The Churra 16th

Monday 16.10.06

I was playing with the children in the field today, I have been teaching them how to dance. Next minute there was a frog in the field and at first they were being lovely and saying, "Oooo, Abigail ungalia, ungalia, churra, churra!" ("Oooo, Abigail look, look, frog, frog!") Then after 10 minutes the boys start to try to catch it and chase it and I am saying "Noooo, noooooo!" And then they start beating the living shit out of it with a stick. Oh God. I couldn't stand to see it. So I grabbed their sticks and ran after the frog and caught him and had to go out of the school to set him free. The kids are naughty in this way, they do not realise that they have to respect a little life. In fact they often hit each other, it is sad to see. Now I am wondering if frogs in Africa are poisonous! hahaha.

Elephant Orphanage 14/15th

14.10.06 Saturday

Later on Saturday I went to see some giraffes that live in Nairobi National Park. They were beautiful, one was called Laura and another we saw was called Eileen. The ranger was trying to maneouvre. Eileen and he kept saying, "Come on Eilean." Well, it was making me laugh. : ) I also got on really well with the ranger called Daniel and we have agreed that the rangers would come one day to the orphanage and bring the children for a day in the wild so that they can see the giraffes... how amazing that would be. I need to talk to Jane the teacher tomorrow to arrange it.

Sunday 15.10.06

Today went to the elephant orphanage. They were sooo super cute. Each elephant has a Mother who cares for him. They sleep with him at night and feed him in the day. They also apply sun cream and hold an umbrella so they little thing does not burn. The elephants become very dependent on their 'mothers' ...they try not to let this happen as they need to go back into the wild but sometimes it does. In fact, one 'mother' left the orphange to work somewhere else not long ago and the baby died of a broken heart. Elephants are prone to heart ache and depression, so the keepers need to play with them alot and cuddle them.

Kibera 14th

14.10.06 Saturday

Yesterday, I spent the day in the slums. A place called Kibera that has grown because of the poor people coming to Nairobi in the hope that they will find work. Millions of people live there. It was phenomenal. The slum is the biggest in Africa. It is now bigger than the one in Johannesburg. I visited the area where the Constant Gardner was filmed. The people in the slums live in shit, literally. There is no other way to describe it. There is no where for them to go the toilet in a hygenic way. The 'flying toilet' this is when the family are in the hut at night and as it is too dangerous to go outside for the toilet, they wee and poo in a bag and then throw it out of the window, it can go anywhere. Well, we saw a couple of toilet facilities, one donated by British Airways but the problem is big. For me the two other major issues seem to be water and rubbish. The water is not clean and there is rubbish everywhere... everywhere.

The Children At Shade

Moses
Joseph
Caroline
Faith, Gaceri

Julius

Dorothy

Mary

Faith

Beth

Rebbeca

The Children At Shade

Bridget
Boas
Brenda

Simon
Nancy

Bradley

Victor, Oama

Gaceri

Nairobi 13th

13.10.06 Friday

My first day at the Orphange. It is called Shade Orphanage and is in Riruta, Satellite... perhaps it is on the internet. The children are between 3 and 6. Some have AIDS, some have lost their parents to AIDS. Some are orphans or destitute.

A little girl called Gaceri (above), she is an orphan. She is 5 and looks like a 2 or 3 year old. By the end of the day she started to trust me and she would come to me and I would hold her little body but I was frightened that I was hurting her as she felt to me like a bag of bones. Her shoes are really old and much too big for her, she never wears them but I worry for her feet so I help her put them on all of the time because when she puts them on she puts them on the wrong feet and then can't walk very well. The only other thing apart from the shoes that she has is a green knitted jumper that is falling apart. It is also so big that it falls off her shoulders.

Then there is Boas (above), he is 6. He is soooooo naughty and is always distracting the other children. Well yesterday I started to draw with him and he was amazing. We worked together for about 40 minutes and he was totally absorbed. His work was very good and he was very proud of himself. I can see he is clever if he tries, so I will push him to work hard ; ) When I am not teaching the children I play with them outside to give the teacher a break. It is exhausting!! They jump on me, pull me here and there. Mostly they want cuddles. I permanantly have about four children clamped to me. Two in my arms and two around my legs. They stroke my hair and tickle my tattoo and they like to play clap hands so I am learning some songs in Swahili.