Day 17 v2.0

Annonymous- sign your posts so I know who you are. Mark has been signing his name, but dunno about others (are they all you Mark?)

Gonna be quick because I'm mad late.

I left here and 9 people came up to me asking for food. I've made my bed by doling out food and now have to lie in it. I gave to the first few (that's all I had) and had to say no to the rest. Pretty awful.

Stopped by the Castle Hotel to see that the girl I gave my shirt to got it (I left it with someone). She did indeed receive it and thanked me and I realized that I literally gave someone the shirt off my back. So, I'm kind of like Jesus. But hotter.

It's confirmed that there's a colony of ants living in my laptop. I placed a few pieces of cookie on the bed and placed my laptop a few inches away and in 10 minutes there were 35 ants going to and fro. I killed them all (and counted their tiny corpses which is how I know there were 35) and then did it again this morning and killed another 5. My question is: how do I kill them all? I can't go into my laptop for fear of destroying it. Do I just keep baiting them and killing them? Will the cycle ever end or will they keep repopulating? They've set up camp in my ethernet port. Dan- I don't have access to ash and I want to get them out, not keep them in, so enough with the ash. I need advice!

They slice mangoes into 1/6 pieces here so that you can eat them easily. This morning I was about to give my last 1/3 to this homeless guy when ANOTHER homeless guy flew up and snatched it out of my hand before homeless guy 1 even knew I was trying to get his attention. It was pretty wild.

The mutatu ride was the worst it's ever been. 20 people in a 15 seat mutatu, 2 large sacks of potatoes, and a large bunch of bananas. The mutatu stops when someone knocks on the side, so there are no real designated stops. At one of the stops, 2 people got off and 3 more got on. It took like 5 minutes and a lot of moving around and squeezing and then this fucking whore knocks on the mutatu less than 20 feet later. She couldn't get off when we were all dissheveled about? So rude.

I taught a math lesson and an English lesson today to Nelson, Brian, and Mary. I noticed that a lot of the sentences were really dirty. "A man has a van. Mum has a big jug. His back is bent. His box is very big. It is very wet. The rock is big." and they call a rooster a cock. So, you know you're really hard up when every sentence that is used to teach children English has a dirty double entendre.

Emmanuel John kneed me in the jaw today and it hurt for a solid 10 minutes.

The new volunteer, one of the director's sisters who is visiting, and I took the younger ones for a walk today while the house moms and director had a meeting. Now, I know not everyone thinks ahead, but these two twits were retarded. There were 10 kids and three adults. One adult should be at the front, one in the middle, one in the back. These two dumbasses each hold one hand of the same child and leave me carrying one and tending to the other 8. This is a leisure walk for the children, not for you. Get it together!

After lunch, we took the following kids to town to get new shoes: Mary, Vincent, Emmanuel, Peter, Kiio, Older Mary, Julia, Jumwa, Sauda, Apina, Roda, and Awino. It was pretty nuts. Most of them have only been to town a few times in their life and some had never. I carried small Mary for probably the 1st hour because she was terrified. It was pretty sad that she was that unfamiliar with a city, but I guess you live in a village your whole life, that's what you get. They were all really fascinated though and it was really cool to be a part of that experience. When we went to the shoe "store" (it was like a warehouse) the kids were running around looking at different shoes and of course kept picking ones that were too expensive so it took forever to get shoes for everyone. I ended up buying a pair for small Mary because she only needed shoes for school whereas everyone else was getting non-uniform shoes. Mary was stuck with this nasty black pair of regulation shoes. If my child had to wear those shoes, I would change schools. Anyway, she was totally content with ANY new shoes (but I wasn't) and she kept eyeing this little white and pink pair with a bunny on it so I just bought them for her. I think it was the first time she's ever chosen something brand new and had it purchased. She was glowing and it made me so so so so happy. I mean, girls and shoes go together like peanut butter and jelly, burgers and fries, men and anal sex. They just fit.

The assholes at the shoe store kept changing the prices around because the other volunteer and I were there. White skin makes them see green. The house mom I like best threw down and said we were leaving and they were losing out on the sale of 13 pairs of shoes if they didn't cut that shit out. I love her.

I have to talk about Mary a bit more. She and I sat outside the shoe store because Mary got her uniform shoes from a different store and I didn't want to crowd into the store, so we sat outside. I kept telling Mary if she wanted to go in she could, but she was scared. It was like being in a swimming pool for the first time. First she crept up to the door and peered in and then came running back to me. Then she stood in the doorway for a while and when the traffic picked up and a few people came and went, she came running back. Bit my bit, toe by toe, she crept her way into the shoe store. It was so cute I was melting. The pair that I bought her were on display outside of the store, otherwise I don't think she would have seen any of the actual shoes. The wonder and excitement of experiencing something new is so magical and to be a party of Mary's experience was so fantastic.

After shoe shopping I took the kids to Dormans. The other volunteer and I bought them all milkshakes. The Dormans staff were kind of dicks. I go every day and they know I volunteer and they were just not very nice. It kind of goes with the whole attitude towards children. Children with both parents and children who come from money are considered tolerable, but just tolerable. Orphans and just one notch above street kids and are treated worse than we treat stray animals. We have the ASPCA, they just throw the kids out. I was pretty dissatisfied with the way they were, but I'm fucked because Dormans is the only game in town, so I have to continue as a patron. Bastards.

I had a break through with big Mary today too! The kids love to cover your eyes from behind and play guess who. Big Mary did it to me today and I probably would have gone through all the kids and the house moms before reaching her. She spoke 2 words to me the entire trip last time and has just barely begun to acknowledge me this time. She's had a very hard life and is extremely shy, so the fact that she felt comfortable doing that really put a cherry on my sundae.

Also, I'm such an egotistical, narcissistic stud of man. I had Jurjanne get a mid-way evaluation of my work from the house mom's during today's meeting. Of course it was rave reviews and I full well knew it would be, but I wanted Jurjanne to hear it and I wanted to hear it again too. I'm fucking ridiculous.

Finally, I noticed today that the kids are actually well dressed. They get hand me downs from volunteers who bring A&F, H&M, Diesel, and everything else from their own personal wardrobe. They outshine the average Mombasa resident by leaps and bounds. I can't believe I never realized that before. My kids rule. Except for their school shoes. We need to investigate a new school.

Oh ya, and I'm pumping them so full of Madonna that by the end of my trip Brian won't be the only gay one.