9th February

So I have been away for 4 weeks (yesterday). Missing people at home and also feeling like, although we are helping and working hard at the home, what is more needed is money than time or help and we can do nice things as we have been doing, making lines on the football pitch, painting, clearing out etc but it won't make a lot of difference if i stay 8 weeks or 10 especially when other volunteers are on their way. I have been reading up on where I want to go and realising that I don't want to rush my way around or spend most of my time traveling from A to B, so am considering taking 3 weeks to do my own thing. This weekend was really successful as the weather held. On Saturday I played a LOT of football and was embarrassingly outrun by 11 year olds but it was great fun, to be fair we played for nearly 2 hours non-stop. I have never played or watched so much football in my life. Kenyans LOVE football, as do my Dutch friends, and the sports channel is the easiest thing to switch on when we have some time to watch tv.

On the Sunday, as we had re-dug and filled the long jump pit we were able to hold a little Lewa athletics competition. We had 4 teams- the buffalo, elephant, lions and leopards, and they did a ball throw, long jump, 50m sprint and 400m run. The kids all had their faces painted with coloured stripes and everyone over 4 years old competed and had a great time. The Buffalo won and then kids from all the teams went on to the finals to win individual titles. They were REALLY great.



After this we played a hilarious game of catch with blindfolds and also performed a little drama/sketch show with several acts including one where Judith and I dressed up in their school uniforms to take the mickey out of the way some of the kids get dressed in the morning. She put everything on perfectly while I put everything on inside-out, back-to-front and in the wrong order. It went pretty well, and I think they understood most of it. The kids have since been doing impressions of me "this is how YOU put YOUR uniform on." They are really funny and ask great questions. They are also good pickpockets and I am still having to keep tracking down my watch, sunglasses, room key, hair bands and goodness knows what else.


In 2 weeks time we hope to have a talent show and I really want to do some dancing with some of the older girls. We have discovered that the boys are great at drumming and so will make shakers, drums from bins and pots and other instruments. Fingers crossed it will be as big a success as this weekend! We also hope to decorate a room in the building which will become a baby/indoor play room for when the weather turns. It's quite a project so hopefully we can get started asap, when Phyllis has time to help us get paint and other materials.

Would really like to hear from everyone at the moment, 4 weeks is feeling like a long time. Sending lots of love once again, El xxx