Children

There is so much I need to write about the work and realizations I’m having here, and it will come, but for now I'll make a lighter post with photos from the last week or two (I’ve decreased the quality of them so they’re easier to upload). One of the things I love about the village where I live is how full it is of children. I’m sure all of Africa is like that. I’ve never considered myself a “kid person” if you know what I mean, but it is difficult to not become one while you’re here. Here are some of my favorite photos of the kids:

This is Habibu. He's an orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle and their 7 children. He is a total troublemaker and one of my favorite kids in Takaungu.




This is Habibu and me at the beach yesterday. I went swimming for hours with Habibu and literally nine other children. I go swimming in shorts and a tee-shirt here instead of my bathing suit due to modesty expectations in the village.




This is Fatuma, Habibu's "cousin sister." She also just goes by Tuma. She is one of the most hyper and brightest children I have met here. She is delightful. Yesterday after she got out of the ocean, she rolled around in the sand for a very long time. Then she found a strange piece of seaweed and decided to have fun with it. Of course she positioned it perfectly on the top of her head.



On a related note, last Saturday was Eid (the end of Ramadan) and it seemed like all of the village boys spent the late afternoon on the beach. I ventured down with a couple other people and there were literally hundreds of children there. These boys were jumping off the low cliff in front of us (yeah, I know, not a good idea) and kept tickling our feet.





Last night I went to the home of Katana, one of the employees of the East African Center, to learn how to make coconut oil from scratch. His wife (who is one of my adult education students and speaks no English) and their four wonderful children (and a couple extras from around the neighborhood) were there. Here I am helping make the coconut oil (I look kind of crazed in this photo; sorry)




This is Frances, who is 21 and not an employee of the EAC, but he is Katana's best friend and always seems to show up (who has kindly offered to be my Kenyan husband, which I have politely and firmly declined):




And here are two of Katana's kids (the eldest and youngest) (the one in pink is his baby sister and the one in a white teeshirt is his brothers's child; that's Kate, another volunteer's, hand on the side of the photo):