Life at the Orphanage

As weird as I feel writing these entries such a long time after I experienced all this, I've been overwhelmed by people asking me to keep writing about everything. So for the few of you who may still be reading this, I'll try to get through everything in the next week or so.

The day after the wedding was my first day at the orphanage. As bummed as I was to be moving out of the hostel and away from Ian and his family, Esther, and Becki and Lara, I was SOOO excited to get there and get started.

We drove to the orphanage first thing in the morning. We were greeted by an extremely energetic woman. It wasn't until 15 minutes of talking with her that I realized she was actually Jane. This is going to sound ridiculous, but for some reason from reading the information Jane had sent me before my trip about the orphanage, I was under the impression that she was Swedish (I know, that sounds crazy...but I did). Well, it turned out Jane was very much Kenyan and very much not Swedish. And most importantly a lot of fun.

She took me upstairs to introduce me to all of the kids, but they were all sleeping (yes, all 12 at the same time!). There were 7 all lined up on the bed and the rest scattered around the room. They all seemed so sweet and perfect. I remember thinking it was going to end up being a lot easier than I had thought. But it wasn't long after they had all woken up I realized they had had me way fooled. :)

Luckily, before they woke up I had time to unpack, get settled and meet the other two volunteers (Ngozi and Kate) who were also staying there, as well as the 3 women who worked there full-time (Janet, Irene, and Faith). They all kind of filled me in on how things work there and showed me around the rest of the orphanage.

The orphanage was actually Jane and her family's home. There was one very large room upstairs where the kids spent almost all of the day, except when they were playing outside. They slept there, ate there, played there, did EVERYTHING there. That meant we were in there all the time as well. I expected to go kind of crazy being couped up in the same room all day every day, but that wasn't the case at all. I soon learned I wouldn't have time to go crazy. From the moment naptime was over until it was time for them to go to bed for the night, we didn't stop once. There was always a diaper to change, a mouth to feed, someone crying, and someone wanting to play with you all at the same time. It was always hectic but I was ALWAYS loving it! :)

I expected things might calm down a bit once I had gotten the hang of things, but I was definitely wrong as every day that followed was crazier than the one before. Generally, each day went pretty much the same. We woke up each morning by about 7 to an alarm clock of crying babies. And were always welcomed by the same smell of more diapers than should ever be closed in the same room. We usually spent a couple hours taking care of that and then bathing all 12 (4 or 5 at a time) and getting them dressed for the day. After that it was time to feed them. Believe it or not, feeding time was harder than any bathing or diaper changing we had to do. It was really a struggle to get a lot of them to eat, especially those that hadn't been at the orphanage for that long, as their diets before hadn't been much, if anything at all. On top of that, we each always had 2 or 3 to feed at once. Needless to say, feeding times were generally the most stressful part of the day. However the most rewarding too. It probably sounds kind of odd, but I always felt so great (even proud) whenever I got one of the kids to finish all of their food.

After the morning routine, with the kids clean, full, and happy, we were able to break for a quick breakfast. After that, we would spend the rest of the day having fun and playing games with the kids, with the occasional feedings and diaper changings of course.  As much fun as it sounds (and actually was) it was also a lot of work.  There were days (actually, most days) when we would be so busy that it would be 10 at night before we realized we hadn't even stopped for dinner. As stressful as it might sound, every second of it was still a blast. Okay, maybe there were a few seconds in there with some unpleasant diapers (sorry...too much information? :) ) but other than that I just played all day long! So even though I was exhausted by the end of every day (and somehow just as exhausted each morning) I was always having way too much fun to care.

Well that's all I have time for right now... I promise more pictures and more about the kids next time.