The new kids on the block.

Simon, Isaac, and Joyce are the new kids on the block.

Although Isaac and Joyce arrived only four months ago, it seems like they’ve been around for years.

They’re so well adjusted; They are small – the smallest orphans in the group – but they are growing and adapting to the way of life, the routine, and the school work. They seem to be flourishing on so many levels. No matter their size, they find a way to stick up for themselves – Isaac is a quick and agile footballer – his size allows him to whiz in and out between the older boys. Joyce is a tiny girl with a big personality. She’s feisty and doesn’t let the older girls baby her.

Isaac has even received a nickname and although I’m sure it’s not entirely of a positive inclination, the kids affectionately shout out: “Muzungu!”– the Swahili word for white man. One day he walked into the Shamba with white pants, with no forethought to how dirty his clothes would become. Apparently white people do the same thing…

Simon is a different story.

He arrived a week before I came on the scene. The story goes that after his mother died he would go to her grave to cry and cry and cry. His grandmother pleaded for them to take him in. To take him far away from the ghost haunting him to attend to his mother’s resting place.

Simon stays mostly to himself. Swinging on the swing and lost in his thinking. His eyes give it away that his head is full: Thinking, thinking, thinking. He wears a green woolen hat that seems to keep his thoughts from falling out of his ears.

He was left as an only child, and it shows. He doesn’t seem to know how to handle sharing life with thirty other brothers and sisters. Playing with others isn’t appealing to his little-full-head.

The most loved and celebrated activity of all – dancing – leaves him shell shocked and standing frozen. He’s either in awe of what he’s seeing because he doesn’t know how to dance – or he’s never seen children displaying such glee and fun; expressing such joy seems foreign and strange. (And I have yet to meet an African that doesn’t dance, but perhaps I’m horribly stereotyping here…)

Simon doesn’t know how to read – yet. Even so he was placed in class above his level and he carefully copies the words on the blackboard – letter for letter. Unaware of the spaces indicating word changes and giving meaning to the shapes. He is however faithful to mimic what he sees and his handwriting is not without practice. Although most of the school’s day is taught in English, his knowledge doesn’t extend past “Hello!” and “How are you?” as being replacements for “Habari!”

I spent a lot of time with him reading and re-reading Baby’s First Word books. I pointed to the pictures and he took his guesses… and over time his guesses turned into recognition… and delight with every new picture.

“Dog”

“Apple”

“House”

“Flower” … were his favorites. Although sometimes “apple” was used for every round looking fruit and “house” for every form of shelter whether for a dog or a cow. Even so, I gave him an enthusiastic high-five to congratulate his even-close-to-right answer!

As the days passed, Simon seemed to come to life.

He stopped wearing his green-woolen-thought-hiding hood and babbled off in Swahili during our evening tutoring sessions. He would just look me straight in the eye as if I understood every word (thankfully the others were quick to translate and catch me up to the story). He even braved the football field to play with the others … his head finally free of all the thinking.

I miss those kids. They are small, but they make a big impression on your heart.

to see, to smell, to touch

I still have a couple malaria pills to take. My skin is still peeling from the sunburn on my neck. I’ve discovered a couple of ringworm spots on my arm, and I have hundreds and hundreds of pictures to sort through… The evidence is all here. I really was in Kenya for 17 days. And yet it feels as though it were a dream. How can it be that I’ve already gone and come back?

Every time I share stories of my time there, I’m surprised by what comes out. The new things that surface from my memory seem to have no particular rhyme or reason for their appearance. Although each new question seems to draw out a side of the story that only moments before, were buried deep within.

Personal experience far outweighs a good read. I realize that there is nothing that I could write, or photo that I could share, that would bring someone to fully grasp what happened in those 17 days. I can’t recreate the sound of the crying donkey or the thousands of bird calls in the early morning, I can’t emit the smells of burning charcoal and cedars through the internet, or send sensors that fashion the feel of the children’s hands in my own.

But I feel the need to tell and to share.

I hope that by writing this out, I can somehow make sense of it all in my head and in my heart. That I can somehow find balance amidst the wrestlings in my head. I was just in a place where water, 3 meals a day, and education a privilege for the élite. I return to a comfortable home: resources seemingly endless. I find myself finding delight (with a hint of guilt) in the simplest of things: a warm shower, a ‘normal’ toilet, a good cup of coffee…the freedom to go wherever I want without fear or feeling like everyone is staring at me with a dollar sign hanging over my head.

More than anything I return with a greater sense of gratitude for what I do have. And yet, there’s something in me that also feels like I have it all wrong. There was something in the people I encountered that goes far deeper than the pleasures of a warm shower. There is a greater joy to be had than the amenities we’ve created for ourselves as Westerners.

I spent two days interviewing the orphans to evaluate their current needs and progress of the 2-year-old Safehouse. I was humbled by the children’s responses. They were more than thankful for the opportunity to live at the Safehouse. “I eat well. I sleep well. I have the opportunity to go to school. I’m learning about God.” When asked if they would want anything to be different: their main requests were to have a water well, and a bigger house so that more children from the community could come to live their too!

The irony of the orphanage is that it is a privilege to live there. They do not have our same standards of living and yet they are being given so much in comparison to what they would live with were they to stay with their relatives. Many of the children’s relatives are too poor to pay for school fees or school uniforms. They can barely afford food for their own family and need their children to help by working the farm or other means to earning a living.

Nationwide, about 2% of children under 15 have lost both parents, and 12% of children in Kenya have lost at least one parent. Orphanhood as a result of HIV/AIDS has increased to 37%. And yet, I mention these statistics realizing that they don’t allow you to really know the children affected by these realities. It takes meeting them face to face, knowing their name, hearing their voice, making them laugh, noticing the quirks in their personalities…

I hope I can at least share some of this with you in the coming days, weeks, months as I reflect back.

The least I can do is share their story with you.

see Rebecca dance

The girls were still at it. I had had enough of dodge ball. Even as a young girl I hated playing dodge ball. Although I have to admit, playing with a bunch of girls in dresses is much more fun then in a gym with both of the sexes at war with one another. But these girls can throw! Getting hit in the face hurts just as much as ever.

I decided to sit on the side and play with my camera some more. The music was still playing in the background from the day’s earlier festivities. It’s the first day of the new year; the community surrounding the orphanage, including any living relatives of the orphans had been invited to join in the celebration. The kids had shared their talent of singing and dancing with the guests, but with not nearly as much gusto as I saw Rebecca dancing before me now.

Rebecca had noticed me picking up my camera and without any hesitation, she started dancing before me. I gave in to her silent request to adore her, snapping photos of her every move. She didn’t even bother to exit the playing field. She just kept swinging and swaying right as the other girls continued running past: back and forth, back and forth.

Rebecca can dance. She’s only nine and knows how to swing her tiny almost non-existent hips, while swaying her arms in perfect rhythm with every beat. I’ve decided all Africans can dance, and although I’d tried to pretend that I could dance as well as these kids, joining in their every step and sway, I now look back on the pictures and videos and admit I’ll never be as smooth.

But why is Rebecca dancing for me? She doesn’t bother to run to me, to see the pictures like usual. She’s finding sheer delight in the fact that I’m watching her.

Only now do I look back on that day and wonder how much that afternoon had impacted the childrens’ hearts? Although all the relatives of the kids had been invited, few had actually shown up. Even if they did come, they barely spoke to the kids or showed any form of affection. I know for certain that Rebecca’s relatives were not present. The caretakers of the orphanage later shared the story of finding Rebecca and her sister Deborah in a one-room house. Their mother had passed many years earlier and their father had been heavily addicted to drugs. Since the time that Rebecca had been taken into the orphanage, her father had never once shown his face at events such as this, nor made contact with any of the caretakers.

I can only wonder how much Rebecca longs to be watched: to be watched as any young girl who longs to be adored by her father, longs to be loved by her mother.