Day 5 in Kenya

Hello everyone, it's Michelle again. Today was one of the best days in Kenya. Kim, Sundi, and I went to Pastor Samuel's school in Soweto (see previous day's blog for more details). Samuel has 52 kids in the school currently. All of these kids are "street" kids - 19 of them have families that care for them (either their own or another family), the rest have no one to care for them, or their family cares for them very poorly. Samuel provides them 3 meals per day, an education, and sometimes clothing. The goal is to have a uniform for each child. In Soweto, if a child is in a school uniform, they are considered "belonging" to someone. They are less likely to be harmed on the street if they are wearing a uniform. So, for their safety, Samuel tries to provide each of them with a uniform. Each uniform costs approximately $20. They currently have 21 uniforms, and are in need of another 31. We saw that many students did not have good shoes. This is also important because of the rain and cold. It is very sad to see a student walk to school on a muddy dirt road in the rain with either no shoes, or shoes that no longer fit them. It costs approximately $7 to give a child new shoes and socks. You'll be hearing more about the needs of the school and how to assist in the next few months.





The students spent several minutes singing all of their songs to us. It is just too cute to watch. We took some movies of the singing on Kim's camera and hope to put it on the blog soon. Currently, it is 5:51am and neither of us have gone to bed. So, deal with it. Movie to come later.

The kids lined up to walk outside to get a group picture and then individual pictures.


Hard to see in the second pic, but they are all sticking out their tongues.

I needed a model to figure out the settings on my camera and Sundi happily obliged.

Belinda

Dorcas

Caren

Moureen

Faith

Selpher

Sylvia

Jane

Prudence

Beatrice

Tamara

Winnie

Jecintah

Veronica

Vivian

Sophy

Margaret

Margaret

Millicent

Michelle

Magnaton

Yvonne

Winnie

Yvonne

Tina

Frederick

James

Jack

Michael

Sean

Ryan

Jack

Emmanuel

Joseph

Daniel

Louis

Felix

Wilson

Glenn

Samuel

John

Andrew

Arnold

Stephen

Dennis

Dylan

Bruce

Joseph

Albert (below)

The teachers are below Albert - sorry, we had a cut and paste issue. Deal with it.

In order, the teachers are: Beatrice (with Faith), Marian, Dan, Pastor Samuel, Grace, and Faith (obviously NOT a teacher).

This is lunch for the kids. Matt Moore purchased all of them their own plates and cups when he visited in October. Before that, they shared a few plates. They either ate off the same plate with other kids, or had to wait for others to finish before they could eat.

Sundi had 3 cokes. The word for bathroom in Swahili is "choo", pronounced "cho". This is one of Sundi's favorite words and activities. She knows where the bathroom is everywhere we go.



Kim (if you don't know this, why are you reading this? I mean really, come on. Don't you have anything better to do?)

This is a shot of the road in front of the school.

Kim playing with the kids.




I had some candy left over from the Grace CpR retreat and my co-worker gave me her leftover Halloween candy. We were able to give each of the kids some candy as well as some of the other street kids not a part of the school. What was so interesting, was that they never get anything like this, and yet they offered to share with us. Many of them got little boxes of nerds. They came up to us and wanted to give us some of their nerds.







School back in session after a morning of getting pictures taken and playing outside. They had just finished exams last week, so today was a little fun for them.

Different poster on the walls. I thought the above poster was interesting because it states that "Flowers smell nice" and then the next line reads "Aids has no cure". Crazy that a 4 year old learns these things so early.

The above above picture is Kim and me with all the kids. We asked Dan to take the picture with Kim's camera. He was very hesitant. Pastor Samuel, on the other hand, gleefully took my mac daddy camera and shot everything in sight. Problem is, he didn't quite understand my instructions on focusing.

At the end of the day, Kim showed Sam and the teachers the donated books that we were able to bring with us on this trip. They were very happy to have the new material.

Where's Waldo (aka Michelle)? Can you pick her out of this picture? Also, why is everything I am typing being underlined? It is now 6:30am and I don't care. Kim and I took Samuel and Pam out to dinner for Thanksgiving and to celebrate the news that they found a new house to move into. We stayed out pretty late, not getting home until 11:45pm. That is why we are still blogging. We just realized that the mosquito we tried so hard to kill last night with "Doom" was actually a gnat. Go figure. It still lives. In other unrelated news, Kim spewed water out of her nose and mouth while sitting in the passenger seat of Sam's car. Sam got wet, but said nothing. I, on the other hand, almost peed my pants. We just have learned not to let Kim drink and ride.

So, look Ma, no underline. Go figure. Well the loopy time has set in and we must leave you all now. Tomorrow - same Bat time, same Bat channel.