Day 4 - African Children's Day

For breakfast, a few in our group cooked up eggs and bacon and chopped up some fresh mangos. Yeah!

We began the morning by leading devotions for all the CPA kids. We spent the entire week talking about the story of Moses and looking at the attributes of God that were evident in the story. Today, we talked about Exodus chapter 2 and how God was faithful to keep his promises to his people. My favorite part of this study was teaching the kids “Pharaoh, pharaoh.” They stinking loved that song and we sang it a dozen times while we were there.

Today was a special day for me. Myself, Carrie, and Corrie drew short straw and got to go with the older CPA kids to African Children’s Day near Naivasha. It was about an hour drive to an area near Lake Naivasha set up with tents. I think that it was at a boys’ school or home. As soon as we got there, the kids went off looking for a bathroom and I, desperately needing to go, followed them. We ended up finding a small building with three blue doors on it that had a, uh, distinct odor wafting from it. I knew what this was. It was an outhouse.

Normally, I would be terrified of the prospect of using the restroom in a communal hole in the ground. Today, however, I was excited that I could check this off my bucket list. It was exactly as I thought it would be. Spider eggs everywhere, wet floor, hellishly dark hole in the middle of the floor. I took a picture to document my experience and scared myself by imagining my phone slipping from my grasp and slow-motion tumbling down into the abyss.

It was so bad, most of our kids didn't even use it. They went around back and used a bush. Not me though. I wanted the experience, and I definitely got it. Made it out okay though. I found out later that most rural areas don’t have running water and therefore rely on outhouses for their excretory needs. You get used to it.

The celebration itself was such an event. There were at least 500 people there. 90% of them were children from different schools and homes in the area. Of the 500 people, about five of them were white. We stuck out. I didn’t hear it, but one of the girls who was with us and serving as a missionary at NV for a couple months told me that the MC of the event pointed out the “mzungu” or white people with Naomi’s Village. I felt like I was an animal at a petting zoo. The entire time we were there, I had boys coming up to me and just touching the skin on my arm. Some of them knew a little English, but a lot of them were clueless when I tried to say hello. And I’m just as clueless in Swahili, so it took a lot of pointing and facial expressions to communicate. We marched down the only road in this little section of town with livestock all around us with hundreds of kids chanting. It was a pretty cool experience and the video doesn’t really do it justice.

After everyone – including the NV kids – had performed, we hopped back in the bus and they gave us each a half a loaf of bread and a Capri Sun pack of milk. Apparently, this was our lunch. Well, I have a slight intolerance to lactose, and you know, bread is okay. So, I didn’t eat that much. Luckily, it was just a snack. 

We headed to Naivasha proper to grab some chicken and chips. I had samosas and a coke. Pretty good. Samosas are like Kenyan empanadas or Hot Pockets. We didn’t get back to NV until 6:00. It was an exhausting day, but filled with good experiences that I’m sure I’ll never forget.

My last duty for the day was praying with the younger boys as they went to bed. Everyone told me this was their favorite part, but I didn’t believe them until I got to do it myself. It was awesome to kneel down beside their bed and ask them if they wanted to pray. They all want to pray every time. Then to listen to them list off their aunties and uncles and everything they’re thankful for is a humbling experience. Then I got to pray over them and ask the Lord to heal their hearts and for blessings over all the kids. This was my favorite part of the day.

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TOMORROW: I teach a first grade class, and we visit a public primary school!