Jambo! Welcome to Kenya!

We love Africa! We have been here for just about 3 days now, and we have already experienced and seen so much! We are being introduced to a new way of life - one much slower, fully self-sufficient and 100% hard-working. We are sleeping and working within an orphanage called Maddison House, which is the home of 32 wonderful children/young adults (ages 1 1/2 - 17) and 2 unbelievably strong and dedicated house mothers, Betty and Wambui. The orphanage is about 22km NW of Nairobi in a district called Limuru. It is in a very rural location which is why this has been our first chance to find Internet.

There is already so much that we could tell you, but since we're worn out from our long day we'll just mention a few of the highlights!

Let us introduce you to our new life at Maddison House. The orphanage was once a grand house owned by an engineer and his family. There are 6 bedrooms in the main house. We have our own room with a bunk bed and one additional twin. We have of course crammed ourselves onto the single bed! We have what used to be the master bedroom with an entirely pink full bathroom. Now let me clarify what we mean by 'full bathroom' - we have a toilet that we must fill with water every time we want to flush. Now this water is not from the tap since there is rarely running water, so we collect our toilet water from the tank outside. We have not properly bathed yet, so we cannot tell you about that, but we know the routine is to boil some water on the open fire outside, pour that into a bucket, take it to the bathroom and splash it all over you. We have been planning an awesome water fight for our first time!


The same fire used to heat our bath water is used to cook all the meals. There are a number of enormous cast iron pots that are constantly rotating upon the fire, cooking the staple foods - potatoes, rice, beans, cabbage, and ugali (tastes like grits for you Americans - with no butter, salt, or jelly). So far, all of our meals have consisted of one or more of these - often 4 or 5 of them!

Daily routine: We wake to our alarm at 6:30am (yes, earlier than we used to get up for work), whine and complain to one another for about 15 mins and then finally roll out of bed. If there is water in the taps, we splash it on our faces and brush our teeth, avoiding swallowing even a little water. We proceed to go downstairs, eat cold pancakes, and drink chai tea (heated fresh cows milk and tea leaves). We then sweep the entire orphanage, followed by a hefty mopping where one of us scrubs the floor with a soapy rag and the other follows behind drying. For Emily, there has been no better site then watching Simon bend over in the impressive way all Kenyan women do - right at the hip - and scrub those darn floors! The rest of our day consists of helping Betty and Wambui prepare meals. Lunch is cooked all morning and then the fun starts...we take a large bucket filled with piping hot corn and beans and carry it 2 miles to the children's school where we sit with them in the grass as they eat and then carry the dirty dishes back home. If any of you are wondering if a bucket of corn and beans for thirty kids is a lot, let us tell you that it is extraordinarily HOT and HEAVY and therefore very difficult to carry - especially in the Kenyan Sun! Of course Betty and Wambui effortlessly carry the bucket to and fro on their heads, we are yet to master that - not that we haven't tried!

We are only just starting to get to know the kids and in some ways it is more difficult with the younger ones as they know little English. However, they are a lively bunch and love to dance and play with us. They have been fascinated by our camera, as well as Simon's leg hair which the spent this evening stroking! LOL. One of the older boys, James (15yrs) sat with us the other evening and told us about his experiences living on the streets of Nairobi for many years of his life. He was approached by a pastor not long ago and asked if he wanted to go back to school. Since his answer was yes, the pastor found an orphanage for him and in April he moved here. He still struggles with the structure here, and the lack of freedom and money, but is very thankful for the education he is receiving. He also asked Simon about circumcision in the UK and revealed that he had the painful procedure just 4 weeks ago and was still experiencing a lot of discomfort from it. Just sitting with James for 10 mins and hearing his story has already made a lasting impact on us.

We are off to sleep now... another early morning tomorrow! We hope we will have the opportunity to write more and upload some pictures soon.

Love to all our family and friends. We miss you!

Emily & Simon
xx

P.S. We love comments on our blog! :)