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Published: March 2nd 2007
Hi everyoe, excuse me if i seem somewhat sentimental, but i am currently browsing on a facebook group on Gorseinon college, with a discussion on the best teachers, its hilarious reading!
But anyways back to ze here and now and time has yet again passed me by with no clear sign of stopping thankfully and the weekend approaches ever nearer, and maybe a second trip to Tiwi to chill out.
But anyway, since our last meetings of Minds i have since enjoyed the company of many fineMen and Women. And the story was as so....
So after an awful,awful game of poker( I was on poor form) Saturday night but much good Music and Merriment aside, i woke up the next day with no more than a whole day with the Kids ahead of me. So, after failing to contact Signe, i headed to a Church which i didn't know where to meet people by, or even if i was at the right Church( Thing weren't helped by the fact it was a huuuuge church and everyone there was happy-dancy in a typical African over the top way. How very un-british! But anyway i did manage to find them and while the boys went to sunday school, we trudged through a two.5 hour long service with nice singing and dancing(good to watch) and a long long sermon about if you complain then you hate everything God has done( In English and Swahili- double the fun!!). The sermon guys clearly were lost on what irony is, despite doing an hour long sermon, complaining about people who Complain. Also they repeated the same parable about Joseph i think about 6 times, as if we didn't get the point first tiem round. I hate church sermons like that, they are so vague on what you are supposed to actually do to be good that the point is completely lost and they are just wasting good air.
Anyway rant over.
So after the service ended. No wait, one more thing. They asked people who ahd never been to the church before to raise their hand. I did rather tentativley, with the knowledge that i may a) be forced to do something crazy on stage or b) be shouted at for not going to church.
Neither of the above ahppened but some woman did give us some leaflet to fill in, all questions which were pretty standard, except the last which was slightly, well big.-
HAVE YOU BEEN SAVED
YES NO
WHERE?
HOW
Well, in all honesty i don't know if this was a literal or metaphorical thing and i wasn't going to count anytime i nearly got knocked over by a car in the equation but anyway i declined to answer as quite frankly, an answer to whether i am going to heaven or not is slightly beyond me or indeed the tick on one slender pencil.
Rant over.
So we made it to the beach in a Matatu, exciting for the kids as we sped towards Bamburi, them not knowing where were going. We eventually got there aboot 12 i think and the kids were very excitied, as we arrived at whitesands. This hotel is very cool, 5 huge pools and massive slides and jumping boards. It was awesome to say the least, and i mean just in personal, selfish, splashing around in the water terms, not counting the joy of seeing these kids let go and enjoy life and look like kids for once!
In total, Vincent, Ongeri, Emmanuels 1 and 2, Peter, Brian, Nelson and the two girls who didn't do the last outing, Florence and Beatrice went. It was fair to say fun was had by all. We had a quick beach lunch, before me and Signe headed towards the pirates(a club not a bunch of rogue fishermen) end of the beach to catch some food. Had the best Mango ever for 10 shillings(around 7 pence!!) and two well deserved sprites before heading back for more water-based fun and frollics.
Lots of high jumping of the top slides with the little kids who were crazy and lots of kids jumping on my back down the slides. Fun.
So after a long hard day of too much fun i retired to bed after a Dormans milkshake.
This week in the orphanage then has been mad, another week has yet again flown by with no abating the pace and frenetic antics of the kids. Mosa has been unbelievably adorable this week. Theres been so many little things he has done which made me laugh and smile but most of all it is wonderful to see him smile a lot, so much more than he used to! He has this thing now where he looks at me, pulls a huge smile and promptly belts it round the corner to run away, expecting a chase for myself. Often, he just runs round the corner and hides behind a curtain, and i have possibly the cutest video ever with him hiding behind the curtain and me pulling it back to reveal just him with a beaming smile and giggling, before he quickly run into me and grabs me. He gave me the biggest hug wednesday when i went on the floor to call him, just ran into me. Sorry if i sound like i am favouring him, but it's because i am. I think i might kidnap him at the end and stuff his fat chubby little cheeks in my bag. Or maybe not but he really is great, Mwangi too, them too laughing is a brilliantly cheerful sound. The other little Boy, Emmanuel is( as previously noted i'm sure) not quite as adorable. Well he is, look at him and his cheeky smile when his nose goes up a bit and you think, hey theres a cute kid, a nice kid, a kid i can get along with. But don't be fooled children, he is more than meets the eye.
Exhibit a)
No child should pee as much as he does. Neither should they pee when-angry, upset, taken off a swing, on a wall. The list of pee-places is endless, and has me somewhere in there. Yes children, i got peed on. Work with Kids- It really is rewarding!!
Exhibit b)
No child should be able to make a sound out of his nose/mouth (i havent really worked out where from) like he does. He combines a sniff with blowing a rasberry without opening his mouth, it's quite offputting.
Exhibit c) No child should poo on a floor. Sorry about that one, but really!! I Put a kid of the potty and you think, hey i am safe, surely even Manu can't miss from sitting position. But no, he manages to pee against a wall and Poo on the floor in the same day. GGGGreat.
But despite all this, he is nice enough, he is just a bit of a funny kid. He must get his eccentricity from his mother. Well no, he does. His mother was a street mum from age 8 till around a year ago when Dicksons took them both in ( she lives in paid for housing somewhere now, but comes to dicksons to practise her tailoring). Asina is her name by the way, and she is odd,eccentric yet rather charming in a weird sort of way. Me and Poppy reffered to her as 'Crazy' for a while (Not to her face!) But we had every readon too. She comes with some brilliant stuff eg-
While singing with Juska( who is very very very Christian, as is Asina) christian songs and doing laundry, she says "Oh we are sooo happy, Jesus loves us!" before telling Poppy "But you are miserable". Also, she was teaching us a little Swahili and thought it would be great if knew the words for " He has just been beaten" Great! Just two days ago she told me to come to watch her do a children jigsaw( 12 pieces, not too pressing really) and took 20 minutes to finish it.
There are many more moments of madness but such is her eccentricity i forget as i laugh. Anywaysss I digress.
So this week has been fun at Dicksons yeah. Apart from Poo on the floor lots of goings on have gone on and such and such. I have caught some great videos especially, my favourite being the dedication the Nursery have before lessons, where they songs loud n proud. One video is about a minute long and has the whole shebang, the loudest they haev ever been, doing one of their Christian songs singing
'God is a good God yes he is, God is a good God yes he is.....
Then they promptly stand on the table before -
'He lifts me up up up(to bounces) and then a whole dance routine which clearly has been pre-choreographed, including twirls sidesteps and a final stomp upon the table. It's great stuff! Dedication is always so sweet though, Marion is the loudest, really cheeky little girl, only five or 6 but she seems much older, she is very funny, her Milka and Mary always tell me- You are not a touching me!! and Marion often asks me 'WHAT IS YOUR NAME.?TINA???' Mary is also loud at dedication, very much so and whenever the kids have to apologise as a group to God for doing wrong(eg when Poppy fell Bum-first to the floor in the shower) Mary always seems to have a direct connection from above, she closes her eyes, sways and shouts, Forgive me Jesus!
Marion is also very cheeky in saying Swahili things, i found out a few weeks ago she said a had a bumnose in swahili, and just the other day, after i released a butterfly Ruth had caught in a bag, and Olina and Mwangi were shouting and happy because it flew once more, she said in a grunty voice to Olina(who is like 2/3) 'You don't go to butterflies, they will bite you!'
Yesterday ssurely had be one of my favourite days of the Trip so far. Oh yes Dydd Dewi Sant! Wales came to Kenya and Lloyd went to the Beehive (another i to i project with the welsh girls @) Eisterfodd. Oh yeah, fun was had for sure, i got to be judge( I am the most welsh person in Kenya apparently) and it was really great to see a whole new bunch of Kids.
Bee hive has much less than Dicksons, not even the basics of running water. Yet the kids were so much keener and despite i am sure not having a clue who St David was or why a new guy with a silly accent was teaching them a foreign song, they took to it with aplomb. The kids were also so much more open than the kids of same age. Dancing in the kitchen with them to Hip Hop for half hour was fun, they were very very cool, including two boys espe.- John, who wore plastic raybans without any glasses, just the rim, and looked still cool, and Jiti( his name is a car!) who did some moves slightly too cool for a boy of 9 years old.
Anyway, the competitions we had set up for them were great- Biscuit making( this one took like 5 minutes of each 20 minute round to finish, i wodner why), Crafts( Making sheep with cotton wool and daffodils with egg shells-retro!), hand writing of the National Anthem translated to english, colouring of a dragon, and finially the pieste- de-resistance, the singing of Hen Wlad (just the chorus). We split them into 5 teams( Miners, Dragons, Sheep, Daffodils and Leeks) and each had one round on each, 20 mins a time, with me and Pop judging. It was a whale of a laugh, the singing was surprisingly good, most of them got the tune and some even the pronounciation, the crafts were brilliant, Jiti's being the best, been as he did a bright one, and played on my heartstrings by writing my name and wales across the top.
The sheep in the end came out victorious(much to the other annoyance!!) and we had a short chorus of the anthem to end. What a fun day, nice way to get back to the Ferry on a boda-boda as well, a bike with two seats, rather relaxing despite being slightly dangerous!!
All in all, another superb week, much of it which i have undoubtedly missed out again, i try my best to remember!!!
Off to Tiwi again this weekend for a chill out once more, and Masai Mara just one week away, Bring it!!
Tutaonana
Cymru am Byth
Lloyd
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jenny
non-member comment
s'up my brother
your blogs just seem to get better and better ! me and mum had a look at the picture cd's earlier, i'm speechless lol. the pictures of you and two of the kids on your back, made me realise how amazing one little smile from them must make you feel. i'm currently listening to don't look back into the sun (YES I LIKE YOUR MUSIC !!) and wondering what an amazing time you must be having. counting down the days til you are back to re tell all the amazing times you're having , oh and the days til i can have someone to bug and annoy again of course haha. can't put into words how proud i am of my big brother ! missing you loads, love you , your lil sis, jenny xxxxx