Week Two Complete

June 10, 2007

We finally hit the weekend yesterday. Our first week was tiring, but we got through it and we learned a lot about how people work here. We’re spending a lot of time at the orphanage and I think it’s taking up a lot of our energy.

Friday was exciting because we knew the weekend was so close. We just had a little bit of laundry to do in the morning, but while we were working on that a few white people came to visit. Muzungos (White people)! It was very odd to see Americans after only interacting with Africans the past 10 days and the four of us were taken by surprise. Note: Dave, our New Zealand volunteer, is homesick and went to Nairobi for the weekend. Today is his birthday, but we’ll be interested to see if he actually comes back or stays his whole 3 weeks. But we were just sitting and washing when we see an older man walk into our orphanage with his video camera and big photo camera, and immediately we didn’t like what he was doing. A younger man also came by with his camera just to take pictures of the place, and the four of us just kind of felt like they weren’t doing anything beneficial to the orphanage. They didn’t stay long and we were happy about that. A young American girl who goes to school at a local University came by and introduced herself because she apparently comes by once or twice a week. She didn’t have a big camera, so we were OK with her. After they left and we finished laundry, we started a little arts and crafts project which was nice because we’d just been doing a lot of manual labor à Thursday we spent a lot of time planting carrot seeds (just one seed per hole!) and we’ve been taking care of them and watering them since then. Gardening is hard work, especially in a very disorganized orphanage that has a garden full of weeds. Will and I will be here two months, so hopefully something will have grown by then and we can see the results of our hard work.

We left Friday and headed to the Boma, the little bar right at the end of our street. We get sodas there during our break every day, but we figured our first Friday deserved some Tusker beers. Margaret, the woman in charge of our orphanage, has three daughters (19, 23, 24) and we just hung out with them for a while and they told us some things about the orphanage and Africa that we didn’t know. We’ve been told a couple times that it’s not safe to stay out past dark, but we just weren’t ready to go home as the sun was setting. We stayed at the bar until about 7:40 and got home at 8, and that was just too late. Esther, our mom, was worried and we all felt really bad about it because she’s the nicest lady and only has our best intentions in her heart. So we figured out quickly that we won’t be having any late nights anywhere, and that we’ve gotta be home by sundown so we don’t worry Esther and Manasseh.

Saturday came and we’re not required to work 6 days a week, but Margaret thought we were coming and I guess she was planning on it, so we figured we’d stop by the orphanage for a couple hours. Well, two hours turned into 4 ½ and I figured out we’ve gotta be a little more upfront about our decisions and how we feel about our Saturdays. After we left the orphanage (she made us eat lunch because there was plenty for everyone) we headed to Rongai, where we stopped by the internet café and the grocery store. We got back an hour or so before sundown, and just hung out and watched the huge rainstorm that we had last night. It was awesome- the lightning was so bright and the rain was so hard. It lasted throughout the night, and its always wonderful to sleep while its raining. I told everyone that I was going to run to the nearest field and just sit under a big tree during a thunderstorm sometime because I think it would be so peaceful and just awesome. It’s my African dream, and I have to fulfill it sometime. How often we get to shower also depends on how often it rains, so we usually bath the day after because we know there’s enough water for everyone and what needs to be done around the farm.

Now it’s Sunday and we’re all just being lazy and its wonderful. We woke up for breakfast, Wendy and I did all the dishes in the kitchen, we all took showers, and now we’re just enjoying the day. Will’s allergies are bothering him a lot and I feel very bad because there’s really nothing he can do. I’m just hoping he can adjust soon or else it’s going to be very difficult for him.

I also forgot to mention that Toto’s “Africa” was playing as we walked into our host family’s house on our first day. It was a remix of it, but still very funny because any song could have been played at that moment, but it was the one about ‘blessing the rains down in Africa’ that made the cut.