concern for the girls' "health", were just an excuse to ruin their one fun day. Francis has informed us that Olive's only concern is money, and that she has no care whatsoever for the children's wellbeing. Even the girls have told us numerous stories about Olive's mistreatment. Apparently if she catches them playing or having fun, she punishes them (cleaning the toilets). In fact, the one time that we've ever seen her interacting with any of the girls, was when she walked by about five of them and found reasons to scold each individual girl there. We almost feel like we're witnessing the real life version of Matilda, in which Francis is Ms. Honey, and Olive is the evil principle. However, we certainly proved Olive's "concerns" wrong as each girl got six mandazi with tea, a huge lunch and dinner, and so much chapatti that they were actually giving them away after dinner. On a normal day, the girls would be scraping their plates clean and sometimes even eating roasted grasshoppers.
In the afternoon the girls did various activities such as a dance competition, relay races, and bible trivia. The girls knew the answer to all the questions that Christine prepared, while we struggled to even understand her questions. Everyone we've met here is Catholic, and we've gotten used to their prayers before meals, although we still don't know whether we're supposed to close our eyes or not when the prayer is being said. On Friday night we had dinner at Lucy's house along with one of her colleagues, a volunteer from Japan. As we sat down for dinner, Lucy's husband suggested that one of the three of us lead the prayer. After looking around awkwardly, we each declared our very non-catholic religions; "independent lutheran...jewish...buddhist." Lucy's husband decided it best that we just not pray.

This is Maria, left, and her twin sister, Catherine. We took this picture while we were painting one of the classrooms. Though some of the girls have lost their initial excitement about having us here, Maria is always just as excited to see us as she was on the first day. Whenever she sees us, she runs up to us, grinning. She's also very good at sports, and loves the camera more than any other girls. Catherine also has the same great spirit as her sister. Her humor is both cute and sarcastic, and she has a hilarious attitude. While she's never annoying about hanging off of us or constantly hugging us, she can still be so cuddly and cute. Even though she's not one of the best English speakers, and we can't converse with her as easily as we can with some of the others, we feel like we know her personality the best of all the girls, and we love her so much. One of the things we love about her is how rounded her personality is. She's talented at so many things. She's a really amazing dancer, and we can tell she truly loves it because we've often seen her just dancing alone to no music. She also loves to draw. Whenever we do big drawing projects with all the girls, Catherine always helps one of the youngest girls, Vanessa, with her drawings, which is so nice to see because she usually acts like the tough girl of the bunch. She always adds some humor to whatever she's doing. She sings the American songs we've taught her at ten times the normal speed and in a funny voice, which always makes us laugh.

Mombasa

We went to Mombasa this weekend. We spent a lot of time at Diani beach where there is probably the highest concentration of white people in Kenya. Because of this, there are also a lot of "beach boys" and Masai warriors who bug you inscently to buy their goods. Throughout our three days spent there, we made up roughly fifteen different stories about ourselves to get them to leave us alone.

Wamaitha na Waithera

Yesterday Nancy, Betty, and Lilian gave us Kikuyu names; Wamaitha and Waithera. All the girls have two names, the first of which is generally an English name while the second is a name from their tribe. Most of the girls at the center are either Kikuyu, Luo, or Akamba. Often Kenyans can tell what tribe others are from just by knowing their second name. The other day we were telling Christine about Vivian, Lilian, and Betty, and she was able to tell us where they came from and what their tribes were. We hadn't realized until this week that the girls mostly call eachother by their second names rather than their first names. It gets a bit confusing sometimes because a lot of the girls share the same first names.
The above picture is of two girls we really love, Wendy (right), and Citrus. Wendy has been here for the longes out of all the girls. At a very young age she was brought to the Nairobi Children's Home by the police who found her wondering around alone in a slum in Nairobi. Despite the fact that she most likely doesn't have a home to go back to, Wendy is always in high spirits. If we were to give the girls superlatives, Wendy would easily be "the sunshine". Whenever we look over at her, she grins, but then quickly hides her smile shyly. We can't think of one time when we've seen her in a bad mood. Citrus would most definitely be given the superlative "class clown". Almost every morning we hear her loud, distinguishable laugh over the other noises such as unidentified, suspicious animals climbing around on our roof and girls running (we still don't know what exactly their doing).

From left to right: Vivian, Citrus, and Betty in the back.


** Aliya-We were so happy to read your comments! We miss you!! Hope Kirov is great!

Mafuta tafadali!

The other day we were watching the girls wash their clothes. We were amazed at how methodical and efficient all the girls, including the youngest ones, were at this chore. After washing their clothes, they used the same bar of soap to scrub their heads and faces. We noticed that the soap made all their faces very dry so we brought down some of our own lotion. While we had initially intended to give lotion to only Faith, the girl in the above picture, we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by a swarm of excited girls with their hands out, asking for "mafuta". Since that day we've been occasionally bringing the lotion down and the girls are just as excited as the first time.

Who won the world cup?

Munyiva's farm

Thursday was a busy day for everyone at the Rescue Center. In preperation for the visit of the Children's District Officer, the girls were given cooking and cleaning tasks to do instead of their normal school day lessons. The girls and women had set up a makeshift kitchen in one of the classrooms where they were cooking mandazi (a sweet roll), rice, and stew, while dancing to a blasting stereo. We were drawn into the room by the amazing smells and air of excitement. Nancy and Betty stealthily showed us handfulls of sugar that they had stolen and had stored in their pockets. The Children's District Officer was one of several visitors who were coming that day. One of which was Sophie, a good friend of Dean Cycon, who came to pick us up and bring us to her mother's coffee farm. The girls were also anticipating the arrival of Lilian and Betty's long lost grandmother. Francis told us that she had been located in March and was finally coming to meet her daughter's daughters for the first time. We only got a glimpse of her as we were leaving but we could see, even from afar, how happy Lilian and Betty were to meet her.
When we got into Sophie's car, we of course introduced ourselves to all of the passengers, Sophie, her son, her nephew and her husband who was driving. As Sophie was talking to Francis outside, we had a lengthy conversation with her husband. First we introduced ourselves, and proceeded to ask him several questions about himself. Sophie and her family live in America and are on vacation in Kenya, so we asked him how long he had lived in America. He answered that he lived in Nairobi, which confused us a bit but we didn't dwell on it.
The drive up to Munyiva's farm, which is deep in the hills of Machakos (the very ones that we've been admiring throughout our stay in Machakos), was very bumpy and dusty. The roads were a deep red color, and on either side was a lush green of the farmland. Upon arriving at Munyiva's house, we took a couple minutes to just take in the view of the farmlands below, which was spectacular. Equally as amazing as the view was the lunch that Munyiva served us soon after we arrived. The two of us, Munyiva, Sophie, her nephew, and her son sat down at the table for a delicious lunch of rice and stew. Sophie's husband (Munyiva's son) sat seperate from us, on the couch, to eat his lunch. Nobody was speaking to him which also confused us but again, we didn't dwell on it. After lunch Munyiva gave us a tour of her "shamba" (garden). It turns out that most of the hill actually belongs to her and her family. Although her main crop is coffee beans, she also grows bananas, avacados, macademia nuts, beans, corn, pumpkins and probably more that we didn't even see.
We spent most of the next day at the Machakos open market. We'd been there several times, but this time was very different as Munyiva knew most of the venders and stopped to chat with everyone there. For lunch we ate a meal that was familiar to us because of the Trader Joe's frozen section. Although we do appreciate Trader Joe's, the homemade lentils and chapati that Munyiva made put frozen food to shame. We spent the meal talking to Munyiva about her life and her ten children. When she mentioned that we should meet her oldest son, Sophie's husband, we confusedly asked her who the man who had been with Sophie and driven us here was. She off handedly answered that he was the cab driver. We both broke into hysterics about our mistake, and Munyiva, not knowing what we were laughing about, joined in, which only fueled our laughter more. Later we realized that this was just the true nature of Munyiva, who's a really fantastic woman. Although she's seventy-six-years-old, she lives alone and spends the whole day working really hard. Since her husband died a couple years ago, she's been running the farm by herself. She doesn't seem lonely because her daughter-in-law and grandaughter live literally ten feet away in the next house. On Saturday, we went on a gorgeous run through Munyiva's shambas with her ten-year-old grandaugther, Grace. It quite possibly could have been the most scenic run that either of us had ever been on.
Throughout our time spent with Munyiva we tried numerous tradtional Kenyan meals, thoroughly enjoying every single one of them. We had ugali, chapati, getheri, rice and stew, and much more. Every meal was followed by fresh oranges and two cups of delicious tea (0% hot water, 100% hot milk). We drank more milk in those three days than we had in the past two weeks.

The girls are loving ultimate frisbee, although they do ocassionally use the frisbees to carry pumpkin guts. This is the field that we play in-the view from it is absolutely beautiful. You can see all the Machakos farmland below.

In the past couple days we've had a lot of long conversations with the manager and guidance counselors of the rescue center about the case history of certain girls. The girls come from three different backgrounds. Some have been either seperated from their parents or their parents have died. Others have been abused by family members and taken away by the police, or neglected and abandoned by their parents. A few were victims of forced early marriage (these girls are only 11, 13, and 14 years old). Finding out many of the girls' pasts has been really hard for us, but definitely necessary to understand them better. It's amazing to see that they can still be so cheerful and loving despite their extremely difficult pasts. We've also been learning about where the girls go from here. This Rescue Center is somewhat temporary because its main purpose is to locate any family members and reunite the girls with them. When family is located, it's still hard to determine whether they'll treat the girls well and be able to support them. If the center is unable to locate family members, the future of the girls is very uncertain. Sometimes girls have had to stay here until they get married. As Francis has told us, the Kenyan government doesn't value girls education and therefore makes it expensive for them to pay for schooling. Two girls, whose grandmother has been located, have expressed their worry to us that if they go to live with her, they won't be able to get a proper education because she can't afford it.
Tonight we're eating dinner with the girls for the first time because they're serving rice. Everyone's really excited to eat something different from beans and corn mashed together!

Lilian and Vivian

Vivian is the girl on the left. Ever since the first night we arrived, she stood out to us, not to say that we don't love all the girls. She's always by our side translating swahili into english for the girls that don't speak english as well as she does. She's only nine years old but is so bright and is always eager to learn new english words or teach us swahili. This is fitting too because she's told us that she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. We have full confidence seeing that she's already taught us all the swahili that we know. Vivian's best friend, Lilian, is the girl on the right. Lilian has surprised us in such a great way. Unlike Vivian, we didn't really notice her in all of the constant excitement of all the girls because she's more quiet and less all over us than many of the others. But as we've gotten to know her through teaching her and her sister, Betty, in the highest level class, we've come to love her so much. Whenever we're teaching the girls anything from English and world history to new american songs, she's always concentrating and focusing entirely on what we're saying. We can tell that she has such a strong drive to learn new things. Both girls have such great spirits and we enjoy every minute we spend with them.

We spent this weekend away from all the girls for the first time, and it was so much harder than we had expected. We said goodbye for the girls as if we were leaving forever, although in reality, we were only leaving for two days. We spent the entire Matatu ride from Machakos to Nairobi looking at pictures of all the girls and talking about how much we already missed them (a matatu is the most popular form of public transportation in Kenya. It's like a large van run by any person who can afford to buy a large van. People are constantly getting on and off and it's usually very squished).

The girls were definitely on our minds the whole weekend although we were very busy. On Saturday we went to the Nairobi open market and saw more "mzungus" than we had seen since we first arrived here. We went with Joseph's sister, Hannah, and her friend, Alice. It was definitely helpful having them there to pretend that they were the ones buying things instead of us. The prices that we ended up paying for most of the items were about one third of what they originally offered us. We also went to Kibera, which is one of the largest slums in Africa. After walking around Kibera for about an hour, our little room in Machakos seemed like a palace. Today we went to the Lake Nakura National Wildlife Reserve and had our lunches stolen right out of our hands by huge baboons...while we were in the car.

Mimi siongei Kiswahili

This week we've started to find a rythym in our days. On Monday we started teaching so we now follow a school schedule. Every morning at about 5:30 we're woken up by the sound of a herd of girls running by our window. We still don't know what exactly they're doing. We get out of bed around 7:30 and eat a breakfast of usually bananas with peanut butter. Once the girls are done with morning prayer, we meet the oldest girls (classes 3, 5 and 6- ages 8 to 14) in classroom 5 to teach a "creative arts" class. This is for the first two or three hours of the morning. We find it so different from American school with such a set schedule because the teachers can just replace a science class with our creative arts class-it's so flexible. Often when we're not teaching, we'll wander into a classroom and see the girls just working in their text books with no teacher in sight. We'll ask them where the teacher is and they'll say, "i don't know". But even when the teacher's not there, they'll still do their work because they're so eager to learn and really value education. During the creative arts class we've been teaching them American songs with a guitar and coloring the song books that we brought for them. On Monday we'll start a new project where we'll paint a mural on a large wall in the dining hall. Today we bought all the paint materials for under 40 U.S. dollars. After this class we have a free period in which we either run or go to the market. Every day it gets easier to run because we're starting to figure out a routine (we time it so that we run while the girls are in class so they don't follow us). Our runs usually consist of us running circles around the compound. There hasn't been a day when no less than three people have come out of their houses and curiously laughed at us. In the afternoon we both teach a seperate english class. By the last ten minutes it's often them teaching us Swahili. Today we learned how to say "I don't speak swahili"-"mimi siongei kiswahili". In preperation for our trip to the market, we learned how to say "I want two bananas please". When we were trying to remember it, we kept saying "nabaka ndizi billi tafadhali". All the girls kept laughing at us and when we asked why, they explained that we were "nabaka"-"rape", instead of "nataka"-"want". We really love spending time with these older girls because we can communicate really well with them and have real conversations. We feel like we've already gotten to know them so well and have learned many of their stories.
Last night we brought down the guitar and taught the girls the MTA song. Even though it's fast and wordy, a lot of the older girls caught on quickly and were able to sing the whole song by the end of the night.

The Machakos Market

This is the Machakos open market that we go to almost everyday. So far weve tried the avacados, bananas, oranges, tangerines and guavas. Were especially loving the guavas and avacados but we take very good care to wash the guavas( in boiled water) before we eat them.


******TOUMINENS(MARK AND LORI) CHECK YOUR SPAM FOR AN EMAIL FROM SHIRA*****

This is us and some girls today after coloring during one of the many photoshoots. In the middle of us is Nasibo. She's fourteen years old and is so incredibly street and loves to touch our hair and give us many hugs. On her coloring paper she wrote, "Abegirly and Shira is my best friends". To the right of Abby is Lilian, who's very smart and one of the two girls in the highest class (standard 6). Next to her is Vivian, the girl who speaks the best English and is nine years old. The girl in the front with her hand in her mouth is Wendy, she's very spunky and always has her hands in her mouth. She sometimes wears a plastic bag over her clothes. In front of Shira is Felista, one of the youngest girls, although no one knows exactly how old she is.

The last couple of days: the highlights

Sunday morning we set our alarm for 8:00 o clock in order to arrive on time to the 8:30 church service held in the rescue center's dining hall. We must have still been jet lagged, because once again, we woke up to the girls calling to us, "Abigail! Shira! It's time for church! Come! Don't miss church! Come! Don't be late for church!" We could tell that this was Vivian, because for some reason, she has a mixture of a british and swahili accent (of all the girls, she speaks the best english although she's only nine years old). We jumped out of bed and threw on the first clothes we could find. We were worried that we would be in trouble, so we speed-locked the five padlocks (which we're getting very efficient at), and sprinted to the dining hall. Forty-six girls joyously singing and dancing in Swahili was very different from what we had expected. After their services, while we were waiting for some visitors from a local church to come, the girls put on a spontaneous talent show for us. It was mostly singing and dancing, and we were amazed by how talented they all were. One girl, Catherine, who coincidentally reminds us of our friend Kathryn (shout out to our girl), was an exceptionally good dancer. It was heartwarming to see how excited the girls all were to perform for us.

Today Francis, the Rescue Center's "preacher" who's been so helpful to us during our stay, accompanied us into Machakos town where we met his cousin Lucy. Every single person we've met here in Kenya so far has been exceptionally friendly and loving towards us, even just random people that we will only meet once. However, we immediately felt a strong connection to Lucy. She founded an NGO that supports Kenyan orphaned children living with HIV/AIDS. She started the NGO because she lost her sister to AIDS and it pained her to see the hardships that her nieces and nephews experienced after they lost their mother. It turns out that she got a scholarship to Harvard University and will most likely be going there for three years in the fall of next year. When she found out that we are from Massachusetts, she was so excited to know at least two people in the states. Both of us were struck by her strong drive to help people and how welcomed and comfortable she made us feel.

This afternoon we decided to pull out some of the supplies that people generously donated for us to bring for the girls. We brought all the girls into one of the classrooms and gave each one piece of paper and colored pencils. For the first half an hour, we couldn't even hear our own thoughts. Every which way the girls were calling our names to ask for more pencils, excitedly showing us their drawings, and bringing carrying in more chairs from other classrooms. Once one of us drew a "maua" (flower) on Felista's paper, all the other younger girls kept rushing up to us, asking us to draw houses, flowers, or "love" (a heart) on their papers. Some of the girls who cannot tell us apart would tug on our sleeves saying, "inzungu!" and proudly display their drawings.

Shower?

We thought we would dedicate this post to Marina's comment about showering, although we don't know if you can qualify what we've been doing as "a shower". It's a long and complicated procedure so we'll break it down into steps.
step 1: We removed all our clothes and of course locked the two padlocks on the door to our room (there are five total; one on each gate, one on the entrance to the building, and two on our bedroom door).
step 2. We proceeded into the big empty room (originally a dorm room, now occupied by wasps) carrying one bucket full of water and two empty buckets.
step 3. We splashed water on our whole bodies and then lathered with soap (this is best done in daylight because the nights can be quite cold (just like the water)...although, there's a big open window so we have to bend down so the girls can't see us, which they probably do because they spend 80% of their days waiting outside our window calling our names).
step 4. we dunked our entire heads in one of the buckets and then scrubbed with shampoo.
step 5. next we splashed more water on ourselves in an attempt to wash off some off the soap that was now dried on our bodies (this step will never be repeated because all it accomplished was to get water all over the floor and somehow make us even more soapy)
step 6. we had to fetch another bucket of water because we realized that we'd have to use one bucket to pour over each of us to get off all the soap. by the end of all this, the floor was practically a small lake.
*side note: a lizard just crawled in our window, luckily we're safe in the misquito net.
step 7. then, with our newly cleaned bodies, one by one we layed down on the floor with our heads in an empty bucket while the other one poured water all over eachother's hair and face. this was probably the hardest step, although eric nazaar would appreciate the great core workout we got while doing it.
step 8. realizing that we had left both our towels in our room, we had to run stark naked passed the open windows where, of course, some girls were peaking inside, and unlock our double padlock.
all in all, a great time. we're becoming showering masters, though, and learning how to condense this process.

first days in kenya pt. 2

when we arrived to the orphanage yesterday, all the girls fought over who could carry our heavy luggage to our building, which was quite a walk. we looked over and saw one of the youngest girls, who looked like she was about four years old, swiftly lifting one of our fifty pound suitcases on her back and running up the hill. what a greeting. there are forty-six girls at the orphanage, ranging from about four to fourteen. all of them are so sweet and excited to have volunteers staying in the compound. the girls quickly warmed up to us and throughout the entire day they were holding our hands and stroking our hair.
we're living in our own building, which is an old dorm building, located in the compound. all the room are empty expect for our one bedroom equipped with a table, two beds, and a dresser. there is no running water. we took our first shower today which was quite an endeavor. all we have is buckets of cold water which we have to boil on a gas propane tank. this is how we wash dishes, cook food, brush our teeth, and shower. when joseph dropped us off, he told us, "now you'll experience the real kenyan life".
this morning we woke up to a chorus of about forty girls chanting our names outside our window. we thought we were dreaming but as we woke up we remembered where we were. we felt bad taking so much time to prepare our breakfast but when we finally went downstairs they were all eagerly waiting behind the gate that seperate our living quarters from the rest of the compound. when we went outside all the girls were fighting over who could hold our hands and as we walked through the compound they surrounded us. today they didnt have school so they were doing their chores; washing clothes, fetching water, washing the dining hall, kitchen, and toilets. Our presence was definitly very distracting to them. the housemother asked a girl named Faith to give us a tour but it soon turned into a photoshoot-the girls love our cameras and the minute they see them they want to take them and take as many pictures as they can. we tried to go on our first run today which was very interesting. when we started running all the young girls ran after us around the compound and we had to stop and explain what we were doing. they still didnt really understand why they couldnt come with us. we tried to find somewhere to run but ended up having to run back and forth on the same road with all the girls watching us from the edge of the compound. after fifteen minutes of this we ran back to the field where they play and did sprints which they eagerly participated in. the girls ended up being the best personal trainers we could get because they kept urging us to do more and more sprints. later, we taught them how to play ultimate frisbee, and there were a couple that were so good that they should belong on the amherst varisty team. the older girls really enjoyed the game while most of the younger girls just ran around fighting over the disc.
later we went into town with the adminstrations manager, francis. we took a taktak, while is a small, three wheeled car. somehow six people, half of which we didn't know, were able to fit in the tiny golf cart-sized vehicle. machakos town is a lot smaller and a lot less modern than nairobi. we went to the open market where local farmers sell fresh fruits and vegetables. we bought an avacado and bananas for dinner. the avacado cost only 10 shillings (80 shillings is one U.S. dollar). we walked back and every single person we passed asked, "how are you", and when we answered they would laugh with their friends. francis explained to us that people in machakos rarely see white people, or "izungu" in swahili, so they all get really excited and curious when they see us.
tonight we sat in the dining hall teaching each other swahili and english songs. the girls were so eager to learn and even more eager to teach. in fact, we ended up learning more than they did as they taught us the name of every body part and numbers up to ten in swahili. tomorrow we will experience kenya church. this will be interesting.

First days in Kenya Pt. 1

We've arrived in Kenya, and after just three days, there's so much to share! After a long two days of travel, we arrived in Nairobi and were picked up at the airport by Joseph and his sister Hanna. Joseph is the founder of the organization called Touchkenya that helped us come here. They brought us to the apartment which we'll stay at when in Nairobi. There's another volunteer from Canada staying there named Alia. She's been really helpful in answering our questions because she's already been here for a month and knows a lot about Kenya already. After taking a quick nap and shower, we went to the orphanage where Alia works. To get there we drove through a slum in Nairobi. There was so much activity going on around us. There were people pushing cars that had gotten stuck in the mud that were entirely blocking our way, lone three year old staring at us as we drove by, animals wondering around in the middle of the road, and horns honking right and left. We picked up Alia and drove to the Nairobi Children's Home, which is another orphanage for younger boys and girls. This is where the girls come from that eventually go to the Machakos Rescue Center. When entered the main dining hall, a rush of children attacked us with hugs, and immediately pulled out outside to play. Being there with the children made us so excited to go to Machakos!
That night, Christine, another Touch Kenya founder, came over to the apartment and cooked us all dinner. Along with vegetables and chicken, she made us Chipatti, which is this delicious but incredibly oily flatbread that Kenyans eat only on special occasions. That night we learned all about how Christine and Joseph met each other and eventually founded Touchkenya only four years ago. It turns out that both of them have other jobs and they don't get paid for any of the work they do for touchkenya. It was surprising to us because for the past three days, Joseph has spent the entire day with us, and been so helpful. We find it so inspiring that they put so much work into this without receiving any sort of payment.
We spent the second day running lots of errands and seeing Nairobi and then finally, today we drove to Machakos where we'll be for the rest of our stay in Kenya. The drive there gave us a really great taste of Kenya. We saw camels and giraffes on the side of the highway and the view of the countryside was beautiful. It was so exciting driving into Machakos because it had an entirely different feel from the modern Nairobi. Unfortunately we only have two minutes left on the computer battery, so this is just part I of this post to be finished as soon as possible.