Days 3-6

Day 3 Anajali

Today another team joined us at Anajali to help build a new latrine. Wellington the headmaster was busy all day helping them sort out their supply issues, so I spent the whole day helping with the crafts. In the afternoon, I took on a little more than I could handle. I tried to teach 12 class 7 girls how to make friendship bracelets. I had a couple of helpers, one of whom knew how to make the bracelets. However, an hour was just not enough time to show all 12 girls how to get started. Some of them picked up quickly but others did not. I felt like I had let them down and was quite upset with myself. The rest of my team pointed out to me that before we left the girls all wanted to have their picture taken with me and their unfinished bracelets. That made me realize that I had not been a failure, I had just been focusing on the wrong goal. I exchanged mailing address with one of the girls Lillian, and hope to keep in contact with her.

Day 4 Anajali

Today there were two teams with us the team building the latrine and the medical team. Once again Wellington was busy. So we were unable to find time for me to show him how to use his new laptop. I may be able to go back on July 17, but if another team is going I doubt he’d be free the either. I will just have to wait and see. If I can’t I’m sure God will send somebody else. I ended up in three classes in the morning because Tony and I finished our two classes before Mom and Helen started their second. In the afternoon I got my second chance with class 7. We made paper beads, and paper planes. I was happy that they finally had something finished they could take home. Once finished they all took their paper planes outside in an attempt to fly to Canada. Then it was time to say good-bye. We went to each class and gave them a Canada pin. The 7&8 classes got crosses as well. We gave each teach a bag of usefully things for their classrooms. After we finished saying good-bye we returned to the central portion of the school to find that the older classes were preparing a farewell concert. They sang and danced for us, and at one point we were all up and dancing with them. It was hard to finally say good-bye. The primary teacher told us that when she explained to her students that it was time for us to leave, they all wanted to know what craft they would be doing on Monday. She didn’t have the heart to explain we weren’t coming back on Monday.

Day 5 Kitui

We set out about 8:30am for a 3hr drive out into the Kenyan country side. This was my first real experience with typical Kenyan roads. Um, how can I describe them? BUMPY! And driving on a two lane highway was like a combination of leap-frog and chicken. There were several pot holes that sent my mom and I, a few inches off our seats, each time we tightened our seatbelts a little more. Once there we were greeted by about 70 smiling children about to have their midday snack of porridge. We flew kites, played soccer and skip rope. We also had a large parachute with balls to play with the smaller ones. They had a blast with that. This was the first day we had seen the sun and it was quite warm, it didn’t take long for the adults to seek refuge in the shade. The children went on for another hour or so. When it was almost time to leave we were ushered to a table and chairs set up behind the main house. The children marched out and sang for us. What I love about their concerts is all the songs have movements that go along and it’s fun to dance along with them.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a handy craft co-operative. We all picked up some beautiful carved wood items.

Day 6 Church

This morning I was up bright and early ready to attend the Nairobi Baptist Church. I was looking forward to an upbeat worship service. Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding and we ended up at the more sedate service. We still had a wonderful time of worship though. The topic was about how Christians should behave in the business world.

Many people went to the Yaya market do some shopping, but I went back to bed to rest. I’ve come down with a cold and don’t want to miss any work days to it.