Week 3

Another baby arrived at the weekend – little baby Matthew :) he is less than 1 month old… now my group has 11 babies – work is getting more challenging every week… however, I seem to be enjoying it more with every day passing by…
On Tuesday morning we had two more babies brought – twins, two tine boys who were less than 1 day old – they were found tied in paper bag and dumped in a stream… can you believe this?!! They were taken to the hospital straight away and haven’t come back yet… they seem to be doing ok for the moment though… so as you can see my little group is growing rapidly…

Tuesday night I stayed again to help older children with their homework and again – really enjoyed it, I was helping them with maths :) it was a long day as I didn’t get to Maria’s home until 9.30pm… (when I stay to do the class I don’t go back to my host family as it is too late for me to travel on the matatu on my own, not safe at all… so I stay with my lovely friend Maria :) and we had to be up again the following morning at 5.30..

I also finally got a chance to speak to Faith – the lady that started the home – and I think that rather than buying the washing machines as I originally planned, I will use the money which you helped me to raise to buy new beds for my group – we have already run out of them because of so many babies arriving and those that we have are really worn out… I asked Faith to look for the suitable cots and then we can go and purchase it together… I also offered to help with any office work they might need…

After the class and my conversation with Faith I could not stop thinking about what else I can do to help… I woke up at 4.30am with head full of thoughts, one of them being that children don’t get enough time to study… I was told by Maria that classes at school are really over-subscribed and teachers don’t have enough time to spend with pupils. At the home the children only get about 1 or 2 hrs every evening to do their homework – this is not enough as they are falling behind with the material and are now confusing multiplying with dividing and subtracting… I spoke to Faith on Wednesday and offered to help at the weekends – it looks like I will be able to do sthg on Sundays :) I am really looking forward to that :)

On Wednesday I had to go back to the dentist to finish off my tooth… but before I had a chance to do that I have managed to hit my head on the cupboard door that someone left wide open… (since I arrived at Imani I kept closing it saying that one day someone would hurt themselves on it! It turned out to be me!)
Luckily I didn’t injure my eye but I have a cut just above it and it’s a bit swollen… the good news is that now everyone is really vigilant about closing that door!!!

After the dentist I went again to visit my friends at NCR :) everyone there is so lovely :) and Jane, my saviour, was waiting for me with some sandwiches! Which was absolutely amazing as it was 3pm already and I haven’t had a chance to eat anything all day…

On my way back home that day I saw sthg that made me laugh a lot and I wish I had my camera with me… along the road that the bus goes there is sthg like a market – lots of stalls and tiny shops… but one shop must have been one of a kind – it was a petrol pump! Surrounded by the metal bars and only the end of the pipe just hanging outside… if I go that way again I will try to take a picture, I have never seen anything like that before… ;)

I really feel at home here, my host family is really nice. Everyone I meet is just lovely… I can see already that when the time comes, it will be very difficult to say goodbye…

I now stay longer 2 evenings a week – Tuesdays and Thursdays to do the homework with the children… these are my favourite days of the week as I get to stay with Maria and we have couple of hours to talk before going to sleep. It is almost impossible any other time as the babies take all our attention.
I am getting really attached to my little Mary and I have no idea how I will be able to leave her here when my 16 weeks are up… I really want to take her home with me…

There is sthg that I would like to ask you for… all the clothes at the home that we have for babies are what we receive from people – there is no money to buy it… what we have is getting really worn out… if you have any spare baby clothes at home that you no longer need than please let me know… Vik will be coming here in 3 months and he could bring it with him… anything helps, really…
Please don’t forget that my justgiving site is still open so if you happen to have some spare cash, you can still donate… there are so many things that the money could be used for… i.e. school supplies, fruits etc… I can assure you – it will be used wisely…