day two.

Just when I think this trip can't get any more incredible, it does. This morning, we left the house around 9am and walked to Bob and Julie Mendosa's house (the couple who started Naomi's Village) for them to drive us there. On the way there, Bob explained to us the cycle of poverty there is in Africa right now. Basically, there are very rare job opportunities in Kijabe, so if a mother is unemployed and needs to feed her starving kids, she is willing to do almost anything to be able to do that. So what the mother does is prostitute herself. At night she goes out to do this, so she is up all night, meaning during the day she will sleep all day. What does that mean? That if there are three kids for example six years old, three years old, and a year old, someone has to take care of the two younger children. Therefore the six year olds has no choice but to take care of the others until mommy wakes up late in the evening. Since she is taking care of her siblings during the day, this means she misses going to school. Meaning she doesn't get an education. Meaning she has lower chances of having any job opporunities when she is an adult and has her own children. Meaning she is in her mother's shoes where she is willing to do anything to feed her children. Meaning nothing changes. It's a cycle. So, what Naomi's Village is striving to do is to raise up a generation of leaders, and world changers. The children there are not able to be adopted. This here is a home for children who come from extremely unsafe situations. A majority of their stories are almost unbelievable. They are raising these 40 kids up, making them aware of where they came from, showing them they have WORTH and PURPOSE. It's beautiful! They stay at Naomi's at least until they are 18 years old, or ready to leave. The Mendosa's are working on providing sponsorship to start college funds or scholarships for the children.

Check out their website: www.naomisvillage.com

The children are all so precious and you can find some of their stories on there, too. Partial child sponsorship is $33 a month and full sponsorship for a child is $132 a month. 

Anyways, once we got to Naomi's we had to wait a little bit, since the kids were in school (they are on year-round school terms.) We sat in the grass out back for a about an hour. I got to hold baby Hannah. I was bouncing her on my legs and she ended up falling asleep in my arms. ahhh I loved it. Baby Hannah was 4lbs. when NV found her. Within a few weeks of being at NV, she gained 3lbs., and now she looks like a perfectly normal baby! Here's what Hannah looked like before and after Naomi's, and here's a picture of her now.

baby Hannah before coming to NV, and after a few weeks here.

baby Hannah a few days after being at NV

ahhh so precious

At 10:30am we went to IDP, which stands for Internally Displaced People. It's kinda like a neighborhood. The people there came to this area after the elections in 2008 got really violent where they were living.

When we pulled up to IDP all of the black babies ran as fast as they could into our arms! Surrounding us in every direction. Some kids kept yelling "mzungu! mzungu!!" today eeeeek! The kids here are completely the opposite from the kids at Naomi's. The kids here have so. many. needs. I feel like I could SEE the hurt in their eyes.. just by looking at them. Many kids there would play, and laugh, and smile. But some, wouldn't..couldn't smile for anything. I was able to be one of the people to pour the porridge for the school kids. There were so many of them. I was supposed to fill each child's plastic tall mug up half-way. If I gave a kid more or less on accident, they wouldn't say a word. They accepted however much I gave them. Many of the kids didn't look up at me once, even as they would hand me their cup. Somehow I didn't break down at this point either. After feeding the kids, we got to play some more. I made friends. A lot of them were hard to really get to know I guess because of things they have been through.

the school at IDP

On our way walking back to NV, Magan and I began talking to a boy named Bryan. He was 13 years old and was walking back to his school. He said he wanted to play "football" in the U.S. when he grows up, which I think is soccer here. He ended up asking for 40 shillings (about .40 cents in the U.S.) from us so that he could buy a clock because he rings the bell at his school. We each gave him 100 shillings (about $1 from each of us.) I'm not sure exactly if it was for a clock but there is no way I could have walked away without giving him anything. When we got back to Naomi's, we ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and then helped the workers there fold clothes off of the clothes lines. The kids had a lunch break and we FINALLY got to meet most of them!!! We went to the soccer fields and I learned how to grasshopper hunt hahaha.. apparently it's the cool hobby here.

cute undies all lined up. so adorable

Erick

Erick and I

Muthui, Emily, Kimberly, and I

Kimberly

Grasshopper hunting with Erick

sweet Kimberly and I

 Some of the kids that I met today were Erick, Eliza, Emily, Soni, Kimberly, Joshua, and so many others. I got to meet almost all of the 40 kids there, but those were the ones I bonded with most. My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE THING IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD is being called "Auntie HA-nnah" over and over and over again. I could seriously listen to them say it in their sweet voices all day long. Here's a video of Erick saying it hehe.

The guys came to NV about an hour before we left. They spent today at Lamuncha building 6ft of a 30ft hole to build bathroom stalls. We played with the kids the rest of the day until we left.

Perfect day.