JAMBO!! Hi..today a little crazed with so many final things to do and one week to go! Things coming together incredibly well....so impossible, so hard to describe here, with each day so hugely bubbling over and filled to the brim to the point where, at night in my little room, i am trying to remember breakfast, where and with whom and what did we meet about..and what great wads of money did i dole out of my little black bag and to whom did i give it: the man who dug the trench for the bouganvillia fencing around the orphanage? Sabina our social working at ICA taking four little ones all the way up to Kiratu to the hospital under emergency yesterday..one with stomach/chest pains, anothers eyes, another's privates and the last one, an enlarged heart.....cost of transportation, everytime we climb that mountain we are dumping cash into that old red Ford, breaking down, and today, on my way to the only ATM within two hours drive, we come across two huge transport trucks crashed together and lying on their sides, one driver dead, the other mangled without two legs now in hospital. Yesterday, on the same road, another crash, a big old lorry lost its brakes on a steep curve and slid backwards down the mountainside gathering speed. That driver headed backwards into a ditch, rolled over and lost his life, the passenger okay...I remind Hamidu, our non English speaking driver, pole pole....SLOW DOWN... i am scared...

Hospital, food and soda everywhere, for everyone we come across....phone cards, burlap bags of flour, maize, cornflower....running out after the first batch we bought a month ago...No time to meet with Elias from Pambazuka experienced with seven months with watoto yatima..orphaned children, to iron out budget for food, staffing....tomorrow, kesho.....another trip to the ATM..Fresh fruit, vegetables... paying for the door finally built to close up the pantry, with a key to prevent theft, installed today.

Wonderful how things are falling into place..who does what job? for how many hours a day? who is responsible for what? for who? who checks on who? There is the staff, two great teachers who speak English fairly well with huge hearts....Glory and Grayson, just learned that our pre school kids, ten of them now in primary school..are at the top of the class.....two cooks hanging out in our newly built outdoor kitchen...someday,maybe tomorrow i will get pictures into this blog....a step up, concrete floor and sides which go up to your belly button....with big stones inside, a roaring fire with a six month stash of firewood nearby, a big black pot boiling something atop....soft breezes flowing through open windows, a roof made of corregated metal to ward off the sun.

A secretary, Killo..in charge of operations..SEanna said, operation manager, and that is what he is..responsible for the running of the place..any conflicts, he tries to work them out...and if not, he goes to a team of village leaders, four of them, two elected politicians both in their thirties, the school headmister, and Vincent, a local businessman ....i learn, the son of Raymond, one of the leaders, was in a bad car crash last year, with his organs grounding out of sort....just two days ago, in the middle of an all day meeting with us, the boy was in operation in far away Moshe....this man visably pained, and yet here in Mto Wa Mbu..doing his job.

WE are changing the name to MAJENGO ORPHANAGE CENTRE...officially, along with a new registration on Friday...The old name HURUMA was for when the facility was jammed into the dank mud floored floyer of one of the origonal founder's homes. It has been decided by leaders: new renovated orphanage, new leadership, new start....so as of this weekend we are Majengo.
MAJENGO ORPHANAGE CENTRE.
I like the name.

Peter left on Tuesday for school up in Uganda...he comes back in December to work full time at ICA...

Tomorrow is budget day.
We have worked out staffing: two teachers,tw0 cooks,the secretary Killo...Martha the treasurer also running the workings of the children along with one of the teachers, Glory....also the matron....two cleaners...one a nurse/ cleaner who sleeps there at night with Glory, the other Witness, the one who washes kid's clothing all day, keeping the outside grounds neat and clean, the flowers and little budding trees watered, the porch swept. A challenge, everyone wants to work here...but the ones who started it all are given the first chance. They have been at it for over a year now, with little or no pay...all of that will change soon....little by little, the dream coming true, i am sure of it...

Pambazuka too...the little family that grew....blossoming from five children taken out of a very corrupt situation on main street now under the loving care of two wonderful people, Elias and Tabias who, without children of their own, were given a calling.....those five multiplied now into 14, all stemming from that first bad place..we have two to go!!

That house, way too small now for a mama and baba and 14 children, 3 up to Zack at 13....one young woman Martha living in and helping...they found a new home. Yesterday, signed the rental contract and began a high energy one week long reno project in their new place, much bigger, brighter, with water even and maybe electricity....today, the ground work for building an nice outdoor kitchen, just like the one at Huruma/Majengo....a tile guy inside patching and painting..screens for the windows, a few new doors, and we vow by next Wednesday, the night before Seanna, Sierra and I take off, to have a big party, with beds, matresses and sheets in place for those kids to celebrate their first night here....Very exciting, very challenging, and i know, with the help of our Swedish friends...Norbert from Austria and that international team we are working with, we can do it!!

Will i ever get over this?

Poor Seanna and Sierra arrived in the middle of all this flurry...everyday we get over to the pool for a few hours, in between their running art classes at both orphanages, walking a few miles to and fro....jet lag..heat, sunburn, 'very weird food', poor dear Sierra....reduced now to Fanta to drink, or water...cucumbers from the market, chipati pancakes....and yesterday i taught the owner of Mi Casa how to soft boil an egg, my eye in Swahili...they thought we were nuts....eating this thing, all gooey and mushy...but dipped with chipati, a good thing....

WE take Old Maid and Crazy Eight to dinner...the local people hanging over watching, figuring out these games...pouring rain last night finally, in the middle of rainy season pure drought this year, the cows on the road boney, with cages of ribs sticking out, that big projection on top of their back barely pulled thinly taunt with skin, no flesh, no fat, hundreds of the poor mangy beasts pushing their way down the wide sidewalk as we weave through them, on our way to Majengo. We play six games before the rain lets down, they dash off to bed...I can't sleep most nights, my head spinning, the odd sleeping pill to ease the all night twisting, turning lamely into a nightly venture, i dread the withdrawal back at home....

I stay at the restaurant with the Old Maid.

The women who cooks the chippsie eggs my eye...a street food version of french fries mixed with scrambled eggs cooked in a little crepe frying pan over hot fire... sits down with a helper..i point out the Maid and say ICKKKKKKK!! making a big fuss of the maid..you DON'T WANT THIS CARD!! wITHOUT English they can easily figure out the pairs by the pictures...the game begining with much laughter and frivolity whenever someone picks the OLD MAID....two guys join and we have a big table of five...four games later and i am out of there, dashing through wet streets of mud and stone,to home...twisting and turning.

I write and write, to remind myself, when i get home, of what happened..but no way to describe the days as they fly by, galloping at top speed..yesterday i am ordering the carpender Willy to make three more bunk beds for Pambazuka en route to meeting S and S at the pool, my cell rings and someone is saying something about a Canadian here...i almost hang up, got to go!! bad timing, but he persists...back on Main street, next to the Double M i peddle as fast as i can, i am late for S and S, and they will not be pleased..it is my doctor Ginny Griffin's assistant from her offices on Lawrence Avenue east of Avenue road back home!! Trudy with her husband. A hundred years ago, while giving me my shots she mentioned a trip of a lifetime this spring, through Tanzania and Egypt....!! I gave her my email...which she lost..but remembered this little town with the strange name and here we are, sitting at a bar in the middle of the afternoon drinking magi baridi...cold water from the bottle, kidogo...small....
they are glowing...
Wild with their safari up the Ngora crater..across the Serengeti..as she said, every day, it gets better and better.....

Tears...too tired...and too happy and too thankful....and too relieved that today, all of these things are still standing beautifully....i sign off...
Tomorrow, after budget day..Juseph of this internet cafe promises to help me with pictures.....unless, of course, something comes up...or he closes for a few days. ch!!!.

Saturday, we rent another van and take the ten primary kids to Manyara for their first time...but just before, a trip to the tailor...new uniforms with good material this time.....just in time to say goodbye...........