Well, I think my spirits have been lifted much after a crazy discouraging last week. Things are going a bit better. On Saturday I was in Kibera at the Blue House and Stuart, Victor, and I acted out the Rainbow Fish book and we taught the kids about how God wants us to be cheerful givers. You know, this is kind of ironic because I'm often feeling like people here are way more willing to give things away even though they have nothing. For example, on Sunday, I went to this girl, Emma's house. She was a camper at the Abide Camp, and she's a tailor. So I bought fabric for her to sew me a shirt and skirt. She is so excited about this...i'm the first muzungu she's made anything for. So she had me come to her house, so she could measure me. While I was there she fed me lunch. I always feel so guilty about this b/c these people have hardly anything, but at the same time it would be so offensive to not eat. Anyway, she fed me omena, which are these teeny, tiny fish. You eat the whole thing, the eye and all! They weren't too bad really; i just tried not to look at them staring at me as I put them in my mouth. Emma said her family was so excited to have a muzungu come over.
So back to Saturday, we did the skit and then had them do a little art project drawing with fish and a Bible verse. i'm definitely filled with the most joy here when i'm making art with kids. afterwards we ate cereal for lunch. this was a truly glorious experience. the milk here is almost all whole milk, so i only drink it in tea. but we found crunchy nut cornflakes (kelloggs too!) and skim milk. the skim milk is still very unamerican and not great but with sugary cereal you can't tell too much. then we went to a park with victor, stuart, sally, and chad and played baseball. it was funny watching them learn to catch and throw. soon we had an audience of people watching, who also wanted to try. so a few other strangers tried it out. i'm planning to teach the kids at juvenile this week. i think they might like it too.
Sunday was a day of being very singled out. i'm usually the only muzungu at church and so the pastor made some comment about how we love people of all colors...white, black, yellow, blue, green. and of course everyone turned to look at me. then later the other pastor was talking about flying to the u.s. and how there's all these speed bumps in the air, meaning turbulence. and then he looks at me and says, isn't that right? in the afternoon popo, eric, and i went to watch steve's football game, and i felt like i stood out a lot more than normal. people kept walking by and making rather scandalous comments, but whatev. as we were leaving, i spotted this really tall guy who i thought was another muzungu. but popo corrected me that he was just a very light skinned kenya. turns out about 5 minutes later the guy is plotting with his friends about stealing my bag. but fortunately, i was with 2 kenyans who know swahili so we just walked quickly ahead. but seriously, i'm really just wishing right now that i could be black for 1 day. even in kibera today, i found myself getting super annoyed about all the kids chanting, "how are you; how are you; how are you." that is so selfish of me, and i know they're saying it b/c they're excited to see someone different. but 1 day i would just like to walk around and be known for being amy, not for being white.
stuart left on sunday, which is quite the bummer. everyone really enjoyed him; i think b/c he's very witty and mulitcultural seeing as he grew up in south africa, then lived in america, and now in britian. he's really wise for his age (i can't believe he's only 20) and has such a passion for the Lord. one cool thing that he sponsored while being here was buying like $500 worth of Bibles for one of the pastors in Kibera to give to people who recently have become Christians.
monday, i taught english at the juvenile, and it was super awesome. i had them write about themselves, and i only briefly started reading these essays. but a lot of them talked about how they got in trouble and why they are at this home. victor went with me, which was really helpful for clarifying directions in swahili. there is a japanese guy volunteering there too, and we sat and talked with him for a while. he is an amazing guitar player and has a beautiful voice. he sang us a japanese song. it's hard communicating with him b/c his english isn't very strong yet, but we can manage broken conversation. i'm hoping he continues to become curious about what our organization is doing b/c he's not a christian...so there's lots of seed planting opportunities.
Last night Tara and I cooked fajitas, another glorious experience...yeah, i get pretty excited about any form of american food these days. we had guac and salsa too, and everyone in the house seemed to love it. peter, amie, and baraka are gone on a short holiday, so things are a bit quieter, which is actually a nice break for me too. oh, and by the way, i freaked out on saturday night when i saw this mouse crawling up the extension cord onto the kitchen table in the house. i watched it scurry across the floor. and the loveliest part is that no one ever caught it. they weren't sure where it went and then it came out again later and no one really cared. i was totally being stupid about it, but i think my family knows how much i just hate mice. and there's always lots of random food out everywhere in our house, so it could totally just start feasting. i woke up the next morning dreaming about the mouse and scared it had crawled into bed with me. i also refused to sit on the floor the next day. but no sign of it lately, so i suppose i'll live :) as the mouse appeared that night, amie was helping me take out my extensions. i had those braids in for 5 weeks! and as we took them out my shirt was just covered with dandruff. sick! it's wierd seeing my real hair again, and it's gotten a lot longer.
today i did a lesson with the elmer book at sara junior. i think this was rather a flop, and i find myself so frustrated by the education system here. it's hard to give kids any freedom here with a lesson b/c the curriculum is so structured and cut and dry. but i did teach a few kids to use scissors. i'm never sure what is okay to do with these kids b/c i don't want to step on the teachers' toes. but sara mostly said any supplimentary activities would be good, so i try to walk the balance beam of new exposure vs. not being too radical. afterwards popo and i went to visit lilian and her baby, sheila. i discovered when i left that sheila had peed all over my jeans :) a lot of times kids don't wear diapers here. please pray for lilian b/c she is being forced to move from her house in 3 months. and it's really hard to find somewhere new to go b/c there aren't many free houses in kibera.
on the way home i saw this man washing his face using this puddle of water in the sidewalk. it was such a sad thing. and we were really close to my house in a "nicer" part of town. and speaking of water, i realized last week that when it rains here, it absolutely pours. we collected the rain water in buckets outside, and the buckets were over half full from one rain. we're talking like 8-10 inches of water at once! it has been hailing a lot here too. what's really lovely is that the rain water is totally brown from all the pollution in the air. and guess what, we washed our dishes with that! part of it we boiled before using, but part of it not. it really is a miracle that i'm not getting too sick here. praise God.
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