Day 37 (One week left! I'm not ready to come back!)

Today was movie day!!! It was awesome.

First, a hard dose of reality. Last night on my way home from the internet café I was hit up by a 7 year old street boy with a glue/gasoline addiction for money. He held my hand (as many of them do) and walked a few blocks. It’s been battered into our brains that we are not to give any money to these children, but I honestly was about to tell him to let go of my hand because I was about to cry, when I got to where I was going and ducked in. Luckily another volunteer was there and she had some food on her, so we ran it out to him and he got to eat a bit. He left my hand BLACK with soot and tar. It’s just so fucking wretched to see these kids. I used to think the little kids in Mexico who sold bracelets and gum were sad, but I realized that their lives are fucking cake compared to the kids here. Those kids are usually wearing clothes and have some source of income or something because how do they get the gum/bracelets in the first place? They don’t grow in the wild. The kids here however are usually not dressed or dressed in rags, emaciated, dirty, and aren’t hawking anything. It’s honestly too overwhelming now because my kids WERE these kids before Dickson and I just can’t handle it anymore. I’m read to come home if only to get a break from heartache.

On my way to Dickson this morning I was waiting for my matatu in town when I saw a homeless man with a likely serious medical problem. He was essentially wearing rags. His pants were like chaps. They were split down the middle and kind of gone around the inner parts and just had a waist band and the outer side had fabric, but like I said, essentially chaps. Anyway, his genitals were massively swollen on one side and I have no idea what might cause that, but it was really really sad to see. I can’t imagine the immense amount of pain he must be in on top of the fact that he likely has a serious problem because I’ve never even known of something that could was that kind of swelling and discoloration. It was not a pretty thing to see at 10:00am.

I got to Dickson and the kids were reciting Mathew 7:7, which I have to admit, I kind of like. I memorized it with them and it goes a little something like this: “Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you will find it, knock and the door will be opened to you”. Now the caveat (because with religion there’s always a caveat) is that you can’t ask (pray) for it and just get it. You have to also work for it. The example given was that you can’t pray to pass your math test and then fool around all day. You have to ask for it and then work for it and then it will happen. I just thought it was nice to not put it all in God’s hands, but sort of a combo fate/make your own fate sort of deal.

The urine/feces part of my story occurred a few times today, so I’ll do them in chronological order, the grossest being first thing in the morning. Manu took his massive morning dump in his tiny potty, which I then in turn dumped into the toilet. I usually turn the little potty upside down, whack it a few times, and then go bleach and wash the potty out. Well I whacked it a few times and heard the “Plop!” sound of the poo falling into the toilet so I lifted the potty up to turn it right side up when I heard another “Plop!”. Apparently, ½ the poo went into the toilet on the first “Plop!” while a remainder was stuck to the potty at first. Well the second “Plop!” occurred when I had raised the potty up a bit, so there was space between the potty and the toilet and the second “Plop!” resulted in toilet water, poopy, urine filled toilet water, to splash up onto my forearm. Orphan poop, orphan pee, and African toilet water on my forearm at 11:00am. Who needs my former Givenchy’s “Very Irresistble” or my new Yves Saint Laurent’s “”L’Homme” (which is waiting for me at home, I can’t wait!)? I mean really, who needs those when you have Dickson’s “Eau de Baby Ass” on your pulse points?

The kids had anchovies and ugali for lunch, which may explain why their bowel movements are so fucking rank. I mean, do these children who live off beans and such need to add smelly fish to their diet?

We went to the movie theater and for theater behavior I’d give Manu an A, Moses a B, and Mwangi a C, which is odd because I thought Moses would be A, Mwangi B, and Manu C. Mwangi speaks the most English so I though Shrek 3 would be fun for him, Moses is very subdued and speaks adequate English so I thought he’d be relatively good, and Manu is the youngest so I thought he’d be bored. In reality I had to take Mwangi and Moses to pee a couple of times and ended up walking around the lobby with them for a bit, while Manu sat quietly and contently the entire time. They all had diapers on, but Moses and Mwangi wouldn’t pee in them, which is actually awesome seeing as how we’re potty training them. When I arrived 5 weeks ago, they wet themselves incessantly, but with the work we’ve been doing, Moses and Mwangi are essentially potty trained. I rarely change their pants, and if I do it’s only a little bit because they couldn’t hold it any longer. So it’s really encouraging to see progress and that even though they were wearing diapers they still wanted to go and pee instead of wetting themselves.

Gross bathroom behavior story number two comes during one of our bathroom breaks. I was helping Moses use the toilet (no potties, so it was scary and big and difficult for them, but they still did it) and while I was helping Moses I heard a man yelling “No, no, stop that” to Mwangi, I was certain Mwangi was like grabbing this man’s dick or something and started screaming “Mwangi, hapana!! Ni li sema hapana!, Ndjo, KUJA!” when he finally came around and the man was coming after him and said to Mwangi “Wash your hands” and then the man turned to me and said “He was playing with the urinal cakes”. It’s quite sad when you’re RELIEVED over the fact that your kid was playing with urinal cakes.

So the kids loved the movie, had a great time and we went home. Shrek the Third is great, this was my second time seeing it (if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll recall I saw it last Saturday night). I did the math, and here’s the breakdown: to take 36 people from Dickson to the cinema and back (a half hour drive), to buy them tickets, to buy everyone a small popcorn and small soda, the cost of all this came to $7.26 per person. A long roundtrip travel, tickets, popcorn, soda, $7.26. That’s the price of happiness in Kenya.

On the way home I ran into TB Boy formerly of Onesmus. I’m not quite sure on the story, but I think he’s a runaway who wanted to come back but had run away too many times. I’m not sure, but one of the Onesmus volunteers introduced me to him and stuff. Anyway, the boy was been living in a shack in the middle of nowhere because he had tuberculosis and needed to be quarantined. He’s on meds now so he’s not contagious, but the medication takes a lot out of you and is a six month course. Rukia JUST ended hers, so I know a fair amount about it. Anyway, the boy is like 16 or so and just beautiful in the face. Big lips, gorgeous smile, warm eyes, friendly, kind, but his body is like that of a 7 year old. I’ve never seen someone who was so literally skin and bones. I had some cookies in my bag and gave them to him, and I know he’s being fed because the Onesmus volunteers are taking care of him, but it’s such a God awful illness and takes so much out of one. Anyway, he’s on the road to recovery, so it was nice to see him. And he’s such a friendly, uplifting kid, that it was a nice way to end my day at Dickson.

During my matatu ride through town I noticed a bakery that I’ve never noticed before, otherwise I would have commented on it. The name? The Master Bakers.

Finally, I don’t condone smoking and don’t think any of my friends are stupid enough to be smokers, but what I do condone is saving money (especially if you’re going to give it to me for the kids at Dickson/for my return trip to Mombasa) and I do condone a bargain, so here goes- cigarettes are about 70 cents a pack here, so if you’re a smoker and you want me to bring you cigarettes, let me know. I’ll find out the “best tasting” ones as they don’t have Marlboro/Camel/etc., but they do have Dunhill and Benson and Hedges if you’re interested, as well as some other brands. Anyway, let me know and I’ll pick you up a few cartons.

Gave my kids a literal experience of a lifetime seeing as how they’d never been to a cinema before. Best…day…ever.