Week 4

Its been 1 month now since I left home and I have really settled here now :) my host family is so welcoming and lovely – they make me feel like I am really at home. My host mum – Jane says that I am like a Kenyan now :) I eat everything that they make and I am getting darker and darker every day (mostly my face and arms… ;) We get along really well and can spend hours talking – I no longer sleep as much as I used to – there is far too many things to do and I don’t want to waste my time here sleeping…

I have worked out quite a nice routine for myself:
On Mondays I go to Imani for 12.30 and work until 6.30pm (it gets dark around 7pm and it takes me about an hour to get home which is why I cannot stay longer – it is not safe for me to travel home after dark… and also the matatus – you never really know which route they are going to take – even if you ask them they tend to change their mind and sometimes I have to walk quite a distance to get home… but sometimes I get lucky and the matatu goes past my house… its like a lottery! ;)

On Tuesdays I also go for the afternoon shift but I don’t come back home for the night. I stay to work with older children and help them with homework until around 9pm after which time I walk with my “sister” Maria to her home where I spend the night. I really like to do that as I enjoy working with older children and when we get to Maria’s we also have some time to talk :)

On Wednesdays we have an early start as Maria needs to be at Imani by 6.30am so we get up at 5.30 (it is really dark outside until about 6.45am…) but to be honest I normally cannot sleep from about 4am as the matatus are already on the road making A LOT of noise and also some of the people that cannot afford public transport leave their homes around 4.30am to walk on foot all the way to Nairobi to get to work for 7am…
I stay at Imani until around 2.30pm, sometimes longer… then go home to spend some time with my host sister June – who is just great :) actually June now also started to volunteer at Imani so very often we travel to Kayole together for the afternoon shift.

Thursdays are very similar to Tuesdays as I also stay longer to do the class and spend the night at Maria’s which in turn means the early start on Fridays :)

Saturdays at the moment I have kept for myself so I can get a chance to go to Nairobi either to go to see my elephant, to look around the Maasai Market etc…

I have now also started to go to Imani on Sundays now – only for 2-3 hours in the afternoon to again spend some time with older children revising – mainly maths but I also check their English homework… I really like the Sundays’ afternoons. The mornings are normally spent at home with my host family as my host brother comes home from university for weekends and we all love to talk.

Last week my routine was quite disrupted though, as on Wednesday night I went to visit the Imani home in Malindi. We went on the night coach – around 9 hours journey, out of which 2 hrs were very rough and bumpy as that part of the road wasn’t built so it felt as though my back was about to break and my head snap off my neck… we survived it however and arrived at Imani Malindi around 5am – it was still so dark but the children were already up starting their day…
The weather in Malindi is really different from what I am used to in Nairobi – it is very hot and humid most of the time…
After some sleep I went to see what the place was like. I really like it, to me it looked like a little private village – Malindi home is much smaller than Imani A in Nairobi where I work. There are less than 60 children there and all are at least 3 years old… This home is used in December as a holiday retreat for children from Nairobi home during school holidays – each year a different group from Nairobi comes for a vacation there.

After lunch we took about 20 children to the beach (it was the middle age group). It was sooo much fun. The ocean was great, the water really warm and the kids loved the waves. Not all of them went in the water though – some preferred to play and make ugali (one of Kenyan dishes :) out of sand :)

On Friday I went with Maria to buy the return tickets and had a chance to see the town. To be completely honest, I didn’t like it too much… Malindi is quite a small place and because of many tourists visiting during holiday season, really overpriced… what I really liked about it though was the weather (I love it when it’s hot :) and the ocean so near by.
In the evening we took 2 of the little children out for dinner with the adults – they were all dressed up and looked really sweet.

On Saturday we got a chance to go to the beach for a very short while before it was time to catch the coach back to Nairobi… the time in Malidi went by so fast even though the life there seemed so much more relaxed than around Nairobi.

We returned to Nairobi around 5am in the morning but as it was still dark and it was Sunday so not too many people on the streets, it was not safe to leave the coach and therefore we had to sit there until 6am. It was still dark outside but by that time more people were awake and much safer to walk to get a matatu back home…

I came back home totally exhausted and went straight to sleep. However by 4pm I was already at Imani as I had some teaching to do and I really did not want to miss out on my favourite activity :)

You can vie my photos from Malindi by following this link - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=90611&id=583008664&l=60b7c

When I got to Imani I was told that little Susan from y group is in the hospital.

In the evening I was very drained – didn’t get back home until 8pm but still wanted to spend some time with June and her mum telling them about my time in Malindi – I am really lucky that I am staying with such great people and that they love to talk as much as I do! ;)

The sad news is that yesterday I found out that one of the twins I told you about in my previous blog, died in the hospital…

Just before I finish this week’s update I wanted to ask you again for the clothes for the babies – we really do need them here and I can assure you, the kids will appreciate it very much.
Please help me to help the children of Imani. Thank you all for supporting me so far…