you must love the children

as i said before i took tons of pictures, i'll try and just post my favorites
in our world of difference group there was 23 people of different ages and from different parts of the country. Meeting and working closely with these people was a great treat, everyone was so awesome and there for the same reasons.
We were going to be working on three separate projects
2 schools and 1 orphanage

it is so fun going to each site because there are children everywhere and they seriously can't wait to see you and touch you and look at you because some of these kids rarely see muzungo (another word for white people) and every time these children see you in the car or walking around almost instinctively they say "how are you" repeatedly until you answer or even if you answer. the way they say it is the cutest thing. i loved it.
we call it the "How are You" parade.
Another thing i love is while you are driving in the vans through the slum areas, everyone waves at you and smiles at you. People are so happy there. I have learned a lot of lessons from this trip and that is one of them. The way these Kenyans are so hopeful and optimistic it really changes your own outlook on life.

this is probably one of my favorite pictures from the trip. The kids all want to touch you and sometimes you will have your own little posse going on and the same children will run up to you. They just love having you near them, and the way they look up at you with hope in their eyes, it's the most amazing feeling in the world. You don't even have to say anything to them and they are happy just holding your hand.

this little girl was one in my very own posse

she would not let go. and just wrap her arms around my stomach and look up at me. It's pretty funny getting attacked by 40 kids at once.
Kenyans speak very softly and the children especially young ones don't speak english very well so i finally found out her name was Nigeli (Ne-jelly)

The children in Red are from Isaac's School and children in Blue are from Eunice's school the two schools we worked on.


some of the older boys at Eunice's school.
they liked my name because of the chelsea futbol team so that made me popular.
this little girl was beautiful

can you blame me now for falling in love with these children?

This is at Isaac's school
(Isaac is one of our awesome drivers for the week and he puts a lot of his time and any money he can to this school in the slums of Nairobi. He is an incredible man.)

you'll see a lot of pictures of this little girl. She was so adorable and had the cutest laugh!

At Isaac's school we were busy working on putting a roof on one of the rooms and creating a library for the children.
Because of the 3 projects we were working on our group would split up and half would go to one and the second have to the other.
On one of the days half of us went to Isaac's school to work on the roofing and we tied rebar after the wood was nailed down. We finally finished that around 5 PM and usually they try and get us out of the slums and back at the Amani (peace) Center (where we stayed and it was a monastery which at times was an adventure on its own but still awesome) by the time the sun goes down.

But everyone just wanted to get it done and the larger numbers in people means the less time it will take. We were really pushing it though. It was starting to sprinkle and rain was coming, the sun was going to be down in the next few hours and there is no electricity here.
Yet, on we go.
Isaac was so happy that we were there to help him and wanted his school to expand so that these children will have a school and a place to go to. So Isaac ordered a cement mixer which to us was a blessing beause we were thinking we were going to have to mix the cement by hand.

we jumped right into. Everyone there was working and we needed any extra hand we could get. We had people running water, ballast, cement powder into the mixer and we had our toughest boys down by the mixer filling buckets and buckets as fast as they could with the gas and exhaust in their lungs. I don't know how they did it, it was horrible but it's amazing what you can do for a cause greater than yourself.
We then had people assembly lined passing these buckets of cement to dump off on the roof, that's where i was. It was a lot of hard work. I don't think there was an easy job for anyone and yet no one complained, and everyone was happy while they worked. It was an amazing thing.
We finished the roofing in 2 hours; the sun went down and it was nearly impossible to see but we finished! Sure, covered in cement, but finished the roof for these kids.
I still have scrapes and scars from passing the zito (meaning heavy in swahili) ndoo (bucket) on my forearms.
That night was one of the most memorable nights for all of us

peter and i after the hard work and cement hardened on us (my shirt was never fully clean after that night)

Matt and Ritch the two guys that worked so hard the whole time especially on this night at Isaac's school shoveling cement into the buckets and completely covered in cement if you didn't notice.