Day 29 v2.0

EMERGENCY. I found out last night one of the house mothers has been beating and berating the children. When I first heard it, I asked for the full story and then went around and asked a bunch of different kids if it was true and they confirmed it for me. She has bashed children’s heads into walls, beats them with the metal handles from buckets, has a large rubber strap that she uses by making them lie down on the floor and then beating them with the strap, she slaps, spanks, and repeatedly degrades- the most offensive one being that in a fit of anger she told one of the children that her grandmother is dead (she didn’t know this yet). The directors are in Uganda until Saturday but I’m meeting with the founders of Dickson tomorrow.

One house mom is on 2 weeks leave, another is on maternity leave, I leave on Sunday and no volunteers are coming until October so they are incredibly short handed. The emergency is that I need cash (and fast) to help them hire some new emergency/temporary staff and fire this monster. These children have been degraded and abused enough for a thousand lifetimes; they don’t need it to continue in a place where they are supposed to be safe. Send anything you can to www.paypal.com under my email FindingNima82@gmail.com

It seems really callous to go on with my blog posting, but if I stop going on and let myself become defeated, then they win, and I’m not going to let that happen. So, on to the bitchery.

I hate Muslims. I can’t stress that enough. It’s motherfucking Ramadan, so guess what happens. Every night from 8:45pm until 9:45pm they chant and pray. A full fucking hour of it. If you haven’t heard it yet, I posted a clip. It’s loud and horrible. In addition to the full hour of it, today (Tuesday) I got a 20 minute version at 4:10am. Honestly, it’s ridiculous. Subjecting everyone in the area to your religion is really unnecessary. God I love America.

It was confirmed today that I am not fit to teach new material. Try as I might I couldn’t explain 15 – 7 – 2 = ? or 3 + 4 +1 = ? to Marion, Milka, and Yvonne. In addition to the language barrier, there’s also the problem of children’s limited language. If all they know is “3 minus 1 equals what?” and I say “3 take away 1 is what?” they get confused. Also, I’m not so great at explaining simple things. I didn’t know this about myself, but I found that I can’t come up with a simple way to explain things. I just wanted to say “Are you retarded? You can’t take 1 away from 4?” but then I realized that’s offensive to retards because even they can take 1 away from 4.

Yes, I channel through comedy and today it’s coming down on orphans and retards.

I hate Christians. This morning (Tuesday morning) I could have slapped the teacher. In the mornings, Marion, Milka, Yvonne, Mwangi, Moses, and Manu sing a few songs and do some dances before going into the classrooms. One song has this part where they call out a child’s name and the child has to “Bow down to Jesus” and the teacher then called out MY name! She knows damn well I’m not a Christian and she thinks I’m a practicing Buddhist and yet she still made me bow down to Jesus (which I had to do because all the kids were watching). Fucking bitch.

After classes, the kids had porridge and it’s funny that until the other day I never even bothered to look at it. I just assumed it was another name for oatmeal. How wrong I was. Turns out porridge is another name for sludge.

The teacher is great with kids. She taught me something invaluable today. The longer you drag things out with children, the longer they are entertained and the less you have to do to come up with things to entertain them. From throwing rocks over wires along our walk, to spending 3 minutes “trying” to open a jar that’s “stuck” the kids just laugh and wait and watch in bewilderment. So ya, this is where pole pole comes in handy. I try to finish things and move on to the next thing, but when you do that all of a sudden it’s only 2:30pm and you’ve run out of ideas. So, dragging things out. Who knew?

The jar thing came up today when she was giving the kids a handful of sprinkles (like the kind you bake with/put on a cupcake) as a candy treat. After giving it to them, she offered me some. I thought she was kidding but played along and declined and then she took a handful for herself and started eating them. It was only then that I realized that I’ve seen many Kenyans eat all the gross things that kids eat. I don’t think I could eat a handful of sprinkles if you paid me. I would probably throw up a box of Runts or Nerds or a 3 pack of Fun Dip, but Kenyan adults eat stuff like that. Is it just me, or is the idea of down a Pixie Stick stomach churning? Yet I used to do this regularly. Up through 10th grade science I remember cutting up SweetTarts in class with the other kids and then snorting them. I have yet to see a Kenyan do this, but can they be that far behind?

After their sugar rush, we went outside to play group Pickle in the Middle (at least that’s what we called it at my elementary school). One player stands on each side of the playing area and all the rest of the kids run back and forth trying to avoid getting hit by the ball the two players are tossing back and forth. The throwers are trying to hit the runners with the ball. If a person who’s trying to not get hit catches the ball midair, then he gets to try to hit one of the throwers. This is so totally fucked up, but I was a runner and caught the ball and threw it at Marion a little bit harder than I normally would to any of the other kids. As soon as the ball left my fingers I was like “Oh, fuck” because it was totally unconscious, but I guess I’ve just been so frustrated that it manifested itself in a really poor way. She didn’t cry or anything, but it definitely hurt her (it was a little bean bag ball, not a wrecking ball) and when I saw her rub her leg I felt really bad. And a little bit good. But mostly bad. Later she was being bad and I started ignoring her and by the end of the day she was clamoring to sit on my lap and behave. Such a complex little girl. I definitely have to refrain from Pickle in the Middle though for fear of crippling the poor girl next time.

After classes but a few minutes before lunch, there was a lull so I sat on one of the couches and started reading my book. The teacher came by and said that I do too much; that I’m always doing something. Um. I didn’t realize that sitting quietly and reading was “doing something”. I guess I’m just supposed to sit and stare at the wall. No wonder there’s a 40% unemployment rate. I’d fire everyone too.

The Jungle Book 2 sucks.

I’m definitely going a little nuts because now not only am I hallucinating bugs crawling all over me but I’m hallucinating them crawling around too. I was in the volunteer house and kept making mad dashes all over to kill bugs that turned out to be paper clips or a leaf.

Tonight (Tuesday) I stayed late and helped the kids with their homework and hung out with them a bit before leaving. As I mentioned yesterday, they are gone when I get there and get home after I leave so if I don’t stay late I won’t get to see any of the older ones. Hanging and talking with them is how the whole story about that piece of shit house mother came out. Anyway, here are two verbatim fill in the blanks that I assisted with. 1. “Circumcising girls is ____” (illegal) and 2. We should ____ people with AIDS” (help). I don’t really remember those but I guess things have changed since I was in 5th grade back in 1998.

P.S. Special thanks to Emily for thorough comments and Tait for porn