I apologize for not posting for many days. There have been many late nights at the hospital this week where we get home too late to go to the cyber or instances like yesterday when I had time but the power was out. I finally have a free afternoon to write. Let's see...Monday morning we went to work with the street women, and we made some amazing progress I think. Only 4 women showed up, and we wouldn't let anyone else come in late, but it was nice to have only people there who really wanted to be there. Because there were so few of them, there was hardly any fighting or yelling going on. Everyone was calm. We discussed the fruits of the spirit, i think (my memory is fuzzy now), and then we brought beads for them to make bracelets. They loved this! everyone sat around stringing beads and they were excited to wear the finished product.
The afternoon was less than stellar. it was ashley's last day so she wanted to do something fun and treat everyone to going to the movies. rachel and i went with tall early to sit at some tables outside the theater to practice making some beads that we wanted to teach to the HIV+ women on Wednesday. Unfortunately when 3:15 rolled around, no one was there for the movies except our friend James. Tall wasn't planning to come with us, and all the other 7 or 8 people who had planned to come were no where in sight. None of us wanted to go into the movie and keep coming out to pay for people as they arrived. And personally, I was mostly just coming along to the movie b/c everyone else was excited, and Rachel felt the same. So we decided just to leave because Ashley was so frustrated and upset that no one cared enough to make it there on time. so us 3 mzungus went to Java, which is a very Western restaurant/coffee shop, with very good food. We decided we just needed to be away from everything. I was also very upset b/c earlier in the week Popo wanted to take Peter to get his haircut. I asked him not too b/c he still had the cuts on his head, which were just starting to clear up and I didn't want them to get infected. Of course, a few days later Popo took him anyway, and they next day Peter proceeded to get a really bad rash all over his head. it then spread to his back. we're pretty sure that whatever they put on his head to sterilize it made him have some kind of allergic reaction. i think he got his haircut in kibera, and you can't ever be sure of how clean things are there. so monday night i had a melt down b/c peter appeared to be getting worse (and when he went to get his leg rewrapped they did a blood test, which i didn't want them to do b/c it's not the best hospital and I don't really trust any diagnosis that they give) and that no one really cared. I walked in the dark (which massively freaked me out...I wrapped a scarf around my head so people couldn't see my mzunguness as much) to the chemist to find Benadryl hoping that that would help somewhat. Ashley reminded me later that I needed to stop worrying and trust God more.
Things got better though b/c a big group of 10 of us decided to all go dancing since it was Ashley's last night. Finding a place to go was a challenge and several changes of plans happened before we finally piled into our cab driver friend, Edwin's van. our land lady was later commenting to Alex about how many people we stuffed in there. anyway, all of us girls were pretty embarrassed b/c we hardly brought any money with us. we hadn't planned on going all the way to town and so we had barely enough money to pay to get in, and had to pay for our cab after we got home. and getting home was quite the ordeal. we came back around 1:00 a.m. and no one at home was answering their phone to come open the gate to let us in. we stood outside for a long time trying to figure out what to do. ashley wanted to climb over this tall tin fence, which totally wouldn't have worked, and other people were softly banging on the gate hoping not to wake up the land lady. finally another neighbor came but he was absolutely furious with us, and rightly so; it was Monday night after all. anyway, we did have lots of fun and despite being locked out it was worth it.
Tuesday we went on a field trip with the kids from Sara Junior (a preschool I volunteered at last time i was here). we took them to the safari park walk, which is a national park in nairobi. there are a few animals, which are hard to see, but the walk itself was high up near the tree tops on wooden bridges, and I liked seeing all the trees and natural side of nairobi. but ash, rachel, and I agreed that they are totally ripping off foreigners by charging them $20. I wouldn't even pay that much to go to a zoo at home. The kids seemed to like it well though it was difficult keeping everyone together. we each chaperoned a group, but these small kids are not used to any sort of structure like this and they often kept running off and we were frantically looking around for them. by the grace of God I had a really calm group that was well behaved. i think everyone else had a headache by the time they left.
afterwards we came back to town to take ash to the airport. we got stuck in a really bad jam so we proceeded to walk several miles into town so that we could meet the taxi on time. Edwin, Alex, and Steve took her to the airport and rachel and I left to take peter to the doctor. it was really sad seeing her go, and it's crazy how fast that month went. we got to the doctor (after getting on the wrong matatu and having to walk back to town for another one) only to find that the doctor wasn't there. we waited 2 hours for him to come. but thankfully he had a plan for fixing peter's leg, and we were able to admit him that night to Aga Khan Hospital. they are doing negative pressure therapy where they apply some kind of vacuum on his leg to mend the skin back together. The doctor studied in the U.S., which was comforting to me, and he knew exactly where Iowa and Indiana were. I do hope that he knows what he's doing and that this works. We've been to visit peter twice since then. He was really freaked out about being admitted at first b/c he was in Kenyatta Hospital before, and wasn't well taken care of. There were 3 patients staying in one bed! But now he's doing fine b/c they are serving him chicken, fruit, chips, and soup everyday. i'm pretty sure this is the best he's ever eaten in his life. he is supposed to have this treatment for 7 days, and then they'll see if they need to do something to the bone. please keep praying for him. it is a relief to have him in the hospital where i know that someone is taking care of him each day and he's not just being left alone to fend for himself.
Wednesday was the best day yet. we met with the HIV women and showed them this bracelet of ash's made of paper beads. it's very different though from the necklaces that i sold at home. i think this kind of style is more original than other things i've seen here and would sell better. we showed them how to get started, and this new lady, Beatrice came. she pulled a paper bead necklace out of her bag that she had made, and she was a great help at showing the other ladies what to do. she was very intrigued by this new style. everyone got really excited and started cutting, rolling, gluing. and then we brainstormed other things that they could make with the beads that they could try to sell. everyone had ideas and was giving input. it was awesome to see them empowered to make something. they are planning to make us a bunch of samples before wednesday so we can decide what we think people would like to buy. at the end they started clapping for us b/c they were so excited.
That afternoon we met with the street women and praised them for how respectful they were on monday and how much patience they showed. we did a lot of times of encouragement with them before tall demonstrated so ideas of cards they could make. we tried this another day, and no one was interested then, but everyone loved it this time. they got so caught up in making cards that no one noticed when the food came, and no one stopped working. i hope we keep seeing this progress. we saw Lydia, one of the women today, and her leg is crippled, so she came hobbling up with her cane but was smiling and so happy to see us. on monday we didn't give her food b/c she was late, but on Wednesday she was there on time.
Thursday we were in Kabete with the juvenile small boys talking about the fruits of the spirit. there are lots of new kids arriving daily, and it seems like it's getting harder to manage a big group of people. today we met with the street boys. Gerwin, our Dutch friend, brought this great video to show them about AIDS and he previewed it there, but when the boys came we couldn't get it to work. TIA. it felt like an unproductive morning, but we had a nice chat with John, one of the boys. he recited this poem for us: "In front of you is John Jenga, a street boy, ready to present to you a poem entitled, "I"ve got the Power." Life is short; life is sweet; take time to taste it. life is a journey. find the right path. but most importantly, life is what you make it. thank you."
it was very heart warming watching him. he really wants to go to school, and we're trying to figure out where he can go. alex is possibly going to try taking him home on sunday, although this worries me a little b/c i think there is some history of abuse/violence in the home, and i'm not sure how he'll do there. but he's very small and clingy, and really going to get beat up if he stays in the streets.
a funny story to finish: on the way back from the hospital on wednesday, alex was sitting in the back of the matatu. when people got off, he came up to sit by rachel and i since a seat opened up. he pretended like he didn't know us and said hello. he asked us our names, and we made up new ones. he made small talk with us as if he'd never met us. then he said, "are you married?" and we said no. and he said, "good because polygamy is legal in kenya." this lady in the front seat turned around b/c she thought he was serious and she gave him the most dirty, disgusted look. we could only keep the whole act up briefly though before we started cracking up.
all right that's all for now. pray for julius. he's having a toothache and might have to have it pulled. also, i'm getting some sort of sinus/cold kind of thing so pray for that too. have a great weekend :)
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