Kisii

The cuties  at the orphanage (baby class) 

So my first project in Kenya has come to an end. We went to a city called Kisii where we stayed at the home of a woman called Florence and her husband Dr. Manduku. They are angels on earth! They took us in as we were their own and gave me, Sunna and Hinrika a private room and bathroom in their home. Their house is by the way very large. We were expecting mud huts and a dusty floor but it was quite the opposite. Their house has at least 6 bedrooms and 2 living rooms. One of the living rooms had a plasma tv with loads of channels! so after a long tiring day travelling to Kisii we got to relax in front of the tv and watch MTV. It wasn't too bad.


So Florence and Dr. Manduku own a private hospital in town which is really nice, I got to experience it first hand, but lets not skip ahead! Our project revolved around an orphanage in the outskirts of town... in the country side really. The kids there are so cute that I just wanted to steal one and take it with me back home to Iceland! But I was able to control my self. We taught two classes, 8th and 7th standard. The kids in the same class aren't always the same age here. Like 8th standard was kids from 13-16. We were told that this was because the kids might not have the funds to keep on studying so they have to take a year off to raise money for their education. Sometimes on the other hand the parents look and their kid and still see a child and think they are not mature enough to go to the next class so they make them stay back and take the same year again.


We came in to the first class and were just supposed to teach them social studies. It didn't seem like a big deal until we took a look at where they were in their books and saw that they where learning about how the Kenyan government works and all kinds of stuff that we had no idea how to teach. We finally decided just to teach them about Iceland and they could tell us about Kenya and we looked at the differences between the two countries and looked at how different school systems work. Ended up being a lot of fun and the kids asked tons of questions!
The orphanage didn't have a water tank for the kids to drink clean water from or to wash the dishes or any thing so we decided to buy a 3200 litre tank for them to collect rain water in to. They seemed really happy to get it and were extremely exited to get to role it down a hill in the school yard. We spent 2 days at the school but on the third day I started getting sick again!
Florance and Dr. Manduku drove me straight to the hospital where I had to get an IV drip and loads of injections and drugs. Then I was driven in a wheelchair to a private room where I had my own bathroom, balcony, TV and sofas. Turns out it's the same bacterial infection that I got in India but because I didn't go on antibiotics it never cleared up. So now I have finally got antibiotics and it should clear up for good this time.


The weekend has been really nice except Solveig ended up in the hospital like me (because of this bacterial infection). On Friday we all went out to  a small club with 5 Kenyan guys keeping a very close eye on us the whole time. We didn't stay for long seeing as the night life here isn't the safest place in the world but we got to dance and taste a Kenyan beer which is really good. We danced our butts off to really good music for about two hours and then rushed back to the hotel. People here dance a lot more with their hips while we were danceing with our shoulders which seemed to be the main source of amusement amongst the people there.
Yesterday we went to the swimming pool and relaxed all day and today we started the day by going to a gospel church which was really cool. It was a very inspiring hour but after mass we left because we thought it was over so we missed the singing part. Next Sunday  I am definitely going again and staying for the songs.


Other wise life in Kenya is good!
Until next time
-C