Hi, I don't know where to begin. I've been working at Nairobi Children's Home for two weeks but the intensity of it makes it feel like a lifetime. I'm not meant to publicly criticize my project, so let me just leave it as 'I would like to'. Nairobi Children's Home's reputation precedes it so I was warned the first day was going to be hard and it lived up to this. Every day I get so exhausted and dirty. It's pretty normal for me to be telling one child off, comforting another child from three metres away, having another crying child on my lap, three more cuddling me, two playing with my hair and anothe one trying to strangle me, all at once. I quickly got used to it, and it now feels a bit strange at the end of the day not to have a huddle of children coming up to me for cuddles, but at first it's a shock. I love my kids though. They are smart and funny and resiliant and do their best in a system that is completely working against them. There are 80 at the moment and they range in age from a few months old (who mostly get left in their cots all day) up to seven. Each of them obviously has a story, a really sad one, but I don't know most of them . We just try to pick up the pieces and give them as much love and attention as possible before they are shuttled off somewhere else. Maria is hilairous. I didn't like her at all at first. She is incredibly tough and has a deep voice which she uses to great effect to go around calling me 'mzungu, mzungu' (the word for white person. She knows my name, I've heard her telling other kids she likes to boss around what it is. On the second day we moved from open dislike to begruding respect, but now it's turned into complete love. She's actually very cuddly and loves to play with my hair. Although she still calls me 'mzungu', I don't think she's giving that one up any time soon. James is my little hero. He's completely mischevious and every time I catch up doing something naughty, which is often, and yell 'James, hapana' he turns around and in the sweetest litttle voice says 'yes' (the only English he knows) as though he has never even thought about doing anything wrong in his life. He doesn't have a bitter or mean bone in his body though. He is five and his mother locked him and his two younger sisters in a huose by themselves for a week before they were found. He kept himself, and both his sister, one a toddler, the other a tiny three months baby alive the whole time. I was feeding his baby sister yesterday, and he helped me out, ignoring the other boys who were teasing him, and he's better than me at holding her, singing to her, managing to get the food from the oversized spoons into her little mouth. Leonard is fantastic as well. His mother dropped dead of a heart attack at the market one day. He struggles in class, but as soon as I help him, he's completely willing to learn, he just needs some one on one attention. It doesnt' matter what I'm trying to teach him - letters, alphabet, basket ball, he will watch me closely, do exactly what I gesture (I can't say it because I don't speak swahili) and then repeat it, usually perfectly. After I shower him in praise he'll give me this very cool little half-nod. Charotich is my baby. She is so cheeky, and very pretty and she knows it. But she gets really quiet and sad some days. She needs lots of cuddles and is very affectionate, but she's not clingy at all. She loves to braid my hair and does not understand why it won't stay in braids without a hairtie. She's very bright and can pidgeon everything I say. I've taught her to say 'cheeky monkey' (which she is) and we have a cheeky money dance which we start up at every opportunity. The children have very little routine or structure and I think would be completely lost without our cuddles and the work of Esther, who is a complete saint who runs two one hour classes a day. She has control over the children, mostly (if you saw them you would understand what a feat this is) and never hits them. She walks an hour a day to school, works all day, then walks an hour home every weekday and doesn't even get paid. I love working in these classes and teaching the kids and they give us some structure we desperately need. It's very strange trying to teach, discipline and control all these children when we speak different languages. I'm trying to learn swahili as fast as I can. I learnt the word for 'no', 'hapana' fast. The best way to learn a language, I've discovered, is to have 10 children jumping and climbing on you, you have to learn how to get them off fast. My vocabularly is increading constantly (I can say 'don't hit' 'don't beat' 'don't run' and alot of other 'don'ts') but I would love to speak it properly.On a small scale, it would like a blind person getting their sight back to see their children for the first time. They are always chattering away, although I'm getting good at guessing what they are saying. Yesterday a religious group came and showed them a very graphic video about the life of jesus. Afterwards I found Peter talking avidly to Ahnad and James and slamming his fingers into his palms. I didn't need much swahili to understand that one, just what I need 80 children acting out cruxuifiction in the back yard. I hope this blog post gives you a bit more insight into my life here and some a bit of insight into what these children face. Here's the part where I start getting into asking you for help, feel free to stop reading. I'm trying to arrange sponsorship for one or two children to get them out of this system that is wasting them and into a boarding school. Some other volunteers have done this in the past and Jessie, who I work with is about to do it as well. It's a huge committment. It's going to cost about $1000 NZ, maybe a little more, a year per child for their fees, uniform and personal items and I'll have to get them through 8 years of primary school and four years of high school. Jessie and I keep discussing how it feels so strange, we're both only twenty and it feels like we're parents, we're constantly discussing school interviews, parent teacher days, stationary, school shoes. If anyone can help out in anyway, it would be greatly appreaciated. I'm going to set up a charitable trust in New Zealand and I can take through anyone who's intersted the process I'm going to use to get the money to Kenya, to the school (Uhururu Academy in a town near Nairobi called Nyeri) and to Charity my house mama, who arranges transport and buying the things they need every term. Any money, no matter how little would be a help, but so would any ideas for fundraising. Once I have things more sorted, hopefully in the next few days, I can give you copies of receipts and letters from the school and photos from the children. If you are interested please email me: [email protected]. Even if you can't do or give anything, please just wish me luck! Thanks, Charlotte