"not as the world gives"

i flew to mombasa on thursday to visit a home for girls called mudzini kwetu centre...and to get a breath of thick, sticky, salty air. the security to get into the little airkenya prop plane was non-existent: a pat down and a glance into my bag.
the home is half an hour north of mombasa in a town called kikambala. it houses 35 girls ages 7 mo. to 17 years. these young women are amazing; they have lived more life and hardships than many people three times their age. they are aids orphans, children thrown away, girls saved from child-marriages and human-trafficking. but they are all survivors and there was so much joy in their home. The place was started and is run by anthony, a lawyer who used to work for IJM. he is so passionate and economical! (they run almost entirely on solar power) about what he is doing and we talked a lot about starting a school there (mom and dad?).
everynight i was there it poured and coconuts and mangoes fell like bricks on the leaky tin roof. the first night i sat up in terror and got miserably tangled in my mosquito net. each morning we awoke to the kokorikoo koo (that's what a rooster who speaks swahili says) and the horrific, humanesque screams of the donkey. on friday the girls went to school from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm on a school bus that was donated to the home. i took the day to explore the surrounding area. i walked through fields of maize, herds of goats, huts made of mud and coral, monkey back rubs, trees with the most amazingly complex root systems, and 4 year old girls carrying their little sisters on their backs while fetching water. for some time i followed a young woman carrying a huge cylindrical water jug on her head (with he round side on her head!) even when she whipped around to look at me, she stayed balanced. i have read that african women and girls spend an average of 8 hours a day gathering 15 to 20 liters of water. especially in rural areas, this prevents them from education and other activities and often leads to physical problems and disfigurement from the weight. mom, i told someone about the contraption we saw at the design show in nyc...but i haven't seen them here.
we spent a rainy saturday making art and jewelry on the porch. the girls are so polite and they all called me momma. saturday is also apparently the day they all rebraid their hair, so i, in turn, got a headful of plaits. on saturday night i was tricked by some of the house moms to go with them to get their hair done at a salon. to get there we had to cross a little stream and several of them asked me if i was able to jump. i explained to them the stereotype we have that white people can't jump..i'm not sure how it translated, but i at least had a good laugh. i sat for over an hour, feeling very white, in the open air salon until i finally matatued back to mudzini. a black woman's hair is a world of mystery that i will never understand.
on sunday, a british couple who had heard about the home treated all of us to a day at a beach resort. the girls had so much fun swimming and being served by the hotel staff. it was hard to leave such a happy place and all those beautiful children..but i'm back in nairobi now.

Riziki

macharia and riziki

macharia: the only boy in the home. is is there with his twin agnes. they were found almost dead but are now doing well though still very week.

sort of like fripp!







can you see it?





jumwa gathering fruit


shi shi



anthony

womboy and the donkey

art on the porch

rehema


small word. kimberly who braided my hair

at the beach resort

visitor who stole our snacks