The orphanage

Yesterday was such an eye opening, soul changing day... I wanted to write about it last night, but I needed some time to absorb what I had seen and how to best describe it...

A bit of background:
The teacher who facilitated this whole internship through her varied contacts is Cherie Enns, a geography teacher and the head of the Global Development Institute at UFV. Cherie's mom, Marg Foreman has spend much of her life living here in Kenya, and she has currently been here for 7 years working for the Pentecostal Assembly of Canada. Cherie told us before we arrived that through her mom, we may be able to spend some time here working at an orphanage. We were all incredibly excited about this idea. The other afternoon we went and met with Janice (a lady in Marg's office) and she introduced us to Pastor Simon.

Pastor Simon has a church in Kibera, the major slum. He also runs an school/orphanage on the outskirts of town with his wife Eunice. The school has 78 students, 22 of whom live right at the school. When we arrived yesterday, I was expecting a large area with lots of buildings and open space. We pulled up to a tin fence and honked (the Kenyan way to say "Open the gate and let us in!!"). The gate pulled open and I couldn't believe my eyes. The dirt area where we parked the car was so small, it could fit maybe 5 or 6 cars, and this was the whole play area for the kids.

Eunice gave us a tour, and it was seriously worse and worse. She showed us where the children slept first. The 20 boys who stayed there all slept on 5 bunkbeds. If it got too crowded, they had extra "mattresses" (thin foams) that the spread out at the foot of the line of beds. The two girls stayed on mattresses in an adjacent room with the "mama" (a woman who did all the cooking and upkeep). There were three classrooms, each couldn't have been bigger than 10 ft sq. They were EXACTLY the way you would picture a small african classroom. They had a few rows of benches each, and each room had 1 or 2 OLD chalkboards that you could barely see the writing on.

The "kitchen" where the mama cooked the food was no bigger than a large closet. It had one table and a huge wooden stove, that made it so smoky I could hardly breathe.

After Eunice gave us the tour, she brought us into the room where the children were (since it was a Saturday, there were only about 25 children there). The Pastor asked the children to sing for us, it gave us all goosebumps. A few of the boys went running out of the room when we arrived, we asked where they were going, and Eunice told us they were going to bring us chairs. They were so polite and welcoming. They sang us a welcome song, and the three of us were all holding back tears, it would have been so easy to fall apart and just weep: Here were these kids with basically nothing in the world, and they were so happy and joyous, and they welcomed us so warmly.

After we spent some time getting introduced to the children, it was time for them to eat. We stood to the side as the mama and Eunice gave each child a plate of ugali and skuma (sp??), which is basically a cornmealy starchy pile of carbs, and a spinachy pile of greens. All of the kids took their plates and ran and ate, piling the food into their mouths with their hands. Janice had brought a box of bananas out to the orphanage when she drove us, so we gave each child a banana after they ate. They were so excited, you'd think it was Christmas day. When the first few kids got bananas, the other ones started scarfing their food back SO fast, and came running with their cheeks still full of food. They must have been scared there wouldn't be enough to go around.

After they finished their bananas, we handed out 2 candies to each child (again, that Janice brought). They were so cute, again everyone scared that they wouldn't get their fair share.

After lunch it was time for us to go back to the hotel. We were all just silent in the car as Janice told us more about the orphanage. The orphange recieves a little bit of funding from a church in Canada. This money pays for teachers for the children, and for food as well. The biggest problem at the moment is water... they have a huge water tank, but it basically breaks down to $100 a month to fill, and they can't afford it.

We are so torn about how we can help. We plan on bringing something each week, whether its a box of bananas or a notebook for each child... basically anything that could help. At the school, there is literally nothing. No books, no pencils, not games, no toys, no puzzles, NOTHING. There were two old soccor balls that the boys were kicking around outside, that's it.

Natalie called her mom in tears when we got home, her mom is a teacher and spent all day yesterday going to thrift stores, who acutally just GAVE her tons of clothes that she is going to send to us, as well as books and puzzles and games for the kids. I am hoping to spend as little of my funding on myself as possible so I can spend it all on these kids before I come home.

I just can't believe how little they have. That's what they say about Nairobi...the poor and the rich live side by side, the contrast is right in your face. It was hard to go out for dinner last night knowing that the amout of money that my dinner cost would have bought a whole box of bananas to feed those kids.

I can't believe I'm lucky enough to get the opportunity to spend 2 days every week there. We are there to teach the kids, but I'm sure we will learn more from them than they could every learn from us.