June 10th Post

My quote of the day….”I can’t believe I’m sitting in Africa, painting my nails, and looking at goats.”  Right outside our “luxury suite” is goats and chickens.  The rooster awakens us every morning and way before the sun comes up.  Before I left for this trip, I was quite anxious about the conditions of the accommodations.  Even seeing it in pictures prior to the trip did not quite prepare me.  But, I am adjusting.   The toilet seat continues to be a hit.   We took a tour of the CYEC on Wed. morning.   It’s hard for me to walk around and see these children, who are craving attention, live in these conditions, but it is better than the street.  They have a “shamba” (garden), and we are enjoying the many vegetables prepared for our meals.  The children do not eat the vegetables from the garden.  I guess at this point, there is not enough harvest for the 140 children.  For lunch (sent to the schools they attend) and dinner, they have a stew with a couple different types of beans (likely kidney and navy) and corn.  No meat or vegetables.  It takes about four hours to cook the very large batches.  The children eat a porridge-type cereal for breakfast, but not every day. During our tour, we visited the sewing room (I bought several hobo bags the girls make) and the art room.  Both of these areas, along with taking care of the goats, chickens, and shamba, allow the children to develop a skill to make some money now and in the future. On Wed. afternoon, we went into Nyeri, which is the county seat.  It is like no other place I have been.  It’s  hard to explain the atmosphere.  The poverty is unbelievable.  We are safe because we always have chaperones from the CYEC with us.  Sam, the Art Director, took very good care of us.  The Kansas State students, who are here the majority of the summer, are keeping an eye on us “old ladies.”  They are great group of kids.  Most of the Penn State students left right before we arrived.  While in town, we visited Lord Baden-Powell’s gravesite – he was the founder of the Boy Scouts.  I also tried arrowroot.  The waitress said it was sweet, which surprised me, but I thought they might have done something to it.  It tasted like a bland grain. Something I have learned in the past two days is there is US time and then there is Kenya time.  Today (Thursday), we went to the first Day of the African Child with the theme for urgent action to address street children.  Sam worked with some of the CYEC youth as they were scheduled to present a skit.  The program was supposed to start at 8:30 am, but it didn’t start until 11:30 am.  To top that off, the politicians and government employees took so much of the time speaking, many of the groups did not have the opportunity to present what they practiced.  We asked Sam to have the CYEC youth present it to us in the next couple days.  We were all starved, so we went to lunch with the K-State kids and ordered pizza.  It took almost three hours!  We have found it is difficult to make any plans.  Instead of having an afterschool program, we are planning (we’ll see how this goes), to have a mini-health fair on Sat.  Stay tuned. Lastly, when I was at breakfast this morning, I met Brad, a Penn State grad student.  We were chatting, and when he told me his PSU undergrad degree was in International Studies, I asked him if he know my cousin Maria Williams.  She is one of his good friends.  It truly is a small world. June 10 post My quote of the day….”I can’t believe I’m sitting in Africa, painting my nails, and looking at goats.”  Right outside our “luxury suite” is goats and chickens.  The rooster awakens us every morning and way before the sun comes up.  Before I left for this trip, I was quite anxious about the conditions of the accommodations.  Even seeing it in pictures prior to the trip did not quite prepare me.  But, I am adjusting.   The toilet seat continues to be a hit.   We took a tour of the CYEC on Wed. morning.   It’s hard for me to walk around and see these children, who are craving attention, live in these conditions, but it is better than the street.  They have a “shamba” (garden), and we are enjoying the many vegetables prepared for our meals.  The children do not eat the vegetables from the garden.  I guess at this point, there is not enough harvest for the 140 children.  For lunch (sent to the schools they attend) and dinner, they have a stew with a couple different types of beans (likely kidney and navy) and corn.  No meat or vegetables.  It takes about four hours to cook the very large batches.  The children eat a porridge-type cereal for breakfast, but not every day. During our tour, we visited the sewing room (I bought several hobo bags the girls make) and the art room.  Both of these areas, along with taking care of the goats, chickens, and shamba, allow the children to develop a skill to make some money now and in the future. On Wed. afternoon, we went into Nyeri, which is the county seat.  It is like no other place I have been.  It’s  hard to explain the atmosphere.  The poverty is unbelievable.  We are safe because we always have chaperones from the CYEC with us.  Sam, the Art Director, took very good care of us.  The Kansas State students, who are here the majority of the summer, are keeping an eye on us “old ladies.”  They are great group of kids.  Most of the Penn State students left right before we arrived.  While in town, we visited Lord Baden-Powell’s gravesite – he was the founder of the Boy Scouts.  I also tried arrowroot.  The waitress said it was sweet, which surprised me, but I thought they might have done something to it.  It tasted like a bland grain. Something I have learned in the past two days is there is US time and then there is Kenya time.  Today (Thursday), we went to the first Day of the African Child with the theme for urgent action to address street children.  Sam worked with some of the CYEC youth as they were scheduled to present a skit.  The program was supposed to start at 8:30 am, but it didn’t start until 11:30 am.  To top that off, the politicians and government employees took so much of the time speaking, many of the groups did not have the opportunity to present what they practiced.  We asked Sam to have the CYEC youth present it to us in the next couple days.  We were all starved, so we went to lunch with the K-State kids and ordered pizza.  It took almost three hours!  We have found it is difficult to make any plans.  Instead of having an afterschool program, we are planning (we’ll see how this goes), to have a mini-health fair on Sat.  Stay tuned. Lastly, when I was at breakfast this morning, I met Brad, a Penn State grad student.  We were chatting, and when he told me his PSU undergrad degree was in International Studies, I asked him if he know my cousin Maria Williams.  She is one of his good friends.  It truly is a small world