Friday 30th July 2010

Alex had to leave early again - 6.30, but surprisingly the children were not already awake, well, not all 100 of them! So I actually managed to get a better and slightly longer sleep yesterday morning! When I got up I went down and had tea and this lovely pastry type food - Madazi?sp - Which is apparently just wholemeal flour and water which is ten fried in oil but it was yummy!

I then wandered down to the school and spoke to Steven briefly about Scouting as they have a Scout group at the school, I will hopefully learn a bit more about their meetings when school starts back up again! I then met Kate (a volunteer from Reading). She had gone to a local salon the day before and had had her hair braided and extensions put in! It looked very nice but very heavy! It took 5 hours!! But it only cost 800shillings which is apparently twice the usual cost, but it's still only about 7GBP which is not a lot!

I then came back to the orphanage with Grace and Kate for tea and and bread. Grace decided it was time to teach me how and where to wash clothes, hang them and the device she uses to warm up water, looks a bit danegrous to me though so I shall stick to cold water.

Oh yes!! There is no running water here! Our shower is a bucket of freezing cold water and our toilet is a hole in the ground! You do get used to it quite quickly though!

I then decided to walk to the cyber cafe myself and check my emails, although it's not far it's an experience as everyone shouts 'Jambo' out to you (a Kenyan greeting).

I then went back to the school! They were getting ready for their class presentations which were being held in two of the classrooms which have a division which can be opened up completely allowing the whole school to fit in!!

the teachers still had a bit of marking to do and the children were getting a bit restless sat down so Grace and I decided to lead a little sing song as the children love to sing! e struggled to come up with songs they knew but 'heads, shoulders, knees and toes' went down extremely well!

Once the teachers had finished marking, they came in and sat down. Teacher James had his camera at the ready on the video setting ready to film, as did Kate! I was only able to take photographs but I took lots! One class at a time, starting from the nursery, then pre-unit, standard class 1 --> 8 came up and sang a song which they had prepared. It was lovely to watch and at the end some girls from class 8 did some traditional singing and dancing and invited Grace and I up to dance with them along with some of the teachers! It was very fun!

The children then received their marks from the exams they had sat, again in order of class (nursery -> 8). With each class they called out the top 3 and their marks and then they carried on in order from high -> low the marks of every child. The children must get quite nervous by this as the whole school is watching them and hearing the marks they achieved! Theresia and Joseph (the founders of Heritage) had come to watch. They are known as mum and dad to all the orphans and they in turn treat treat the orphans as their own children, even though they have 5 of their own!

After the marks had been read out, we volunteers were asked one at a time to make a speech - I just said how happy I was to be here and how welcome I felt! After James and Steven made their own speeches it was finally lunch time! Everyone was very hungry as it was 2.30pm before we could sit down and eat!!

I spoke to the children after lunch and was introduced to the family of rabbits who live on the roof - they are very cute and fluffy! I then went to my room and rested for a bit - Alex surprised me by coming home early - 5pm! For dinner we had rice and cabbage which was really nice!

After dinner we spoke with Grace, Thuku, Patrick and some other High School Boys who were home for the holiday! Grace showed us some videos and photos of two nearby lakes she's been too (well, 4hours+ away). One looked amazing with thousands of Flamingos! I must go there!

Lottie x