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Dear All,
We are well into the Easter holidays now and have launched into holiday
club. I was put in charge of craft so me and Emily spent last weekend
cutting up over 2000 bits of crepe paper, we did have some help from the
guys here as well though! The first day of holiday club was very
challenging, we as a transform team, had put our all into organising it
and trying to make it the best we could and none of the staff at the
centre seemed very keen to help, this was slightly disappointing, but we
carried on anyway. We needed crowd control more than anything as we had
150 kids on the first day and a lot of them speak very little English! We
managed to get our points across and some of the youth helped us out by
translating. The kids seemed to love it, especially learning all our
songs like "my God is so big!" The acoustics in the hall we are using are
terrible though and 4 out of the 8 of us lost of voices by the time this
week was over!! When we broke into smaller groups I had class 1 and 2
(about 50 kids, with only me and 2 other adults!!... would SO not be
allowed in the UK!!) They really enjoyed playing "duck duck goose" and
singing "head shoulders knees and toes!". We have also been learning
Swahili songs my favourite is one that goes "Hakuna Mungu Kama Wewe" which
translates to "there is no God like you" - it has some good actions too.
We've also been taught an African game called "nyama nyama" where they
shout out a name of an animal and if you can eat the animal you jump up
and say nyama! (nyama means meat.) This throws us into disarray when they
say ostrich and we're not sure whether to jump or not!! - Kenyans eat
ostrich if they're given half a chance, I'm not sure I would though! I
did try some crocodile meat though when we went out for dinner the other
night - it tasted a bit too much like fish for my liking!
Had a strange experience, a couple of weeks ago now, when some of our
friends were taken from their homes in the slum by the police. It seems
so odd to me because I have grown up knowing I can trust the police and
turn to them if I was in trouble. It seems that isn't the case here at
all- one of our friends said that if you see the police you get away
a.s.a.p! I'm obviously making a sweeping generalisation as I'm sure some
of the police here are fine, but the ones who picked up our friends took
them to prison. We heard later that evening that 4 of them had been
allowed to go home because they had ID linking them to the para-legal
office at the community centre, but two of them didn't so had to stay in
the prison. Our co-ordinator came round to tell us this and also scared
us a little bit as she said that if the corrupt officers don't torture
them or beat them up then the criminal inmates are sure to. We prayed as
a team for a long time that night. We were told that because it was a
Saturday it was very unlikely that they'd be let out before Monday or
Tuesday. However, on Sunday morning we went to church and then some of
the guys said they were going to visit Tottie and MKwach at the prison
and did we want to come, we were concerned that being 8 white girls we
might do more harm than good (people basically see money when they see
white people- sad but true. But we were assured it would be ok. We
waited for a few hours in the prison courtyard and then were told that one
of the 'lawyers' from StJohn's had been there since really early that
morning and had managed to get them released!!! They came out and were
quite emotional, they were also quite shocked that we'd come to see them.
We never heard anything about their night in prison but sometimes it's
better to not know. We just thank God that they got out safely.
We were talking about it as a team and how shocking it is to us as English
people, but to Africans it's almost normal, all of our friends (the youth
who we hang out with alot) have had experiences in prison when they
haven't done anything to be put there. (don't' be alarmed into thinking
I'm not safe though, as we're fine, the police wouldn't come to our house,
and we're always careful to be in before it gets dark.
Just whilst I'm having a rant about the negative things about Kenya... I
had my purse stolen last week when I was going into town. We were on a
matatu (crazy bus that plays loud music and drives all over the road,
dodging the other matatus!! Usually quite fun!) and I had to sit next to
a guy who I didn't know, when we got up to get off the bus I was
concentrating on where to get off and not on my bag, when we got to the
ATM where I was guna take some money out I realized it had gone! I was so
annoyed - mostly with myself for not taking enough care- but I couldn't
believe it either, this guy had managed to find my purse in my bag and
take it out without me noticing! I was just thankful he hadn't stolen my
phone!! I only lost about 300 Ksh (about 2 pound 50) and my visa card
that I got mum to cancel straight away. I just felt so violated, my team
are really kind and gave me some of our sacred English chocolate which
cheered me up no end!! Team time is fantastic, so encouraging and often
very challenging. As we get to know each other more we find we're not
quite as similar as we first thought, this is a good thing as we can share
together, and the world would be quite boring if we were all exactly the
same!!
What other things can I tell? oh yes, last week we had a visit from a
lady called Ann who has donated a lot of money to Tearfund and specially
to the project here at St John's. She has enjoyed pretending to be a
19year old girl again and joining our team (she's actually 76!) We've seen
quite a lot of the sights with her and seem to have packed in so much in
the last week, as well as organising, planning and starting holiday club.
It'll be nice to go back to normal next week- it's hard work
entertaining!!
We've still got two weeks of holiday club to go and would appreciate your
prayers for. After that we're off on safari for a week to the Masai Mara
before school starts again.
Please continue to pray for our health, we've all got past the dodgy tummy
stage, which thankfully only lasted the first couple of weeks. But now
we're suffering from colds. (I don't think it helped that we were caught
in the first downpour of the rainy season without rain coats the other
day!)
Please pray especially for my team member Jane who's had a really bad
cough for more than a week now.
I think that's all for now, so I shall say Kwahari (goodbye) Hoping
everything's good at home...
Also remember in your prayers the family of Ella Dlugosz (one of the 4
soldiers killed in Iraq recently) - she was a friend of mine from school.
Much love,
Rosie
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