Happy Children

Just wanted to upload a few photos of our kiddies at play... This is Yasini!

The girls hamming it up for the camera.
Jackie (with missing tooth), Victoria, Vero, Vivi

Say Hello Vero!!!

We will return in October!

Well, we have finally settled on a return date. We were in the process of committing to stay on as Directors of the children’s home until next December, until we realized that the airline will not extend a return ticket for more than 1 year. We will have to return by October 17th. For a while we were wondering if we would go home in May or stay for much longer, but we don’t really have a choice and it feels good to have this settled. Now when I day dream about a DQ blizzard or movie theather popcorn I know that I only have to wait 7 months!

Here is Ned with his girls. Vivi and Victoria are twins and they are sporting their new dresses that a mission group from a high school in the states brought. Things with the children are going well. We have become very close with them. Our house mother left so it is really just the two of us taking care of our little family of 12. They call us mommy and daddy and we really ARE their parents. I can not even imagine how hard it will be to leave them and to explain why. If we could just take the children and the landscape we are living in we cold be happy here forever.

Unfortunately, there is more to the operations of an orphanage than the children. There are all of the adults that have their fingers tied wrapped up in the business one way or another. They all lie, they all cheat, and we are getting really tired of trying to conduct everyday business like this. The latest discovery is that most of the kids are not actually orphans. Their mothers are living nearby in the village and have told the kids to call her ‘auntie’ when/if she comes to visit. We are essentially teaching them that if they can pull this off they will be able to live in this nice house and eat nice food. We are also teaching them how to lie when they take their final examinations at school and the teacher tells them how to fill in the answers. We have a little boy that is behind in his learning, if you show him the number 7 he is likely to guess ‘G!’ or ‘Red!’. He came home from school with final examinations/report card showing 90%. Others have told me that this is common. If you are paying their school fees don’t you want them to come home with high marks? The whole bit about earning the marks and learning the material is completely irrelevant.

Ned continues to help manage the construction of the next two homes. The guy who was supposed to be doing this also just left, so Ned finds himself making the long trip to town to buy materials almost every day. The days of us sharing the housework, taking the kids for walks together, and napping in the afternoon are long gone….

Village Tour

Believe it or not, I have several stories written about our life here. Stories about our discipline struggles, about the shock we received after observing the school our kids are attending, and about how incredibly different people are here. But, they are way too long. For now I am just sharing a few photos to serve as a “Tour of our Village.” (Please see the SnapFish link at the right side of the page.)

This a view of a typical ‘shamba’ or dwelling for a family lucky enough to have a plot of land for growing food. There are several small buildings, one for sleeping, one for cooking, and one for the toilet; everything else is done outside. Looks pretty shabby, but they have million dollar view of Mt. Meru in the background!

This is the ‘town center’ nearest our house. There is a small store if you want to buy candy, phone cards, or coke in a glass bottle, and a vegetable stand if you want bananas or really bad tomatoes. We pretty much have to drive into Arusha (1hour by taxi) in order to get food; but we come home with a car full of mango, pineapple, papaya, watermelon, etc.

This is Vivi. We keep their heads shaved because they all have ring worm. Ned was the barber and was playing around with her hair….the clippers ran out of battery at this point. Poor girl cried and cried but we thought it was pretty funny because she is such a little turkey most of the time.