Day 17 – Sunday

                Sunday is a pretty relaxing day. I was supposed to go to church with Anar and Dr. Msengi but unfortunately I didn’t wake up in time and they didn’t want to disturb me. Since the internet is too slow here I won't be able to catch the online COR service like I could if I miss church at school.

                Sunday is Paula and Denny’s day off and they enjoy just doing things for themselves around the house. As they did some laundry, sewed, and read I grabbed my Swahili book and tried to get through another chapter. I’m really overwhelmed about the amount of grammar I’ve been learning so I’ll be excited to go back through the book a second time with more ease. I read for about an hour before the crew was ready to go to the orphanage to take the kids their new school shoes.

                The kids are a little behind their peers at school, especially in English so it has been a challenge for the orphanage volunteers to get them back up to speed. At the last parent teacher conference the matrons at the school told the Upendo crew that all of the kids were trying exceptionally hard and making big improvements. We decided to tell the kids that the shoes were for doing such a good job as opposed to just a gift. It’s adorable to see the kids try on their shoes. They are so excited when they get a pair and even if they are way too small they’ll find a way to cram their toes in because they want them so badly. We did miss pretty largely on a few sizes. It turns out that when kids trace their own feet they have a tendency to exaggerate the width and length of a foot. We’ll have to go back to Friday market next week and get three more pairs.

                We left the orphanage just before dark and played impromptu games of tag with the neighborhood children along the way. I love it here. At night we watched Harry Potter. I have never read or seen any of the Harry Potter books or movies so this was a big step for me. I can proudly say that I stayed awake through almost the entire first movie! Haha. They sure are long, and not quite as action-packed as a Lord of the Rings movie or another flick with a fanciful plot. Sorry all of you diehard HP fans, I don’t know if I’ll make it through them all.