My Africa Trip - 5

6/2/11 (Chronicles of 6/1/11)

Such a long day. I haven't had a drop of caffeine. I'm very surprised I had so much energy all day. Breakfast was the familiar bread, egg, soy-flavored sausage and Kenyan tea. Apparently this is all people eat here for breakfast, or at least serve foreigners. Sleep was fitfully hot. I'd sleep on one side and wake up soaked in sweat. Then I'd roll to the dry side and wake up with the down side soaked. This cycle went on pretty much every 15-20 minutes through out the entire night. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ we have a cold shower at the St. Theresa's Diocese we're staying at. I would probably be dead by now without it. Of course by breakfast I'm already sweating and all they serve to drink is hot tea, hot milk, or hot cup of "go live somewhere else pussy." They have no refrigerators here and love it. Power is in short supply I'm told and the only fridges are ones licensed out by Coca Cola, but require stocking only Coca Cola in them. Nothing else. I haven't even seen one of these. Every soda, Fanta, etc I've had here was hotter than my core body temperature.

But wait, the fun's just starting! So somehow I agreed to be a "table leader" for the church group we're with, but really had no idea what I had signed up for. Apparently the incessant fire burning in the sky and the terribly sweaty nightmarish sleep wasn't stressful enough for me. Apparently agreeing to work 18 hour days in these conditions and being a responsible representative of an international religious organization, I'm not even a member of, sounded like no big deal.

Honestly, I was wanting to be helpful in gratitude for all the help Sarah was providing, as well as, at this time, I was under the impression that this wouldn't interfere with our plans to help kids in Lordwar and Lokichar. At the time I had zero idea what a terrible, terrible mistake that was. I'm currently nursing a case of heat/stress blisters. They are all over my chest and back and vaguely resemble AIDS.

Katie had the brilliant idea to bring things for the kids. We gave out two little peanut flavored hard candies to two kids; one each. They ran off and somehow multiplied into a swarm of about 20 kids. There was grabbing, reaching, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I forced the wild pack into a line and did my best to recognize the sneaky little bastards that kept going to the back of the line. Luckily the return customers weren't bright enough to properly hide the first candy. Some already had their first candy in their mouth, others had their first in their non-reaching hand, but they all had identically desperate and pleading eyes as if they'd never received one.

Katie's now afraid for her bag. The little devils know the bag still contains some serious goodies.

Then we broke out the balloons. We almost started a riot. A tiny people riot. We had to have a couple of the adults help translate. I called for a line and a ripple of kids screamed at each other to form a line. You'd think we were handing out the last supply of gold on the planet. If i tried handing out a couple balloons in one hand they were snapped at like I was feeding starved piranhas.

About 100 kids were going ape-shit over 72 balloons. It started with handing 1 balloon to one kid, then it exploded as if they could smell free stuff being given out. We were blowing them up and tying them off as fast as we could. I kept calling for them to share, but I was happy when they didn't start eating each other. 12-14 year-olds were dragging toddlers barely old enough to walk to get a balloon. The rapid and frequent popping sounds combined with the screaming, wrestling, and running around was madness. It was pandemonium.

Most of them seemed to have a blast. I was surprised but a few of them actually were able to get their balloons home unpopped. Later, around dusk, I saw bright round colors bouncing joyfully in the back yards of a couple close by homes.

They were all so extremely friendly. I've never had my hand held by so many tiny strangers. Doing anything fun with one of them is extremely risky because once one of them enjoys something, EVERYONE must get on board. Taking a picture meant getting attacked by a small horde. Throwing a kid up in the air meant every kid wanted a ride.

One baby, maybe two, made a horrified face like I launched him into orbit. I felt bad, but he beamed and kept asking for more. He made that terrified face every single time and giggled to the point of tears every time he was back safely on the ground, immediately arms up begging for more. He wore a red, white, and blue Obama t-shirt that looked older than him. Come to think of it, they all wore torn, filthy clothes that looked older than them.

Another baby actually wore shoes. They were shaped like sandals but all rubber. He insisted on wearing them backwards, even after I tried switching them to the correct foot. He'd run, arms out with elation glowing on his face like he was winning the special Olympics. It was almost unbearably adorable.

It was after playing with the little monsters that I first noticed the blotchy red welts all over my chest and back with a huge raised clump in the middle of my cleavage. At least they didn't start itching the first day.

I didn't notice any more mosquito bites that night so I pulled the mattress off the bed onto the ground to get out of the ridiculously hot netting and directly under their top notch fans. No lie, they are literally the best, most powerful house fans I've experienced anywhere. I'd still kill for A/C.

The only relief all day from the heat is the cold shower. Without water on your head the fan just feels like a blow dryer. Speaking of dry, I'm trying to get used to waking up with my eyes plastered shut with eye boogers and grating the walls of my throat to stimulate saliva. Finding time to buy bottled water is getting more and more challenging and I'm afraid to brave the tap water against travel guides' advice.