I Love Kenya

I've adjusted pretty well here. I fall more in love with Kenya each day. The students at my school are incredible and they bring me so much joy. Most of the children at the school are orphans and the rest are pretty poor. These kids just amaze me daily. They are so joyful and when they see me coming they run to the windows yelling "teacher, teacher, come teacher, please come and teach me" it is so cute and it breaks my heart at the same time. There are not enough teachers at the school and most of them are extremely lazy. The kids will sit in their classrooms sometimes for hours by themselves because no one is available to teach them. They love school though and they tell me that everyday. Many children here can't afford to be educated, so the children who do get to go to school really value it. The other day we gave the kids jump ropes to play with. The head teacher then told us that we had to collect them soon after. I thought the kids would be so upset and maybe even complain and ask to play long. These kids just handed the jump ropes back and said "oh, thank you teacher." Then the kids wrote pen pal letters to the kids back home. I wish I I could show them to all of you. Many of them wrote "Please come to my country. I will welcome you" and "God will bless you." These kids have the most immense faith.

My friend Vivian told me yesterday that both of her parents died from AIDS. She was eleven when they died. Her dad was 32 and her mother was only 27. She is so strong and she educated herself. Now she is living with an Aunt and teaching. At least one person inspires me daily.

It's hard to hear about all of the corruption in Kenya. Almost everyone here is corrupt in the business sense, even the UN. People will donate clothes and other things and certain people pay the UN to get those things and then sell them on the streets. It's some shady business. Female circumcision/mutalation is legal here and still continues to happen. There was a ceramony in August :(. Polygamy is also legal here. Some men have up to ten wives. Women who make something of themselves are not respected. Their place is suppose to be in the home with the children. Even with all of those things Kenya is beautiful. If you look past all of the corruption and the bad traditions there are incredible people around every corner. When I have a moment to myself and the breeze crosses my face, I feel extreme peace.

The group I am with is really great as I mentioned before. I seriously laugh at least two hours every night. Someone has to say "Ok Bridget that's enough, we have to go to bed now" :). We all help eachother and share and we've created a nice little family.

Oh I almost forgot to tell you about today. So I am in Kisumu right now. It has the biggest craft market in Kenya so I bought lots of cool things. It took us 4 hours to get here from our village. Everyone wanted to get fish for lunch because the food on the farm consists of beans, cabbage, rice, kale, and occasionally some meat. We walked forever to find a restaurant and we finally came across a place that sits on Lake Victoria. They served us a whole fish, eyeballs and everything. We had to pick the meat off with our hands and eat it that way. They don't have utensils here. Eating with your hands is the way to do it. I was nervous about eating a fish with a face in tact, but when in Kenya. It was talipia and it was pretty good. Definitely an experience for me. Tonight we are going to get some pizza, mmmm!

I have written some letters and mailed them out. It can take up to one month to receive a letter here. Please do not write me past November 2nd, just to be safe. I'm trying to write as many of you as I can.

I'll write more soon and try to post some pictures this week!

"We need silence" ~Mother Teresa