A new year...a new start

Gabriel and Emma (Emmanuel)

I cannot believe it is already the end of January! The past two months have flown by…the kids are back in school after 6 weeks of vacation. The school year starts in January here, and we have our first group of children who will be graduating next November and going off to boarding school. I know it is still a year away, but the way this past year has flown by, I want to cherish each moment with these children because before I know it, they will be off to secondary school and I will miss them dearly. Maybe not the hormones and going through puberty part, but certainly all of rest of it.

Our Social Workers Agael and Jonathan on a typical Sunday, just "hanging around" :)

Reading contest
We had a great time last weekend at Bougainvillea, a local lodge in Karatu. Over the vacation period, we had a reading contest and the top two prizes were as follows: 25 books read and the child could go swimming at the lodge, 30 books read, the child could have a grownup dinner in the volunteer house with all of the volunteers. We had two children who had dinner with us and that was so much fun. They chose the menu, which was fried chicken, French fries (which are known here as Chips) and cake. They dressed up for the occasion and even had their shirts tucked in! We had 7 children go swimming. I use the term loosely as NO ONE knew how to swim, but boy they loved the water. It meant we had to have several volunteers in the freezing pool (which was really fun, NOT) there was a tremendous amount of kicking and dog paddling and laughter. Lucy provided some serious entertainment as she would go underwater, frantically move her arms and legs and actually not move an inch. I still haven’t figured out how that is possible, but it sure was funny. After two hours she could swim about 5 feet, which was huge progress considering the fact she was stationary for the first hour!

I will try and write more in the future. One more month and I will have been here a year. Hard to believe… I have made some wonderful friends this past year. We have had a great group of volunteers pass through our doors and I am thankful everyday for all of them. Truly a great mixture of people and personalities…so for those of you I have met here at the village, thank you again for your help, but also for what you have brought into my life as well as the children’s!

Christmas 2009 at the Rift Valley Children's Village

Don and Tom and several of us at the village drove to neighboring villages to distribute gifts to all of the children (organized chaos!)

Cleaning of the Rec Hall by the kids!

New Pajamas for all - Taringire House with Bonnie and Don some of my favorite volunteers ever!

Wow, what a week! I cannot believe the planning and all of the preparation it takes to get ready for Christmas here at the village! First was decorating the trees. Each house has a tree with ornaments and stockings. The two new houses have never had Christmas before and were not quite sure why we were making such a fuss about a silly tree.

After Santa has arrived!

Next came the wrapping of presents. We have 82 staff and each one received a Bonnie Raitt t-shirt (generously donated from her last tour) and hat. We then gave the children of all of the staff presents. Each of our children receives two presents and a stocking that is filled with goodies.

Christmas Program in the rec hall

On Christmas Eve, each child receives a gift of pajamas, we put out a cookie for Santa and then they try and stay awake to see him. Christmas morning is total chaos with the opening of presents and the search for batteries! This year several of the older children really understood what Christmas is all about and made or bought gifts for some of the other children.

Preparing lunch

After breakfast, everyone goes to the rec hall for church. Then the frantic setup for lunch and the official program takes place. All of the kids get dressed in their new Christmas outfits, the mamas are cooking and the volunteers and running around looking for batteries and trying to put together all of the toys.

Fried Bananas

We all gather in the rec hall and each house performs a song. It was very cute and special and pretty hysterical regarding the musical choices, but great fun. We ended the program with lunch in the rec hall with everyone sitting on the floor or benches and a huge mess was made by all! Over all a great and very satisfying day. I will say it took me 3 days to recover from the pre-Christmas week activities, 69 kids is a lot more work than 3 kids, that is for sure! It was truly wonderful to be able to share and experience this day with these children. I love it here!