Week 12

NOTE!
If you are interested in giving a donation to Shangilia please send a check made out to Shangilia Mtoto Wa Africa to my parents. They will have the bank information and be able to transfer funds directly to Shangilia's account here in Nairobi. Also, if you make a donation and would like the money to be put towards something specific (medical, academics, performance, construction of new compound, etc) please email me at molly.canty@gmail.com and I will be able to forward that onto to administration.

I am also in the process of compiling a list with my director of the children at Shangilia who do not have sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring a child, please email me. They ask for only 1000 Kenyan shillings a month which is approximately $16.

THANK YOU!

March 19, 2008
So the last few days have been a roller coaster of good and bad. Sunday night Mike left, then I realized that I am leaving eventually too! And while I do want to see everyone because I miss you all terribly, leaving here is going to be the most depressing 2 days of travel ever. I know that as soon as I see everyone I will be happy. I miss so many people and so many things about America. In some ways, this semester abroad has made me more appreciative of everyone I have, but this is going to be a horrible mixture of bitter and sweet and I will probably just end up confusing myself. I will be in DC until May 4th, then Virginia with Katie, and then a road trip up the east coast to bring Laura home from college, and then finally end at home on May 12th. Part of me can’t wait. The other part of me never wants to leave Kenya. I just want to relocate all of you to Nairobi and have the best of both worlds. I’m having trouble articulating exactly how I feel, or maybe I don’t trust people to understand. I love Kenya just as much as I miss my friends and family in America. I just have to understand and ask all of you to understand that the adjustment is going to be hard.

It hit me yesterday just how hard it is going to be for me to leave. I found out that Shangilia does not hold school for the month of April. The kids who have guardians who are able to take care of them at least a little bit will go home, while the children who have no one or no one who is able to take care of them stay at Shangilia. That means that within the next 2 weeks I am going to have to say good by to over 150 of the kids at Shangilia because I will be in America by the time they all return. A little less than 50 kids will be at the compound during the month of April. I received this news yesterday and that’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I have to leave my kids…blahhhhhhhh. So having to deal with leaving Shangilia, even though it’s about 5 weeks away, has not been enjoyable.

More bad news. My Gracie isn’t up for adoption. I think I knew that she wouldn’t be coming home with me in April, which is ideally what I wanted, but I had been assuming all semester that I could just come back for her in a few years when I am more prepared to actually raise a kid. I know that immense amounts of sacrifices would have had to be made on my part, but this is the way I see it. Plenty of high school girls get pregnant by accident and are forced to take care of a child if they don’t chose to put it up for adoption or have an abortion. Plenty of girls have started motherhood incredibly early because of an accident, and somehow it still works out for a lot of them no matter how hard it is. I was choosing to make Gracie legally my daughter. I wanted to make sacrifices and I wanted to take her home and I wanted her to be part of my family and I was willing to wait if I had to. But Shangilia doesn’t have an adoption license. None of the kids there are available for adoption. I had come to terms a few weeks ago that Gracie wouldn’t be coming home with me this year, but I never thought it would never happen. Like I said, I had plans to come back when I was more ready. You all probably think I am just some naive 19-year-old who came to Africa and really liked working with kids so I decided it would be a good idea to take one home. But that isn’t it. I don’t want to adopt a kid, I want to adopt Gracie. I don’t want to make sacrifices for just anyone; I want to make sacrifices for Gracie. I know it would have been hard, but I also know that I could have done it because that’s what I wanted to do and that’s what this little girl means to me. Yesterday I found all this out and Njenga, my director, sat me down and let me talk for a while about what Shangilia and the kids mean to me and what Gracie means to me. When I found out that there’s almost no way in hell I can ever adopt her I asked if she had a sponsor. She doesn’t so starting in May when I get home I am going to be her sponsor. It’s the best way to keep her involved in my life and I know I will be in touch with Njenga and other staff members so I will always know how she and my other kids are doing. There is a Friend of Shangilia in New York City who is in charge of fundraising and we have been in touch so I will be very involved from home still, thank God. I also plan on continuing to write grants for them. Hopefully I will have at least a little bit of success. And with any luck I will be able to spend a good portion of next summer in Nairobi where I will still be a volunteer for Shangilia.

So that’s my story for the week. I know it sounds like I am a bit unhealthy/uneasy, but trust me… it has still been the most amazing few months of my life. I love Kenya. I love the people. I love the students on my program. I love everything. The only thing I do not love is that I have to leave, but even that will end up being okay because I know I will always have all of you.

March 20, 2008
Today started off so well! I was able to sleep in until 9:30 before leaving for Shangilia, and I woke up to the greatest email ever! Sacred Heart Academy raised over $1000 for my kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited! Also, my director pushed back the pick-up date for the kids. School still ends on the 11th of April, but none of the kids are going home until the 21st of April, so I don’t have to say good bye so soon! I’m also in the process of planning an outing for the kids who remain behind during the school break. There are usually a bit less than 50 who do not have anywhere to go, so the organization makes sure they have things to do to keep them occupied during the break. So I am in the process of trying to organize something through the Langata Giraffe Center. The Giraffe Center organizes everything…they pick up the kids from the compound, they bring them to the Giraffe Center, the Elephant Center, and the Animal Orphanage for the day. It’s half educational, half playing with wild/zoo animals. Hopefully that will be on April 26th, right when I get back from my post-program travels.

So Jackie and I spent the rest of the afternoon at Shangilia. It was drawing day in my class so my four kids (Gracie, Ann, Martin, and Newton) were all given the task of drawing family members and then clothes. My other four kids graduated on to class one, which is why my class suddenly shrunk in half. Josephine, Ken, Everline, and Lilian are now all across the hall and doing really well. Teacher Beatrice has replaced Teacher Lynette and she is really great with all the kids.

After Shangilia I came home to grab dinner before Swahili class and then I found out that I improved a whole letter grade on my midterm! Now, that isn’t saying a lot, but considering the fact that I am horrible at the language I was pretty thrilled with even the slightest bit of improvement.

Now my apartment mates and I are watching movies and falling asleep on the couch. Tomorrow is our first day off in a while…no classes, no interning, no anything. I might go to Shangilia in the afternoon anyway to play with the kids, but I have every intention of staying in bed as late as possible!

March 21, 2008
My day off was fantastically relaxing. I woke up at about 7:00 but read for a few hours before getting up and spending the day with Laura, Amanda, and Diana. We went to Java House for lunch and bonded over salads and sundaes…we like balanced meals here. Then Amanda and I went to Zebra Market, which is this permanent shack-like building with tons of little shops selling everything we typically see in the markets…earrings, necklaces, soapstone trinkets, fabric, literally everything you can think of. So I bought some gifts for people back home and we walked down to Nakumatt (Kenyan equivalent of Target) with the intention of buying paint, construction paper, crayons, and everything I would need to let the kids get a little creative and messy at Shangilia on Sunday. Sadly, everything was horribly overpriced, but I talked to a manager and he said that if I write a letter he will send it on to the head office on the other side of Nairobi. Hopefully they will decide to donate enough supplied for 224 kids and I can have art day next Sunday! So instead of a full blown art day, I bought face paint and sweets for my kids. Diana and Amanda are going to come with me on Sunday to see Kangemi and help out wit face paint!

After Nakumatt we reconvened in our apartment and watched High School Musical 1 and 2 which are my new favorite movies, second only to Blood Diamond. We also baked a cake and ate it on the kitchen floor and had some excellent conversations….some silly, some not so silly, but all really relaxing and enjoyable. I’m glad I took the day off to not worry about anything and spend quality time with some of the people I care about most on the program.

March 22, 2008
Today was Parent’s Day at Shangilia and I have to say it was an overall success, but a little bit emotional. The first 2 hours that I was there I was just running around with the kids, trying to find lost pairs of shoes as the girls did each other’s hair and posed for pictures. The band was setting up through out the morning so there were always at least 5 little kids running around banging on the drums and screaming, which I thought was really amusing, but the permanent staff didn’t seem to agree with me.

About 70 parents/guardians were there and I felt completely awful for the children whose parents did not show. Everline, an 8-year-old who used to be in my pre-unit class has been talking about her mom coming to parents’ day for the past 3 weeks. Her mom never came and Everline was so upset. Her dad was arrested after abusing her and her mom, so her mother is all that she has outside of Shangilia. Maybe something came up, but when your only daughter who has been through so much is expecting you at parents’ day, you make a point to be there, regardless of other circumstances. I felt so awful for Everline.

Benjamin and Joseph also spent the better part of the morning waiting for their mom. Benjo looked like he was about to burst into tears and then his mother conveniently showed up around 2:00 and I have never seen the little boys so excited. She brought them fruit and cookies and the three of them looked entirely content together. Better late than never!

Gracie was not herself today even in the slightest, so that was difficult for me. She is usually running around, laughing hysterically at anything, doing headstands against the wall and playing hopscotch. Today she sat on the ground, visibly upset that she wasn’t getting any maternal attention. I filled the role for a bit and she led me through all the classrooms and the library pointing out her favorite things and singing the ABC song. When I left she was sitting on the ground eating her rice and chicken concoction with her hands and she looked much more content. Although she ate so much I wouldn’t be surprised if she threw up shortly after I left.

Lillian’s mother was also there and she is incredibly young. She went to Shangilia herself and got pregnant when she was about 16, making her now 22 with a 6-year-old daughter. Lilian was so happy to see her and followed her around for the rest of the day.

A lot of the older girls and boys also did not have anyone there for them today, but they have been at Shangilia for so long, that by now they are each other’s family anyway. That’s what happens when you live together on less than one acre of land, practice together, perform together, and learn together for 10 and ½ months out of the year. I’m glad that they have that in each other, and its reassuring to know that when my class gets older they will have that family bond as well.