Two Weeks In...

Today the other volunteers and I brought the children to the beach. Their faces were full of smiles the whole time. Due to not wanting to get my camera wet, I did not take that many pictures of me with the children. Sorry. Here are pictures of some of the children that I have not introduced to you yet. They are normally away at school all day and come home in the afternoon.

First, my favorite, is Melody. I still need to get a better picture of me with her, but this will do for now. She comes home from school every day and grabs my arm and says"teacher", but it sounds more like "teacha", and points to her feet saying "there." This is her way of telling me to take off her shoes and school socks. She then drags me into her room where she picks out some clothes from a bin that she would like me to change her into. After all this is done, I then have to help her with homework. This usually involves drawing something simple and coloring it in. When finished, it is not long before she will be begging me for many upon many of piggy back rides. Its as if me being tired does not matter.

Next is Prince. He is one of many of the children who were found in the local dump sites around town. For those of you who need help imagining this, I will take a picture and post it sometime. They are completely disgusting and have an endless amount of flies, not to mention cattle digging through it trying to find food. It amazes me how someone could possibly throw a day old child in this mess as if him/her were trash. Anyway, enough with the rant, he is growing up to be a smart and wonderful kid. Just like the typical young boy, he is constantly trying to fight me and antogonizing me so I chase him around all day. I have now learned to mix the two needs and carry Melody on my back while running around chasing Prince. It is a lot of work, but they enjoy it, so that is all that matters.

One of the girls that I have just recently started becomming attached to is the one pictured below. Her name is Purity. The combination of her bright smile and long eyelashes can make anyones heart melt. This picture obviously does not capture that well, so I will have to take plenty more, today just wasnt the day. I dont have any stories to tell about her yet, since she is just now growing comfortable with me, but I am sure there will be plenty to come. From what I have seen she will grow up to be a very happy and beautiful girl.

The last child I will talk about is not an orphan. He is a child of one of the mothers that work at the home. His name is Brian, and the picture tells all. He has the best smile in the house with two teeth on the bottom and four on the top. Being one of the youngest around, he is looked after a lot, even by the young children themselves. It is adorable!Well, that is all I have for now. I came straight to the internet cafe after the beach, so I did not have time to take pictures of the place where I sleep, sorry. They will be posted soon.

Since today marks my halfway point at working in the orphanage, it is giving me an excuse to hit the town tonight with my friend Sam and some doctors that he works with. This will be my first time experiencing the night life here, so I will have to tell all about it. It should bring some interesting stories. I hear the women do not leave "mzungus" (white people) alone...and not in a good way. Great.

Talk to you later.

P.S. I Cant wait to start eating western style food again!