Nightly Routine

Danny:

John and I had our first night of "duty managers" at the orphanage tonight. As it's top of mind, I thought I could describe this in this post and give a general update. I've also heard "less writing, more pictures" and "let your brother write long, you keep it short" from friends, but I'm thinking I'll stick to my rambling style.

Duty managers are basically in charge of overseeing the nightly routine for the kids. Here's how it goes (starting a little before when they get home from school):

3 PM: Some of the "middle" kids get home at this time. These are the ones in lower primary school (our 1st to 4th grade or so).

4PM: Youngest kids get home. These are too young for primary school so they go to a nursery. These are all under 5 years old.

5 PM: Oldest kids get home (upper primary, no kids in secondary/high school). From here all the kids are put to work doing chores. The little ones will do a couple small tasks like making their beds, the middle ones will do stuff like sweep or wash the latrines (haven't gone there with you all yet). The oldest will do more substantial chores. The boys usually help on the shamba (farm) watering crops or pulling weeds or feeding the animals. Girls do laundry or help in the kitchen. The idea is that it is important for these kids to do normal chores. If this organization raises a group of kids that doesn't do the traditional chores in the area, they cannot grow to be self-sufficient members of the community. The schools also teach some home skills that help with this.

6PM: We ring the bell for the kids to get cleaned up for dinner. This is quite a sight. All the middle kids fill up buckets and wash their feet. I'm not sure if John or I mentioned it yet, but your feet get dirty very quickly here. Nothing is paved and there is an orangeish dirt clay everywhere that stains your feet and your clothes. It reminds me of the Vandy softball fields (for the few of you that get that reference). Anyways, then all the older kids wash their feet and help the younger ones. It has a certain Last Supper aura to it all.

6:30: By 6:30 all kids have made their way to the dining room. We check off their names and have them wash their hands, and write on the board who has homework. John and I fumbled over the order of this, but oh well. Then we said prayer. I'm still trying to memorize this one, but it's a pretty cute ordeal. They all say this prayer in English with their hands folded (fingers pointing up style) and eyes closed tight. Then, dinner is served.

7:00: Finish dinner. Teeth brushing time. Brushing teeth is like pulling teeth for these kids. There is a board with numbers on it where all the tooth brushes lie. Most kids put the brush in their mouth and that's that. One of these nights John and I are going to hold a little teeth brushing instruction. Tonight was Julius' birthday, so we all sang happy birthday to him at this time. He just turned 5, but has the appetite of Matthew Meiners at Waldo pizza buffet. He ate his food, finished my food, brushed his teeth, ate the candy I gave him for his bday (my bad on the timing), and then I saw him later finishing another kid's plate. Wow.

7:30: One hour of homework. The little kids usually fall asleep in your lap at this point, and the older ones finish any assignments or read a book. This is one area where our kids really have an advantage over other kids in the area. As it gets dark here at 6:30 or so, most kids have no lights and can't do homework anymore. Taking into account that most walk an hour to and from school and have chores to do to help the family when they get home, you can see the difficulties associated with studies. We have a lit hall with 10 international tutors. It helps quite a bit.

8:30: We say a final prayer holding hands (also don't have this one down yet). We hug each child goodnight and send them to bed.

So, that's the routine. Other updates:

- 3 new volunteers joined us today. One girl from Germany. A middle aged woman from Spain, and her friend. This guy is 28, grew up in Rwanda, was orphaned at the age of 5, adopted by a Belgium couple (with his brother and sister), and now lives in Spain. He wanted to return to Africa to find out about his roots and help other orphans. I was walking with Boniface when he first arrived, and Boniface said it was the first black volunteer. I think the kids have begun to associate the volunteers with white people, so it'll be cool to see how they take to him. They should be able to identify with him closely. His friend (not his girlfriend) doesn't speak a lick of English (or Kikuyu obviously), so it's been tough for her to communicate. John's excited because he gets to use his Spanish as her translator now.

- This weekend we're going on a trip with a few of the volunteers here (Amanda - US, David - UK, and Doug - US). We'll go to Lake Navasha by matatu, stay in a camp there. Lake Navasha is known for a multitude of flamingos and hippos. That night we'll try to take a boat ride at sunset. Then the next day we'll rent bikes and ride around Hell's Gate National Park. We should be able to see Zebras, Giraffes, and other animals there. Then we'll head to Nairobi, get some good food, go to a nursery for giraffes, and shop in the markets there.

- Early the following week, we've planned a safari to Masii Mara with 2 girls from Colorado. Masaii Mara is the Kenyan side of the Serengeti and is home to the great wildebeast migration - probably the best place to safari in the world. Needless to say, we're looking forward to that.

- John and I have decided to sponsor the start of a playground here for the kids, with a swingset. We drew out a design and got in touch with a local welder here. He has done some other work on the orphanage and came highly recommended. Anyways, he came here once to go over what we wanted, then came back with his proposal. Of course, John and I had NO idea what that should cost. Luckily, we had Jeroga, who runs the farm, come negotiate with us. We had to keep a serious face while they argued for 15 minutes and took the labor down from about $70 to $60. It's crazy how cheap things are here. With the raw materials, it'll cost more, but we feel like we're giving something tangible to the kids at a pretty small cost. Tomorrow we have to go into Thika (a city of 650,000) about 40 minutes from here to double check prices at a hardware store to be sure we aren't getting ripped off. This should be an adventure. We plan to keep looking for opportunities like these. Please email us if you'd like to help donate something to the kids. Other ideas: rooster (yes, a rooster) to provide more chickens, other items for the playgound, a bull (similar to the rooster), rolling cart.

- Saturday all the sponsored kids (58) are coming from the surrounding villages for food and other gifts. It should be really interesting.

Ok, well I'm done rambling for the night. I'll try to post again before our trip (maybe at least some pictures); otherwise, we'll tell about our travels afterwards. I've also been learning a lot about the states of Education, Health Care, and Politics in Kenya, so I'd like to post more about those sometime soon also.