Beginning of our travels

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We arrived at Heathrow at around 7.30am Saturday. We were slightly thrown by a new check-in system which is supposed to speed up the process but resulted us queuing for over an hour and a half...and checking in twice (only because one of the attendants told us that we had to go to section A after our initial check-in, when actually we only had to drop our bags off). Anyway, following a 30min "fast-track" through security, and a 15min walk to the gate, we finally boarded...and then sat on the plane for over another hour until it took off.

Anyway, the flight was fine, and we were met without any difficulties at Nairobi airport by Ros (one of the ladies who runs the orphanage we are working at). We are staying with a Kenyan lady called Julia in a town called Westlands, near the main city. We were dropped off at her house and introduced to her and her family (at one point over Saturday/Sunday there were 16 members of her family, and so as you can imagine, it was all quite hectic).
Our room is a guest room off the main house, with its own bathroom - it's quite small, but absolutely fine for the time we're here. Julia provides all our food while we're in the house, and we also get some food provided when we're at the orphanage, so we're not going to waste away!

On Sunday we went to a local church for the morning servce - at 2&1/2hours long, it was a bit of an epic (even by St. Aldates standards), but we both enjoyed it...despite being singled out because we were visitors.
Saturday afternoon was hot and sunny...has since been cloudy and quite overcast, so we're hoping for some more sun very soon...

Yesterday started with a slight drama when Claire (aka Howler) tried using a new/different contact lense solution from the one she's used to...and ended up pouring acid in her eye - all very painful, but following washing it out with lots of plain water it got better throughout the day, so we haven't yet had to make use of local medical treatment.
After the early morning's events we started voluntary work at Hope House orphanage which is about 5mins walk from Julia's house. It has 20 babies, nearly all under 2 years old (about 10 babies, and about 10 toddlers). We have been involved in anything and everything from feeding, changing nappies, sweeping floors, changing cots...and riot control. We have also been asked to provide daily Occupational Therapy input to 6 of the children - 3 for an assessment of their needs and any guidance/input with any ongoing therapy that they may require, and 3 who currently receive therapy...which we've been told has been cancelled while we are there to provide it instead!
We've been put on the afternoon/evening shift today (1-7pm), so will have to see how that differs from the morning shift...

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