On a Mission: Pehucci Orphanage (2 of 6)

(Photos in this post were taken by myself and also some of my BFR mission team members, they so sweetly posted on Facebook for me to steal. ;-) )

What a great first day!

First and foremost, can I mention how absolutely amazing the tea in Kenya is?!? I tried to resist it for as long as possible this morning at breakfast, but had to try it after the rest of the team was oohing and ahhing. Being preggers, I'm supposed to stay away from caffeine as much as possible, and Kenyan tea is the mecca of energy stimulants. Well, I decided to taste it...

And that was the beginning of the end.

The end of my non-caffeine drinking and my hard fast love for the rich and milky jolt to my central nervous system. And I loved every moment of it. (Though I did TRY to limit to one cup per day... but I'm not promising that happened all the time...)

Anyway, after our breakfast (with the amazing Kenyan stimulant), we headed off in the vans to Pehucci Orphanage and school. After a short "detour" through some fields and neighborhoods, we found the school. With no formal roads or road signs in this area, it was pretty hard to find. Britney & Steve, our driver, were using trees and fences as land markers from the last time there were there.... though some of the trees had either grown or been chopped down. Not the most efficient form of navigation, if I do say so myself, but hey... you gotta do what you gotta do. :-)

Pehucci 

So when we arrived, Lacey & Britney went off to greet the head of the orphanage and the rest of us piled out of the vans. A couple of our team members had already been to Pehucci on a prior mission trip, so they jumped right out and started greeting children who slowly began approaching us after peeking their shy faces out from behind doorless doorways. The rest of us, really unsure of what was happening next, slowly came out and milled about for a little bit, saying hi to a few kids who wandered our way.

Playing games with the kids!

After a few minutes we got our bearings and headed, with tons of kids in tow (they got over their initial shyness pretty quickly) over to "the playground." After rounding a couple buildings that appeared to be falling apart, we stopped in a huge open field. I looked around searching for said "playground," but saw nothing. It turns out, their version of a "playground" was literally that. An area of space on the ground where they play. A playground. Duh. Why didn't I think of that? I guess I had been expecting a large swing set or slide at the very least, but nope. There was none of that. Just dirt. My mind sort of imploded a little at that point. My jaded American schemata for the word "playground" definitely included a play set for kids to jump, climb, and swing on. But no - these kids made do with an open area of dirt. And it was so much fun! The next few hours were filled with soccer games, jump rope, Duck Duck Goose, and the African version of 'Little Sally Walker.' (Which I have to admit, BLEW my mind they knew THAT one... I used to play that when I was a young cheerleader with my squads throughout elementary and middle school.)

It didn't take long before each of the girls were literally hanging on each of us BFR girls, wanting to take pictures, and find out our names and all about us. Each one of us mission team members, at any given time, had a swarm of girls around us. Oh, and a side note.... If at anytime you want to completely blow an African child's mind, just tell them that you are older than 20 years old. When I said I was 29, I thought one girl was going to faint from the knowledge of my old age. I think she was impressed I didn't have gray hair. #IfSheOnlyKnewIDyedMyHair :-)

I was surprised to find that almost all the kids had "American" type names such as Mary, Rose, Pauline, & Miriam. I am not sure what style of names I expected them to have, but "Mary" was definitely not one I thought be saying while over there to the kids.... maybe more like "Nala" or "Sarabi"... or some other Lion King type sounding name. I guess that just shows my ignorance though. Oh well, I never claimed to not be ignorant! There was even a little girl about 10 years old named Kristin. She was really cute because she followed me around quite a bit, calling us "nicknames." Their definition for "nickname" is different than ours. While we tend to use nicknames like a pet name, these girls called people who share the same name, "nicknames." Where I might call it "twinkies"...  or even coincidence... :-)

Speaking of names, I found a slight cultural difference in the way the people in Kenya interacted with me. Granted, there are absolutely people who do this in the states, but I find more often than not, this isn't the case. Everyone I spoke to ALWAYS mentioned my name during the interaction... even with complete strangers. For example, while I might say, "Excuse me (Miss, Sir, or no name at all), blah blah blah..." every person I spoke to would make the effort to say my name in that sentence. I had a stranger ask me my name so he could use it in his next sentence. I don't know, maybe it's not really a huge cultural difference, but it felt different to me. The conversations I had, with anyone, always felt more intimate over there. And to be honest, it helped me to listen much better than I do in normal conversations over here. I think how they were in-tune to who you were really made a difference. At least in my eyes.

They performed some traditional dances for us

Anyway, so after a while of playing on the playground, all the boys headed off for a Wellness chat (regarding hygiene and puberty, etc.), all of us girls headed off to do the same. Once that was over, a number of the girls dressed in pink robes/togas with colored sashes around their waists to perform traditional songs and dances for us. It was pretty cool if you ask me. It then turned into a dance party where they made some of us BFR'ers get up and shake our tail feathers. It was a lot of fun to see everyone signing and dancing and see the cultural differences (or LACK THEREOF with a few booty droppers - if you know what I mean) in our dance styles.

I had started out the day with both my camera and sunglasses, and somehow without my consent they were relinquished to the large group of girls. Well, by the end of the day, I literally had hundreds of pictures on my camera of fabulously posed orphan girls. You would have thought they were super models for Vogue by the way they were modeling.... and all wearing my sunglasses. It was too funny. There were so many pictures that my camera battery was completely dead by the time 2pm rolled around and my memory card was full.

Hungry Giraffe

After we left Pehucci, we piled in the vans again to head to get food, but not before Britney & Lacey surprised our group with a stop at a local Giraffe center. I was sooo pumped! We were able to pet and feed the giraffes. Unlike a horse, which I sort of expected it to be like when feeding, the giraffes were VERY dainty and gentle when eating out of our hands. Their mouths were so fuzzy and soft. Almost like a fuzzy caterpillar would feel. It was kind of bizarre. Plus, their tongues were as long as my forearm and their spit looked and felt similar to a spider web - which is actually pretty gross now that I think about it. Bleh. But it was a good time and worth waiting a bit longer for food!

We ended the night with dinner back at Wengeshi's where we also had birthday cake for Adam, who turned 31 that day. #oldman :-)

Overall, the day was great. I loved watching the already established connections with the kids between Britney, Lacey, and some of the returning BFR'ers from when they'd met in past trips. It sort of made me want that. However, at the same time, it made me miss McKenna. I thought of her often while at the orphanage. Wondering how she was doing, if she missed me, etc. I tried to push her from my mind a couple times because I felt selfish for thinking of her and Bryant while I was supposed to be playing and loving on those orphans. MK was with her family, while those kids had nobody... so I should have been able to sacrifice a day without yearning for MK. I guess that's normal though, to miss your family. It just made me feel so much more for those poor kids at Pehucci. :-(

Alright, that's it from here for now.  I could go on, but this post is already getting too long for my liking and probably your attention span!  More coming soon!

Britney & Mary Helen getting down

No idea what I was doing here

Mary giving the body awareness & hygiene chat to the older girls

Nick showing his skillz 

I thought she was going to teach me a traditional dance, but no...she busted out some
Shakira type moves and expected me to follow suit! Too funny!