After offering to help with laundry this morning, we spent our morning like most others by playing with the crawlers. They wake up at 7 am everyday and are fed breakfast. When we typically get there at 8 we are there in time to give them their morning milk. After that, the babies go out into the front yard to play for a couple hours so they're extra tired for their 12 noon nap. During our lunch break, we went to the Ya Ya to refill our water jug (we've gone through 10 gallons on water in a week!) and walk around.

This afternoon after the babies woke up from their naps we loaded them into their strollers to take a walk. This was very strange because outside the gates of the orphanage is unpaved, dusty roads, no sidewalks and cars flying by at high speeds. However, despite this seemingly dangerous situation, we loaded all the toddlers into beat up strollers and walked them about half a mile to The Ark. Apparently, every Wednesday the toddlers are allowed to go on a walk provided there are enough staff to push all 15 of them. The Ark is owned by the New Life Homes and houses the older children who never get adopted. There are currently 9 children (6 boys, 3 girls) living in The Ark, and they live in a very nice house with a full time "mother" and they strive to help these children feel like part of a family. Most of the children in The Ark are HIV positive or have AIDS and range from ages 5 to 9. One of the staff at the Ark gave us a tour of the house they live in. When the Ark kids got home from school they all came up and inroduced themselves to us, they were so polite! One of the girls was blind and another had down syndrome on top of AIDS, although seeing this is heartbreaking it really goes to show how lucky I am for things I often take for granted such as good health and medical care. Though I was sad that none of them will probably ever get adopted, it is comforting to see how nice the facility they live in is and that they are well taken care of.


We came home and cooked pasta with some vegetables from the Ya Ya and are going to head to bed early because we have a super busy day tomorrow. In the morning, we are going with Rhoda to Nairobi to visit the courthouse and the International Hospital to get a better feel for some of the vital partners that help the NLH tick. In the afternoon we are going to visit Kibera, the largest slum in all of Africa and one of the biggest in the world. It houses almost 1 million people in an area about 75% of the size of Central Park. We are going with a group we met this week at the NLH from Indiana. They have a contact there (which is the safest way to visit Kibera) so we can get a tour and then visit an all girls school there where the group is doing some work. We are so thankful they are letting us tag along as I think it will be a great (and eye-opening) experience.

Loving Kenya,
Coty