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Now I'm in Sydney, it's nearly all over. It's still hot (though I am for the first time finding it less hot than the Australians) and I'm still surrounded by children, thanks to my cousin's baby twins. But in every other way it is very different from Africa and from Europe. For example I'm in a café and my coffee arrived within five minutes of ordering it .
After Christmas in Eldoret we picked up my mum from the airport. The next day we drove to Machakos the whole way laughing at mum's "what's that?" "Those are some shops mum." "And that ?" "Those are some houses." "Are we in rush house." "Actually this is good traffic." But I think it says more about Nairobi than my mother.
We got there and talked to the director of Machakos, hearing so many sad stories of the girls are there. Sometimes I desperately want to know Cherotich and Maria's pasts, sometimes I think it's better if I don't know. Then we played a long game of hide and seek to find the little monkeys who deal with seeing me again by running and hiding them laughing when I find them. I took Cherotich and Maria and Mary and also Nyambura to the office to sit quietly and eat some snacks. Nyambura is the same age and a friend of the other three and I used to take care of her at Nairobi Children's Home. She heard me telling the others they were starting back at school in a few days. "And me?" she asked. I had to tell her in limited Swahili that she had to wait. She burst into tears. For the first time in public in Kenya, I did too. Both of us sat their crying for a while. Eventually she stopped and said to me "usi lia Charlotte". Don't cry Charlotte. So of course I cried more.
The next two days we spent getting everything ready for the children's new school. Between 6 sponsors, there are now 15 kids. We had decided to start them at a new school closer to Nairobi. Doing the shopping for all 15, first at the supermarket, then at the outdoor markets of Wangige where no one ever has enough of the things you need, or will take at least an hour to find them, was one of those Kenyan days that reminds you how exhausted it is possible to be. Until the next day whenI realized it was possible to be more exhausted. Mum and I picked the girls up from town after a government officer bought them from Machakos. Meanwhile Charity was held up picking the boys up from Thika so we took the girls back to our hotel for a few hours where they discovered the delights of running hot water, laptop computers and cheese. I really wish I had gotten a photo of the expressions on their faces when they tried it. Utter surprise, followed by disgust that such food exists and mzungus actually eat it. Admittedly it was processed cheese, but I'm going to have to work on that one in future.
We got picked up by a bustling matu of 8 very tired boys and Charity and drove to Wanagige. Far from being over, Charity and Mum had to do some more shopping for school stuff. That left me as chief babysitter. Of 11 grumpy hot children. For two hours. Trying to keep them in one place beneath some shade whilst counting madly to make sure none had escaped, attempting to keep the crazy drunk man who kept hassling me away from the kids and also making sure the kids didn't steal any mangos from the woman's enticing store nearby.
After two hours the school bus picked us up, but we still had to wait for mum and Charity to finish (why we couldn't take the kids to school and they take a taxi I don't know, but it was in line with the general Kenyan policy of making organization tasks as complicated as possible). Unfortunately the kids needed to pee. The same kids who would quite happily go outside on major highways whilst everyone in the van watched suddenly decided that their modesty was at stake and I had to sweet talk them into going outside by making guarding the space between school bus and the trees next to it to make sure no unsuspecting passer-bys passed by.
Everyone feeling much less 'pressed' as they say in Kenya, we got back on the bus, but then the local school got out and the kids swarming past were so surprised to see a mzungu theyall stopped and stared at the bus. The kids became very indignant, I may be a mzungu, but I'm their mzungu so all went to the windows of the bus and shouted"we, toka!" Maria, sounding for all the world like an imperious grown up woman, called "driver, shut the door now please" and was extremely irritated when he didn't do as he was told. I just sort of sat in the corner and watched all this take place, feeling their wasn't much more I could add to the situation.
That night we spent hours sorting and labeling all the children's things into their boxes and finally left the school around 10 at night.
After that it felt like it should quieten down a bit, but in Kenyan style, it didn't. We moved out of the hotel mum had booked for the week and I stayed at Charity's while mum stayed in an apartment with her friend Sarah next door. I love Charity's house. It has two small rooms and the longdrops, shower rooms and tap are outside, shared by all the neighbours in the dust red courtyard. It is so communal, not just because of a lack of money, but because Kenyans like it that way. It is normal for everyone to sleep in the same room, sometimes the same bed and for all the neighbours to go outside and do their washing together, catching up on gossip as they do so. I felt like a child there.I spent most of my spare time playing with Jane and Precious. Having long serious chats with Jane and long silly chats with Precious. My mother made the unforgiveable error of calling me her 'puppy' in front of Charity and Precious, something all Kenyans seem to find hilarious. Precious really rolled with this one and brings it up at every opportunity. "Charlotte," she asked in the voice seven year olds use to ponder philosophical questions with profoundsimplicity, "when you call your mum's cellphone does your name come up?" "Yes, small brat, it does." "So it says: puppy calling."
On of our non-chero and maria days, Sarah, mum, I and our friend the taxi driver (and also self-proclaimed businessman, teacher, tourguide, vet and docot) David drove though the Great Rift Valley to Nakuru and went into the national park. It's not Masai mara but we saw rhinos, flamingos, baboons, ravens (which are very ugly), giraffes, zebras and even a tortoise which David happilygot out to say shake hands with (don't tell the Kenya Wildlife Service).
The next day we took the four Nairobi Children's Home sponsor kids to school. On the way we had to buy more clothes (it seems we need a neverending supply) in Wangige. Mum went out and bargained while Charity and I stayed in the car with the children and the taxi driver. We all watched as mum bargained them down to Kenyan prices while all the shopkeepers and standerbys discussed how "Wanjiro from abroad knows how to bargain" and Charity and the driver gave me a running translation while we all sat in the car in hysterics. Mum innocently got back in the car with 10 pairs of trousers and no idea she was even being talked about.
Cherotich and Maria began to get used to my regular visits and to the milk I would sneak in (there not technically allowed extra food at school) that they would guzzle down. Other than milk drinking the current cool activities are acting out noises from Hairy Maclary, having me spin them round until their shoes fall off and they are so dizzy the can't walk straight, dancing to Wavin' Flag and, last but not least, stealing my sunglasses and strutting around and looking around much cooler than me. "Buy me these ones, please," is Maria's new favourite phrase in English. Maria is speaking really good English, Cherotich however is trying to convince me she doesn't speak English, which isn't very convincing when she tells me this in English and when she knows exactly what "if you don't stop that, I won't bring milk" means.
Our last week in Kenya was packed. We took Sarah and Charity's family to Nairobi National Park, which they loved, especially the baby elephant orphange after. Watching a dozen little elephants bumble around having their bath and drink their bottles was priceless and the look on Precious' face when she reached out to touch them and kept freaking out when as soon as her hand got close was even better.
The next day we went to idyllic Zanzibar which was very beautiful, very relaxing and very hot. We stayed for two nights in the winding streets of Stone Town, then went on a tour that showed us where spices come from and then moved to a very odd resort for two nights. It was German run, almost empty, totally gorgeous, with the friendliest staff including a flamboyantly gay Tanzanian who was to our porter all topped off with absolutely awful food. It was quite an anticipation each meal to see how badly wrong they could get each dish. Even pasta wasn't immune.
We flew back to Kenya for two days, which were awful and amazing at the same time because I was enjoying Charity, Jane, Precious, Cherotich and Maria's company so much and did not want to leave. On Friday we went to the school's Thanksgiving parent's day. I was worried were late turning up at 11.30 instead of 11, but I clearly forgot which country I was in because most of the parents didn't turn up until 1pm. The next day mum and I went back to the school with Jane and Precious in tow as our translators to say goodbye. On the dusty road up to the school we came across a donkey with a cart so overfilled that it had fallen into a ditch and was lifting the donkey up by its neck. I can't imagine what the owner thought when he saw two mzungu woman leap out of the car followed by the driver and run to push the cart up, out of the ditch, but it was something involving shock and disbelief judging by the look on his face. "Was he angry we helped him?" we asked our driver. "No he told me he was so surprised he forgot English, he wanted to say thank you though." "I wanted to save the donkey too," Precious told me, "but you told me to stay in the car."
Next came all the goodbyes. First to Chero and Maria, but not before filling their boxes with dolls, kiwis (only the toy kind), story books, and the biggest hit, two little shoulder bags from Zanzibar that they can carry treasures such as bottle tops andextra bits of string round in. We all had lunch in Westlands, I went back and madly packed my ridiculous amount of nice French winter clother and practical Kenyan summer clothes that were strewn thoughout Charity's house. That evening I joked to Jane that I could pack in her my suitcase and then had to give her a long lecture on why Kenyan children cannot be taken to New Zealand in people's suitcases.
The next morning I woke up early and we said goodbye to everyone. Jane, Precious and Sasha (Sarah's daughter who is Precious's clone) decided they were coming with us and jumped into the car and had to be pulled out at the end of the driveway.
After a five hour flight in which I ended up sitting next to a very talkative Ugangan little girl who asked me all about how planes stayed up (not the best topic since I've recently developed a fear of flying) and why she tried to tear downthe election poster of the Ugandan president; "because he is a bad man and kills lots of people and is starting a war. But if there's war, we can kill is soldiers who are bad people." Only an African child.
The next few days we spent in Johannesburg, staying in Soweto. I'm sure South Africa has it's share of problems but the government support, infrastructure, education system, housing was amazing to me after Kenya. The sheer determination of those living in Soweto 10-20 years ago and the optimism and lack of bitterness of the people who live their now was both humbling and uplifting and I hope it can be an example to countries like Kenya where there are so many problems but where I also see that resilience and determinedness in the Kenyan people. Especially in two of its littlest people, who I have the honour of sending to school.
It's been a crazy 15 months, thank you for sticking with my overlong, intermittently updated blog posts and for all the encouragements to keep writing.
Kwaheri kwa sasa,
Charlotte
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