Mama Sarah

Two days a week I go to Sister Freda's Hospital, and what we do there looks different every time. The place is incredible, probably because Sister Freda is incredible. For the past couple weeks there has been a patient there named Sarah. She is super old, doesn't know or care how old she is. She's Turkana, a tribe known for its conflict and harshness. When she came to the hospital she was dying of malnutrition and dehydration, wasn't talking or really moving. This last week she has totally turned the corner.  Turns out she speaks english, loves to sing, make jokes, and gives us lots of attitude.  The video below is of this face she makes that CRACKS us all up, so she does it a lot. Hopefully you'll think its funny and not scary...

Discover

So discover-to-recover is a home for kids with AIDS whose parents have passed or families have outcast them. Some of the kids aren't infected, but are orphans of parents who were HIV positive or have siblings who stay there. It is now home to 48 kids. They sleep 3 to a bunk, but now thats not even enough, so the small ones sleep on top of rubbermade tubs. This week someone on our team bought 3 new set of bunk beds. The kids were pretty stoked. Here's some pics of kids who live there...

This is Derek, he's uber sweet and has really good english.

Here they are all watching TV.  From left to right its Meshach, Sammy, Churchill, Cheru and Faith 

Tori doing the "chips masala" dance with some kids

Otieno and Sammy!

This is the baby class, discover is also a preschool by day

Baby Paty and her sister Dorcus. Paty is theee chubbiest baby I've ever seen

Benja :) He is the best. Super funny and 1st in his class. He's always reading books. The other day we pulled his tooth out cuz it was barely hanging on, then made a big scene, and he looked at it then chucked it over the fence. It made me laugh how different that whole scene would have played out had he grown up in America. Great kid.

Gilgal

Gilgal High School houses about 20 kids year-round, ages 2-10ish. They're pretty funny characters. They all have no parents, or one insane or abusive parent so Ben and Christine take care of them (the school's founders). The other day I brought stickers that my mom sent me and gave some to each kid...

This is Polo.  I've only seen him full on smile the day I let him squirt people with a water gun.

His name is Jako, so sweet!

Esners and Junior. Esners is a punk.. Junior is just funny.

Haha this is Ebrahim. He took the outline of all the stickers and wore it for a while.

Redempta Nekesaaaa!!! My fave. This is the girl with the lazy eye, who pees on me. I LOVE HER.

Sweet Gladis. She's brothers with Polo up above.

Gladis and Polo are really quiet, sweet kids. This time of year the high school students that board at the school return home for like a summer break. Gladis knows this, and in Swahili she told my friend Irene that the only time she will get to return home is when they bring her corpse home. Breaks my heart what these kids deal with at such a young age. The amount of crazy life circumstances that they experience and process and carry, at what, age 6? Makes me want to pick up and hold every kid I see. Whether they have pee all over their pants, outbreaks of scabs all across their heads, dirt all in everything, whatever.

Jujuuuuu

Let's be honest: I love my sister Meagan more than anyone in the world. Last night my friend Juju was telling me about her younger sister who died and we both lost it. Her sister Violet was taken as a "house girl" when she was young into a family that basically used her as a permanent servant. Juju and her siblings had no living parents and no money. A neighbor of that family raped Violet and impregnated her. That man moved to the Congo to get away and Violet followed. She was treated badly there, alone with no friends or family. She died at age 18 two years ago, Juje doesn't know how.

Almost everyone's story here involves death or rape, genocide, sickness or poverty, so to some extend you become numb to those things, or they become less shocking, sort of expected. But when Juliette started tearing up while telling me about Violet, I thought of Meagan. If I had to sit on the sidelines, powerless, knowing that Meagan was being mistreated and not be able to do ANYTHING about it... I just can't even imagine. I love her I just wanna squeeze her all the time and make her laugh and be happy and protect her from anything bad. To think that Juje had the same feelings towards Violet as her older sister, but had to let her go, made me cry. What a horrible thing to endure.

Juliette is my closest friend here. We laugh so hard together. We dance a lot, help make dinner a lot, have sleepovers. I love her. She has another younger sister, Clementine, who I can't wait to meet someday. She lives in Rwanda with their older sister Janet. Here's some pictures of my sweet friend..

Purpose Driven Academy

This place is the best. I'm spending more and more time here, and loving it. On Friday my friend Kyleigh and I took classes 1-5 out to PE. Played red rover and soccer. I swear, if anyone spent one whole school day here with these students, they would faaaaaall in love with them. I'm 100% confident in that. Here's some pics…

This is class 6--a pretty nice classroom. They were having a formal debate over the question, "Which is better: mother or father?"  

This is the baby class :) They are crazy.

This is Laurence, but everyone calls him Lau

Break timmmmme

This is Lau's sister Suzanne, from class 5. Behind her is the classroom.

Here is class 4 kids, up in front on the right is Kamou.. Lau and Suzanne's brother.

Class 3 students taking porridge.  In the middle is Manu, my favorite PDA kid. He's first in his class!

Innocent and Amos, class 7 and class 5. Amos is reeeeal good at soccer. 

1st Day of School

Earlier this week I got to be apart of 4 girls' first day of school. Lucy, Esther, Celina and Jennifer have been apart of the consistent crew at Oasis of Hope. They are all sisters/cousins, about 10 years old. Four people on our team decided to sponser them in a formal education at Milimani Primary. We helped them get ready, had some breakfast, took lots of pictures, and then sent them off to school like proud parents. It was a really special morning, seeing them all proud and confident in their new uniforms, shiny new shoes, backpacks with 20 something pencils and 5 notebooks. 

To send each girl to school costs around $50 at the start, for books, a desk, uniform and exam fees. Every year after that is about $20. Twenty bucks!

On a grosser note, check out this video of Amy--the mom of the family that moved out here--removing jiggers at a medical clinic run through Sister Freda's...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6MEQcTjwaU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

HIV

Today my friend Irene and I tested a man for HIV. His name was Paul, 40 years old. We pricked his finger, put the blood in this small tube, then placed it in a special plastic tray. After an unsettling 10 minutes, the tray read somewhat like a  pregnancy test: negative. Ruth, the testing center nurse at Sister Fredas spoke to him in swahili for a few minutes, and then he was on his way.

I asked Ruth about her job and about AIDS for a long time after that. I learned a lotttt.. about meds, different strains, how it shows, the biology behind it, how it spreads, the stigma, ect.

Outside of Sister Fredas Hospital, Purpose Driven Academy is becoming my faaaavorite place. The baby classes are adorable, I help them review the alphabet and numbers, take porridge with them, and play outside. Grades 4, 5 and 6 are absolutely nuts. I teach them bible class basically, but also help them review math and take them to PE. I pop in on grades 2 and 3 when the teachers are gone, and love that too. PDA is the best!

Photos!

This is Sammy from Discover to Recover! He's one of my all time faves, he's in 4th grade, number one in his class! So sweet, kind, helpful, fun :)

This is Oasis of Hope...

This is ghideri: beans and maize. Sooo delicious. Served at all the schools at lunch. Forks.. optional.

The kids right by my face are my FAVES! Cecilia and Emmanuel. They are in 3rd grade, and so fun. This is Purpose Driven Academy. I am looooving this place.

This is Nekesa :) My favorite baby at Gilgal. The one who pees on me a lot. She's sorta got a lazy eye asian situation going. Love her!

Juju and Manu! Juliette is my all time favorite. This is our compound, our house.

This is Sister Freda's baby class. 

More pictures later to come! Love you guys.

10 Things I Love About Kenya

1.  90% of the time, both kids and adults are genuinely excited to wave at you or recieve a wave from you.

2.  Everyone "takes tea" here as many times a day as time (and supplies) allow.. and tea here is deeelicious. 

3.  This part of Kenya is really green and really pretty. Like rolling green hills and lots and lots of corn fields. Today I went through some of those fields and helped giglal students harvest beans!

4.  When it rains, which is pretty much every afternoon,  everyone just kinda stops. Gets under a tree, under a store awning, wherever, and just waits it out. Town is the best place to get stuck.

5.  The food. Roasted maize, chipoti (pita bread kinda), green grams, potatoes, samosas (like empanadas), and bottled soda!

6.  The people. Baby kids, students, teachers, townspeople, homeless people, moms.. most people are surprisingly friendly and cool to talk to.

7.  It lightnings at night! And the stars are crazy good.

8.  Lots of people walk places. And time isn't really something that matters a lot here. So the tempo of most days is slowwww.

9.  It's easy to appreciate the bible here, and I actually look forward to the times I get to read it. 

10.  Toblerone barsssss :)

Thursday Fridayyyyy

9-12  Sister Freda's Hospital. Mostly hangin with the baby classes again.
1-5  Discover to Recover again :)

Friday I'm at Gilgal all day. I teach CRE again, play with the baby class, teach guitar, and run games after school. Today I was there, and got one of my favorite little girls to smile. Turns out all I had to do was pick her up and run after the other  kids with her. She peed on me twice, so I guess we're friends now.