8/07/09

July 8th, 2009 by Holly O'Donnell Anderson

hey everybody, how are you?My name is Holly Wangiru that is my african name and connie is Connie Wangiko. we are doing really well. Ive been teaching at a class in the school for children aged 5-7ish, there classroom is so basic but it does the job(literally chairs tiny benches and a blackboard there isnt even a light) and the children are great. Connie is raging because she has to go to and the work is at her level, i think it is great summer practice though! its funny beaucse teaching here in kenya is different, for example connie would recognise alot more words but not know how to spell them where as the children can spell the few words they know. It has already given connie a massive appreciation for just how lucky she is to ahve a school that is warm with posters and books ect here the children have 1 exercise book each and a tiny pencil with only 1 set of crayons to shre in the class, while in town today im going to pick up some new exercise books and pencils. So school is from 9-1.30 then we leave and go get lunch, today we went in to town to get lunch and to pick up some things like water, CHOCOLATE, wooly hats because everyone trust connie and i to go to africa the 1 month that it is flipping freezing, i am not prepared!need warmer clothes!We are going on safari on friday tot eh massi mara which we are soo excited about, the wilder beast are migrating at the minute from tanzania to kenya so that should be really cool. Tomorrow Connie and myself and some aother volunteers are taking some of the children to an HIV clinic so im really looking forword to that in a werid interested medical way i know its werid, it will also be cool to support the girl Rosabelle by helping her with i think 12 children. So in the afternoon evenings we go to the orphange and play with the children, we also do teh dishes, which on my own took 3hrs but with erics help only took 2.have learnt so much already like everyone here who have so little are so generous welcoming, its a big challenge like if i banged into a tourist in belfats who asked me for directs would i then say you are so welcome to my country come have tea with me even though i have so little i will be so generous with what i have. WOW that blows my mind, also here there isnt a person on the strret who walks past and is rude or ignores you everyone says hello, shakes your hand, imagine if you did that in the UK you would probably get punched! although it does have its draw backs, one of the reasons for a theory called “KENYAN time” if someone says i will meet you at 9, be sure they will not coem until 11. they say where you are from u live by your watch we just do what we can when we can, lol but to be honest i struggle with the concept although we are propably more laid back. Ok so a project we are thinking about is the fact that the orphanage needs a toilet, when i say toil;et i mean shed and hole lol! but at the moment the one they have is full, not very good and very unhygenic for example connie is banned from a 5 metre radius of the poo zone, it costs 300,000 kenyan shillings which is about 3000 pounds, this is something i would like to support if i can i know that i wont be able to pay all of the money or even half but every little makes the difference, so im thinking of possible fund raising ideas for back home again

Love you all loads peace out xoxo