It was quite a taxing 3 hour ride from Nairobi on the worst roads you can imagine, but we arrived at Mukaa Children’s Compound yesterday around noon. The roads were mostly unpaved and the ones that were had the most enormous potholes ever! But we made it finally and I even got to see some giraffes and ostriches along the way so that was pretty sweet. As for Mukaa, it is a totally different world here. It is literally a tiny community built on the side of a mountain. Our house is one of the only two buildings on the mountain with electricity. The compound consists of the school, a church, a medical clinic, girls and boys dorms and bathrooms for each (separate from the dorm) and a building with a few rooms they use mainly for devotions and homework. Everything in Mukaa-the buildings, their food, their clothes, their school books- screams poverty; yet that doesn’t feel like the most appropriate word. They aren’t living in poverty. Every child has food to eat and clothes on their back. That food may be corn and beans everyday, but no one is hungry. And the clothes might be full of holes, but no one is cold. It is a hard situation to describe (probably because im from the west), but what I would classify as poor or poverty-stricken, they see as blessed. They are so happy…and their huge smiles prove it! The children are so smart too, it is amazing. The older ones, class 2 (2nd grade) and up, speak 3 languages: Kikamba, Kiswahili and English. Kikamba, since it is their mother tongue, is what they learn first. Then, they are taught Kiswahili and around class 2 they learn English. And they have the most beautiful accents. I was reading with two girls last night, class 4 and 5, (both age 10) and I could have listened to them for hours. It is a treat for them to get to read when they are done their homework. There are children here through class 8. The high-schoolers go to boarding school so they wont be home until the end of the school year. Before studies (homework time) they have devotions. When we walked in, all the children were singing praise songs and clapping their hands and dancing. It was truly something to behold. I dont think I have ever seen such happy children! There was no adult telling them what song to sing next or anything. They just somehow knew. For one song, one of the older girls, Ruth, would say something and everyone replied in perfect unison. It was incredible. Their voices are so beautiful. Most of the words were in Kikamba, but it is truly a beautiful language so I loved it. There was some English here and there that I picked up on, but I am really trying to learn kikamba. It was, by far, the most incredible experience yet.
Our house has three bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen and a living/dining room. All concrete floors with a hodge podge of some kind of vinyl duck taped to it. Makes you really appreciate carpet 
I sleep in a twin bed, foam mattress, but quite comfy! We eat our meals-that are prepared for us-on the living room furniture and use the “coffee table” as the dining table. And yes, we have a cook; two cooks actually, Teresia and Elizabeth, who take very good care of us! We are quite spoiled! They are the sweetest, most dear ladies ever and the most wonderful cooks too! They fix our lunch and supper everyday. So far it has been either rice, noodles, or chipatas (like a fried tortilla, my favorite!!) with some bite-size beef, tomatoes/spinach/green peppers and a sort of “slaw” if you will. It is quite delicious They treat us muzungos (white people) very well and they make us feel incredibly welcome. It is easy to tell they are so happy and grateful we are here. The food is delicious, but we do get hungry b/w meals so we have a huge selection of “american” snacks under the coffee table. In fact, I just enjoyed some gold fish! We have soda-all Coke products. Fanta is most popular here so we drink orange fanta and regular coke mostly. It comes in crates in glass bottles which is really cool! However, we have no fridge so they are all warm which is not so cool, haha! We have a huge container of “safe” water they keep here for us. It has been boiled and treated, but it tastes kind of funny so we still prefer to drink it through our filtered water bottles. That way it is very good! As for fruit, there are no apples, oranges, pears, etc. like at home. Here, we eat passion fruit, huge avocados, mango, papaya and bananas. Pretty amazing selection! Our bathroom is pretty normal…kind of. The toilet, sink and shower are all one little room. And by shower I mean…shower head. It is just to the right of the sink. There is no stepping into/out of the shower and there is no laying down a towel so the floor doesn’t get wet. The entire floor gets wet-under the sink around the toilet. There is a bit of a ledge when you step out of the bathroom to keep the water from getting into the hallway, haha. Its pretty cool actually. And our shower ledge, where we put our shampoos, is the window sill. And apparently, everyone in the community wears shower shoes (flip-flops) so they even provided each of us a pair…incredible! The kamba (their tribe) hospitality is really quite amazing.
Today was my firs day in the classroom! I will be assisting Jenny in her classes and she has just one class on Fridays, 12:00-12:35, quite short. We teach class (grade) 6 and 7 because they are pretty good at English by that point. We still have to speak very slowly when giving direction, etc. so it would be nearly impossible to teach anything younger. We played a board game today that took us all morning to put together. I helped a little bit, but she did a ton of work for it. They really loved it though! It is a real treat for them because here, the teachers dont really try at all to make classes fun for them. It is all reading, writing, and sitting still so moving around and playing a game was very special. Also, on the way to Mukaa yesterday, Jenny warned me that the teachers use corporal punishment. I haven’t seen it yet, but I dread the day I do. Of course we will not use it in our classroom, but that makes discipline quite a bit more difficult for us. The children know we will not hit them if they dont do their homework so it has been a challenge to find an alternate punishment. There really isnt much to take away from these children so she has been struggling with that whole issue quite a bit. The children really respect us for the most part. The only issue is some of them not doing their homework so we are praying for direction with that. It is so cute though, when we go into the classroom they are all standing and she says “Good afternoon class” and they all say, in unison, “Good afternoon Madame” and then she has to tell them to be seated and they are all so attentive when she is talking. So the discipline here is pretty amazing compared to what I am used to in the states. Everyone, girls included, has their heads shaved, but they wear uniforms so you can tell the girls by the skirts (which is sooo helpful)!! Ok, that is all for now. One of the children just snuck into our house, haha so I must go. Lala salama (goodnight)
