Beautiful.

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It's been over a week since I landed here, how time flies... although it feels like I have been here for months and months. It's an entirely different world here, everything about it is different from anything and everything I know.

Well, I changed placements for just two weeks while I wait for another volunteer to arrive and stay with me. Someone is coming on the 1st so I will move back to Agape Hope Centre then. I am staying very close to Nairobi with a girl named Erin. She is so lovely and friendly, we have so much fun together. Our host mom is named Sharron and she is 27 so we just hang out and make dinner together. She is so nice. We live right across the street from Martin, a wonderful guy from England.

I am working in a school now! This is just for the two weeks that I am here.. well I guess it's getting down to one week now. I arrived at the school and was handed an English book and was told: Go teach this class! So, I nervously went and taught an English class to 4/5 years. Then I was handed a science book and went and taught that lesson. So I basically just winged it! It was fun though, and the kids are amazing. They are so shy in the classroom but so wild and energetic when we play outside! So I teach Eng and Sci in the morning and then we play with the different grades from like 11 - 3. So exhausting. But I love it. We come home and literally go to bed around 8! We get up around 7 and walk to school, which takes around 20 mins.

It is very different in this part of town. I am closer to Nairobi, so it's much more urban here. The kids also seem... happier. Because I am just working at a school now, and not at an orphanage, these kids are pretty well off, and by that I mean they have enough money to go to school. They seem more lively and spirited, whereas at the orphanage the kids definietly had a sad air to them. They still smile and laugh there, but you can tell by their eyes and the way they hold you so tight that they have been through too much. I am teaching the kids about HIV/AIDS tomorrow, so that should be really good. So many people here have no idea what AIDS is... some friends of ours went to Mombasa and were just doing HIV/AIDS education on the beach. Everyone they talked to had no idea how you get HIV... we hear about stuff like this all the time, that they have no idea, but it's so true and it's scary.

I have to head home soon, it's getting dark!

Just a couple stories:

Today we were playing with the kids outside and a CAMEL walks into the playground! It was huge and it was the funniest thign that I have ever seen. The kids went wild adn started hitting it with sticks and it tried to bite them. IT was unreal.

Everday when we are outside I see these two little children, they are probably around 2 or 3. They have a herd of cattle that they take around the big feild. It is so weird to see these small children herding a huge group of cows... it just shows how fast these kids are forced to grow up.

I was standing in the balconey at my first home at night. I heard this beautiful singing coming up from one of the tiny houses below... it was soulful, sad and beautiful. I asked the little girl Crystal why they were singing and she simply said: "The baby girl died and they are singing her up to the sky, not down." This moment, listening to their aching voices growing louder and louder... thinking of their baby girl... it will stick with me forever. It was unbearably sad.

I must go home for dinner.... I have more to write, I'll try to upload some pictures tomorrow!!

So much love,

I can't thank everyone enough for the donations... theyw ill make an incredble, visible difference here.

Sue Nelson
518 Bonaccord St.
Peterborough ON
K9H 3A6

(My mom, if you would like to donate)

Love... missing you all so much.

Inki

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Photos

Kenya
Kenya