Back home

3/15/13
I'm back and ready to party! That's how I felt upon first arriving at the nest on wednesday night. All the kids came running as if they hadn't seen us in a week and a half. Which is completely understandable, since we had been gone a week and a half. They attacked us with hugs and greetings of mixed swahinglish and little handfuls of whatever they had most recently dug up in the garden. Ah. It's good to be back.

Kids come and go from the Nest fairly frequently, so it came as only a little bit of a surprise to see a new face today. I don't know much about our new-comer except from what he has told me. James seems like a sweet, and intelligent boy of 11. He helped Blake and I do laundry. Usually, when the kids offer to help us with laundry, we end up with more of a pile of crumpled clothes rather than anything resembling neatness. James was the exception to this rule. I give his folding technique a rating of 9 stars out of 10. I wish I could say the same for myself. One would think that after a month and a half of doing laundry every day, I would be somewhat mediocre at folding clothes, but no. One would be wrong if they thought that.

Along with saying hello to new children, we have said goodbye to some as well. Today we said goodbye to the twins Joseph and Rachel as they set off to live with their new, adopted parents. It was a bitter sweet goodbye. The couple has been going through every single hoop to get these kids. They finally are able to call each other family and take the kids home to Italy after 5 months of tedious paperwork and negotiations.

Today, to try something new, Blake and I ate dinner with the kids. We don't usually do this, but the kids really enjoy having our company. (on second thought, I don't know why we don't eat with them more often.) We had a blast sword fighting each other with our spoons and arm wrestling between mouthfuls of Githiry. Veronica, the troublemaker of the group, decided to copy me action for action and word for word throughout dinner. I am not proud to say that we may or may not have ended up with our fingers in our noses as the night progressed. Who outsmarted who? That still remains to be said. We have an ongoing war between the two of us. One day she'll stick an old rock down the back of my shirt, the next day I'll spray her with the hose. I'm really going to miss that stinker.

Apparently, we have some special visitors coming tomorrow. The children have been prepared since early this morning. We volunteers, however, have not. I don't know exactly what I'm to expect. I just know that I should be excited. They are from Germany and that's the extent of my knowledge.

More on that tomorrow. Because, I spent the majority of the morning peeling potatoes, so my hands are a bit sore. Time to sign off for the night. For some reason, maybe it's the change in weather, I haven't been sleeping well. Too much on my mind perhaps. It's starting to get SO cold here. So Limuru is the second coldest place in Kenya, following Mt. Kenya, but I am surprised to find that the weather here reminds me of March in Oregon. The rain could be contributing to why I feel so much at home here. Once an Oregonian, always an Oregonian, finding comfort in rain. I'm watching as my beautiful golden tan slowly disappears. Pretty soon I'm not going to have any proof that I ever was in Kenya.

But, as usual, I digress. It's time for bed. Those kids will need every bit of my energy tomorrow.
Lala salama!