The children's home

I spent all day Saturday with the kids from the children's home. We went on a walk that was two hours long. I was getting pretty tired, but if shoeless seven year olds could manage, then so could I! That said, I carried Baraka home most of the way but that's only because he's adorable, and he didn't murmur a word of complaint but was so tired that his shoes were dragging and his eye lids were drooping.

Let's take a second to describe some of the kids. There are 22, I think, so I'll summarize most by saying they are well behaved, and like touching my hair and holding my hand. Baraka is the youngest and he really likes stroking my face and arm hair. They don't have arm hair, I guess. It's an interesting feeling, since he has no fingers on one hand. His countenance sometimes toggles between suprised and concerned, but most often pauses at the midpoint of the two emotions. Alarmed, I guess. He wants to be an engineer. He's pretty much my favourite, I think. They gave me a good bye postcard, and he signed his name and wrote I love you. Don't tell Jack; he'll get jealous.

Actually I have two favourites. Mumina is also the best. They all have shaved heads, and here some of the girls wear pants, so on the first day I thought he was a girl. He's the best at all the hand clapping and skipping games, and his name ends in a, and he wears a lot of pink. He told me his English names is Joseph, which probably should have set me straight, but it wasn't until the next day when I was given a tour that he showed me his bed- in the boys room- that I realized. I say 'his bed' but they all share beds. Mumina has this sparkle in his eye like he's trying to bring your attention to somebody about to sit on a whoopie cushion. I tried to capture his impishness in a picture, but whenever the camera came out he stood at attention with a face like you just told him the saddest news in the world. His English is better than any of the girls in my school, or at least more confident. He keeps his clothes in a shopping bag, and when I told him once that his jacket was smart (for several weeks I thought my students were calling me intelligent, but it turns out they just like how I look) he brought me to his room and showed me all his clothes. Every time he pulled out another article, he'd say, "and another!" as if he was still having difficulty believing his luck in owning so many. Which maybe he was. Church clothes, chool uniform, shorts, a jacket, a sweater, and two pairs of socks. He would then fold each item gingerly. Once when folding, he said, "my father is very very dead." and then with the same eagerness as before, pulled not another thing to show me. Mumina likes to march places and when all the kids got in a line and were told to introduce themselves, he started his introduction with a salute and a wink. When I left today he cried. I promised I'd come back and I definitely will.

All weekend the food was so delicious. Cabbage AND chipati for dinner yesterday! And then for breakfast first were peanut butter, bread, and chipati, but then out came mango! Excuse me, but let's all go live there forever. Instead of tea, we had a lot of coffee, which it turns out I like with enough sugar.

When back in Machakos today to catch a matatu back home, we ran into the principal, so I just went home with her instead of needing to be accompanied by Elijah. I like her a lot, now that I've gotten over this one way she sometimes looks at you out of the corner of her eye, that, even though you've done nothing wrong, makes you feel guilty, them really nervous about getting caught. It's kind of cool that we have a female principal, you know? Anyway, this was a giant mat, with a legal capacity of 33 so of course we had about 50 passengers. We were sitting very close and the road was bumpy. It was kind of awk, but we had some good time to talk about some ideas I have. She gave me a really open ended green light, so I've got some planning to do. I'll blog about it tomorrow.

Then about halfway home they stopped in a town, and after half an hour told up that we wouldn't be moving for another hour. Something about waiting for another matatu. I don't know. I got out to get up cokes, and the fare collector followed me and said, "muzungo, buy me a soda." Not even as a question but as a demand! I said no so firmly and rudely that I was about to start feeling like maybe my tone was too mean, but he put a stop to that feeling by saying, "why not?" I told him to buy one himself and then just ignored him. But he kept on being like, "muzungo, buy me a soda!" that in the commotion a teacher from my school who happened to be there getting cokes with his son noticed me and came to my rescue. Then he gave us a ride home! So handy! And now I'm home and about to head to bed. Oh- a lot of you asked what a billybillyhoho is. Come on. I mentioned it a few posts ago. It's a green pepper.