Greetings from Nairobi!
...the Masai have a proverb: "never move ahead until looking carefully behind first". I thought this was to protect yourself, especially in Nairobi, its reputation as the world's most thieving, raping, mugging, criminal city with eyes in the back of your head, with bits of Kenyan shillings hidden in your pocket, your backpack, your purse, moving carefully ahead..but no, this proverb is about reflecting on the journey of where you have been, before going on. With 5 days to go I find myself in a place of both behind and ahead, so much of where i have been, the people i have had to say goodbye to, the ten small children of the orphanage in Mto Wa Mbu..the last day with big black eyes, lined up in 2 rows along front of the building, each one decked out in freshly-donated uniforms of yellow and blue, watching with wonder as Charles, Barie and I unloaded a table, bench, bedsheets of yellow, pink, green and blue, towels and a bag of used clothing from the back of the truck....and finally six dolls for the girls and four shiny new trucks for the boys. Speechless they were, laughing, dragging combs through the doll's hair, running the trucks across the cement floor, hugging, protecting, hording their toys, maybe the only ones they have ever had. We went back for my last good byes four hours later to find three of the four trucks in pieces, and several dolls with hair askew and eyes missing, hugs, lots more pictures and a final Do a Deer sung many times over as i dragged myself out of there. so terribly sad.