Joel, the guy from the UK who was here 2 weeks before us, is
doing a 6 week program here. After visiting the orphanage the first time, he
decided to set up a website asking for donations to help rebuild the orphanage
with actual cement walls and floors. It didn’t take him long to raise the money
(it only took about $1000) and to purchase supplies. Work will start sometime
this week and we will probably all be helping at some point. It is really
inspiring that he did all of this mostly by himself and it will make such a
difference to these kids.
I haven’t really wrote in here yet how thankful to God I am
that I was born in the US, but I think about that every single day, especially
today. We are so blessed that we don’t have to live like this, that even our
poor live 100 times better than this (I will admit, this is an assumption as I
have not really visited many slums in the States). This orphanage was a
Christian orphanage too, and just to hear them singing songs of praise to God
was really amazing. These kids aren’t angry about what they don’t have, just
happy about what they do. It just really puts things in perspective for me. We
complain so much about things that just really don’t matter in the scheme of
things. We don’t have to worry day by day if we will have enough food or if we
will have any sort of roof over our heads or if we will die from some very
curable disease because we don’t have enough money to pay for medication. I
know that I will still find myself complaining about someone putting pickles on
my McDonald’s burger when I get home, but I have a feeling I will be thinking
twice before I actually get upset about things not going my way.
One thing that I haven’t mentioned about Kenya is the fact
that everyone here loves Obama. Everyone who hears we are from the US says
something about Obama and how much they love him and how he is from Kenya. The
hospital that we work at, Coast Province General, even claims that they have
Obama’s birth certificate. They don’t know enough about our laws to realize
that this is a bad thing, not a good thing. They think that all Americans must
automatically love Obama too, which is funny to us since that is not the case.
After the morning of dancing and singing, some of the kids
walked back with us to the compound for the swimming lessons. I didn’t actually
help with these, except for from the sidelines, but it was really funny to
watch. Most of them could swim a little, but they had a hard time doing the
back floats or other things. They mostly just wanted to swim in the pool with
us I think. After this, I went to take a nap because I was exhausted from the
heat and dancing of the morning.
I’m getting really excited for the safari this weekend. We
will leave early Thursday morning, spend the night in Nairobi, 2 half days and
one whole day on the safari, another night in Nairobi and back to the compound
by Monday night. Before Mia left, she told us a lot about the safari and it
sounds so amazing to see. They saw all of the big 5 except for the Rhinos and
they saw lions multiple times. She also saw these animals really close up. I’m
excited to bring home pictures of this! Yes, videos too hopefully.
Tonight we went to the movie theater. It was absolutely
amazing how different the theater is than the rest of Mombasa. It was easily
the nicest and biggest theater I’ve ever been to. We all forgot that we were
even in Kenya for those couple hours. We went to see The Dark Night Rises. I had already seen this movie, but it was
just as good the second time. The only strange thing about the theater is that
before every movie, they ask everyone to stand up as they play the Kenyan
national anthem. It seems so random to me! Anyways, all in all it was a good
experience and a good break from this life where we are constantly thinking
about how different things are here. It was a very American experience with pop
and popcorn and a good movie. Well tomorrow, we go back to the hospital. I’m
hoping to get to watch some surgeries.
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