Allison’s turn for the blog….. Childhood Joy
Three orphanages in one day, it was always going to be a tough one, but I don’t think any of us believed just how emotionally draining it was going to be. I suppose the reality of meeting children and knowzing some of them have HIV was a hard one for all of us. I know I speak for most of us when I say there were tears by the end of the day
Kids Home International
The first one of the day and seeing Mercy again, we had previously been to her school – Progressive Chep Chep Academy and played cricket (day 7 blog). We had a lovely reception from children aged between 3 and 19, so for the next hour hour we kicked footballs, blew up balloons, and filled them with sugar (bad adults 🙂 ). Vards handing us balloons we could’t blow up quick enough. Gellers found a new vocation of drawing faces on balloons and had quite a queue, excited children all wanting their face drawn. Fergs had a little boy attached to him almost all of the time as did Daniel with little Charity, Jon and myself took turns in playing a kind of tennis/volleyball with Mercy who is nearly 12, a lovely young girl. We all lost our sun glasses for most of the hour while the little ones posed for the camera, smiling endlessly, their excitement palpable. I had two on my lap belly tickling whilst they wore sun glasses, their giggling contagious. An older boy of 19 with Cerebal Palsy played football and balloons with us, it was only two years ago that the staff at the orphanage realised he could hear…..
Care Highway
We arrived at out next to be met by children in their sundry best all lined up waiting for us, we took a bat and some tennis balls a couple of footballs, and we played with them for a good part of an hour, the children are clearly cared for and loved by their `Aunties` and were polite and happy. One mishap of the day one of us taking a fall and spraining their ankle in the raucous fun going on ( not me!!). A quick trip to hospital soon sorted that out.
Collette spent alot of time with one young girl called Mary a 14 year old girl, her father died three years ago of aids and her fartger gave it to her mother but none of the children have HIV.her mother is stilk around with her two brothers and live in Narobi but her mum is not very well and couldn’t support Mary. is able to go back home every so often and takes supplies with her as her brothers don’t go to school have to scavenged for food, she is in love with a boy but she doesn’t want to have sex as she is concerned about his status as she wants to be a teacher.
After a lovely song from the children we then got back into the minibus and off to the third orphanage,
A.I.C childrens home
A one hour drive saw us arrive at our last one for the day, sadly we brought the rain with us, so stickers, crayonsand a few drawn on tattoos by yours truely (sorry aunties) as we were indoors, the children wrote their names played with a tennis ball, had stickers stuck to their forehead and arms, once again we lost our sunglassesasthey poised for photos and generally enjoyed their time, too many children to mention individually, but again it was all too short and we left feeling we hadn’t done enough.
Back on the minibus and a subdued team headed back to the hotel for a couple of cokes 🙂
A memorable, exhausting and emotional day, still would like to do more for the children though
Your all doing loads Ali. Those children will all have wonderful memories forever. And hopefully grow up understanding that a little love goes a long way and will be able to teach the skills that you are all teaching them. We think your all amazing stay safe x