Mzungu

6 Days in and we are slowly getting used to the new surroundings. Writing my last post I was obviously tired but now we all seemed to have caught up on sleep. For some of us, however tummies are still not settling. After having a relaxed day on Wednesday we got stuck in on Tuesday. Starting the day off with shopping, mainly for sim cards but for lots of bits and bobs, and to just explore the city! I actually got married during this trip. Not really though, a street vender tried to sell me a purse and when I politely declined he asked for a picture with ‘the little one’ so I had a picture taken with him. Then he said he wanted to give me something, and I was slightly apprehensions but he held up my wrist and started putting on a bracelet:

To say I couldn’t stop laughing would be an understatement. According to my friends, however, I was ‘married.’

Trying not to get run over by Boda Bodas (taxi motorbikes) we made our way to a restaurant where we had an African style buffet. Some of the food was lovely but there was some that... well wasn’t. Next we made our way to some slums nearby to visit the sponsored mothers there. We walked down a walkway filled with rubbish but at the other end we stopped and only had a brief moment before being swarmed with small children, all excitedly shouting out “Mzungu! Mzungu!” For those of you who don’t know, Mzungu means ‘white person’ or ‘rich person’ (Because we where the former we where automatically considered to be the latter.) It originates from the word ‘dizzy’ or ‘aimless wanderer’ and ‘lost’ as this summed up the first explorers to Africa.

We were back at the slums the next day, prepared after a morning session, to lead the children’s club there. The story was ‘Mary meets the Angel’ and it didn’t go terribly so it was a little boost for our self esteem, but (almost unfortunately) the children were far too cute for us to dish out proper discipline.

Saturday and Sunday was nice and relaxed, luckily, but the uncertainty of what we are doing next and the length of time stretching out in front of us made itself known. The idea that every Saturday two of had to carry all the shopping up Smile hill probably didn’t help moral. After Finding Nemo, Despicable me, a trip up the near but hill and a lot of prayer we were in a much better from of mind.

Unfortunately that hasn’t lasted long. Today was our first look at Gosham school, located and hour or so away from the city. Although we knew that nothing was set in stone and that we had little knowledge of what was actually happening, we were not expecting to be left in a classroom for 3 hours and expected to teach the children something. Thinking on the spot was an understatement. So tomorrow we will be doing the same, getting up at 6, driving over bumpy roads, and teaching for longer than the day before  (hopefully with teacher there though.)

This evening is consisting of hysterically laughing over each other’s experiences (from having a child say ‘My favourite animal is God’ to one hitting another over the head with a bit of tree,) and food. So we are going through the motions to cope, and I’m sure it’s going to get better soon. God has certainly been good to us today, giving us strength and motivation to carry on.

Please Pray for:

·         Tummies

·         Tiredness

·         Ideas for tomorrow, creative inspiration

·         Motivated children (the saying that Africans want to learn isn’t as true as it seems)

·         Confidence

·         And motivation for us to get through tomorrow.

Thank you guys so much for your support.