And..cue dancing! cue costume change! cue ridiculous story line.

When I finally got to the orphanage, the kids were extremely shy and I was feeling pretty excluded, especially because they were all speaking Swahili and laughing (possibly at me??) and I didn’t have a clue about what was going on. There was also no one else my age and so I was feeling a bit scared and not sure what to do to connect with these kids… Usually I'm pretty good at working with children… but I can also usually speak the same language, so this was clearly a new challenge and experience.

The “campus” of the orphanage is quite large. There are 32 girls and 13 boys and they have different floors of a sleeping dorm building. They have a “rec hall” type area where they eat and have lots of other activities, and tons of space to run around outside, a large vegetable garden and lots of fruit trees with what they call “kukumanga”. It was the first thing I was brought to by a young girl named Hawa.

I became friends with Fridah, who is one of the older girls here. She is 15 and I asked her to give me a tour of the place and we chatted about school etc.. I also noticed that a young and very QUIET boy named Michael would follow me around and sit next to me, but would refuse to look at me when I acknowledged that he was there…. By the end of the first evening, 3 little girls had taken a liking to my backpack (I mean…who wouldn’t, it says DIVA) and by the time we sat down in the evening after dinner, they wanted to share their books with me, which was a really touching gesture…so there was some hope after all that I would get along with these kids.

To top off this crazy day, after dinner I was ushered into the TV room by all the kids where they gathered around a television. I had heard whispers that this tv show was called “Sherry” and that it was everyone’s FAVOURITE thing to watch…so I was like ok.. Sherry, cool.. I'm down for watching a TV show about a mzungu… only to find out that these kids' FAVOURITE TV SHOW is ACTUALLY AN INDIAN SOAP OPERA, so dramatic that my GRANDMOTHER wouldn’t even watch it, dubbed over in English, called “SHREE”.

All I have to say is LOL. 

They are intently watching (click to enlarge)

intense concentration.