Hi everyone - so much happens here everyday, I don't really have a chance of capturing it in a blog. My biggest challenge at the moment is sponsoring Maria and Cherotich. It's stressful alot of the time. I have to contantly think of the practicalities of arranging for any child's education, except that I will be doing it from a distance. Added to this is that I have constantly check with the Children's Home, their legal guardian, for information. The Home are supportive in one sense, they recognise it will take the children off their hands and be a positive thing for them, but in another sense they can feel impossible. The directors don't remember the childdren as individuals very well, so I've had to constantly drag the kids in so they know who I am talking about. The records are shocking, the only information in the world that exists on the girls is the date they were brought in and the police report from the officers who found them. It breaks my heart, when I think this is the only identity the kids have in the world. We don't even know how old they are.
It will cost about NZ$1200 a year per each to send the girls for school. I am going to try and fundraise a considerable portion of this for the next few years while I am a student. I so wish I was earning an income so I could cover it all myself. If anyone would like to help it would be greatly appreaciated. Ideas for fundraising would be good. So would donations, even $1, for now into my NZ bank account (the number is 03 0883 0277782 00) but I am trying to start a charitable trust soon.
All the worry and work is worth it though when it hits home what I am doing. Yesterday we visited the school for the first time. It is in Nyeri, a small city in Central Kenya, 2 and a half hours away from Nairobi. My friend Jessie is sponoring Mary and Kamau and Katie is sponsoring Kevin. We picked the kids up at 7am from the orphanage and took a matatu (like a bus, except a crammed van playing ear throbbingly loud music) into town. Then we had to take a three hour matatu to Nyeri. Luckily we had Charity - my house mother who will be looking after the practicalities while I am in New Zealand - Esther - the volunteer teacher at the children's home - and Joyce - a carer at the home - with us. We had the kids on our laps and I've never felt more like a parent (except usually parents can speak the same language as their children) apologising to the person in front for Cherotich continually kicking their seat, apologising to the driver for Cherotich getting muffin crums (turns out she takes after me, she is the messiest eater in the world) and apologising to the entire matatu for having to stop so that Cherotich could go to the toilet.
The kids were actually really good though. Maria kept herself entertained most of the way dancing to the cheesy music from the radio and guarding the precious empty drink bottles she had commandeered, which turned out to be the coolest toy ever (who doesn't find it fun to hit me on the head, then hide them from me).
Nyeri was crazy because the people there are really not used to seeing mzungu, especillu not matatu travelling, Kenyan child toting very hot mzungu. Some clever vendor came up with the marketing technique of waving sweets and biscuits at the kids to try and get us to buy them (emphasis on the word 'try' after our time at the children's home we're very practiced at using the word 'hapana' - 'no').
The school was lovely. The buildings are basic, but they don't need anything more and the grounds are lovely with a huge field and a little farm where they grow crops at the back. I was expecting another version of the children's home management, with the only different being that I was paying them, but instead I got the most helpful headmistress and assistant head master.

The kids are the sandwiches we'd given them and looked around in awe at their new school, while their mzungu mum had a very long talk with the headmistress, probably being the most demanding and over-protective parents they've ever encountered. But they were very patient and have assured me I can call and write letters and emails whenever I like. I have the number of the girls' teachers and dormitory mamas, who will probably be inundated with calls and texts this year.

All the students were so excited to see us. I asked if I could take a few photos of the classes, which turned into a grand tour of every class waiting for us to take a photo of them.

The children are so excited. Charity translater their excited chatter as 'can we stay here? we want to stay here now!' I had to get her to translate (I would do anything to speak fluent swahili at this point) 'next week, you're coming back next week'. We have alot of school things to buy, this will be the first time the kids have ever owned anything of their own, but I can't wait to take them back and get them settled in.

It's a constant internal emotional and moral battle here. Taking the kids back to the children's home was really hard, all night I felt like something was missing (someone clinging on to me asking me for 'biscwit? biscwit?' and the guilt of seeing the other chilrdren, all of whom deserve this chance, was horrible. But I think this school is going to be a really good place for Cherotich and Maria and I think they are the kind of people who are going to seize this opportunity with both hands.