I have to do a makeup post for Kenya. I thought I posted it, but apparently I didn't! So we got home from Kenya almost 2 months ago. What an experience it was. We arrived at 2 am at the airport in Nairobi and waited at Java restaurant until Dadi, the orphanage director could come pick us up. He showed up around 5 and started our 2 hour journey to the school/orphanage "Stars of Africa."
The school house was on holiday break so our week consisted of hanging out and helping with the 12 kids who lived at the orphanage full time. Our days began by working around the schoolhouse and orphanage transporting sand to even out the soccer field or painting classrooms.Around noon, we stopped working and hung out with the kids playing games or doing school work. Also, during this time we went to the near by village called Madini market. On our way we would flag down a motor bike if we didn't want to walk. We grabbed the motor bike to get back to the orphanage for 10 cents. There were several other volunteers at the orphanage with us, but besides them we were the only white people in the entire village. So you would get many interesting looks.
Sadly, I was sick almost the entire time we were in Kenya and sleeping in rooms that were not enclosed was not helpful. Also, the food was redundant with not as much nutrition as I am used to. It made fighting any sickness very difficult! Auntie was the cook and she was such a wonderful person to get to know. She works A LOT though for very little. Â She works about 15 hour days for about 87 dollars a month. Feeding 30 people keeps her very busy.
The girl on the right inside the window is one of the girls there named Joanne. Dadi saved her and her 2 sisters from going into prostitution. Very sad story, but what a wonderful place to be apart of. She is such a beautiful girl inside and out. I really enjoyed being around all the kids and they were great workers. We had to hand level a soccer field, no easy task. Those kids every day got up and were out to work before most volunteers were. They loved playing jump rope and coloring.
After we spent a week at the village we headed of to Maasai Mara. INCREDIBLE. We saw the Big 5 which is very uncommon in one visit. Here we saw a lot of culture as the safari was 5 hour drive from Nairobi. People still were living in brick/dirt huts. After the safari, we also took a hippo tour which was amazing too. There were so many hippos in this lake, seriously everywhere. They would just pop up out of the water and we would steer the boat up to them up close. What a once in a lifetime trip!
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