A big part of this trip for us has been letting go of control. We wrote this blog post for our halfway mark, which was a few days ago. But that day we lost power and we’ve been out for over 48 hours and of course all our electronics died at the most inconvenient time. Classic. Here is a little random collection of thoughts to commemorate our halfway day: Yesterday we were sitting in the office and the kids kept walking by and giggling. We were doing our own thing, working on some paperwork when Andy came up and said “they are waiting for you.” We looked up and there stood every single one of the kids, gathered together in a group staring through the office door at us expectantly. We had nothing prepared. But they were so sweet, waiting patiently for us. We got up and asked them all what they wanted to do, they sounded excited about drawing so we taught another impromptu art class that produced adorable drawings of each other. It was so sweet, looking up and seeing all of their expectant faces. We realized that we are no longer exciting to them because we are mzungu’s (white people). But now they are excited to see us because they want to play games and draw and learn what we have to teach them.
We are over halfway done our time here. It’s hard to believe. This week we actually started to stop feeling like visitors. We have become a part of normal daily life for other people as well as them being part of daily life for us.
We are really excited about the time we have left. So much has changed since we got here, our relationship with this place and these people. And we are only halfway, so much more can happen. We’ve already created bonds with all these kids and we have the same amount of time to get to know them that much more. Even in the market place they are getting used to us and staring less. There is still so much potential for our relationship with this place.
Two of the biggest cultural observations we have made about Kenya is that: Time in Africa doesn’t run people, people run time, and North America has huge personal space issues.
Time is irrelevant. Everyone is doing their thing, no matter what, It is normal to pause to sit on the side of the road and chat for an hour, or even when rushing to town in a hurry people will often stop to talk to multiple people. Sometimes we are told to be ready by 6:30 am. When in reality we end up leaving by 8. This is totally fine by me, I run late as a general rule. Give me an extra hour to fall back asleep? no problem, I wasn’t ready anyway. But Kira’s Wyncoll streak is struggling. You tell her to be ready at a certain time, she will be ready exactly at that time.
No one stops for anyone here, at first it seems like people aren’t aware of each other, when in reality it is more a combination of hyper awareness, and they just don’t care if their personal space intersects with everyone else’s. Motorcycles will squeeze past a car and nobody cares because its not offensive for people to get inside your ‘personal space circle.’ That just doesn’t exist. On the Matatu you can’t tell if someone is best friends with the person next to them or if they are complete strangers. Everyone talks and sits on each others laps, they have got their arms around each other, saving space. On public transportation in North America people rarely sit in a middle seat. Often people would rather stand then sit in a seat beside someone.
We have been able to do so much already, we have travelled cross-country through different landscapes and met so many people from different tribes. We have been through the poor parts of town and eaten in little hole in the wall restaurants overlooking busy roundabouts. The amount of work we have gotten done for HCIC feels really satisfying and it feels like we have the perfect amount left. Enough to fill our time and still leave us with time to just enjoy the people we have grown to love.
It is so hard to try to portray these kids. Each of them is a different combination of nerves, love, opinions, and mannerism. We have tried our best to gather up as much as possible to put into paper and picture form for sponsors. It is crazy that some of them don’t have sponsors yet. We have been creating a little online snapshot into each of their lives on a new app/website called mixonium. Each orphan will have a page with a collection of a few pictures, information, and possibly report cards or artwork. This will be available only to the sponsors. For the kids that still need sponsors we have created an public version. For example, here is a little peek into Annah’s life. https://mixonium.com/mx/1736. If you are interested in sponsoring Annah or any of the other kids, visit the HCIC web page helpingchildrenincrisis.com/help/sponsor and you can always check out the HCIC facebook page to find more information and updates URL.
Every night after dinner we crawl into bed and talk about life. Life here, life at home, how messed up life is, how wonderful life is, how different people live life, realizations about life, and how big life is. Our room consists of a bed, a desk that holds our backpacks of clothes, a window, and a 2 by 3 square foot piece of floor where the door swings open. It’s got a transporting quality to it- it’s small, simple, square and whenever we climb under the blue divide of the mosquito net and sit there staring at the night sky it feels like we could be anywhere in the world. Often it feels like we are just in a room at home, when of course in reality we are miles across the blue atlantic in the other hemisphere. It’s weird paying attention to our thoughts and realizing that it is getting harder to picture back home. When we first got here we would daydream about life back home but now more often then not we find our day dreams are about life here.
At the beginning we did not think we were going to adapt. We were sure that each day we would have really low times and feel like falling apart, spilling, and giving up. We knew that we could physically get through each day, but we felt like emotionally it was going to be so difficult, every single day. Now way more often then not we fall asleep excited for the next day, and happy with where we are. And for the first time in a long we don’t feel like racing to the next stage in life. Partially because we just can’t. If you think about the big picture its overwhelming. So it has totally forced us to just be, and to think “I’m here and I just have to do here.” Which is really good, because it makes us appreciate each thing so much more: Each meal, each smile from the kids, each cup of tea, each freezing shower. We wouldn’t have it any other way.