Today was the first day Kristin and I worked at the Sidai orphanage. I don't even know where to begin......The orphanage is located in the slums in Ngong. It's about a 20 minute walk from our host families house. When we got there we met Anthony who is the son of the lady who started Sidai (Lucy). Lucy doesn't speak English very well so her son works more with the volunteers b/c he speaks English well. He started out giving us a tour of the center which consisted of a kitchen with a dirt floor and a fire to cook the food over and about three other rooms one of which Anthony lives in. Then he took us to a house that one of the previous volunteers rents for them which was about 3/4 mile walk and is where they sleep at night.

The children are amazing. They have nothing and are soooo happy. Some of the children have AIDS some are HIV positive while others have Typhoid. Anthony said they will take the children every so often to the government hospital to be tested for HIV so they can better take care of the children. Not all the children live in the orphanage, half of them have families that they live with in the slum but the parents send them to Sidai during the day so they can drink or sleep off whatever they did the night before. Anthony said a lot of the parents get mad when they test their child b/c they would rather not no if they are HIV positive.

A past volunteer has paid for the children to have a teacher come in 5 days a week and teach the children however right now they are on Holiday until September so most of the day they spend singing, making bead necklaces and bracelets and playing outside. Today after we were doing making bead necklaces we took them out and played soccer with them for about an hour and a half. The kids all love to play soccer. We were in the field and all the sudden I looked over and saw a man passed out with a jacket on his head and the kids were simply playing around him. It's sad that they see things like this and worse all the time.

It's very hard to describe everything I saw today. Anthony who is 23 was the most inspiring person I think I have ever met. He lives to take care of the kids. He's not being paid to do his job but he said he has hope that things will turn around in the future. The orphanage has NO money and continue to take in kids. In January there was an out break of violence between political parties in Nairobi and people started burning down houses and killing one another. During this time thousands of children were separated from their parents b/c once a fire started in the house everyone ran to save themselves and so a lot of children were left behind. Sidai has taken in 5 children from this. I met Joseph and Ester today who are siblings and have just recently come to Sidai b/c they are unable to find their parents. Anthony said when they first got there they were very sad and wouldn't talk to anyone. He said he's made it a point to take their minds off of what has happened and make them happy again.

It's all very sad.....