Kuku on the Table

Let's just get to the heart of it...

Yes, that is a chicken on the table.  After a morning of painting, I took a break for lunch and went to the existing orphanage building to eat my meal...and I shared the table with a chicken.  Will wonders never cease?  He just marched right in through the open door and hopped right up for a bite of my macaroni.  Dude (or Dudette, actually)...this is MY lunch!  Get your own!

And I want to talk about the worksite...you know, OSHA doesn't exist in Kenya.  No hard hats with countless items falling from the heavens.  No safety glass with brick chips flying.  No steel toed boots with rusty nails sticking out of most boards on the floor.  It's crazy.  Even those wildly expensive dust masks I purchased were met with blank stares and comments like "What do I do with this thing?"  

Ladders look like this...branches with more branches or spare pieces of wood as steps.  And yes, Dad, I did climb up on this particular ladder.  There are wires hanging out of walls everywhere.  I don't touch any of them because no one can tell me, for sure, if they are live or not.  Scary!!  

I was very popular with the workers today...for some reason.  Perhaps because I'm friendly and trying to learn Swahili?  But, honestly, ten workers came by in the first 30 minutes and asked for a "picha".  I almost wanted to charge a fee, like "Paint a wall and I'll take a picture with you."  Luckily, five more wazungu (plural of mzungu...which you have already learned in a previous lesson means "white person") women are showing up on Saturday...so we can share the love.

Speaking of the arrival of the other wazungu, we will be moving accommodations to a guest house down the road on Saturday.  I have enjoyed my stay at the Karibuni Lodge.  I like all the interesting people here and the buzz of activity.   However, the proprietress...who is actually quite lovely...would like to house my friends and I in the original shack that Kiara and I rejected.  In good conscience, I just can't, expose my dear friends, who are brand-spanking-new to the third world, to "the shack".  

Plus, I'm just a bit tired of using the "outside toilet".   :)

Tomorrow should be quite a day.  The Colorado group invited me to go with them into the Kipsongo slum. Not sure if I'm ready for it.  Don't throw spit wads if I don't go.  But I do see how understanding where these children come from will improve my ability to advocate for them.  So I just might be brave.

Tish