For some strange reason, I always have an image in my mind of whatever place I'm going...and it's always wildly wrong. In this case I had a images of Nairobi and the orphanage that were both wildly off base. Nairobi airport was fairly small considering the size of the city. Customs didn't even look at any of my stuff but just waved me through. Outside in the meeting area was a clump of about a hundred people meeting people or hawking services to new arrivals. The person meeting me was far too kind and nice to stand out so I missed him completely even after two passes. We got connected when a taxi service hustled me off to their office and called my ride's cell phone. I was soon to learn why I needed an escort.
Nairobi itself was not the gleaming alabaster city that capitalism and corruption should produce but a smoggy dirty half-fallen-down kind of a place. The first two things I noticed were the exhaust fumes from all the run-down cars and low pollution standards and all the people along the highway walking or occasionally biking since that was all the transportation they could afford. When we stopped for breakfast I was all set to drink from a pitcher of water on the table when David, my escort, stopped me saying it would make me sick. From there is was in to a Matatu or van to take me from Nairobi to Nakuru which is the town closest to the orphanage. They're basically 10 passenger vans that ply the roads everywhere in Kenya. The roads themselves can be pretty rough. Crowded, bumpy, dusty, no lines and slow trucks to try and get around constantly. It can occasionally look like a complete free for all.
The orphanage itself is a wonderful place and not just because I was finally off of those crazy roads. There's a definite feeling of refuge as soon as you walk through the gate. Overall, it's a compound of about half a dozen buildings up on a hill well outside of town. There's very little wood so most of the buildings are made of stone bricks. The children, all boys except for a grand-daughter of the couple who run it, are very sweet. There's a little troop of four year olds who have adopted me and take me around when I don't know my way. Almost all of them have been orphaned by AIDS. Some have even had to bury their own parents.
During the day I've been helping with construction of a very organic two-story outhouse for which I've dubbed the 'Poo Palace' which is what the Fernwood girls call an outhouse when they're faced with doing their business in the woods. I work with three men who hack and the bricks, mix the cement and get everything into place. They're quite skilled and have been lots of fun to work with and have included me quickly conducting much of their conversation in English even though it's not their first language. All Kenyans learn English since there aren't as many textbooks in Swahili but it's a second language for all of them.
I have my own room (which I did not expect) and the bed has a mosquito net for us paranoid foreigners. The food is close enough to what I'm used to that it hasn't been a problem; corn, beans, oatmeal, eggs and lots of tea. It's not paradise. It's not hell. The people are very sweet. The poverty drives people to do some bad stuff occasionally but I find it hard to blame them when something as small as a colored pencil is a treasure. There are no toys, no dessert but every adult (in the orphanage at least) has a cell phone. Karibu (Welcome)