15 th aug

15th August

Today we went to church, which was an epic show of human endurance for Kearea and I. We were told that church was just a few hours, and so we awoke early, I put on my African tied die dress, Kerea put her Sunday best (a beautiful skirt but with flipflops) and we walked for the first time to the orphanage to meet the children. Can I just add that this walk was a fortyfive minute walk in blazing Kenya heat, up and down the most unkept roads you have ever seen also trying to avoid death by matatu. Anyhow we met up with the orphanage children, and began walking back on ourselves to church..

The churches in Kenya are the most beautiful, or lets say structurally perfect building that you will see in Kenya. Also the church plays such a big role in Kenyan life. The beginning of the service was confusing and appeared not to have any structure. There were nuns outside and a choir of women singing separately. People were sat in the church, sat outside, children running in and out it seemed like chaos. But it turned out we were early and they were rehearsing.

Everybody was in their Sunday best, I have no idea how this women manage to look so presentable, with perfectly, clean and white clothing, with pleats in the right placing, especially considering that they all live in mud huts and have no running water!!!

Service began at about half nine. Oh I nearly cried, the sound of the choir of children singing and dancing was magical. It was exactly how one would imagine an African church service. Ive been to church in England before but it has been a while, and I have forgotten how bloody beautiful, the whole affair is. Also there was this cute Kenyan boy with downs syndrome, who was really getting into the singing, whoa this boy could dance and eventually managed to persuade the choir to let him stand with them and sing, much to one of the other nuns annoyance. She tried to remove him the choir, I think she wasn’t appreciating his animated dancing and singing, but we all liked it so ushered her away.lol

4 hours later....I HAD HAD ENOUGH. I was hypoglycaemic, tired, cramped up in a pew and didn’t understand the Swahili sermon. I kept asking the kids, what time is this meant to finish, soon they kept saying, soon. I was like aren’t you tired? –no they replied. Lies these kids were tired and so were some of the adults by the looks of things, -i think closed eyes are a tell tell sign. I was so relieved to leave, AT 3!!!!!!!

Dont think Il be attending another service, hey not cos I didn’t enjoy it but cos girl needs lunch time!

Ah i forgot to add that, after church, I went off to do some stuff whilst keara went to the orphange. I thought that it would be nice to treat the kids to some lollipops and so i popped into a shop and bought a bag of red sweets. When I got to the orphange, I gave them to gertrude the woman in charge to distibute. Anyhow, after ten mins or so, the kids were all making repeated trips to the water tank.. Kenyans dont drink much water, despite the hot sun and we were all like ey? Then one of the more confident children ran up to me and was like,'ronx, why did u buy us chilli sweets'. Low abd behold, what i thought were strawberry lollipops were acually tripple chilli lollipops, and bless them the children were so polite and thankful for a rare treat that they perservered and ate every single one.

oh dear - who makes tripple chilli lollipos anyway? -only in africa!!!!