The Wedding...and PICTURES!!

Alright, so I really have no idea where to start with all of this, so I guess where I left off would probably be best.



Above are some pictures of Ian, Edith, and around Thome, the town I stayed in. As I said before Ian and his family were very nice and I feel so lucky to have met them. There are also pictures of Lara and Becki, the other two girls who stayed at the hostel with me. We got along great and had so much fun together during the week we were there. Becki was 24 and from Sydney, Australia. She came to volunteer for an AIDS education program for 4 weeks. Once she's done, she's headed to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro then to Zanzibar then back to Nairobi for one last week (how awesome is that). She has been to so many different places so it was always interesting to hear her talk about everything she has experienced. Lara was 21 and also very nice. She was Canadian and said "Eh" so much that I thought she had to be kidding. She wasn't. She came to work at another orphanage and school with older kids.

Anyways, during our first week there Edith gave the three of us Kiswahili lessons in the morning and then spent the rest of the day taking us EVERYWHERE! The thing I enjoyed the most was definitely when we went to the wedding. It was similar to typical American weddings in that there was the white dress, bridesmaids, vows, etc. However the main service was only about 30 minutes, followed by an hour of speeches, songs, and dances for the bride and groom by family and friends

After the ceremony, the reception was held in the yard of a school. There was food and of course more speeches and dancing. It was so much fun. Although the best part of it all was the people we met there. I was blown away by how nice everyone was to us. Everyone we talked to was so eager to welcome us and hear about what we thought of their country so far.

As much as I liked talking with people, hanging out with all of the kids there was even more fun. The first three kids we met were James, Frederick, and Patrick, three 7 year-old troublemakers. They were just adorable. They spent the first half of the service eyeing us from across the church and smiling and the rest of the time moving closer and closer until they were sitting in the pew in front of us. At first they ducked behind the pew to hide and peeked up whenever they thought we wouldn't notice then giggled when we did, of course making us laugh as well.

After the ceremony, we were bombarded by many more kids. At first, they all would just kind of stare at us and whisper with each other. Within a few minutes however they would get a lot less shy. They would chant "Mazungu! Mazungu!" (which is the Kiswahili term for "white people") and would run up and shake our hands. At times, there were up to 20 kids around us, all trying to touch us and play with our hair. It was really an odd experience and as much fun as it was, we were relieved when they got over our "whiteness." We spent the rest of the time dancing with them and playing tag and other games.

Before we knew it, it was already night and time to say goodbye to our friends and pile into the car (a tight squeeze with 8 of us trying to cram in). We left with the entire crowd of kids chasing after the car laughing and waving goodbye. I will never forget them and their smiling faces as we drove away. From dancing with everyone at the ceremony, to realizing what it was like to be a Mazungu, to hours of laughing with some of the sweetest kids I've ever met, it was an amazing day that I will always remember.