Wapendwa familia na marafiki, (Dear family and friends)

I am writing to you on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Church is three hours here, and the belief and passion with which the kids sing is truly awe inspiring. They bite their lips, squinch their eyebrows together, throw their arms in the air, and sing as loudly as they can, swaying back and forth. The teachers insisted I give a speech today in church, so I told them about how God believes in them and that they have to believe in themselves too. I told them how inspiring their faith is to us, and I told them if they work hard, God will help them to succeed. The kids start start laughing and screaming whenever I speak Swahili, so I gave part of my sermon in Swahili and everyone clapped crazily.  A little passion and energy goes a long way to traverse language barriers. The children had amazing prayers. During individual prayer time the boy sitting next to me kept whispering over and over, "I thank you God for I have to be doing well in school. Help the other children who are poor like me and greet for me my mom in the heaven with you." The children stood up one by one and testified how God had helped in their lives, from overcoming sicknesses to helping them to do the right thing.

The clinic Erica and Amanda set up is proving to be very helpful. A girl cut her toe really badly playing soccer today and she was bleeding all over the place. However, in the clinic we have posted directions on wound care, and one of the women who works in the kitchen cleaned and bandaged up her toe. It was great! The clinic is going to be of real use! 

We did art with the kids in the morning, and some of them are amazing artists. Many drew pictures of Alex and I, and everyone was very happy to have colored pencils and crayons. They usually just have pencils, so even the older high school students came to draw. 

However, the adventure of the day was bubbles. We brought them out and the kids had no idea what they were. When I showed them, they were absolutely ecstatic. The expressions in the photo capture the general scene pretty well. The kids ran around, jumping into the air, popping the bubbles, and grinning ear to ear. In the end, they were so excited that they shook up the bubble stuff too much, and it stopped working, so we had to put it in the closet for the foam to settle. 

The kids have so many questions for me, most of which start with "In America..." Some of the questions were, "Do you have cows?" "Do you have sugar cane?" "Are there really black people?" "Do the teachers beat the students?" "Are there robbers?" (They were shocked to hear that there were). "White robbers? Really?" They kept asking. "Are there beggars?" (Shocked again).  They were also REALLY shocked to hear that we don't eat ugali, their staple food. It is a corn based food with the consistency of dough that is eaten with vegetables and meat.  They asked what our staple food is, and many of them insisted it was french fries :)

Hope all is well! I'll write more tomorrow.

-Laura

P.S. The last picture shows how the children make their own soccer balls here by tying bags together with string.